"I knew her--in a way--better than I ever knew any woman, and I saw her only three times in all my life. That is your answer--and my excuse for asking. Does she still live at Sandy River?"
"No."
"Do you know where she has gone?"
"She is somewhere in the South."
"Is she--married?" he asked under his breath.
The Special Messenger looked up at him, smiling in the darkness.
"No," she said. "I heard that she lost her--heart--to a bandmaster of some cavalry regiment who was killed in action at Sandy River--three years ago."
The captain straightened in his saddle as though he had been shot; in the dim light his lean face turned darkly scarlet.
"I see her occasionally," continued the Messenger faintly; "have you any message--perhaps----"
The captain turned slowly toward her. "Do you know where she is?"
"I expect that she will be within riding distance of me--very soon."
"Is your mission a secret one?"
"Yes."
"And you may see her--before very long?"
"Yes."
"Then tell her," said the captain, "that the bandmaster of the Fourth Missouri--" He strove to continue; his voice died in his throat.
"Yes--yes--say it," whispered the Special Messenger. "I will tell her; she will understand--truly she will--whatever you say."
"Tell her--that the bandmaster has--has never forgotten----"
"Yes--yes----"
"Never forgotten her!"
"Yes--oh, yes!"
"That he--he----"
"Yes! Oh, please--please say it--don't be afraid to say--what you wish!"
The captain's voice was not under perfect control.
"Say that he--thinks of her.... Say that--that he--he thought of her when he was falling--there, in the charge at Sandy River----"
"But he once told her that himself!" she cried. "Has he no more to tell her?"
And Captain Stanley, aghast, fairly leaped in his stirrups.
"Who are you?" he gasped. "What do _you_ know of----"
His voice was smothered in the sudden out-crash of rifles, through which startled trumpets sounded, followed by the running explosions of cavalry carbines.
"Attention! Draw sabres!" rang out a far voice in the increasing uproar.
The night air thrilled with the rushing swish of steel drawn swiftly across steel.
"Forward!" and "Forward! Forward!" echoed the officers, one after another.
"Steady--right dress!"--taken up by the troop officers: "Steady--right dress! By fours--right wheel--march!"
Pell-mell the flanking parties came crashing back out of the dusky undergrowth, and:
"Steady--trot! Steady--right dress--gallop!" came the orders.
"Gallop!" repeated her captain, blandly; and, under his breath: "We are going to charge. Quick, tell me who you are!"
"Steady--steady--charge!" came the clear shout from the front.
"Charge! Charge! Charge!" echoed the ringing orders from troop to troop.
In the darkness of the thickets she rode knee to knee with her captain.
The grand stride of her horse thundering along beside his through obscurity filled her with wild exultation; she loosened curb and snaffle and spurred forward amid hundreds of plunging horses, now goaded frantic by the battle clangor of the trumpets.
Everywhere, right and left, the red flash of Confederate rifles ran along their flanks; here and there a stricken horse reared or stumbled, rolling over and over; or some bullet-struck rider swayed wide from the saddle and went down to annihilation.
Fringed with darting flames the cavalry drove on headlong into the unseen; behind clanked the flying battery, mounted gunners sabering the dark forms that leaped out of the underbrush; on--on--rushed horses and guns, riders and cannoneers--a furious, irresistible, chaotic torrent, thundering through the night.
[Illustration: "'Yes,' she gasped, 'The Special Messenger--noncombatant!'"]
Far behind them now danced and flickered the rifle flames; fainter, fainter grew the shots; and at last, galloping steadily and, by degrees, reforming as they rode, the column swung out toward the bushy hills in the west, slowed to a canter, to a trot, to a walk.
"We are through!" said the Special Messenger, brokenly, breathing fast as she pulled in her mount and turned in the starlight toward the man she rode beside.
At the same moment the column halted; and he drew bridle and looked steadily at her.
All around them was the confusion and turmoil of stamping, panting horses, the clank of metal, the heavy breathing of men.
"Look at me!" she whispered, baring her head in the starlight. "Quick!
Look at me! Do you know me now? Look at me--if you--love me!"
A low cry broke from him; she held out both arms to him in the dim light, forcing her horse up against his stirrup.
"If you love me," she breathed, "say so now!"