"Not mad, unless you are. Your risks are greater than were mine."

She straightened up, stepped toward him, very pale.

"Will you come?" she asked. "I am sorry."

"I am sorry--for us both," he said gently. "Yes, I will come. Send those troopers away."

"I cannot."

"Yes, you can. I give my word of honor."

She hesitated; a bright flush stained his face.

"I take your word," she murmured.

A moment later the troopers mounted and cantered off down the hill, veering wide to skirt the head of a column of infantry marching in; and when the Special Messenger started to return she found masses of men threatening to separate her from her prisoner--sunburnt, sweating, dirty-faced men, clutching their rifle-butts with red hands.

Their officers rode ahead, thrashing through the moist grass; a forest of bayonets swayed in the sun; flag after flag passed, slanting above the masses of blue.

She and her prisoner looked on; the flag of the 63d New York swept by; the flags of the 69th and 88th followed. A moment later the columns halted.

"Your Excelsiors," said Moray calmly.

"They're under fire already. Shall we move on?"

A soldier in the ranks, standing with ordered arms, fell straight backward, heavily; a corporal near them doubled up with a grunt.

The Special Messenger heard bullets smacking on rocks; heard their dull impact as they struck living bodies; saw them knock men flat. Meanwhile the flags drooped above the halted ranks, their folds stirred lazily, fell, and scarcely moved; the platoon fire rolled on unbroken somewhere out in the smoke yonder.

"God send me a bullet," said Moray.... "Why do you stay here?"

"To--give you--that chance."

"You run it, too."

"I hope so. I am very--tired."

"I am sorry," he said, reddening.

She said fiercely: "I wish it were over.... Life is cruel.... I suppose we must move on. Will you come, please?"

"Yes--my dark messenger," he said under his breath, and smiled.

A priest passed them in the smoke; her prisoner raised his hand to the visor of his cap.

"Father Corby, their chaplain," she murmured.

"Attention! Attention!" a far voice cried, and the warning ran from rank to rank, taken up in turn by officer after officer. Father Corby was climbing to the summit of a mound close by; an order rang out, bugles repeated it, and the blue ranks faced their chaplain.

Then the priest from his rocky pulpit raised his ringing voice in explanation. He told the three regiments of the Irish Brigade--now scarcely more than three battalions of two companies each--that every soldier there could receive the benefit of absolution by making a sincere act of contrition and resolving, on first opportunity, to confess.

He told them that they were going to be sent into battle; he urged them to do their duty; reminded them of the high and sacred nature of their trust as soldiers of the Republic, and ended by warning them that the Catholic Church refuses Christian burial to him who deserts his flag.

In the deep, battle-filled silence the priest raised up his hands; three regiments sank to their knees as a single man, and the Special Messenger and her prisoner knelt with them.

"_Dominus noster Jesus Christus vos absolvat, et ego, auctoritate ipius, vos absolvo ab omvir vinculo_----"

The thunder of the guns drowned the priest's voice for a moment, then it sounded again, firm and clear:

"_Absolve vos a peccatis_----"

The roar of battle blotted out the words; then again they rang out:

"_In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti!... Amen._"

The officers had remounted now, their horses plunging in the smoke; the flags were moving forward; rivers of bayonets flowed out into the maelstrom where the red lightning played incessantly. Then from their front crashed out the first volley of the Irish Brigade.

"Forward! Forward!" shouted their officers. Men were falling everywhere; a dying horse kicked a whole file into confusion. Suddenly a shell fell in their midst, another, another, tearing fiery right of way.

The Special Messenger, on her knees in the smoke, looked up and around as a priest bent above her.

"Child," he said, "what are you doing here?" And then his worn gaze fell on the dead man who lay in the grass staring skyward through his broken eyeglasses with pleasant, sightless eyes.

The Special Messenger, white to the lips, looked up: "We were on our knees together, Father Corby. You had said the amen, and the bullet struck him--here!... He had no chance for confession.... But you said----"

Her voice failed.

The priest looked at her; she took the dead man's right hand in hers.

"He was a brave man, Father.... And you said--you said--about those who fell fighting for--their _own_ land--absolution--Christian burial----"

She choked, set her teeth in her under lip and looked down at the dead.

The priest knelt, too.

"Is--is all well with him?" she whispered.

"Surely, child----"

"But--his was the--_other_ flag."

There was a silence.

"Father?"

"I know--I know.... The banner of Christ is broader.... You say he was kneeling here beside you?"

"Here--so close that I touched him.... And then you said.... Christian burial--absolution----"

"He was a spy?"