John stood watching him thoughtfully. He had finished one pile of bodies, dragging them by the heels one by one, and throwing them into the trenches. He was just about to begin on the last stack when he saw that he had left one lying a little further back in the shadows. Julius looked at it dubiously and scratched his head. He didn't like the idea of going so far back in the dark, away from the light, but there was no help for it. The guard stood with his musket scowling: "Get a move on you--damn you, don't stand there!" he growled. Julius walled his eyes at his tormentor and ran for the body. It happened to be the sleeping form of a tired guard who had been up three nights. The negro grabbed his legs and rushed toward the lights and the trenches. He had almost reached the grave when the corpse gave a vicious kick and yelled: "Here--what'ell!" Julius didn't stop to look or to answer. What he felt in his hands was enough. With a yell of terror he dropped the thing and plunged straight ahead. "Gawd, save me!" he gasped. His foot slipped on the edge of the trench and he rolled in the dark hole. With the leap of a frightened panther he reached the solid earth and flew, each leap a muttered prayer: "Save me! Lawd, save me!" Standing there beside the grim piles of his dead comrades John Vaughan joined the guard in uncontrollable laughter. It was many a day before he saw his cook again. The laughter suddenly stopped, and he turned from the scene with a shudder. "I wonder," he muttered, "if I live through this war, whether I'll come out of it with a soul!" The report from Chancellorsville drifted slowly, ominously, appallingly, over Washington with the clouds and mists of the storm which swept up the Potomac and shrouded the city in a grey mantle of mourning. The White House was still. The dead were walking through its great rooms of state. The anguished heart who watched by the window toward the hills of Virginia saw and heard each muffled footfall. He walked to the table with stumbling, uncertain step at last, his face ghastly and rigid, its color grey ashes, his deep set eyes streaming with tears, sank helplessly into a chair, and for the first time gave way to despair: "O my God! My God! what will the country say!" CHAPTER XXVIII THE MOONLIT RIVER Betty Winter was quick to answer the hurry call for more nurses in the field hospital at Chancellorsville. The results at the end of three days' carnage had paralyzed the service. She left the Carver Hospital on receipt of the first cry for help and hurried to her home to complete her preparations to leave for the front. Her father was at breakfast alone. She called her greeting from the hall, rushed to her room, packed a bag, and quickly came down. She slipped her arm around his neck, bent and kissed him good-bye. He held her a moment: "You must leave so early, dear?"