University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
A SOLDIER'S DEATH-BED

“They have done for me, at last!”
cried the gallant soldier, as Gordon raised
his head upon his lap, as he knelt behind
him.

“I trust not, indeed.”

“They have. I am a dead man,
Gordon. See! they shot me here,
through the right breast, just above the

collar-boae, and the ball has gone clean
through me—my vitals are cut all to
pieces!”

“Great God! is it possible?”

“It is certain! But I thank God!
I died in my duty—I died striving to do
good! But I forget, I forget; is your
wife safe?”

“She is, my friend—my more than
friend; my preserver.”

“And Margarita?”

“Safe too and has proved herself a
heroine.”

“Then I die happy. That firing has
ceased, has it not? They have given
them quarters?”

“They have! they have! vex not
yourself about such matters. They are
bringing down the prisoners.”

“You will bear witness for me, when
I am gone, that I strove to check the
butchery.”

“And that they murdered you, while
doing so. Know you who fired that
traitor shot?”

“I do know, Gordon, but I will not
tell you; for I see that in your eye,
which tells me he would dearly rue it.”

“He should die for it, if he were my
brother!”

“Therefore, I will not tell you; there
is blood enough on my soul, already.
Too much of this Mexican blood. But
where is your wife, Gordon, where is
Margarita? I would fain see them,
once more, ere I die.”

“For Godsake! speak not thus, Partizan!
You are strong yet—your voice
is unchanged—your eye clear. We
will have you patched up in a twinkling,
and in a week you will be in your saddle.”

“Never again! never again!” he
answered, quietly. “I have seen to
many death-shots; have fired too many
—not to know that this is fatal. All
the surgeons in America cannot keep
me alive an hour. In my extremities I
am dead already.”

“Are you in pain, Pierre?”

“Can one receive such a wound,”
he answered, “and not be in pain? my
back-bone is cut in two,” and a sharp
spasm twitched the muscles of his face,
as he spoke, and showed the extremity
of the anguish, which he endured.--
“But I can bear pain,” he added, and
his voice was waxing weaker, already,
“like a —”

“Hero!” Gordon interrupted him.

“No! said the Partisan, firmly,
“I hope, like a Christian! But come,
my time is short; have me borne to the
ladies—useless! useless!” he added,
“you fear to let them see me.”

“You are right! Maxwell is there,
tending the hurt of young Alava.”

“Is he hurt? not badly—not fatally,
I hope! our men have shed too much
blood here, of the Alava's!”

“They have shed none to-day, but
saved! His is a mere flesh-wound,
given him by a coward of his own race,
one Valdez, who outraged his sister.”

“Great God! you do not mean—”
cried the Partisan, half starting up, so
that the blood gushed from his wound
in torrents, at the exertion—“that--that
they harmed a hair of her head, or of
Julia's.”

“Not one! to God be the praise!
we came just in time--but just in time,
to save them from the last extremity
women can undergo.”

“All praise be to God, indeed!”

Hitherto they had conversed alone,
with no witness but the beautiful brown
horse of the Partisan, which, bleeding
himself, from many wounds, stood close
beside them, not having moved a yard,
since the fatal shot was fired; gazing
upon his fallen master, with an eye,
that seemed full of human intelligence
and sympathy. But at this moment,
some of the men began to draw near, in
groups, and to the foremost of these,
Gordon called, eagerly.

“Come hither, some of you, my lads,
and bring a blanket—we have a friend
here, wounded.”

“My own blanket!” answered the
Partisan, “It is upon brown Emperor's
saddle. Where is brown Emperor?
He is not hurt, Gordon?”

“No, no! He is close beside you.
He has never stirred since that villain
shot you.”

“He knows that I am dying. He
once brought me help, when I broke
my leg, in the prairies, from ten leagues'
distance. Soh! Emperor, good horse!
Soh Emperor!” he added, raising his
head a little, to gaze on his favorite.

And the beautiful brown horse,
whennied as he heard the long loved

voice, and advanced a yard or two, and
rubbed his muzzle gently and fondly
over the face of his dying master.

“Good horse! good Emperor!” said
the Partisan, petting the face of his favorite
horse, with his failing hand, “I
never shall back you again, good Emperor!
He is yours, Gordon, when I am
gone. You will be kind to him, I
know.”

The young dragoon wrung the hand
of the dying man hard, and the big
tears burst in volumes from his eyes,
and fell down like rain upon the face of
the veteran.

“Pshaw! Gordon. Pshaw! my friend.
This is unmanly. We must all come
to this. Now raise me up, and bear me
to the ladies; I would fain speak with
them, and I have but brief time.”

He was raised from the ground forthwith,
and laid in his own blanket, and
borne as tenderly as possible, by the
sympathizing soldiers, whose stern faces
displayed symptoms of most unwonted
sorrow, toward the little bower, where
Julia and the Spanish maiden were
awaiting anxiously, the return of their
friends.

