hat with the effects of his late injuries, I
fear that the restraint of a prison may go ill with him."

"How unnatural is this strife that makes us sorrow for our foes no less
than for our friends?" said Oriana. "I seem to be living in a strange
clime, and in an age that has passed away. And how long can friendship
endure this fiery ordeal? How many scenes of carnage like this last
terrible one can afflict the land, without wiping away all trace of
brotherhood, and leaving in the void the seed of deadly hate?"

"If this repulse," said Beverly, "which your arms have suffered so early
in the contest, will awaken the North to a sense of the utter futility
of their design of subjugation, the blood that flowed at Manassas will
not have been shed in vain."

"No, not in vain," replied Harold, "but its fruits will be other than
you anticipate. The North will be awakened, but only to gird up its
loins and put forth its giant strength. The shame of that one defeat
will be worth to us hereafter a hundred victories. The North has
been smitten in its sleep; it will arouse from its lethargy like a lion
awakening under the smart of the hunter's spear. Beverly, base no vain
hopes upon the triumph of the hour; it seals your doom, for it serves
but to throw into the scale against you the aroused energies that till
now have been withheld."

"You count upon your resources, Harold, like a purse-proud millionaire,
who boasts his bursting coffers. We depend rather upon our determined
hearts and resolute right hands. Upon our power to endure, greater than
yours to inflict, reverse. Upon our united people, and the spirit that
animates them, which can never be subdued. The naked Britons could
defend their native soil against Caesar's legions, the veterans of a
hundred fights. Shall we do less, who have already tasted the fruits of
liberty so dearly earned? Harold, your people have assumed an impossible
task, and you may as well go cast your treasures into the sea as
squander them in arms to smite your kith and kin. We are Americans, like
yourselves; and when you confess that _you_ can be conquered by invading
armies, then dream of conquering us."

"And we will startle you from your dream with the crack of our Southern
rifles," added Oriana, somewhat maliciously, while Harold smiled at her
enthusiasm.

"There is a great deal of romance in both your natures," he replied.
"But it is not so good as powder for a fighting medium. The spirit you