University of Virginia Library

I.—A TRADITION OF THE TWO WORLDS.

One dark and stormy night, in the year 1793, a soldier was returning
home—

Home—after the toil and bloodshed of many a well-fought battle; home
—to receive his father's blessing—Home, to feel the kiss of his bride upon
his lips; home, for the second time in fourteen long years!

It was where the winding road looked forth upon the broad bosom of the
Chesapeake, that we first behold him.

On the summit of a dark grey rock, which arose above the gloomy
waves, he reined his steed. All was dark above—the canopy of heaven,
one vast and funeral pall, on which the lightning ever and anon, wrote its
fearful hieroglyph—below, the waves rolled heavily against the shore, their
deep murmur mingling with the thunder-peal.

The same lightning flash that traced its strange characters upon the pall
of a darkened universe, revealed the face and form of the warrior, every
point and outline of his war-steed.

For a moment, and a moment only, that lurid light rushed over the
waves and sky, and then all was night and chaos again.

Let us look upon the warrior by the glare of that lightning flash.

A man of some thirty years; his form massive in the chest, broad in the
shoulders, enveloped in a blue hunting frock faced with fur. From his right
shoulder a heavy cloak falls in thick folds over the form of his steed.

At this moment he lifts the trooper cap from his brow. Bathed in the
lightning glare you behold that high, straight forehead, shadowed by a mass
of short thick curls, and lighted by the soul of his large grey eyes. The
broad cheek bones, fair complexion, darkened into a swarthy brown, by the
toil of fourteen long years, firm lips, and square chin, all indicate a bold and
chivalrous nature.

His grey eye lights up with wild rapture, as he gazes far beyond upon
the Chesapeake, its surface now dark as ink, and now ruffled into one
white sheet of foam. And the noble horse which bears his form, with his
snow-white flanks seared with the marks of many a battle-scar, arches his

neck, tosses his head aloft, and with quivering nostrils and glaring eye,
seems to share the fiery contest of the elements.

It is an impressive picture which we behold; the white horse and his
rider, drawn by the lightning glare on the canvass of a darkened sky.

The rain beats against the warrior's brow, it turns to hail, and scatters its
pearls upon the snowy mane of his steed, among his thickly clustered locks,
yet still he sits uncovered there.

The gleaming eye and heaving chest, betoken a soul absorbed in memories
of the past.

Yes, he is thinking of fourteen long years of absence from home, years
spent in the charge of battle, or the terror of the forlorn hope, or far away
in the wild woods, where the tomahawk gleams through the green leaves
of old forest trees.

He speaks to his horse, and calls him by name.

“Old Legion!”

The horse quivers, starts, as with a thrill of delight, and utters a long and
piercing neigh.

He knows that name.

He has heard it in many a bloody fight; yes, swelling with the roar of
Brandywine, echoing from the mists of Germantown, whispered amid the
thunders of Monmouth; that name has ever been to the brave white horse,
the signal-note of battle.

Fourteen years ago, on this very rock, a boy of sixteen with long curling
hair, and a beardless cheek, reined in the noble white horse which he rode,
and while the moonlight poured over his brow, gave one last look at his
childhood's home, and then went forth to battle.

That white horse has now grown old. The marks of Germantown and
Valley Forge, and Camden, are written in every scar that darkens over
his snowy hide. The boy has sprung into hardy manhood; beard on his
chin, scars on his form, the light of resolution in his full grey eye, a sword
of iron in its iron sheath, hanging by his side.

Only a single year ago the white horse and his rider halted for a moment
on the summit of this rock, a mild summer breeze tossing the mane of the
steed, and playing with the warrior's curls. Then he had just bidden farewell
to his betrothed, her kiss was yet fresh upon his lips. On his way to
the Indian wars, he resolved to return after the fight was over, and wed his
intended bride.

One year had passed since he beheld her, one year of peril far away
among the Alleghanies, or in the wood-bound meadows of the Miami.

Now covered with scars, his name known as the bravest among the
brave, he was returning—HOME.

“Old Legion!” the souldier speaks to his steed, and in a moment you
see the gallant war-horse-who
is named in memory of the Legion, commanded

by the Partizan Lee—spring with a sudden bound from the rock,
and disappear in the shadows of the inland road.

Seven miles away from the Chesapeake, and the soldier would stand
upon the threshhold of his home.

Seven miles of a winding road, that now plunged into the shadows of
thick woods, now crossed some quiet brook, surmounted by a rude bridge,
now ascended yonder steep hill, with rocks crowned by cedars, darkening
on either side. Then came a long and level track with open fields, varied
by the tortuous “Virginia fence,” stretching away on either side.

