Sally Dows | Page 4

in the lane, and a handsome, red-capped
officer, accompanied by an orderly, dashed down the track, wheeled,
leaped the hedge, rode out on the slope and halted. In another instant a
cloud of dust came whirling down the lane after him. Out of it strained

the heavy shoulders and tightened chain-traces of six frantic horses
dragging the swaying gun that in this tempest of motion alone seemed
passive and helpless with an awful foreknowledge of its power. As in
obedience to a signal from the officer they crashed through the hedge
after him, a sudden jolt threw an artilleryman from the limber before
the wheel. A driver glanced back on the tense chain and hesitated. "Go
on!" yelled the prostrate man, and the wheel went over him. Another
and another gun followed out of the dust cloud, until the whole battery
had deployed on the slope. Before the drifting dust had fairly settled,
the falling back of the panting horses with their drivers gave a
momentary glimpse of the nearest gun already in position and of the
four erect figures beside it. The yell that seemed to have evoked this
sudden apparition again sounded nearer; a blinding flash broke from
the gun, which was instantly hidden by the closing group around it, and
a deafening crash with the high ringing of metal ran down the lane. A
column of white, woolly smoke arose as another flash broke beside it.
This was quickly followed by another and another, with a response
from the gun first fired, until the whole slope shook and thundered.
And the smoke, no longer white and woolly, but darkening and
thickening as with unburnt grains of gunpowder, mingled into the one
ominous vapor, and driving along the lane hid even the slope from
view.
The yelling had ceased, but the grinding and rattling heard through the
detonation of cannon came nearer still, and suddenly there was a
shower of leaves and twigs from the lower branches of a chestnut- tree
near the broken hedge. As the smoke thinned again a rising and falling
medley of flapping hats, tossing horses' heads and shining steel
appeared for an instant, advancing tumultuously up the slope. But the
apparition was as instantly cloven by flame from the two nearest guns,
and went down in a gush of smoke and roar of sound. So level was the
delivery and so close the impact that a space seemed suddenly cleared
between, in which the whirling of the shattered remnants of the
charging cavalry was distinctly seen, and the shouts and oaths of the
inextricably struggling mass became plain and articulate. Then a
gunner serving the nearest piece suddenly dropped his swab and seized
a carbine, for out of the whirling confusion before them a single rider

was seen galloping furiously towards the gun.
The red-capped young officer rode forward and knocked up the
gunner's weapon with his sword. For in that rapid glance he had seen
that the rider's reins were hanging loosely on the neck of his horse, who
was still dashing forwards with the frantic impetus of the charge, and
that the youthful figure of the rider, wearing the stripes of a
lieutenant,--although still erect, exercised no control over the animal.
The face was boyish, blond, and ghastly; the eyes were set and glassy.
It seemed as if Death itself were charging the gun.
Within a few feet of it the horse swerved before a brandished rammer,
and striking the cheeks of the gun-carriage pitched his inanimate rider
across the gun. The hot blood of the dead man smoked on the hotter
brass with the reek of the shambles, and be- spattered the hand of the
gunner who still mechanically served the vent. As they lifted the dead
body down the order came to "cease firing." For the yells from below
had ceased too; the rattling and grinding were receding with the smoke
farther to the left. The ominous central cloud parted for a brief moment
and showed the unexpected sun glittering down the slope upon a near
and peaceful river.
The young artillery officer had dismounted and was now gently
examining the dead man. His breast had been crushed by a fragment of
shell; he must have died instantly. The same missile had cut the chain
of a locket which slipped from his opened coat. The officer picked it up
with a strange feeling--perhaps because he was conscious himself of
wearing a similar one, perhaps because it might give him some clue to
the man's identity. It contained only the photograph of a pretty girl, a
tendril of fair hair, and the word "Sally." In the breast-pocket was a
sealed letter with the inscription, "For Miss Sally Dows. To be
delivered if I fall by the mudsill's hand." A faint smile came