They picked us up from the hungry waves-- Alas! not all. And where, Where is the faithful negro lad? “Back oars! avast! look there!” We looked, and as heaven may save my soul, I pledge you a sailor’s word, There, fathoms deep in the sea he lay, Still grasping his master’s sword. We drew him out; and many an hour We wrought with his rigid form, Ere the almost smothered spark of life By slow degrees grew warm. The first dull glance that his eyeballs rolled Was down toward his shrunken hand; And he smiled, and closed his eyes again, As they fell on the rescued brand. And no one touched the sacred sword, Till at length, when Morris came, The little negro stretched it out, With his eager eyes aflame. And if Morris wrung the poor boy’s hand, And his words seemed hard to speak, And tears ran down his manly cheeks, What tongue shall call him weak? [Illustration] THE OLD SERGEANT. BY FORCEYTHE WILLSON. “Come a little nearer, Doctor,--thank you!--let me take the cup: Draw your chair up,--draw it closer,--just another little sup! Maybe you may think I’m better; but I’m pretty well used up,-- Doctor, you’ve done all you could do, but I’m just a going up! “Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain’t much use to try--” “Never say that,” said the surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh; “It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die!” “What you _say_ will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die. “Doctor, what has been the matter?”--“You were very faint, they say; You must try to get to sleep now.”--“Doctor, have I been away?” “Not that anybody knows of!”--“Doctor--Doctor, please to stay! There is something I must tell you, and you won’t have long to stay! “I have got my marching orders, and I’m ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted!--But it couldn’t ha’ been so,-- For as sure as I’m a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh, I’ve this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh! “This is all that I remember: The last time the lighter came, And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much the same, He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name: ’ORDERLY SERGEANT--ROBERT BURTON!’--just that way it called my name. “And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, Knew it couldn’t be the lighter,--he could not have spoken so; And I tried to answer, ‘Here, sir!’ but I couldn’t make it go! For I couldn’t move a muscle, and I couldn’t make it go! “Then I thought: It’s all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore: Just another foolish _grapevine_[1]--and it won’t come any more; But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before: ‘ORDERLY SERGEANT--ROBERT BURTON!’ even plainer than before.