A Son of the Gods and A Horseman in the Sky | Page 6

have
commanded a view, not only of the short arm of the road and the
jutting rock, but of the entire profile of the cliff below it. It might well
have made him giddy to look.
The country was wooded everywhere except at the bottom of the valley
to the northward, where there was a small natural meadow, through
which flowed a stream scarcely visible from the valley's rim. This open
ground looked hardly larger than an ordinary dooryard, but was really
several acres in extent. Its green was more vivid than that of the
inclosing forest. Away beyond it rose a line of giant cliffs similar to
those upon which we are supposed to stand in our survey of the savage
scene, and through which the road had some how made its climb to the
summit. The configuration of the valley, indeed, was such that from
this point of observation it seemed entirely shut in, and one could not
but have wondered how the road which found a way out of it had found
a way into it, and whence came and whither went the waters of the
stream that parted the meadow two thousand feet below.
No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of
war; concealed in the forest at the bottom of that military rat-trap, in
which half a hundred men in possession of the exits might have starved

an army to submission, lay five regiments of Federal infantry. They had
marched all the previous day and night, and were resting. At nightfall
they would take to the road again, climb to the place where their
unfaithful sentinel now slept, and, descending the other slope of the
ridge, fall upon a camp of the enemy at about midnight. Their hope was
to surprise it, for the road led to the rear of it. In case of failure, their
position would be perilous in the extreme; and fail they surely would,
should accident or vigilance apprise the enemy of the movement.
The sleeping sentinel in the clump of laurel was a young Virginian
named Carter Druse. He was the son of wealthy parents, an only child,
and had known such ease and cultivation and high living as wealth and
taste were able to command in the mountain country of Western
Virginia. His home was but a few miles from where he now lay. One
morning he had risen from the breakfast table and said, quietly but
gravely: "Father, a Union regiment has arrived at Grafton. I am going
to join it."
The father lifted his leonine head, looked at the son a moment in
silence, and replied: "Well, go, sir, and, whatever may occur, do what
you conceive to be your duty. Virginia, to which you are a traitor, must
get on without you. Should we both live to the end of the war, we will
speak further of the matter. Your mother, as the physician has informed
you, is in a most critical condition; at the best, she cannot be with us
longer than a few weeks, but that time is precious. It would be better
not to disturb her."
So Carter Druse, bowing reverently to his father, who returned the
salute with a stately courtesy which masked a breaking heart, left the
home of his childhood to go soldiering. By conscience and courage, by
deeds of devotion and daring, he soon commended himself to his
fellows and his officers; and it was to these qualities and to some
knowledge of the country that he owed his selection for his present
perilous duty at the extreme outpost. Nevertheless, fatigue had been
stronger than resolution, and he had fallen asleep. What good or bad
angel came in a dream to rouse him from his state of crime, who shall
say? Without a movement, without a sound, in the profound silence and

the languor of the late afternoon, some invisible messenger of fate
touched with unsealing finger the eyes of his consciousness - whispered
into the ear of his spirit the mysterious awakening word which no
human lips ever have spoken, no human memory ever has recalled. He
quietly raised his forehead from his arm and looked between the
masking stems of the laurels, instinctively closing his right hand about
the stock of his rifle.
His first feeling was a keen artistic delight. On a colossal pedestal, the
cliff, - motionless at the extreme edge of the capping rock and sharply
outlined against the sky, - was an equestrian statue of impressive
dignity. The figure of the man sat the figure of the horse, straight and
soldierly, but with the repose of a Grecian god carted in the marble
which limits the suggestion of activity. The gray costume harmonized
with its aerial background; the