river, beyond the
river lay Virginia. Dundee, red of eye and nostril, foam streaked and
quivering, raced on, his rider talking to him as to a lover. But the bay
was sore tired, and the sorrel gained. Marchmont sent his voice before
him. "Surrender! You'll never reach the other side!"

"I'll try mighty hard," answered Cleave between his teeth. He caressed
his horse, he made their two hearts one, he talked to him, he crooned an
air the stallion knew,--

Then fling ope your gates, and let me go free,
For it's up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!

Superbly the bay answered. But the sorrel, too, was a thoroughbred,
fresh when he left Frederick. Stride by stride he gained. Cleave crashed
into the belt of sycamores. Before him was the Potomac, cold, wide,
mist-veiled. He heard Marchmont break into the wood and turned. The
aide's arm was raised, and a shaft of red sunlight struck the barrel of
his pistol. Before his finger could move Cleave fired.

The sorrel, pierced through the shoulder, swerved violently, reared, and
plunged, all but unseating his rider. Marchmont's ball passed harmlessly
between the branches of trees. The bay and his master sprang from the
low bank into the flood. So veiled was it by the heavy mist that, six
strokes from shore, all outlines grew indistinct.

The two troopers reached the shore. "Where is he, sir?--Out there?" They
emptied their pistols--it was firing into a cloud. The sharpshooters
arrived. Skilful and grim, they raised their rifles, scanned the expanse
of woolly white before them, and fired at what, now here, now there,
they conceived might be a moving object. The mist lay close to the
river, like a pall. They fired and fired again. Other infantrymen,
arriving, talked excitedly. "Thar!--No, thar! That's him, downs-tream!
Fire!--Darn it! 'T was a piece of drift." Across the river, tall against
the south, wreathed and linked by lianas of grape, showed, far withdrawn
and shadowy, the trees of the Virginia shore. The rifles continued to
blaze, but the mist held, and there came no answering scream of horse or
cry of man. Marchmont spoke at last, curtly. "That's enough! He's either
hit and drowned, or he has reached home. I wish we were on the same
side."

One of the troopers uttered an exclamation. "Hear that, sir! He's
across! Damned if he isn't halloaing to tell us so!"

Faintly, from the southern shore, came a voice. It was raised in a line
of song,--