“I dreamed just then,” said Aladdin, “that something wonderful happened to me. Did it?” “What would you consider wonderful?” Aladdin laid a finger on his forehead; he drew it away and saw that the tip was wet. “I couldn’t very well say,” he said. The girl bent over him. “It nearly happened,” she said. “You are very wonderful and beautiful,” said Aladdin. Her eyes were like stars, and she leaned closer. “Are you going to go on fighting against my people?” she said. Roses lay for a moment on his lips. “Are you?” He made no sign. If she had kissed him again he would have renounced his birthright and his love. “God bless and keep you, Yankee,” she said. Tears rushed out of Aladdin’s eyes. “They’re coming to take you away,” she said. “Good-by.” “Kiss me again,” said Aladdin, hoarsely. She looked at him quietly for some moments. “And your sweetheart?” she said. Aladdin covered his face with his arm. “Poor little traitor,” said the girl, sadly. She rose and, without looking back, moved slowly up the road toward the house. Nor did Aladdin ever see her again, but in after years the smell of box or roses would bring into his mind the wonderful face of her, and the music of her voice. In the delirium which was upon him all that night, he harped to the surgeon of Ellen, and in the morning fell asleep. “Haec olim meminisse juvabit,” said the surgeon, as rain-clouded dawn rose whitely in the east. XXVII Aladdin was jolted miserably down the Peninsula in a white ambulance, which mules dragged through knee-deep mud and over flowing, corduroy roads. He had fever in his whole body, anguish in one leg, and hardly a wish to live. But at Fort Monroe the breezes came hurrying from the sea, like so many unfailing doctors, and blew his fever back inland where it belonged. He lay under a live-oak on the parade ground and once more received the joy of life into his heart. When he was well enough to limp about, they gave him leave to go home; and he went down into a ship, and sailed away up the laughing Chesapeake, and up the broad Potomac to Washington. There he rested during one night, and in the morning took train for New York. The train was full of sick and wounded going home, and there was a great cheerfulness upon them all. Men joined by the brotherhood of common experience talked loudly, smoked hard, and drank deep. There was tremendous boasting and the accounting of unrivaled adventures. In Aladdin’s car, however, there was one man who did not join in the fellowship, for he was too sick. He had been a big man and strong, but he looked like a ghost made of white gossamer and violet shadows. His own mother would not have recognized him. He lay back into the corner of a seat with averted face and closed eyes. The more decent-minded endeavored, on his account, to impose upon the noisy a degree of quiet, but their efforts were unavailing. Aladdin, drumming with his nails upon the windowpane, fell presently into soft song: