Meanwhile war, in one of its grim humors, had prepared a comedy when the stage was set in tragic trappings. In the withdrawal of Johnston's army from Manassas—signalized in history as the Quaker campaign, because our army found wooden guns in the deserted works—that ardent young Hotspur, Vincent Atterbury, ran upon a disagreeable end to a very charming adventure. In chivalric bravado, to emphasize the fact that the withdrawal of the Confederates was merely strategic, not forced, the young man, with a lively company of horsemen, hungering for excitement, formed themselves into a defiant rear-guard. The Union outposts, never suspecting that Johnston's army was not behind the enterprising cavalry, withdrew prudently to the main forces.

Then, when they were convinced that the little band was merely on an audacious lark, forces were sent out on either flank, while the main body feigned the disorder of retreat. The result was, that Vincent's squadron was handsomely entrapped, and in the savage contest that ensued the intrepid major was hustled from his horse with a dislocated shoulder and broken wrist. He was brought, with a half-dozen more of his dare-devil comrades, into the Union lines, and in the course of time found himself in the hideous shambles allotted rebel prisoners at Point Lookout, Maryland. Too weak at first, or too confused, to bethink himself of his Northern friends, Vincent shared the hard usage of his companions and resigned himself patiently to the slow procedure of exchange, which was now going on regularly, since the Union victories in the West and South had given the Northern authorities ten prisoners to the Southerners' one. The prospect of his own release was, under these circumstances, rather distant, as without special intervention he would have to await his turn, the rule being that those first captured were first exchanged. He knew that his family's influence and his own intimacy with General Johnston would probably hasten the release, but he could not count upon an immediate return to his duties, and in view of this he was not very reluctant to undergo convalescence in the North.

Jack's influence, he counted, would soon relieve him from the hardships of confinement, and then he should see Olympia—that, at least, was recompense for his misfortune. His mother and Rosa would immediately learn of his capture, and he might count upon hearing from them, as very generous latitude was allowed in such cases by the authorities on both sides. He caused a letter to be written to Jack, addressing it to his regiment, in care of the War Department, and waited patiently the response. His disappointment and anxiety, as days passed and he got no answer, began to tell on his health, already weakened by his wounds. Thus, one day, when a young lady was shown to his bedside—who fell upon him with a glad cry, and held his head to her breast—he was too far gone in delirium to distinguish his sister.

"My darling! O Olympia, I knew you would come," he murmured, and Rosa, terrified, but composed, soothed the fevered lover as best she might. He grew worse in spite of all her devotion. The physicians, burdened with patients far in excess of their powers, assured her that her brother would require the most patient care and enlightened nursing; that medicine would do him but slight good, and that she must make up her mind to a prolonged illness. Rosa was alone in the vast hospital, save for the presence of her maid Linda, who had come through the lines with her and was, of course, under the Northern laws, free. Worse than all, she was poorly provided with money, and this need, rather than Vincent's love-lorn babbling about Olympia, reminded Rosa to call upon the Spragues for help. She wrote at once to Olympia, telling the distressing story, and then set about bettering Vincent's surroundings.

Point Lookout had been selected for its natural prison-like safeguards. A rank bog surrounded the place on three sides, and thus but few troops were needed to guard the great mass of rebel prisoners lodged in wooden barracks and long lines of tents. Vincent's case seemed to have grown stationary after her coming. He slept a fitful, troubled sleep half the day. At night he grew delirious and restless. Rosa and Linda divided the hours into watches, and administered the draughts prepared by the stewards. Through the humanity of the physician in charge, the invalid had been transferred to an A tent, where Rosa could remain day and night unmolested with her maid. Vincent thus cared for, Rosa began to think of the other poor fellows in her brother's squadron, and set about a systematic search for them. Many of them she found in the general wards of the hospital. It was on this kindly mission one day that she heard her brother's name mentioned by a civilian, who was talking with an official in uniform.

"Major Atterbury? Oh, yes; he was removed to division D. You will find him in a separate tent. He has a woman nurse. I will send an orderly with you."

Rosa did not recognize the civilian at first, but as he turned to accompany the soldier she remembered where she had seen him before. He was the prisoner Jack had spoken with in Richmond the day the party visited the tobacco warehouse. She hastened her step, and, as she came up with the men, she said, tremulously:

"I am Major Atterbury's sister. My brother is unconscious. Can I attend to the business you have with him?"

Jones turned and stopped, glancing in surprise at the girl.

"I'm sorry to learn that your brother's so low. But you can do all that I hoped from him. Here is a letter addressed to John Sprague. It was received at his regiment three days ago. I happened to be there making inquiries for him, and the colonel handed it to me. Under the circumstances I felt justified in reading it, and it turns out that I did well."

"John Sprague is missing?" Rosa cried, her mind instantly at work in alarm for some one else.

Jones, dismissing the orderly, told her the facts as we have already followed them. Leaving out all mention of Kate, he told her how he had hurried down to Newport News, and thence to the outposts on the Warrick.

There he had learned that Jack and Dick had been wounded, fatally the story went, in the final volley fired by the pursuers. They had been carried to the hospital at Hampton. But there all trace had been lost. The steward who received them and the surgeon who had taken their descriptive list had been transferred to St. Louis. There was, however, no record of their deaths, and upon that he based the hope that they were either in hospital, or had been, through some strange confusion, assigned among rebel wounded, a thing that had frequently happened in the hurry of transporting large numbers of wounded men.

"And does Mrs. Sprague know all this?" Rosa cried, understanding now why
Vincent's letter and her own had not brought a response.

"Partly, I think. Mrs. Sprague and her daughter are in Washington, in the state of mind you may imagine, and exhausting bales of red tape to reach the lost boys."

Poor Rosa! She had thought her grief and terror too much to endure before. Now how trivial Vincent's fever in comparison with this appalling disappearance of Dick and Jack! She walked on over the sparse herbage, over her shoes in the soft sand, when Linda came running from the tent in joyous excitement.

"De good Lord, Miss Rosa, she's here; she's done come!"

"Who is here—who is come?" Rosa cried, impatiently; "not mamma?"

"'Deed no, Miss Rosa; Miss Limpy."

"What?"

"Yes, indeedy; and, oh, bress de Lord, Massa Vint knows her, and is talkin' like a sweet dove!"

It was true. Miss "Limpy," blushing very red, was surprised by Rosa in a very motherly attitude by the patient's cot. The two girls melted in a delirious hug, mingled with spasmodic smacks of the lips and a soft, gurgling crescendo of exclamation, not very intelligible to Jones and Linda, who discreetly remained near the door on the outside.

Vincent's eyes were fixed on Olympia. For the first time in ten days they shone with the light of reason. He smiled softly at the scene and murmured lightly to himself. Warned not to tax the feeble powers of the invalid, Rosa and Jones withdrew, leaving Olympia to recover from the fatigues of her journey in the tent with Vincent.

"Now, you're not to talk, you know," Olympia said, with matronly decision, "I shall remain here to mesmerize you into repose. You know I am a magnetic person. Be perfectly quiet, and keep your eyes off me. They make me nervous."

"I can only keep my eyes away on condition you put your hand in mine,
Then the magnetic current can have full play."

"My impression is that you have not been ill at all. I believe you have been shamming, to escape the harder lines of the prison. Very well, you needn't answer. I'll take that shake of the head as denial and proof for want of better. Now, I will give you the history of our doings since I saw you at Fairfax Court-House in January. I got home safe. I found mamma in painful excitement."

He moved impatiently, and said, beseechingly:

"But tell me how you got here so soon. How did you learn I was here?
Jack told you when he got my letter?"

"O Vincent, that was what I was coming to! Jack has never been seen or heard from since he escaped from your troops near the Warrick. I did not know you had written. I got a letter from Rosa yesterday morning and went at once to the War Department, where we have a good friend—"

"I can't understand it. All these things are done with system in an army like yours. Men can't disappear like this, leaving no record. I'll stake my head there's foul play, if the boys can't be found. Have you made inquiry in the company on duty where Jack and his companions got into your lines?"

She explained all the efforts that had been made—how Brodie had been baffled, and how letters had been sent to the commanding officer at Fort Monroe.

"We had begun to think that Jack had been recaptured; but surely, if he were, you would have known of it."

"Of course I should."

"Then that confines the search to our own lines. I can not make myself believe that Jack is dead, though mamma has nearly made up her mind to it. The mysterious part of the affair is, that we can not find one of the men who escaped with Jack, though it was announced in the papers weeks ago that a party of them had arrived at Fort Monroe."

"And young 'Perley'?"

"He, too, we can get no trace of."

"Good heavens! I'm glad Rosa doesn't know that; she'd be in every camp and hospital in the North until she had found her sweetheart."