While the rain freezing into hail, dashed against his brow, our soldier
spoke cheerily to his steed, and trees, and rocks, and fields, passed rapidly
behind him.

He was thinking of home—of that beautiful girl—Alice!

Ah, how the memory of her form came smiling to his soul, through the
darkness, and hail, and rain of that stormy night. Look where he might,
he saw her—yes, even as he left her one year ago. In the dark rocks
among the sombre pines, on the pall of the sky, or among the shadows of
the wood—look where he might—her image was there.

And this was the picture that memory with a free, joyous hand, and
colors gathered from the rainbow—Hope—sketched on the canvass of the
past.

A young girl, standing on the rustic porch of her home, at dead of night
—her form blooming from girlhood into woman—enveloped in the loose
folds of a white gown—while her bared arm holds the light above her head.
The downward rays impart a mild and softened glow to her face. Saw
you ever hair so dark, so glossy as that which the white 'kerchief lightly
binds? Eyes, so large and dark, so delicately fringed with long tremulous
lashes, as these which now gleam through the darkness of the night? Lips
so red and moist? A cheek so rounded and peach-like in its bloom? A
form—neither majestic in its stature, nor queenly in its walk—but warm in
its hues, swelling in its outlines, lovable in its virgin freshness.

So rose the picture of his betrothed, to the imagination of the soldier.
So he beheld her one year ago—even now, closing his eyes in a waking
dream, which the thunder cannot dispel, he seems to hear her parting
words:

“Good bye, Michael! Come back from the wars; O, come back soon
—may God grant it! Then, Michael, as I have pledged a woman's truth
to you, we will be married!”

A tear starts from the soldier's eye-lid. He has seen men fall in battle,
their skulls crushed by the horses' hoofs, and never wept. They were his
friends, his comrades, but his eye was tearless.—This game of war hardens
the heart into iron.

But now, as the thought of his young and loving bride steals mildly over
his soul, he feels the tear-drop in his eye.

Dashing through the swollen waters of a brook, Michael the soldier,
begins to ascend the last hill. Look—as it darkens above him, look upon
its summit, by the lightning glare. You behold a group of oak trees—three
rugged, ancient forms—standing on the sod near the summit of the hill, their
branches spreading magnificently into the sky.

By the lightning flash Michael beholds the oaks, and knows that his
home is near. For looking from the foot of these old trees, you may behold
that home.

How his heart throbs, as Old Legion dashes up the hill!

In order to conceal his agitation, he talks aloud to his war-horse. Smile
at the hardy soldier if you will, but ere you sneer, learn something of that
strange companionship which binds the warrior and his steed together.
Even as the sunburnt sailor talks to the good old ship which bears him,
even as the hollow eyed student talks to the well-used volumes, which have
been Love and Home to him, in many an hour of poverty and scorn, so
talks the soldier of Lee's Legion to his gallant horse.

“Soh—Old Legion! We've had many a tough time together, but soon
all our trials will be past! Many a tough time, old boy—d'ye remember
Germantown? How we came charging down upon them, before the break
of day?

“Or Monmouth—that awful day—when the sun killed ten, where the
bayonet and cannon-ball only killed one?

“Or Camden, where we fled like whipped dogs? But I led the forlorn
hope, in the attack of Paulus Hook, on foot—without you—my Old
Legion?

“Or d'ye remember the fights among the Injins? Mad Anthony Wayne
leading the charge, right into the thickest of the red-skins? Many a battle,
many a fight by day, any fray by night, we've had together, Old Legion—
we've shared the last crust—slept on the same hard ground—haven't we
old boy? And now we're going home—home to rest and quietness! I'll
settle down, beneath the roof of the old homestead; and as for you—there's
the broad meadow for you to ramble by day, and the clean straw for your
bed by night! I should like to see the man that would dare harness you
to a plough, my brave old war-horse—no! no! No one shall ever mount
your back but your old master, or”—and a grim smile lighted the young
soldier's face—“or, perhaps—Alice!”

As he spoke—the rain beating beneath the steel front of his cap, all the
while—he attained the summit of the hill. All was very dark around, all
was like a pall above, yet there—stretching far to the north, over a dimly
defined field—the soldier beheld a long straight line of locust trees, their
green leaves crowned with snowy blossoms. Those trees, whose fragrance
imbued the blast which rushed against the soldier's brow, the very rain
which fell upon his cheek—those glorious trees, so luxuriant in foliage and
perfume—overarched the lane which led to—Home!

That home he could not see, for all was dark as chaos—but yonder from
over the level field, afar, there came a single quivering ray of light.

