"Charge! Charge! Charge!" echoed the ringing orders from troop to troop. In the darkness of the thickets she rode knee to knee with her captain. The grand stride of her horse thundering along beside his through obscurity filled her with wild exultation; she loosened curb and snaffle and spurred forward amid hundreds of plunging horses, now goaded frantic by the battle clangor of the trumpets. Everywhere, right and left, the red flash of Confederate rifles ran along their flanks; here and there a stricken horse reared or stumbled, rolling over and over; or some bullet-struck rider swayed wide from the saddle and went down to annihilation. Fringed with darting flames the cavalry drove on headlong into the unseen; behind clanked the flying battery, mounted gunners sabering the dark forms that leaped out of the underbrush; on--on--rushed horses and guns, riders and cannoneers--a furious, irresistible, chaotic torrent, thundering through the night. [Illustration: "'Yes,' she gasped, 'The Special Messenger--noncombatant!'"] Far behind them now danced and flickered the rifle flames; fainter, fainter grew the shots; and at last, galloping steadily and, by degrees, reforming as they rode, the column swung out toward the bushy hills in the west, slowed to a canter, to a trot, to a walk. "We are through!" said the Special Messenger, brokenly, breathing fast as she pulled in her mount and turned in the starlight toward the man she rode beside. At the same moment the column halted; and he drew bridle and looked steadily at her. All around them was the confusion and turmoil of stamping, panting horses, the clank of metal, the heavy breathing of men. "Look at me!" she whispered, baring her head in the starlight. "Quick! Look at me! Do you know me now? Look at me--if you--love me!" A low cry broke from him; she held out both arms to him in the dim light, forcing her horse up against his stirrup. "If you love me," she breathed, "say so now!" Leaning free from his saddle he caught her in his arms, held her, looked into her eyes. "You?" "Yes," she gasped, "the Special Messenger--noncombatant!" "The Special Messenger? _You?_ Good God!" A dull tattoo of hoofs along the halted column, nearer, nearer, clattering toward them from the front, and: "Good-by!" she sobbed; "they're coming for me! Oh--do you love me? Do you? Life was so dark and dreadful without you! I--I never forgot--never, never! I----" Her gloved hands crept higher around the neck of the man who held her crushed in his arms. "If I return," she sighed, "will you love me? Don't--don't look at me that way. I will return--I promise. I love you so! I love you!" Their lips clung for a second in the darkness, then she swung her horse, tearing herself free of his arms; and, bared head lifted to the skies, she turned south, riding all alone out into the starlit waste. THE END * * * * * * OTHER BOOKS BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS