e the whole round of the camp. Not a single
sentry remained. And then, of a sudden, the meaning of their absence
burst upon me.

I hurried back to the camp, passing the spot where we had quartered the
men whom we had rallied, but who were not placed on sentry duty.

As I expected, not one was there.

"All is well, I trust, Lieutenant Stewart?" asked Colonel Burton, as I
approached. Then something in my face must have startled him, for he
asked me sharply what had happened.

"I fear we cannot remain here, sir," I said, as calmly as I could. "All
of our men have deserted us. There is not a single sentry at his post;"
and I told him what I had found.

He listened without a word till I had finished.

"You will get the tumbrel ready for the general, lieutenant," he said
quietly. "I will report this sad news to him. It seems that our defeat is
to become dishonor."

I put the horses into harness again, and led them to the place where the
general lay. He seemed dazed by the tidings of his men's desertion, and
made no protest nor uttered any sound as we lifted him again into the
cart and set off through the night. We soon reached the second ford, and
on the other side found Colonel Gage, who had contrived to rally about
eighty men and hold them there with him. But there seemed no hope of
keeping them through the night, so we set forward again, and plunged into
the gloomy forest.

An hour later, as I was plodding wearily along beside the cart, thinking
over the events of this tragic day, I was startled by a white face
peering from beneath the upraised curtain out into the darkness. It was
the stricken man within, who was surveying the remnant of that gallant
army which, a few short hours before, had passed along this road so
gayly, thinking itself invincible. He held himself a moment so, then let
the curtain drop and fell back upon his couch.

CHAPTER XIX

ALLEN AND I SHAKE HANDS

Of the horrors of the night which followed, my pen can paint no adequate
picture. Fugitives panted past us in the darkness, pursued by phantoms of
their own imagining, thinking only of one thing--to leave that scene of
awful slaughter far behind. The wounded toiled on, groaning and cursing,
for to drop to the rear or to wander from the way was to die, if not by
knife or tomahawk, none the less surely by hunger. Here and there some
poor wretch who could win no farther sat groaning by the roadside or
rolled in delirium upon the groun