Late in the night Gholson came to the union captain\'s bedside for Miss Harper. Charlotte had sent him; the doctor had left word what to do if a certain patient\'s wound should re-open, and this had happened. The three had succeeded in stanching it, but Charlotte had prevailed upon Miss Harper to lie down, and the weary lady had, against all her intentions, fallen asleep. I was alone with the wounded captain. He did not really sleep, but under the weight of his narcotics drowsed, muttered, stirred, moaned, and now and then spoke out.

Sitting in the open window, I marked the few red points of dying firelight grow fewer in the bivouac under the grove. Out there by the gate Ned Ferry slept. Fireflies blinked, and beyond the hazy fields rose the wasted moon, by the regal slowness of whose march I measured the passage of time as I had done two nights before. My vigil was a sad one, but, in health, in love, in the last of my teens and in the silent company of such a moon, my straying thoughts lingered most about the maiden who had "prayed for me." My hopes grew mightily. Yet with them grew my sense of need to redouble a lover\'s diligence. I resolved never again to leave great gaps in my line of circumvallation about the city of my siege, as I had done in the past--two days. I should move to the final assault, now, at the earliest favorable moment, and the next should see the rose-red flag of surrender rise on her temples; in war it is white, but in love it is red.

First favorable moment; ah! but when would that be? Who was to convey the Harpers to Hazlehurst? Well, thank Heaven! not Harry. Scott Gholson? Gholson was due at headquarters. Poor Gholson! much rest for racked nerves had he found here; what with Ferry, and Harry, and the fight, and Quinn, I wondered he did not lie down and die under the pure suffocation of his "tchagrin." Even a crocodile, I believed, could suffer from chagrin, give him as many good causes as Gholson had accumulated. But no, the heaven of "Charlie Tolliver\'s" presence and commands--she seemed to have taken entire possession of him--lifted and sustained him above the clouds of all unkinder things.

A faint stir at the threshold caught my ear and I discerned in the hall a young negro woman. The light of an unseen candle made her known at a glance; she had been here since the previous evening, as I knew, though it chanced that I had not seen her; Oliver\'s best wedding-gift, the slave maid whom I had seen with Charlotte in the curtained wagon at Gallatin. I stole out to her; she courtesied. "Miss Charlotte say ef you want he\'p you fine me a-sett\'n\' on de step o\' de stairs hafe-ways down."

I inquired if she was leaving us. "She a-gitt\'n\' ready, suh; Misteh Goshen done gone to de sta-able to git de hosses." The girl suddenly seemed pleased with herself. "Mis\' Charlotte would \'a\' been done gone when de yethehs went--dem-ah two scouts what was sent ayfteh him--ef I hadn\' spoke\' up when I did."

"Indeed! how was that?"

"Why, I says, s\' I, \'Mis\' Charlotte, how we know he ain\' gwine fo\' to double on his huntehs? Betteh wait a spell, and den ef no word come back dat he a-doublin\', you kin be sho\' he done lit out fo\' to jine de Yankees roun\' Pote Hudsom.\'"

"Why did you tell her that? You want him caught; so do I; but you know she doesn\'t want to catch him, and you don\'t want her to. Neither do I. Nor neither do we want Lieutenant Ferry to catch him."

"No, suh, dass so. But same time, while she no notion o\' gitt\'n\' him cotch, she believe she dess djuty-bound to head-off his devilment. \'Tis dess like I heah\' Mr. Goshen say to Miss Hahpeh, \'Dis ain\'t ow own li\'l pri\'--\'"

I waved her away and went back into the room; the Captain had called. He asked the time of night; I said it was well after two; he murmured, was quiet, and after a moment spoke my name. I answered, and he whispered "Coralie Rothvelt--she\'s here; I--recognized her voice--when they were sing............