By that light—it was the fireside light of home—his father watched, and
Alice—Ah! she was there, toiling over some task of home, her thoughts
fixed upon her absent lover. For Alice, you will understand me, was that
most to be pitied of all human creatures—an orphan child. She had been
reared in the homestead of the Meadows; reared and protected from tenderest
childhood by the old man, even Michael's father.

How the thought that SHE was waiting for him, stirred the fire-coals at
the soldier's heart!

Leaning from his steed, Michael the Soldier of Lee's Legion, unfastened
the rustic gate which divided the lane from the road, and in a moment—Do
you hear the sound of the horse's hoofs under the locust trees?

Ah, that fragrance from the snowy flowers, how it speaks Home!

Near and nearer he drew. Now he sees the wicket fence, that surrounds
the old brick mansion—now, the tall poplars that stand about it, like grim
sentinels—and now! There is a thunder peal shaking the very earth, a
lightning flash illumining the universe, and then the clouds roll back, and as
a maiden from her lattice, so looks forth the moon from her window in
the sky.

There it lies, in the calm clear light of the moon. A mansion of dark
brick, surrounded by a wicket fence painted white, with straight poplars encircling
it on every side.

A whispered word to his horse, and the soldier dashes on!

He reaches the wicket fence, flings the rein on the neck of his steed,
clears the palings at a bound, approaches yonder narrow, old-fashioned
window, and looks in —

An old man, in a farmer's dress, with sunburnt face and white hair, sits
alone, leaning his elbow on the oaken table, his cheek upon his hand. Near
him the candle, flinging its beams over the withered face of the old man,
around the rustic furniture of the uncarpeted room.

The old man is alone. Alice is not there. Michael the soldier, gazes
long and earnestly, and gasps for breath. For, in one brief year, his father
sunk into extreme old age—his grey eyes, dim with moisture, his hair,
which was grey, has taken the color of snow, his mouth wrinkled and
fallen in.

Michael felt a dim, vague, yet horrible foreboding cross his heart.

Not daring to cross the threshhold, he gazed for a moment upon a window
on the opposite side of the door. The shutters were closed, but it was her
room, the chamber of Alice. See slept there—ah! He laughed at his fears,
smiled that horrible foreboding to scorn. She slept there, dreaming of him,
her lover, husband. He placed his finger on the latch, his foot upon the
threshhold.

At this moment he felt a hand press his own, a knotted, toil-hardened

hand. He turned and beheld the form of a Negro, clad in coarse homespun;
it was one of his father's slaves; his own favorite servant, who had
carried him in his brawny arms when but a child, thirty years ago.

“De Lor bress you, Masa Mikel! Dis ole nigga am so glad you am
come home!”

A rude greeting, but sincere. Michael wrung the negro's hand, and uttered
a question with gasping breath:

“Alice—she is well? Alice, I say—do you hear Tony—she is well?”

In very common, but very expressive parlance—which I hope your critic
will pick to pieces with his claw, even as an aged but eccentric hen picks
chaff from wheat—the old slave showed the whites of his eyes.

“Eh—ah!” he exclaimed, with a true African chuckle—“Do Massa
Mikel ax de old nigga, `Miss Alice well?' Lor! Ef you had only see,
yisserday, singin' on dis berry porch, like a robin in a locus' tree!”

Michael did not pause to utter a word, but dashed his hand against the
latch, and crossed the threshhold of home.

At the same moment the old negro leaned his arms upon the banisters
of the porch, bowed his head, and wept aloud.

It was for joy. No doubt. Yes, with the true feeling of one of those
faithful African hearts, which share in every joy and sorrow of the master,
as though it were their own, the negro wept for joy.

Meanwhile, Michael rushed forward, and flung his arms about the old
man's neck.

“Father, I am come home! Home for good—home for life! You
know, some fourteen years ago, I left this place a boy, I came back a man,
a Soldier! A year ago, I left you for my last campaign—it is over—we've
beat the Injins—and now I'm goin' to live and die by your side!”

The old man looked up, and met the joyous glance of those large grey
eyes, surveyed the high, straight forehead, and the muscular form, and then
silently gathered the hands of his boy within his own.

“God bless you, Michael!” he said, in a clear, deep voice, yet with a
strong German accent.

“But what's the matter, father? You don't seem well—ain't you glad
to see me? Look here—I've brought this old sword home as a present for
you. Not very handsome, you'll say, but each of those dents has a story
of its own to tell. You see that deep notch? That was made by the cap
of a Britisher, at Paulus Hook, and this—but God bless me! Father, you
are sick—you—”

The old man turned his eyes away, and pressed with a silent intensity
the hands of his son.

