The Drummer Boy Part 38

"I swan to man, ef it ain't old Buckley!"

Seth was right. It was the Maryland secessionist whose turkeys the boys had stolen, and who, in consequence, had made haste to avenge his wrongs by joining the confederate army.

A strange, sickening sensation came over Frank at the discovery. Thus the evil he had done followed him. But for that wild freak of plundering the poor man's poultry-yard, he might be plodding now on his Maryland farm, and At.w.a.ter would not be lying there so white and still with a bullet in his breast.

x.x.xI.

"VICTORY OR DEATH."

Where all this time was the old drum-major? He too had disappeared from the ambulance corps to a.s.sume, like Frank, a position of still more arduous service and greater danger.

Shortly after Frank left him, word came that the battery of boat-howitzers, which, from a curve in the road that commanded the rebel works, had been doing splendid execution, was suffering terribly, and getting short of hands. It must soon withdraw unless reinforced. But who would volunteer to help work the guns?

The old man had been familiar with artillery practice. At the thought of the service and the peril his spirit grew proud within him. But his heart yearned for Frank.

"Where is Manly?" he inquired of Ellis.

"I believe he has gone into the fight with our company," said the wounded volunteer.

The truth flashed upon the veteran. Yes, the boy he loved had gone before him into danger. He no longer hesitated, or lost any time in getting leave to report himself to the commander of the battery.

"What can you do?" was the hurried question put to him, as he stood in the thick powder-smoke, calmly asking for work.

Just then, a gunner was taken off his feet by a cannon-ball.

"I can take this fellow's place, sir," said the old man, grimly.

"Take it!" replied the officer.

The wounded sailor was borne away, and the old drummer, springing to the howitzer, a.s.sisted in working it until, its ammunition exhausted, the battery was ordered to withdraw.

During the severest part of the action Mr. Sinjin had observed a person in citizen's dress, with his coat off, briskly handling the cannon-b.a.l.l.s.

Their work done, he turned to speak with him.

"You are a friend of my young drummer boy, I believe," said the old man.

"Yes, and a friend of all his friends!" cordially answered the white-sleeved civilian.

"You can preach well, and fight well," said the veteran, his eyes gleaming with stern pride.

"I prefer to preach, but I believe in fighting too, when duty points that way," said Mr. Egglestone,--for it was he, flushed and begrimed with his toil at the deadly guns.

Even as they were speaking, a cannon-ball pa.s.sed between them. Mr.

Egglestone was thrown back by the shock of the wind it carried, but recovered instantly to find himself unhurt. But where was the old drummer? He was not there. And it was some seconds before the bewildered clergyman perceived him, several paces distant, lying on his face by the road.

The howitzers silenced, it was determined to storm the enemy's works.

Frank afterwards had the satisfaction of knowing that it was in part the information gained from the prisoner he had taken that decided the commanding general to order a charge.

Frank was with his company, where we left him, when suddenly yells rent the air; and, looking, he saw the Zouaves of Parke's brigade das.h.i.+ng down the causeway in front of the rebel redoubt.

They were met by a murderous fire. They returned it as they charged. As their comrades fell, they pa.s.sed over them unheedingly, and still kept on--a sublime sight to look upon, in their wild Arab costumes, shouting, "Zou! zou!" bounding like tigers, clearing obstructions, and sweeping straight to the breastwork with their deadly bayonets.

"What is it?" asked At.w.a.ter, faintly.

"Victory!" answered Frank; for the firing ceased--the enemy were flying.

"That's enough!" And the still pallid face of the soldier smiled.

Victory! None but those who have fought a stern foe to the b.l.o.o.d.y close, and seen his ranks break and fly, and the charging columns pursue, ranks of bristling steel rus.h.i.+ng in through clouds of battle smoke, know what pride and exultation are in that word.

Victory! Reno's column, that had outflanked the rebels on the west side, fighting valiantly, charged simultaneously with the Zouaves. The whole line followed the example, and went in with colors flying, and shouts of joy filling the welkin which had been shaken so lately with the jar of battle. Over fallen trees, over pits and ditches, through brush, and bog, and water, the conquering hosts poured in; Frank's regiment with the rest, and himself among the foremost that planted their standard on the breastwork.

There were the abandoned cannon, still warm and smoking. There lay a deserted flag, bearing the Latin inscription "_Aut vincere aut mori_,"--Victory or death,--flung down in the precipitate flight.

"They couldn't conquer, and they didn't want to die; so they split the difference, and run," observed Seth Tucket.

There too lay the dead and dying, whom the boastful enemy had forsaken where they fell. One of these who had _not_ run was an officer--handsome and young. He was not yet dead. A strange light was in his eyes as he looked on the forms of the foemen thronging around him, saw the faces of the victors, and heard the cheering. Success and glory were for them--for him defeat and death.

"Lift me up," he said, "and let me look at you once."

They raised him to a sitting posture, supported partly by a gun-carriage, and partly by the arms of his conquerors. And they pressed around him, their voices hushed, their triumphant brows saddened with respect for the dying.

"Though we have been fighting each other," he said, solemnly, "we are still brothers. G.o.d forgive me if I have done wrong! I too am a northern man,--I too----"

As he spoke, a figure in the uniform of his foes sprang through the crowd to his feet.

"O, my brother! O, my brother George!"

It was Frank Manly, who knelt, and with pa.s.sionate grief clasped the hand that had clasped his in fondness and merry sport so often in the happy days of his childhood, when neither ever dreamed of their unnatural separation and this still more unnatural meeting.

"Frank! my little brother! so grown! is it you?" said the wounded captive, with dreamy surprise.

"O George! how could you?" Frank began, with anguish in his voice. But he checked himself; he would not reproach his dying brother.

"My wife, you know!" was all the unhappy young man could murmur. He looked at Frank with a faint and ever fainter smile of love, till his eyes grew dim. "I am going, Frank. It is all wrong--I know now--but it is too late. Tell mother----"

His words became inaudible, and he sank, swooning, in Captain Edney's arms.

"What, George? what shall I tell mother?" pleaded Frank, in an agony.

"And father too," said the dying lips, in a moment of reviving recollection. "And my sisters----" But the message was never uttered.