“Ah, my boy, you must hurry from this spot. Every hour that you stay here is fraught with death. You are actually within the rebel lines, Wing. How you ever succeeded in getting here undetected I cannot imagine, unless both chance and the darkness of the night favored you. But now, my boy, you must receive my last message for one I love, and you must hurry back before daylight betrays you to the enemy and to captivity,” said Colonel Rosenthal, gravely. “Where is your wound? oh, where? Help me to find it, that I may stanch the blood,” said Wing, feeling blindly about the body of his colonel. “Well, well, here, if you will have it. Here, in my right leg,” answered Justin, in a voice that was every instant falling fainter. Wing felt the leg of the trowsers soaked in blood; he snatched his dagger from his belt, and ripped it up, so as to get to the wound. And he took his handkerchief, and bound it around the limb just above the knee, and drew it as tight as possible, and tied it fast, and so he checked the fast flow of blood. “Thanks, Wing. Thanks, my dear boy. I think you have helped me for the present. Now hear my last message to one I love, and then turn and fly—save yourself,” said Justin, solemnly. “Tell me, then, your last message. What is it?” inquired Wing. “Say to my beloved sister that I fell leading on my regiment in Wilson’s glorious charge at Cold Harbor. Say if I could have chosen the manner of my death, I would have chosen this. Bid her bestow my property on the bereaved of this war—the bereaved of both sides. For the widows and orphans and old mothers of the rebel soldiers are as much to be pitied as those of our own. Bid her, when the war is over, to open wide her heart and home for the returning prodigals. Bid her do all she can, in her limited woman’s way, to heal the wounds of the country, to reconcile enemies, and to bring back peace. And give her my love and my blessing. Will you remember to deliver all this message, Wing?” “Oh, yes! I will! I will! But is this the _only_ message you have to send?” sobbed Wing. “The only one,” answered Justin. “And is there _no other_—_no other_ that you remember in this awful hour—none to whom you would wish to send a parting word?” wept Wing. “None—there is none!” answered Justin solemnly. “No woman as dear, or dearer than a sister, to whom you would like to send some—some last word of love? oh, speak, if there be, and I will bear your message faithfully, sacredly, silently, until I meet with her for whom it is intended! Oh, think! oh, speak! is there _none_—_none_ but your sister to whom you would send such a message?” pleaded Wing. “There is none!” answered Justin, solemnly. “Beyond this field of blood, there is none but my sister to whom I care to send a message.” Wing sat down and wept convulsively. After a little while Justin put out his hand, and taking that of Wing pressed it, and drew it to his lips and kissed it, and said: “_Britomarte!_”