“Sit down Michael, I want to talk with you.”

Michael slid into a huge oaken arm chair; it was placed before the
hearth, and opposite a dark-panelled door, which opened into the next
chamber—the chamber of Alice.

The old man was silent. His head had sunken on his breast: his hands
relaxed their grasp.

Michael gazed upon him with a vague look of surprise, and then his eyes
wandered to the dark-panelled door.

“She is asleep, Father?—Shall I go to the door and call her, or will you?
Ah, the good girl will be so glad to see me!”

Still the old man made no answer.

“Ah! I see how it is—he's not well—glad to see me, to be sure, but old
age creeps on him.” Thus murmuring, Michael sprang to his feet, seized
the light, and advanced to the dark-panelled door. “You see, father, I'll go
myself. It will be such a surprise to her! I'll steal softly to her bed-side,
bend over her pillow—ha! ha! The first news she will have of my return,
will be my kiss upon her lips!”

He placed his fingers on the latch.

The old man raised his head, beheld him, and started to his feet. With
trembling steps, he reached the side of his son.

“My son,” he cried, invoking the awful name of God, “do not enter
that room!”

You can see Michael start, his chivalrous face expanding with surprise,
while the light in his hand falls over the wrinkled features of his father.
Those features wear an expression so utterly sad, woe-begone, horror-stricken,
that Michael recoils as though a death-bullet had pierced his heart. His
hand, as if palsied, shrinks from the latch of the door.

For a moment there was a pause like death. You can hear the crackling
of the slight fire on the hearth—the hard breathing of the old man—but all
beside is terribly still.

“Father, what mean you? I tell you, I can face the bloodiest charge of
bayonets that ever mowed a battlefield of its living men, but this—I know
not what to call it—this silence, this mystery, it chills, yes, it frightens, me!”

Still the old man breathed in hollow tones, marked with a deep guttural
accent, the name of God, and whispered—

“My son, do not enter that room!”

“But it is the room of Alice. She is to be my wife to-morrow—no! she
is my wife, plighted and sworn, at this hour! It is the room of Alice.”

The voice sunk to a whisper, at once deep and pathetic, as he spoke the
last words.

“Come, Michael, sit by me; when I have a little more strength, I will
tell you all.”

The old man motioned with his right hand, toward a seat, but Michael
stood beside the dark-panelled door, his sun-burnt face grown suddenly pale
as a shroud.

At last, with measured footsteps, he approached the door, grasped the
latch, and pushed it open. The light was in his hand. Her room lay open
to his gaze, the chamber of Alice, yet he was afraid to—look.

Do you see him standing on the threshhold, the light extended in one hand,
while the other supports his bowed head, and veils his eyes?

“Father,” he groaned, “her room is before me, but I cannot look—I
stand upon the threshhold, but dare not cross it. Speak”—and he turned
wildly toward the old man—“Speak! I implore ye—tell me the worst!”

The old man stood in the shadows, his hands clasped, his eyes wild and
glassy in their vacant stare, fixed upon the face of his son. No word passed
his lips; the horror painted on his countenance seemed too horrible for
words.

Michael raised his eyes and looked.

It was there—the same as in the olden time—that chamber in which his
mother had once slept—now the Chamber of Alice.

Behold a small room, with the clean oaken floor, covered by a homespun
carpet; two or three high-backed chairs, placed against the white-washed
walls; a solitary window with a deep frame and snowy curtain.

Holding the light above his head, Michael advanced. In the corner,
opposite the door, stood a bed, encircled by hangings of plain white—those
hangings carefully closed, descending in easy folds to the floor.

The fearful truth all at once rushed upon the soldier's soul. She was
dead. Her body enveloped in the shroud, lay within those hangings; he
could see the white hands, frozen into the semblance of marble, folded stiffly
over her pulseless bosom. He could see her face,—so pale and yet so
beautiful, even in death, and the closed eyelids, the lashes darkening softly
over the cheek, the hair so glossy in its raven blackness, descending gently
along the neck, even to the virgin breast.

The curtains of the bed were closed, but he could see it all!

Afraid to look, and by a look confirm his fancy, he turned aside from the
bed, and gazed toward the window. Here his heart was wrung by another
sight. A plain, old-fashioned bureau, covered with a white cloth, and surmounted
by a small mirror oval in form, and framed in dark walnut.

That mirror had reflected her face, only a day past. Beside lay the
Bible and Book of Prayer, each bearing on their covers the name of Alice
—sacred memorials of the Dead Girl.

