ty had first charged up the hill, the young lieutenant
with whom he had conversed beside the watch-fire on the previous
evening, was at the head of his platoon, and as the two bodies met, he
sent the last shot from his revolver full in the faces of the foremost
rank. So close were they, that the victim of that shot, struck in the
centre of the forehead, tottered forward, and fell into his arms. There
was a cry of horror that pierced even above the shrieks of the wounded
and the yells of the fierce combatants. One glance at that fair,
youthful face sufficed;--it was his brother--dead in his arms, dead by a
brother's hand. The yellow hair yet curled above the temples, but the
rosy bloom upon the cheek was gone; already the ashen hue of death was
there. There was a small round hole just where the golden locks waved
from the edge of the brow, and from it there slowly welled a single
globule of black gore. It left the face undisfigured--pale, but tranquil
and undistorted as a sleeping child's--not even a clot of blood was
there to mar its beauty. The strong and manly soldier knelt upon the
dust, and holding the dead boy with both arms clasped about his waist,
bent his head low down upon the lifeless bosom, and gasped with an agony
more terrible than that which the death-wound gives.

"Charley! Oh God! Charley! Charley!" was all that came from his white
lips, and he sat there like stone, with the corpse in his arms, still
murmuring "Charley!" unconscious that blades were flashing and bullets
whistling around him. The blood streamed from his wounds, the bayonets
were gleaming round, and once a random shot ploughed into his thigh and
shivered the bone. He only bent a little lower and his voice was
fainter; but still he murmured "Charley! Oh God! Charley," and never
unfolded his arms from its embrace. And there, when the battle was over,
the Southrons found him, dead--with his dead brother in his arms.

CHAPTER XXII.

At the door-way of the building on the hill, where the aged invalid was
yielding her last breath amid the roar of battle, a wounded officer sat
among the dying and the dead, while the conflict swept a little away
from that quarter of the field. The blood was streaming from the
shattered bosom, and feebly he strove to staunch it with his silken
scarf. He had dragged himself through gore and dust until he reached
that spot, and now, rising again with a convulsive effort, he leaned his
red hands against the