"That sounds something like a reflection on us—mamma and me."

"Ah! never. What I mean is, that Rosa is such an impulsive, silly child, she would do all sorts of imprudent things. How could you do such a thing? Preposterous!"

"Well, I began it yesterday morning. As I said, so soon as I read Rosa's letter, I went to headquarters, where we have a good friend and gave my word for your safe keeping. You are to be our prisoner; but if you escape you will get us into trouble, for we are none too well considered by the folks in power."

"God forgive me, Olympia! escape is the last thing I think of now, when I am near you. I was going to say I should never care to go back, but I know you wouldn't think the better of me for that."

"I don't know. Why should you go back? The South is sure to be beaten.
We are conquering territory every day, from the armies at Donelson to
the forts at New Orleans. We shall beat you in Virginia so soon as
General McClellan gives the word."

"Even if that were the case, my duty and my honor would point to but one course—to return to the natural course of exchange."

"Honor? Vincent, it is a vague term under such circumstances—"

"I could not love you, dear, so much, loved I not honor more. You know you gave me that for a motto."

"Poetic rubbish, Mr. Soldier; but I must leave you now. You will insist on talking, and, as I shall be held responsible to your mother and Rosa, I must be firm—not another syllable! Besides, the imprudence will keep you here longer, and if you are to be carried away you must get well at once. I can't leave mamma alone in Washington with such grief preying upon her."

He answered with a glance of pitying pleading. He looked so helpless—so woe-begone—that she bent over near his face to smooth his disordered bandages. When she withdrew she was blushing very prettily, and Vincent was smiling in triumph. "On these terms," the smile seemed to say, "I will be mute for an age."

What an adroit ally war is to love! Here was the self-contained Olympia—so confident of herself—fond and yielding as Rosa; when war rushed in, infirmity came to the rescue of Vincent's despairing passion.

Meanwhile, Jones began a systematic search among the prisoners for the missing Caribees. Rosa joined with impatient ardor. There were three thousand inmates of the improvised city, but no one resembling Jack or Dick could be found. Linda, ministering to some of Vincent's comrades, was piteously besought to ask her mistress's good offices for an orderly in the small-pox ward. This was a tent far off from the main barracks on the beach, attended only by a single surgeon and a corps of rather indifferent nurses. Two of Vincent's men were in this lazar, shut off from the world, for the soldier, reckless in battle, has a shuddering horror of this loathsome disease. Rosa instantly resolved that she would herself nurse the plague-smitten rebels. She had no fear of the disease, the truth being that she had only the vaguest idea of what it was. With great difficulty she obtained permission to visit the outcast colony. She was forced to enter the noisome purlieu alone, even the maid's devotion rebelling against the nameless horror small-pox has for the African.

Once within the long marqueÉ, however, Rosa was relieved to find that the casual spectacle was not different from that of the other seriously sick-wards. A melancholy silence seemed to signalize the despair of the twoscore patients, each occupying a cot screened from the rest by thin canvas curtains. Double lines of sentries guarded each opening of the marqueÉ, so that no one could pass in or out without the rigidly visÉd order of the surgeon-in-chief. Braziers of charcoal burned at the foot of each bed, while the atmosphere was heavy with a strong solution of carbolic acid, then just beginning to be recognized as a sovereign preventive of malarious vapors, and an antiseptic against the germs of disease. Rosa inquired for the protÉgÉs she was seeking. They were pointed out, on one side of the tent, the steward accompanying her to each cot.

"All have the small-pox?" she inquired, shuddering, as she glanced at the white screens, behind which an occasional plaintive groan could be heard.

"Oh, no! there are some here that have no more small-pox than I have."

"Then why do you keep them here?" Rosa asked, indignantly.

"Oh, red tape, miss. There's two men that were brought here three months ago. They'd no more small-pox than you have, miss; but they were assigned here, and I have given up trying to get them taken to the convalescent camp. The truth, is the surgeon in charge is afraid to show up here. The others make by the number they have in charge, for we are allowed extra pay and an extra ration for every case on hand."

"Why, this is infamous!" Rosa cried. "It is murder. Why don't you write to the—the—head man?"

"And get myself in the guard-house for my trouble? No, thank you, miss. I wouldn't have spoken to you if it hadn't been for the sympathy you showed coming in, and to sort o' show you that you are not running so much danger as folks try to make you believe."

