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