His voice was smothered in the sudden out-crash of rifles, through which startled trumpets sounded, followed by the running explosions of cavalry carbines.

“Attention! Draw sabres!” rang out a far voice in the increasing uproar.

The night air thrilled with the rushing swish of steel drawn swiftly across steel.

“Forward!” and “Forward! Forward!” echoed the officers, one after another.

“Steady—right dress!”—taken up by the troop officers: “Steady—right dress! By fours—right wheel—march!”

Pell-mell the flanking parties came crashing back out of the dusky undergrowth, and:

“Steady—trot! Steady—right dress—gallop!” came the orders.

“Gallop!” repeated her captain, blandly; and, under his breath: “We are going to charge. Quick, tell me who you are!”

“Steady—steady—charge!” came the clear shout from the front.

“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.

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

Mr. Chambers is unquestionably the most popular of American novelists to-day. He is the author of some thirty books of extraordinary variety in fiction. He was born in New York, and studied in the studios of Paris to become an artist. While working at painting he took up writing as a pastime, and had such immediate success that he soon gave up art and turned to literature as his life work. Always, as a part of this interest, he has studied and worked in the field of natural history, so that to-day he is something of an authority on birds and butterflies, a confirmed fisherman, and a good shot. All these qualities—the study of art, the experience with nature, both in the line of sport and as an entomologist—have put their stamp upon his work, as will be seen by a glance at his books, for only a few of which there is space here available.

THE FIRING LINE

The most recent of his works is the third in a group of studies in American society life. It is full of the swing of good romance, behind which lies the bright philosophy that the saving quality in our American families is to come with the injection of fresh blood into each new generation. The story itself deals with the adopted daughter of a multimillionaire, who does not even know her own parentage—a girl from nowhere, with all the charm and beauty which a bringing up in the midst of wealth can give her. The hero is a young American of good family who first meets her at Palm Beach, Florida. Here is a background that Mr. Chambers loves—the outdoor life of exotic Florida, the everglades, the hunting, the shooting, and the sea—all in the midst of that other exotic life which goes with a winter resort and a large group of the idle rich. The story—already in its 150th thousand—is, perhaps, the author’s favorite piece of work.

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