Rosa had a basket on her arm filled with such comforting delicacies as the surgeon had advised. She set about administering them to her brother's orderly, when a feeble voice in a cot a few feet away fell upon her ear. She started. Though almost a whisper, there was a strange familiarity in the low tone. She turned to the steward—

"Who is in the third cot from here?"

"Let me see. Oh, yes, number seven; that's a man named Paling."

"And the next?"

"Number eight; that's a man named Jake, or Jakes, I'm blessed if I am certain. They've been out of their head since they come. They're the two I spoke of who ain't no more small-pox than I have."

"May I see them?"

"Certainly. I'll see that they're in shape for inspection, and call you."

He disappeared behind the curtain and could be heard in a kindly, jovial tone:

"There, sonny, keep kivered; the lady is coming to bring you something better than the doctor's gruel, so lie still."

Beckoning to Rosa, he made way for her to enter the narrow aisle of number seven, but he nearly fell over the man across the bed, when Rosa, with a shriek, fell upon the body of number seven, crying:

"O, my darling, my darling, I have found you!"

It would have required the eyes of maternal love of Rosa's to recognize our jaunty Dick in the emaciated, fleshless face that lay imbedded in the disarray of the cot. Dick's blue eyes were sunken and dim, his lips chalky and parched. He made no sign of recognition when Rosa drew back with her arm under his head to scrutinize the disease-worn face.

"Sometimes, miss, he is in his right mind—but he goes off again like this. Is the other man his brother? They seem to understand each other when they are at the worst. Once when we separated them they fought like maniacs until we were forced to let them be near again."

"Oh, yes—the other." Rosa started and hastened to the next cot. Yes, it was Jack—or a piteous ghost of him. He was sleeping, and she withdrew gently.

"Please distribute the contents of the basket to the men I named. I will be back presently."

With this she darted out, running at the top of her speed, heedless even of the peremptory challenge of the sentries, who thought her mad or stricken with the plague, and made no attempt to molest her. She ran straight to Jones's quarters. He was writing, and started in surprise as she entered panting and breathless.

"Ah! I have found them; I have found them!" She could say no more. Jones helped her to a seat and held a glass of water to her lips. Then she regained breath.

"They are in the small-pox ward, but they haven't the disease. Ah! they are there, they are there. Come at once and take them away. Ah! take them away this minute."

"By 'they' do you mean Perley and Sprague?" Jones asked, breathlessly.

"Yes, ah, yes. Thank God! thank God! Ah! I could say prayers from now until my dying day. But, oh, Mr. Jones, do, do hurry; because they may die if we do not get them away from that dreadful pest-house."

"It will take some time to get the order for the removal. Meanwhile, they will need good nursing. If you hope to help them you must be calm; you must keep well. Now go to your brother. It is just as well that Miss Sprague went away this morning. Before she comes back, her brother will be in a place she can visit with safety. You can not go back there. You must remain patient now until I get them away from that dangerous place."

It was not until the next day that the red tape of the establishment was so far cut as to warrant the surgeon in charge in making a personal inspection of the two invalids. He at once, and in indignant astonishment, pronounced the two untouched by the disease set against their names in their papers of admission. Early in the afternoon they were carried on a stretcher to a clean, fresh tent on the sandy beach, where the laurel bushes almost ran into the water. Letters had been dispatched to Olympia in forming her that Jack was found, and urging her to come on at once. The next evening the three ladies arrived—Mrs. Sprague, Olympia, and Kate. With them they brought a renowned physician who had been uniformly successful in treating maladies of the sort the lads were described as suffering.

Days of painful anxiety followed. Once, all hope of Dick was abandoned, and his aunts were telegraphed for. But, in the end, he opened his big blue eyes, sane and convalescent. There was rapid mending after this, you may be sure. Kate had, through Olympia's unobtrusive manoeuvring, been forced to bear the burden of Jack's nursing, and, somehow, when that impatient warrior mingled amorous pleadings with his early consciousness, she forgot upon which side the burden of repentance and forgiving lay. She listened with gentle serenity to his protestations, checking him only by the threat to quit the place and return to her father.

During all this, Rosa was divided in her mind. She resented the assiduity of Jones in the recovery of Dick. That reticent person had installed himself in Dick's tent and never quitted the lad, day or night, unless to relinquish him to Rosa's arbitrary hand. When, one day, Pliny and Merry Perley entered the tent, Jones changed color. The two ladies, not heeding the stranger, fell upon the convalescent on the cot, and Jones slipped away. Thereafter Rosa had her invalid to herself, Jones only reappearing at night, to keep the vigils of the dark. A month later, the invalids were strong enough to be removed. An inquiry had been set on foot to account for the presence of the two Union soldiers among the rebel prisoners. The result was confusing, however. The facts seemed to point out design in the original entry of the young men's names at Hampton, where they had been taken when brought in by the outposts.