This man Michael was no puling courtier. A rude heart, an unlettered
soul was his. His embrowned hand had grasped the hand of death a thousand
times. Yet that rude heart was softened by one deep feeling—that
unlettered soul, which had read its lessons of genius in the Book of Battle,
written by an avalanche of swords and bayonets, on the dark cloud of the
battlefield—bowed down and worshipped one emotion. His love for Alice!
Next to his belief in an all-paternal God, he treasured it. Therefore, when
he beheld these memorials of the Dead Girl, he felt his heart contract, expand,
writhe, within him. His iron limbs trembled; he tottered, he fell
forward on his kness, his face resting among the curtains of the bed.

He dashed the curtains aside—holding the light in his quivering hand,
he gazed upon the secret of the bed—the dead body of Alice? No!

The white pillow, unruffled by the pressure of a finger—the white coverlet,
smooth as a bank of drifted snow, lay before him.

Alice was not there.

“Father!” he groaned, starting to his feet, and grasping the old man by
both hands—“She is dead; I know it! Where have you buried her?”

The father turned his eyes from the face of his son, but made no answer.

“At least, give me some token to remember her! The bracelet which
was my mother's—which a year ago, I myself clasped on the wrist of
Alice!”

Then it was that the old man turned, and with a look that never forsook
the soul of his son until his death hour, gasped four brief words:

“Not dead, but—LOST!” he said, and turned his face away.

Michael heard the voice, saw the expression of his father's face, snd felt
the reality of his desolation without another word. He could not speak;
there was a choking sensation in his throat, a coldness like death, about
his heart.

In a moment the old man turned again, and in his native German, poured
forth the story of Alice—her broken vows, and flight, and shame!

“Only this day she fled, and with a stranger!”

The son never asked a question more of his father.

One silent grasp of the old man's hand, and he strode with measured
steps, from the room, from the house. Not once did he look back.

He stood upon the porch—the light of the moon falling upon his face,
with every lineament tightened like a cord of iron—the eyes cold and glassy,
the lips clenched and white.

“Here,” said he to the old negro, who beheld his changed countenance
with horror—“Here is all the gold I have in the world. I earned it by my
sword! Take it—I will never touch a coin that comes from this accursed
soil.”

He passed on, spoke to Old Legion, leaped into the saddle, and was gone.
The negro heard a wild laugh borne shrilly along the breeze. The old
man who, with his white hairs waving in the moonbeams, came out and
stood upon the porch, looked far down the lane, and beheld the white horse
and his rider. The moon shone from among the rolling clouds with a light
almost like day; the old man beheld every outline of that manly form—saw
his cap of fur and steel, and waving cloak, and iron sword in its iron sheath.

Yet never once did he behold the face of his son turned back toward his
childhood's home.

On and on! Never mind the fence, with its high rail and pointed stakes.
Clear it with a bound, Old Legion! On and on! Never mind the road;
the wood is dark, the branches intermingle above our heads, but we will

dash through the darkness, Old Legion. On, on, on! Never heed the
brook that brawls before us; it is a terrible leap, from the rock which arises
here, to the rock which darkens yonder, but we must leap it, Old Legion!
Soh, my brave old boy! Through the wood again; along this hollow, up
the hillside, over the marsh. Now the thunder rolls, and the lightning
flashes out!—hurrah! Many a battle we have fought together, but this is
the bravest and the last!

—And at last, the blood and sweat, mingling on his white flanks, the
gallant old horse stood on the Rock of the Chesepeake, trembling in every
limb.

Michael looked far along the waters, while the storm came crashing down
again, and, by the lightning glare, beheld a white sail, raking masts, and a
dark hull, careering over the waters. Now, like a mighty bird, diving into
the hollows of the watery hills, she was lost to view. And now, still
like a mighty bird, outspreading her wings, she rose again, borne by the
swell of a tremendous wave, as if to the very clouds.

A very beautiful sight it was to see, even by the light of that lurid flash—
this thing, with the long dark hull, the raking masts and the white sail!

She came bounding over the bay; the wind and waves bore her towards
the rock.

In a moment the resolution of Michael was taken. One glance toward
the white sail, one upon the darkened sky, and then he quietly drew his
pistol.

“Come, Old Legion,”—he said, laying his hand upon the mane of the
old horse—“You are the only friend I ever trusted, who did not betray me!”

The first word he had spoken since the old man whispered “Lost,” in
his ears.

“Come, Old Legion, your master is about to leave his native soil forever!
He cannot take you with him. Yonder's the sail that must bear him away
from this accursed spot forever. He cannot take you with him, Old Legion,
but he will do a kind deed for you. No one but Michael ever crossed your
back, nor shall you ever bear another! Your master is about to kill you,
Old Legion!”

