less mass beside her. Her thick, dishevelled hair only
half-concealed her open bosom, and from the corners of her mouth the
blood was flowing freely. She was not dead,--for she still moaned
pitifully,--but she seemed to be dying. Lifting her head as tenderly as
I could, I said to her,--

"Are you much hurt? Can't you speak to me?"

She opened her eyes, and staring at the sentinel with a wild, crazed
look, only moaned,--

"Oh! don't! Don't,--any more! Let me die! Oh! let me die!"

"Not yet. You are too young to die yet. Come, see if you can't sit up."

Something, it may have been the tone of my voice, seemed to bring her to
her senses, for she again opened her eyes, and, with a sudden effort,
rose nearly to her feet. In a moment, however, she staggered back, and
would have fallen, had not the sentinel caught her.

"There, don't try again. Rest awhile. Take some of this,--it will give
you strength"; and I emptied my brandy-flask into her mouth. "Our
General" had filled it the morning we set out from his camp; but two
days' acquaintance with the Judge, who declared "_such_ brandy
contraband of war," had reduced its contents to a low ebb. Still, there
was enough to do that poor girl a world of good. She shortly revived,
and sitting up, her head against the sentinel's shoulder, told us her
story. She was a white woman, and served as nursery-maid in a family
that lived hard by. All of its male members being away with the array,
she had been sent out at that late hour to procure medicine for a sick
child, and, waylaid by a gang of black fiends, had been gagged and
outraged in the very heart of Richmond! And this is Southern
civilization under Jefferson I.!

At the end of a long hour, I returned to the hotel. The sentry was
pacing to and fro before it, and, seating myself on the door-step, I
drew him into conversation.

"Do such things often happen in Richmond?" I asked him.

"Often! Ye's strange yere, I reckon," he replied.

"No,--I've been here forty times, but not lately. Things must be in a
bad way here, now."

"Wai, they is! Thar' 's nary night but thair' 's lots o' sech doin's. Ye
see, thar' ha'n't more 'n a corporal's-guard o' white men in the hull
place, so the nigs they hes the'r own way, and ye'd better b'lieve they
raise the Devil, and break things, ginerally."

"I've seen no other able-bodied soldier about town; how is it that you
are here?"

"I ha'n't able-bodied," he replied, holding up the stump o