“Oh! here is my summons,” said Blake.  “Good luck to you, Penhallow.  I have about the closing of this war a kind of fear I have never had before.”

“That is natural enough,” returned Penhallow, “and I fancy it is not uncommon.  Let us part with a more pleasant thought.  You will come and shoot with me at Grey Pine in the fall?  Bye-bye.”

Blake rode away.  His friend deep in thought and unable to sleep watched the dying fire.  The night hours ran on.  Obedient to habit he wound his watch.  “Not asleep,” said a pleasant voice.  He rose to face the slight figure and gently smiling face of General Parke.

“What time is it, Penhallow?”

“Four o’clock, sir.”

“I have sent back Captain Blake with a word to General Wright, but he will have too long a ride.  I want you to carry this same request.  By taking the short cut in front of our lines, you can get there in a third of the time.  You will keep this side of our pickets to where our line turns, then go through them and down the slope a bit.  For a short distance you will be near the clump of trees on the right.  If it is picketed—­there are no pickets nearer—­you will have to ride hard.  Once past the angle of their line you are safe.  Am I clear?”

“Certainly, sir.  There is some marshy ground—­I climbed a tree and looked it over yesterday—­it won’t stop the men, but may slow a horse.”

“I see.  Here is my note.”

Penhallow tucked it in his belt and roused Josiah.  “See to the girth,” he said.  “Is Hoodoo in good order?”

“Yes, sir.  Where you going, Master John?”

“A little errand.  Make haste.”

“I know those little errands,” said the black.  “The good Lord care for him,” he murmured, as the man he loved best was lost in the darkness.

He was aware of the great danger of his errand and was at once in that state of intensity of attention which sharpens every sense.  He rode for the fourth of a mile between the long lines of infantry now astir here and there, and then an officer saw him through their picket-line.  “Good luck to you!” he said.  “I think the Rebs have no outlying pickets, but the woods are full of them.”

Penhallow rode down a slight incline, and remembering that the marsh lower down might be difficult turned aside and came on a deep gully.  The night was still dark, but a faint glow to eastward made haste desirable.  The gully, as he rode beside it, flattened out, but at once he felt that his horse was in trouble on marshy ground.  He dismounted and led him, but always the better footing lay nearer to the clump of trees.  He made up his mind to ride for it.  While on foot he had been as yet hardly visible.  A shot from the salient group of trees decided him.  He mounted and touched Hoodoo with the spur.  The horse bounded forwards too quickly to sink in the boggy ground.  Then a dozen shots told the rider he had been seen.  Something like the feeling of a blow from a stick was felt as his left arm fell with gripped reins, and the right arm also dropped.  Hoodoo pitched forward, rose with a gallant effort, and sinking down rolled to left upon the rider’s leg.