Still two or three deep groans testified
the extremity of anguish which he
endured, proceeding as they did, from
one so firm and fearless.

Yet even in that extremity of suffering,
he had his wonted care and forethought
for the feelings of others.

“Go forward,” he said faintly. “Go
forward, Gordon, and apprise them.—
Women are tender plants, and this, I
think, will shock them.”

“Shock them!” cried Gordon, “It
will bow them both to the very earth.
One of them it will almost kill, if I
know ought of woman's nature.”

“Margarita?”

“Poor Margarita!”

Aye! poor, poor Margarita!” said
the dying man, slowly. “It was most
strange! it was madness! yet it was not
my fault, Gordon!”

“Your fault?” exclaimed the other,
not even guessing what he could mean.

The dying man understood the expression
of his face, and hastened to
explain.

“It was not my fault, I mean, that
she—that she fancied—that she loved
me! I did not trifle with her feelings—
you do not believe that I trifled with
her?”

“I would as soon believe that a zealot
could trifle with his God.”

“Go on! go on!” answered the
Partisan, pressing his hand kindly.
“For this will very soon be over. Slowly,
slowly, men. Bear me slowly.

And slowly they did bear him, with
the beautiful brown horse following
them, step by step, with his head bent
almost to the dust, and trailing his long
thin mane on the ground, in the depth
of animal sorrow.

When Gordon reached the bower,
the surgeon was fastening up his case,
having dressed young Alava's wound,
and was on the point of going to offer
his services, he said, where they might
be more seriously required.

The young soldier caught his last
words, as he entered, and arresting him
by the arm, said earnestly, in a low
voice, even before he replied to the congratulations
of the women—

“That is here, Maxwell. No where
can they be more required, than they
will be here. God send that they may
avail.”

Though uttered in a whisper, Julia
heard his words, and judging from the
expression of his face, clasped her
hands, and cried earnestly—

“Not the Partisan, Arthur, Oh say,
it is not the Partisan!”

“Would that I could!”

“Not severely—not fatally, at feast?”

“I fear, mortally!”

“My God! my God!” and she burst
into a paroxysm of almost hysterical
weeping.

The conversation had all passed in
the English tongue, yet, as it were,
instinctively, Margarita caught their
meaning.

“Don Pedro?” she cried in a low,
husky voice—“Don Pedro, muerte?”

“No! no!” cried Gordon eagerly,
“No! not so bad as that, dear lady
Only wounded.”

“Mortally wounded?”

Almost was he about to answer in the
negative; but when he saw the anguish
depicted in her face, he could not deceive
her, and he replied simply—

“I hope not.”

“You hope not! That means, he
is!”

And she stoodpale and rigid, as if
struck with catalepsy. Nor did she
take the least note of anything that
passed around her, until the Partisan
was borne in, and laid down near her
feet, on the green sward. Then she
rivetted her eyes on his ashy face, and
wrung her hands in mute agony, but
spoke not.

“This is a sad sight, dear lady, for a
lady's bower,” said the Partisan; “but
I wished much to see you, and you will
pardon much in a dying man, will you
not?”

Pardon! say only what I can do for
you!

“First let me see him,” said Maxwell,
coming forward. “It may not be
so bad, as we think for.”

“No Doctor, I am past your aid.”

The surgeon who had examined his
wound, rapidly, pressed his hand, and
arose without speaking.

“It is so. Is it not, Maxwell?”

“It is, Pierre. I will not deceive
you.”

“I knew you would not.”

“How long, Maxwell?”

“Not long.”

“An hour?”

The surgeon shook his head mournfully.
Then Margarita sprung forward,
and caught the surgeon by the arm,
and cried, “Muerte? muerte?” in a
low hoarse voice, choked with anguish.

The young man was moved so deeply,
that his voice was positively choked
by his rising tears, and he could only
answer by a movement of the head.

She uttered one long piercing shriek,
and fell, lifeless, to all appearance.

The surgeon and Julia hastened to
raise her up, but Pierre said, quietly,

“Let her be! let her be, if there is
no danger. It is better she should be
senseless until all is over.”

“There is no danger,” said Maxwell,
with an air of wonder.

“God bless you, then, good Maxwell.
Betake you, where you may do more
good. My days are numbered. Commend
me to McCulloch and Gillespie.
My rifle to the first, my pistols to the
latter, and this, doctor,” he added, as
he handed him his knife. “Yourself,
Gordon, will keep my horse. Bury me
in my blanket, with my sword by my
side. Fare you well. Now, lady,” he
added, turning his eyes to Julia Gordon.
“In your ear! You will permit
me, Gordon?”

“Surely! most surely!”

Then Julia knelt down by his side
and clasped his cold hand in her own,
and listened with her whole soul in her
ears, watering his face with her tears.

