“Yes, yes, I knew.  But the wound came just as we were charging.  Sabre-cut, it was.  If I had said I was wounded, the men would have fallen back.  I thought we could take that battery; but we did not.  No matter.  All right.  You ought to go?”

“No.  Have you no message for home?”—­pushing back the yellow hair as gently as a woman.  The mild face grew distorted again and pale.

“I’ve a letter,—­in my carpet-sack, in our tent.  I wrote it last night.  It’s to Lizzy,—­you will deliver it, Doctor?”

“I will.  Yes.”

“It may be lost now,—­there is such confusion in the camp.  The key is in my right pocket,—­inside the spectacle-case:  have you got it?”

“Yes.”

Blecker could hardly keep back a smile:  even the pocket-furniture was neatly ordered in the hour of death.

“If it is lost,”—­turning his head restlessly,—­“light your lantern, Blecker, it is so dark,—­if it is,—­tell her”—­his voice was gone.  “Tell her,” lifting himself suddenly, with the force of death, “to be pure and true.  My loving little girl, Lizzy,—­wife.”  Blecker drew his head on his shoulder.  “I thought—­the holidays were coming,”—­closing his eyes again wearily,—­“for us.  But God knows.  All right!”

His lips moved, but the sound was inaudible; he smiled cheerfully, held Paul’s hand closer, and then his head grew heavy as lead, being nothing but clay.  For the true knight and loyal gentleman was gone to the Master of all honor, to learn a broader manhood and deeds of higher emprise.

Paul Blecker stood silent a moment, and then covered the homely, kind face reverently.

“I would as lief have seen a woman die,” he said, and turned away.

Two or three men came up, carrying others on a broken door and on a fence-board.

“Hyur’s th’ Doctor,”—­laying them on a hillock of grass.  “Uh wish ye’d see toh these pore chaps, Doctor,”—­with a strong Maryland accent.  “One o’ them’s t’ other side, but”—­and so left them.

One of them was a burly Western boatman, with mop-like red hair and beard.  Blecker looked at him, shook his head, and went on.

“No use?”—­gritting his heavy jaw.  “Well!”—­swallowing, as if he accepted death in that terrible breath.  “Eh, Doctor?  Do you hear?  Wait a bit,”—­fumbling at his jacket.  “I can’t—­There’s a V in my pocket.  I wish you’d send it to the old woman,—­mother,—­Mrs. Jane Carr, Cincinnati,—­with my love.”

The Doctor stopped to speak to him, and then passed to the next,—­a fair-haired boy, with three bullet-holes in his coat, one in his breast.

“Will I die?”—­trying to keep his lips firm.

“Tut! tut!  No.  Only a flesh-wound.  Drink that, and you’ll be able to go back to the hospital,—­be well in a week or two.”

“I did not want to die, though I was not afraid,”—­looking up anxiously; “but”—­

“But the Doctor had left him, and, kneeling down in the mud, was turning the wounded Confederate over on his back, that he might see his face.