Upon a long and hurried march,
In light array, you see,
We could not take the boy along,
So stood him near a tree;
Told off the little firing squad,
And ordered it in line.
One gun was loaded in the lot--
I hope it was not mine.

Birds in the branches overhead
Sang softly in the heat.
The grave, a trench of steaming sand,
Gaped yellow at his feet;
He faced us with a dauntless air,
Although his lips were white;--
Our grim old Sergeant turned away,
He could not stand the sight.

A flash, a roar, a cloud of smoke,
And headlong to the ground
He fell face downward in the grave,
And died without a sound.
We turned him over on his back,
And DEATH the TRUTH confessed,
For through his open jacket peeped
A Woman's tender breast."

Marie Sampalit had earned her doom. After her grave had been filled,
the soldier boys placed at its head a cartridge-box lid on which they
inscribed the pitiful word,

"UNKNOWN."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman with a Stone Heart, by
Oscar William Coursey

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