“That poor thing!” he said, turning
his eyes toward the motionless form of
Margarita, “you will be kind to her,
you will care for her—you will love
her!”

“As my own sister,” faltered Julia,
hrough her sobs; “as my own sister.”

“God bless you! You have read
her secret. I never read until yesterday,
nor dreamed of it. It is most
strange. But it is better thus! it is
better thus! You have read her secret,
Julia Gordon?”

Julia assented with a silent nod, and
the dying soldier paused for a moment,
and appeared to hesitate. Then he
drew her down a little nearer to him,
and whispered even lower than before,

“And mine also?”

Julia flashed crimson through her
tears, and was silent.

“That I could not love her, because
—I loved another?”

For a moment she averted her eyes,
but the next she met his gaze calmly,
knowing that he was dying, and answered,
“I did read it.”

“But purely, honorably, chastely—
as one might love a picture, or—a good.”

“I knew it.”

“Then, indeed, it is best thus; and I
die happy. Gordon,” he added, raising
his head a little for the last time,
“this agony is well nigh over! She
has promised to be a sister, to poor
Margarita, will you do likewise?”

“She shall be my sister.”

“God's blessing on you, now, friends!
Friends, I am going; fare-you-well.
Weep not for me, for I have lived happily,
and I hope not altogether uselessly,
and I die happily; for I die with my
duty done, in the arms of those I love
the most dearly, and in the faith of a
Christian.”

Then he closed his eyes, quite exhausted
with his efforts, and lay for a
long time speechless, so that they believed
him almost dead.

But he opened them again after a
while and said, very faintly:

“Brown Emperor; good horse. You
will be good to him, Gordon?”

Then one of those strange things
occurred which, at times, almost makes
as think that brutes have souls and reason.
For, before the young soldier
could reply, the brown horse, which
had followed the bearers of his master
to the entrance of the arbor, and paused
there, as if conscious that he must
not enter. No sooner heard his own
name uttered in those feeble accents,
than he thrust his head through the foliage,
and uttered a long, low, plaintive
neigh, utterly unlike any sound he had
ever before been heard to utter.

“Ah! thou art there, old friend.
God bless thee, too, if it be no sin so
to pray. Thou wilt be cared for: will
he not, Gordon?—Julia?”

But neither could reply for sobbing.
He understood the reason, and said
once again, “Bless you all—may God
Almighty bless you. Remember that
I die a Chris— a Christian! I am
go— going! Gordon, Gordon! let
her—let her kiss—kiss me, Julia.”

“Kiss him, quick; kiss him, kiss
him, Julia.”

She knelt beside him, bent her beautiful
form over his bosom, and pressed
her cold lips to his, and the pure spirit
of the noble and high-minded soldier
passed away in that last—that first embrace
of the woman he had loved so
chastely, so devotedly, so nobly.

Happy who so die, in the arms of
love, religion, honor.

More words are almost needless.
Julia and Gordon, under the guidance
of the gallant rangers, reached the
lines at Monterey in safety. Long did
they mourn over that true and noble
friend, who, though the friend but of a
day, had stamped himself on their
souls for ever. But grief, however
deep, must have its term, its consolation—and
theirs was consoled by happy
love and honor, won by high deeds.

Poor Margarita never ceased to weep
for the man she loved so madly and so
vainly, till, in the convent which she
entered within a month of his death,
her sorrows and her sufferings were
ended by the boon, which, as the ancients
said, God grants to whom he
loves an early death.

Him they laid, where he fell, with
all the pomp of war, and all the grief
of nature; but he heard not the rattling
volley, nor felt the trickling tears, nor
haply would have prized them had he
done so, whose highest joy in death, as
it had been his best comfort in his wild,
yet simple life, was that he died a
Christian.

One thing alone remains to be recorded.
The brown horse which had
followed his master's body to the grave,
and watched his interment with an almost
human eye, was forced almost by
violence from the spot, when the last
ceremony was ended.

But, in the afternoon, when the column
was formed to march, and the bugles
sounded the advance, he reared
furiously, broke the leading rein by
which a dragoon was guiding him, and
gallopped to the spot where they had
laid his master.

They followed him, and found him
lying on the grave, rooting up the fresh
laid sods with his muzzle. But when
he saw them drawing near, he rose to
his feet with a weak staggering action,
stood for a moment gazing at them
proudly, then uttered the same long,
shrill, plaintive neigh, and in the sound
expired.

They scooped a little hollow—it was
no sacrilege!—beside the grave of him
whom he had borne so truly, whom he
would not survive; and laid him by those
honored ashes, with this motto rudely
carved on a low headstone close by the
simple monument, which love erected to
the memory of the gallant Partisan.

Fiel hasta la Muerte.

Margarita.

They sleep together! Never was
better horse or nobler rider.