Nearer drew the white sail—nearer and nearer!—The sailors on the
deck beheld that strange sight, standing out from the background of the dark
clouds—the rocks, the white horse and the dismounted soldier, with the
pistol in his hand.

They saw the white horse lay his head against his master's breast, they
heard his long and piercing neigh, as though the old steed felt the battle
trump stir his blood once more.

They heard the report of a pistol; saw a human form spring wildly into
the waves; while the white horse, dropping on his fore-legs, with the blood
streaming from his breast, upon the rock, raised his dying head aloft, and
uttered once more that long and piercing howl.

They saw a head rising above the waves—then all was dark night again.
There was hurrying to and fro upon the vessels deck; a rope was thrown;
voices, hoarse with shouting, mingled with the thunder-peal, and at last, as
if by a miracle, the drowning man was saved.

“What would you here?” exclaimed a tall, dark-bearded man, whose
form was clad in a strangely mingled costume of sailor and bandit—“What
would you here?”

As he spoke, he confronted the form of Michael, dripping from head to
foot with spray. The lightning illumined both forms, and showed the
sailors who looked on, two men, worthy to combat with each other.

“Come you as a friend or foe?” the hand of the dark-bearded man sought
his dirk as he spoke.

The lightning glare showed Michael's face; its every lineament colored
in crimson light. There was no quailing in his bold grey eye, no fear upon
his broad, straight forehead.

Even amid the storm, an involuntary murmur of admiration escaped the
sailors.

“As a friend,”—his voice, deep and hollow, was heard above the war
of the storm. “Only bear me from yonder accursed shore!”

“But sometimes, when out upon the sea, we hoist the Black Flag, with
a Skull and Crossbones prettily painted on its folds. What say you now?
Friend or Foe? Comrade or Spy?”

“I care not how dark your flag, nor how bloody the murder which ye
do upon the sea—all I ask is this: Bear me from yonder shore, and I am
your friend to the death!”

And swelling with a sense of his unutterable wrongs, this bravest of the
brave, even Michael of Lee's gallant Legion, extended his hand and grasped
the blood-stained fingers of the Pirate Chief.

Then, the wild hurrah of the pirate-band mingled with the roar of the
thunder, and, as the vessel went quivering over the waters, the red glare of
the lightning revealed the dark-bearded face of the Pirate Chief, the writhing
countenance of the doomed soldier.

Their hands were clasped. It was a Covenant of Blood.

That night, while the Pirate-Ship went bounding over the bay, Michael
flung himself upon the deck, near the door of the Captain's cabin, and slept.
As he slept a dream came over his soul.

Not a dream of the girl who had pressed her kiss upon his lip, and then
betrayed him, not a vision of Lost Alice. No! Nor of the grey-haired
father, who stood on the porch, gazing after the form of his son, with his
white hair floating in the moonbeams.

Nor ever of that gallant horse, that white-maned old Legion, `the only
friend he had trusted, that never betrayed him!' No!

But of a battle! Not only of one battle, but a succession of battles, that
seemed to whirl their awful storm of cannon and bayonet and sword, not
merely over one country, but over a world. The heaps of dead men that
Michael saw in his sleep, made the blood curdle in his veins. It seemed
as though the People of a World had died, and lay rotting unburied in the
gorges of mountains, on the gentle slopes of far-extending plains; in the
streets of cities, too, they lay packed in horrible compactness, side by side,
like pebbles on the shore.

Many strange things Michael saw in this, his strange dream; but amid
all, he beheld one face, whose broad, expansive brow, and deep, burning
eyes, seemed to woo his soul. That face was everywhere. Sometimes
amid the grey clouds of battle, smiling calmly, while ten thousand living
men were mowed away by one battle blast. Sometimes by the glare of
burning cities, this face was seen: its calm sublimity of expression,—that
beautiful forehead, in which a soul, greater than earth, seemed to make its
home, those dark eyes which gleamed a supernatural fire—all shone in
terrible contrast, with the confusion and havoc that encircled it.

That face was everywhere.

And it seemed to Michael as he slept, that it came very near him, and as
these scenes passed rapidly before his eyes, that the face whispered three
words.

These words Michael never forgot; strange words they were, and these
are the scenes which accompanied them.

The first word:—A strange city where domes and towers were invested
with a splendor at once Barbaric and Oriental, with flames whirling about
these domes and towers, while the legions of an invading Host shrank back
from the burning town by tens of thousands, into graves of ice and snow.
The face was there looking upon the mass of fire—the soldiers dying in
piles, with a horrible resignation.

