"No," said he, to some further question of the corporal; "I'm to wait here for the command." "Is she alive, Kendall?" I asked again. "Hello, Smith." He scanned my dripping horse. "Your saddle's slipped, Smith. Yes, she's alive." XLVIII IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS RIGHT ARM "There they are!" said the corporal and I at the same moment, when we had been but a few minutes on the Plank-road. Two men were ahead of us riding abreast, and a few rods in front of them was a third horseman, apparently alone. Two others had pushed on, one to the house, the other for surgical aid. The two in the rear knew us and let us come up unchallenged; the corporal stayed with them, and I rode on to my leader's side. Charlotte lay in his double clasp balanced so lightly on the horse's crest as hardly to feel the jar of his motion, though her head lay as nearly level with it as Ferry's bending shoulders and the hollow of his lowered right arm would allow; from under his other arm her relaxed figure, in its long riding-skirt, trailed down over his knee and stirrup; her broad limp hat, as if it had been so placed in sport, hung at his back with its tie-ribbons round his throat, while the black masses of her hair spread in ravishing desolation over and under his supporting arm. Her face was fearfully pale, the brows glistened with the damp of nervous shock, and every few moments she feebly brought a handkerchief to her lips to wipe away the blood that rose to them with every sigh. Steadfastly, except when her eyes closed now and then in deathly exhaustion, her gaze melted into his like a suffering babe's into its mother's. From time to time a brief word passed between them, and with joy I noticed that it was always in French; I hoped with my whole heart and soul that they had already said things, and were saying things yet, which no one else ought to hear. I waited some time for his notice, and when he gave it it was only by saying to her in a full voice and in English "Dick Smith is here, alongside of us." Her response was a question, which he repeated: "Is he hurt? no, Richard never gets hurt. Shall he tell us whatever he knows?" He bent low for the faint reply, and when it came he sparkled with pride. "'It matters little,' she says, 'to either of us, now.' Give your report; but _I_ tell you"--there came a tiger look in his eyes--"there is now no turning back; we shall go on." I answered with soft elation: "My news needn't turn you back: Oliver is dead." He drew a long breath, murmured "My God!" and then suddenly asked "You found him so, or--?" "We found him so; had to leave him so; head laid wide open; we were about to be captured--thought the news would be better than nothing--"