The Flag Goes Marching By Will Cummings had abandoned the pen for the sword until such time as Santa Anna should cry for quarter, and had left the office in charge of an imported substitute; but late that night he came to his desk once more, to write the story of the accident to Corporal Gray; and the tale that he wrote had been already put into writing by Tom Vanrevel as it fell from Crailey's lips, after the doctor had, come, so that none might doubt it.
No one did doubt it. What reason had Mr. Carewe to injure Crailey Gray?
Only five in Rouen knew the truth; for Nelson had gone with his master, and, except Mamie, the other servants of the Carewe household had been among the crowd in front of the Rouen House when the shot was fired.
So the story went over the town: how Crailey had called to say good-by to Mrs. Tanberry; how Mr. Carewe happened to be examining the musket his father had carried in 1812, when the weapon was accidentally discharged, the ball entering Crailey's breast; how Mr. Carewe, stricken with remorse and horror over this frightful misfortune, and suffering too severe anguish of mind to remain upon the scene, of the tragedy which his carelessness had made, had fled, attended by his servant; and how they had leaped aboard the evening boat as it was pulling out, and were now on their way down the river.
And this was the story, too, that Tom told Fanchon; for it was he who brought her to Crailey. Through the long night she knelt at Crailey's side, his hand always pressed to her breast or cheek, her eyes always upward, and her lips moving with her prayers, not for Crailey to be spared, but that the Father would take good care of him in heaven till she came. "I had already given him up," she said to Tom, meekly, in a small voice. "I knew it was to come, and perhaps this way is better than that--I thought it would be far away from me. Now I can be with him, and perhaps I shall have him a little longer, for he was to have gone away before noon."
The morning sun rose upon a fair world, gay with bird-chatterings from the big trees of the Carewe place, and pleasant with the odors of Miss Betty's garden, and Crailey, lying upon the bed of the man who had shot him, hearkened and smiled good-by to the summer he loved; and, when the day broke, asked that the bed be moved so that he might lie close by the window. It was Tom who had borne him to that room. "I have carried him before this," he said, waving the others aside.
Not long after sunrise, when the bed had been moved near the window, Crailey begged Fanchon to bring him a miniature of his mother which he had given her, and urged her to go for it herself; he wanted no hands but hers to touch it, he said. And when she had gone he asked to be left alone with Tom.
"Give me your hand, Tom," he said, faintly. "I'd like to keep hold of it a minute or so. I couldn't have said that yesterday, could I, without causing us both horrible embarrassment? But I fancy I can now, because I'm done for. That's too bad, isn't it? I'm very young, after all. Do you remember what poor Andre Chenier said as he went up to be guillotined?--' There were things in this head of mine!' But I want to tell you what's been the matter with me. It was just my being a bad sort of poet. I suppose that I've never loved anyone; yet I've cared more deeply than other men for every lovely thing I ever saw, and there's so little that hasn't loveliness in it. I'd be ashamed not to have cared for the beauty in all the women I've made love to--but about this one--the most beautiful of all--I--------"
"She will understand!" said Tom, quickly.
"She will--yes--she's wise and good. If Fanchon knew, there wouldn't be even a memory left to her--and I don't think she'd live. And do you know, I believe I've done a favor for Miss Betty in getting myself shot; Carewe will never come back. Tom, was ever a man's knavery so exactly the architect of his own destruction as mine? And for what gain? Just the excitement of the comedy from day to day!--for she was sure to despise me as soon as she knew--and the desire to hear her voice say another kindly thing to me--and the everlasting perhaps in every woman, and this one the Heart's Desire of all the world! Ah, well! Tell me--I want to hear it from you--how many hours does the doctor say?"
"Hours, Crailey?" Tom's hand twitched pitifully in the other's feeble grasp.
"I know it's only a few."
"They're all fools, doctors!" exclaimed Vanrevel, fiercely.
"No, no. And I know that nothing can be done. You all see it, and you want me to go easily--or you wouldn't let me have my own way so much! It frightens me, I own up, to think that so soon I'll be wiser than the wisest in the world. Yet I always wanted to know. I've sought and I've sought--but now to go out alone on the search--it must be the search, for the Holy Grail--I----"
"Please don't talk," begged Tom, in a broken whisper. "For mercy's sake, lad. It wears on you so."
Crailey laughed weakly. "Do you think I could die peacefully without talking a great deal? There's one thing I want, Tom. I want to see all of them once more, all the old friends that are going down the river at noon. What harm could it do? I want them to come by here on their way to the boat, with the band and the new flag. But I want the band to play cheerfully! Ask `em to play `Rosin the Bow,' will you? I've never be- lieved in mournfulness, and I don't want to see any of it now. It's the rankest impiety of all! And besides, I want to see them as they'll be when they come marching home--they must look gay!"
"Ah, don't, lad, don't!" Tom flung one arm about the other's shoulder and Crailey was silent, but rested his hand gently on his friend's head. In that attitude Fanchon found them when she came.
The volunteers gathered at the court-house two hours before noon. They met each other dismally, speaking in undertones as they formed in lines of four, while their dispirited faces showed that the heart was out of them.