The second word:—He saw—but it would require the eloquence of some
Fiend who delights to picture Murder, and laugh while he fills his horrible
canvass with the records of infernal deeds,—yes, it calls for the eloquence
of a fiend to delineate this scene. We cannot do it. We can only say that
Michael saw some peaceful hills and valleys crowded as if by millions of
men. There was no counting the instruments of murder which were gathered
there; cannon, bayonets, swords, horses, men, all mingled together,
and all doing their destined work—Murder. To Michael it seemed as if
these cannons, swords, bayonets, horses, men, murdered all day, and did not
halt in their bloody communion, even when the night came on.

The Face was there!

Yes, it seemed to Michael, in this his strange dream, that the Face was
the cause of it all. For the Kings of the Earth, having (or claiming) a
Divine Commission to Murder, each one on his own account, hated fervently
this Face. Hated zealously its broad forehead and earnest eyes.

Hated it so much, that they assembled a World to cut it into pieces, and
hack its memory from the hearts of men.

Michael in his dream saw this face grow black, and sink beneath an
ocean of blood. It rose no more!

Yes, it rose again! When?

The third word was spoken, it rose again. Michael saw this face—
with its awful majesty and unutterable beauty—chained to a rock, yet
smiling all the while. Smiling, though all manner of unclean beasts and
birds were about it—here a vulture slowly picking those dark eyes;—there
a jackal with its polluted paw upon that forehead, so sublime even in this
sad hour.

And it seemed to Michael that amid all the scenes, which he had beheld
in this his terrible dream, that the last—that glorious face, smiling even
while it was chained to a rock, tortured by jackals and vultures, was most
terrible.

With a start, Michael awoke.

The first gleams of day were in the Eastern sky and over the waters.
His strange, fearful dream was yet upon his soul; those three words seemed
ringing forever in his ears.

As he arose, something bright glittered on the deck at his feet. He
stooped and gathered it in his grasp. It was his—mother's bracelet. An
antique thing; some links of gold and a medallion, set with a fragment of
glossy dark hair.

How came it there? upon the Pirate Ship, out on the waves?

Michael pressed it to his lips, and stood absorbed in deep thought.

While thus occupied, the muttered conversation of two sailors, who stood
near him, came indistinctly to his ears. Far be it from me to repeat the
horrid blasphemies, the hideous obscenities of these men, whom long days
and nights of crime, had embruted into savage beasts. Let me at once tell
you that a name which they uttered, coupled with many an oath and jest,
struck like a knell on Michael's ear. Another word—he listens—turns and
gazes on the cabin door.

These words may well turn to ice the blood in his veins.

For as they blaspheme and jest, a laugh—wild, yet musical, comes echoing
through the cabin door.

As Michael hears that laugh, he disappears in the darkness of the companion-way,
holding the bracelet in his hand.

An hour passed—day was abroad upon the waters—but Michael appeared
on deck no more.

In his stead, from the companion-way, there came a stout, muscular
man, clad in the coarsest sailor attire, his face stained with ochre, a close-fitting

skull-cap drawn over his forehead, even to the eyebrows. A rude
Pirate, this, somewhat manly in the expansion of his chest, no doubt, but
who, in the uncouth shape, before us, would recognize the Hero of the
Legion, the bravest of the brave?

He was leaning over the side of the ship, gazing into the deep waves,
when the door of the Pirate Captain's cabin was opened, and the Captain
appeared. You can see his muscular form, clad in a dress of green, laced
with gold, plumes waving aside from his swarthy brow, his limbs, encased
in boots of soft doe-skin. Altogether, an elegant murderer; an exquisite
Pirate, from head to foot.

The rude sailor—or Michael, as you please to call him—leaning over the
side of the ship, heard the Pirate Captain approach, heard the light footstep,
which mingled its echoes with the sound of his heavy tread. Light footstep?
Yes, for a beautiful woman hung on the Pirate's arm, her form,
clad in the garb of an Eastern Sultana, her darkly-flowing hair relieved by
the gleam of pearls.

As she came along the deck, she looked up tenderly into his face, and
her light laugh ran merrily on the air.

Michael turned, beheld her, and survived the horror of that look! She
knew him not; the soldier and hero was lost in his uncouth disguise.

It was—Alice.

Let us now hurry on, over many days of blood and battle, and behold
the Pirate Ship sunk in the ocean, its masts and shrouds devoured by flames,
while the water engulfed its hull.

Three persons alone survived that wreck. You see them, yonder, by
the light of the morning sun, borne by a miserable raft over the gently
swelling waters.

