Stern
was shouting at the stone gate--shouting and springing to his feet and
swinging his old scouting hat and gazing wildly down the canon. "For
God's sake hush, man!" cried the lieutenant. "I must hear Carmody." But
Stern was past further shouting now. Sinking on his knees, he was
sobbing aloud. Scrambling out into the daylight of the opening, but
still shrinking within its shelter, the half-crazed, half-broken soldier
stood stretching forth his arms and calling wild words down the echoing
gorge, where sounds of shouting, lusty-lunged, and a ringing order or
two, and then the clamor of carbine shots, told of the coming of rescue
and new life and hope, and food and friends, and still Blakely knelt and
circled that dying head with the one arm left him, and pleaded and
besought--even commanded. But never again would word or order stir the
soldier's willing pulse. The sergeant and his story had drifted
together beyond the veil, and Blakely, slowly rising, found the lighted
entrance swimming dizzily about him, first level and then up-ended;
found himself sinking, whither he neither knew nor cared; found the
canon filling with many voices, the sound of hurrying feet and then of
many rushing waters, and then--how was it that all was dark without the
cave, and lighted--lantern-lighted--here within? They had had no
lantern, no candle.
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