The letter found in the bag was a subject of heated discussion, and from motives of chivalrous delicacy remained for a long time unread. George Bromley contended that its contents might throw some light on the subject which the books had left in obscurity, while Lieutenant Coleman shrank from offering such an indignity to the memory of the angelic lady of the air. It was finally agreed that Bromley might examine and then destroy it, Lieutenant Coleman declining to be made acquainted with its contents. They never quite understood the association of the beautiful lady with the two men, of whom they had but a poor opinion. When Bromley suggested that to their starved eyes a cook might seem a princess, his comrades were sufficiently indignant, and reminded him of her literary taste, as shown by the quality of the new book found in the bag. After all, they had learned nothing of the great secret that vexed their lives. Was there still in existence a starry flag bearing any semblance to this one which was now floating over the mountain? Was it still loved in the land and respected on the sea? To men who had seen it bent forward under the eagles of the old republic, gray in the stifling powder-clouds, falling and rising in the storm of battle, a pale ghost of a flag, fluttering colorless on the plain or climbing the stubborn mountain, human lives falling like leaves for its upholding--this was the burning question. CHAPTER XIX THE CAVE OF THE BATS When the nine small gunny-sacks stenciled "Skylark, 1870," were emptied on the floor of the house, the Crustacea of the Atlantic's sands had found a resting-place on the summit of Whiteside Mountain, and might yet furnish evidence to some grave scientist of the future to prove beyond a doubt that the sea at no very remote period had surged above the peaks of the Blue Ridge. Starfish, shells, and bones, and fragments of the legs of spider-crabs, horseshoe-crabs, and crayfish, and some very active sand-fleas afforded much scientific amusement to our exiles, and brought vividly to mind the boom of the sea and the whitebait and whales that wiggle-waggle in its depth. Neither the telescope nor the army blanket with "U.S." in the center, nor the two combined, had brought any visitors to the three soldiers, nor any information of the real state of affairs in the United States, which would quickly have terminated their exile. The very pathetic and amusing volume of stories found in the alligator-skin bag caused more tears and healthy laughter than the soldiers had given way to since their great disappointment, and actually brought about such neglect of the October work on the plantation that more than half the potato crop rotted in the ground. On the 21st of that month in this very balloon year, the area of Sherman Territory was extended by the addition of half an acre of rocks and brambles on the boulder side of the mountain, and afterward of much more, as will be shown in due time.