Three persons, who have lived for days or nights without bread or water.
Let us look upon them, and behold in its various shapes the horrors of
famine.

In that wretched form, laid on his back, his hollow cheeks reddened by
the sunbeams, his parched eye-balls upturned to the sky, who would recognize
the gallant—Pirate Chief?

By his side crouches a half-clad female form, beautiful even amid horrors
worse than death, although her eyes are fired with unnatural light, her
cheek flushed with the unhealthy redness of fever, her lips burning in their
vivid crimson hues. Starvation is gnawing at her vitals, and yet she is
beautiful; look—how wavingly her dark hair floats over her snowy shoulders!
Is this—Alice?

The third figure, a rude sailor, his face stained with dark red hues, a
skull-cap drawn down to his eyebrows. Brave Michael, of Lee's Legion.

He sits with his elbows resting on his knees, his cheeks supported by his
hands, while his eyes are turned to the uprising sun.

A groan quivers along the still air. It is the last howl of the Pirate
Chief; with that sound—half-blasphemy, half-prayer—he dies.

His bride—so beautiful, even yet amid famine and despair—covers his
lips with kisses, and at last, grasping the sailor by the arm, begs him to
save the life of her—husband!

The sailor turns, tears the cap from his brow; the paint has already
gone from his face.

Alice and Michael confront each other, alone on that miserable raft, a
thousand miles from shore.

Who would dare to paint the agony of her look, the horror of the shrick
which rent her bosom?

Only once she looked upon him—then sunk stiffened and appalled beside
her pirate husband. But a calm smile illumined Michael's face; he towered
erect upon the quivering raft, and drew some bread and a flagon of water
—precious as gold—from the pocket of his coarse sailor jacket.

“For you,” he said, in that low-toned voice with which he had plighted
his eternal troth to her—“For you I have left my native land. For you I
have left my father, alone and desolate in his old age. For you—not by
any means the least of all my sufferings—I have killed the good old war-horse,
the only friend whom I ever trusted, that did not betrary me. For
you, Alice, I am an outcast, wanderer, exile! Behold my revenge! You
are starving—I feed you—give you meat and drink. Yes, I, Michael, your
plighted husband—bid you live!”

He placed the bread and water in her grasp, and then turned with folded
arms to gaze upon the rising sun. Do you see that muscular form, towering
from the raft—his high, straight forehead, glowing in the light of the
dawning day?

He turned again: there was a dead man at his feet; a dead woman
before his eyes.

There may have been agony at his heart, but his face was unsoftened by
emotion. With his lineaments moulded in iron rigidity, he resumed his
gaze toward the rising sun.

At last, a sail came gleaming into view—then the hull of a man-of-war—
and then, bright and beautiful upon the morning air, fluttered the glorious
emblem of Hope and Promise—the tri-colored Flag of France.

Years passed, glorious years, which beheld a World in motion for its
rights and freedom.

There came a day, when the sun beheld a sight like this:—A man of
noble presence, whose forehead, broad, and high and straight, shone with

the chivalry of a great soul, stood erect, in the presence of his executioners.

Those executioners, his own soldiers, who shed tears as they levelled
their pieces at his heart.

This man of noble presence was guilty of three crimes, for which the
crowned robbers of Europe could never forgive him.

He had risen from the humblest of the people, and became a General, a
Marshal, a Duke.

He was the friend of a great and good man.

In the hour of this great and good man's trial, when all the crowned
robbers, the anointed assassins of Europe, conspired to crush him, this
General, Marshal and Duke refused to desert the great and good man.

For this he was to be shot—shot by his own soldiers, who could not
restrain their tears as they gazed in his face.

Let us also go there, gaze upon him, mark each outline of his face and
form, just at the moment when the musquets are levelled at his heart, and
answer the question—Does not this General, Marshal, Duke, now standing
in presence of his Death's-men, strangely resemble that Michael whom
we have seen on the banks of the Chesapeake—the Hero of Lee's Legion
—Bravest of the Brave?

Ere the question can be answered, the Hero waves his hand. Looking
his soldiers fixedly in the face, he exclaims in that voice which they have
so often heard in the thickest of the fight—

“At my heart, comrades!”

As he falls, bathed in blood, the victim of a “Holy Assassination,” let
us learn what words were those which brave Michael, long years ago,
heard whispered in his dream, what face was that, which, with its sublime
forehead and earnest eyes, spoke these words? Let us also learn who
was this soldier Michael, of Lee's Legion?

The words? The first, Moscow—the second, Waterloo—the third,
St. Helena.

This soldier of Lee's Legion, the bravest of the brave?

MICHAEL NEY.[1]