The dispersion of the rest of their companions from Richmond was accounted for by furloughs granted them so soon as they reached the provost-marshal's office. Just before leaving Point Lookout Jack received a much-directed letter that gave signs of having been in every mail-bag in the Army of the Potomac. It was from Barney Moore, bristling with wonder and turgid with woful lamentation at Jack's coldness in not writing him. He had been sent by mistake to Ship Island, near New Orleans, to join his regiment, and had only at the writing of the letter reached Washington, where the Caribees were expected every day to move to the Peninsula in McClellan's new campaign.

So soon as he was sufficiently recovered to write, Jack reported by letter to the regiment. He had received no reply. The explanation was awaiting him so soon as he reached Washington. While seated with his mother in Willard's, a heavy knock came on the door. It was thrown open before the maid could reach it. A provost corporal stood on the threshold, a file of men behind him:

"I have an order for the arrest of Sergeant John Sprague."

"I am John Sprague. Of what am I accused?"

"I have no orders to tell you. My orders are to deliver you at the provost prison. You will hear the charges there."

"But I am still under the doctor's charge. I am on the hospital list."

"I don't know what condition you are in. My orders are to arrest you, and you know I have no option. All can be remedied at the provost's office."

"I will go with you, my son," Mrs. Sprague said, trying to look untroubled. "It is some error which can be explained."

"No, mamma, you can't come. Send word to the counsel you engaged in the search. I fancy it is some mistake; but I wish it hadn't occurred just now. I wouldn't write Olympia about it." Olympia had gone on to Acredale with Kate, to set the house in order for a season of festivity. Jack, Vincent, Dick, and the rest, were to join them so soon as the invalid had taken rest in Washington.

The guard indulged Jack in a carriage to headquarters. Here he was handed over to a lieutenant in charge, and conducted to a prison-like apartment in the rear.

"What is the charge against me?" Jack asked, as the officer touched a bell.

"I am not acquainted with the papers in your case. My instructions are to hold you until called for.—Sergeant," he added, as a soldier in uniform entered, "the prisoner is to be confined in close quarters, and is not to be lost sight of night or day."

The soldier saluted and motioned Jack to follow him, two other soldiers closing in behind him as he set out. At the end of a short hallway the sergeant stopped, took a key from a bunch at his belt, unlocked a heavily-barred door and motioned Jack to enter. It was useless to protest, useless to parley. He knew military procedure too well to think of it, but his heart swelled with bitter rage. This was the reward of an almost idolatrous patriotism—this was the patrie's way of cherishing her defenders. He flung himself on the cot in a wild passion of tears and rebellious scorn. But his humiliation was not yet ended; while he sat with his face covered by his bands, he felt hands upon his legs, and the sharp click of a lock. He moved his left leg. Great God! it was chained to an enormous iron bolt. He started to rise; the sharp links of the chain cut his ankle as the great ball rolled away from him. With a cry of madness he flung himself on the harsh pine pallet, groaning his heart out in bitter anguish and maledictions. In time food was brought him, but he sat supine, staring ghastly at the dull-eyed orderly, silent, unquestioning. Dim banners of light fell across the corridor. They were broken at regular intervals by the passing figure of a sentry. The night wore on. There was a lull in the monotonous tramp. Steps came toward Jack's cell—stopped; the key grated in the lock; some one touched him on the shoulder. He never stirred.

"Cheer up, Sprague; it's all a mistake." It was the voice of the lawyer.

At this Jack started, his eyes gleaming wildly. "Ah, I thought so. I knew I could never have been disgraced like this in earnest. They have discovered the wrong done me?"

"No, no; not exactly that, Jack, but we shall show them the mistake, I make no doubt."

"Why am I dishonored? Of what am I accused? Why am I here?" Jack cried, shivering under the revulsion from despair to hope, and from hope back to horror.

"You are dishonored, my poor young friend, because a court-martial has found you guilty of murder, desertion, and treason against the articles of war, and you are here because you are sentenced to be shot one week from Friday, in the center of a hollow square, seated on your own coffin."