covered thick with smoke, and through this were visible dark masses of men and the same spark-like flashing of fiery streaks. Along the line of the hedge, closer to the house, still another wall of smoke arose, and Linsky could discern a fringe of blue-coated men lying flat under the cover of the thorn-bushes, whom he guessed to be sharp-shooters.
“That’s what we went up there for—to start that thing a-goin’,” said Zeke, not without pride. “See the guide—that little flag there by the bushes? That’s our regiment. They was comin’ up as we skedaddled out. Didn’t yeh hear ’em cheer? They was cheerin’ for us, Irish—that is, some for us and a good deal for the sow-bellies and ham.”
No answer came, and Zeke stood for a moment longer, taking in with his practiced gaze the details of the fight that was raging before him. Half-spent bullets were singing all about him, but he seemed to give them no more thought than in his old Adirondack home he had wasted on mosquitoes. The din and deafening rattle of this musketry war had kindled a sparkle in his gray eyes.
“There they go, Irish! Gad! we’ve got ’em on the run! We kin scoot across now and jine our men.”
Still no answer. Zeke turned, and, to his amazement, saw no Linsky at his side. Puzzled, he looked vaguely about among the trees for an instant. Then his wandering glance fell, and the gleam of battle died out of his eyes as he saw the Irishman lying prone at his very feet, his face flat in the wet moss and rotting leaves, an arm and leg bent under the prostrate body. So wrapt had Zeke’s senses been in the noisy struggle outside, he had not heard his comrade’s fall.
The veteran knelt, and gently turned Linsky over on his back. A wandering ball had struck him in the throat. The lips were already colorless, and from their corners a thin line of bright blood had oozed to mingle grotesquely with the molasses on the unshaven jaw. To Zeke’s skilled glance it was apparent that the man was mortally wounded—perhaps already dead, for no trace of pulse or heartbeat could be found. He softly closed the Irishman’s eyes, and put the sorghum-stained cap over his face.
Zeke rose and looked forth again upon the scene of battle. His regiment had crossed the fence and gained possession of the farm-house, from which they were firing into the woods beyond. Further to the left, through the mist of smoke which hung upon the meadow, he could see that large masses of troops in blue were being pushed forward. He thought he would go and join his company. He would tell the fellows how well Linsky had behaved. Perhaps, after the fight was all over, he would lick Hugh O’Mahony for having spoken so churlishly to him.
He turned at this and looked down again upon the insensible Linsky.
“Well, Irish, you had sand in your gizzard, anyway,” he said, aloud. “I’ll whale the head off ’m O’Mahony, jest on your account.”
Then, musing upon some new ideas which these words seem to have suggested, he knelt once more, and, unbuttoning Linsky’s jacket, felt through his pockets.
He drew forth a leather wallet and a long linen-lined envelope containing many papers. The wallet had in it a comfortable looking roll of green, backs, but Zeke’s attention was bestowed rather upon the papers.
“So these would give O’Mahony an estate, eh?” he pondered, half aloud, turning them over. “It ’ud be a tolerable good bet that he never lays eyes on ’em. We’ll fix that right now, for fear of accidents.”
He began to kick about in the leaves, as he rose a second time, thinking hard upon the problem of what to do with the papers. He had no matches. He might cut down a cartridge, and get a fire by percussion—but that would take time. So, for that matter, would digging a hole to bury the papers.
All at once his abstracted face lost its lines of labor, and brightened radiantly. He thrust wallet and envelope into his own pocket, and smilingly stepped forward once more to see what the field of battle was like. The farm-house had become the headquarters of a general and his staff, and the noise of fighting had passed away to the furthest confines of the woods.
“This darned old campaign won’t last up’ard of another week,” he said, in satisfied reverie. “I reckon I’ve done my share in it, and somethin’ to lap over on the next. Nobody ’ll be a cent the wuss off if I turn up missin’ now.”
Gathering up the provisions and his gun, Zeke turned abruptly, and made his way down the steep side-hill into the forest, each long stride bearing him further from Company F’s headquarters.
CHAPTER IV.—THE O’MAHONY ON ERIN’S SOIL.
It became known among the passengers on the Moldavian, an hour or so before bedtime on Sunday evening, April 23, 1865, that the lights to be seen in the larboard distance were really on the Irish coast. The intelligence ran swiftly through all quarters of the vessel. Its truth could not be doubted; the man on the bridge said that it truly was Ireland; and if he had not said so, the ship’s barber had.
Excitement over the news reached its highest point in the steerage, two-thirds of the inmates of which hung now lovingly upon the port rail of the forward deck, to gaze with eager eyes at the far-off points of radiance glowing through the soft northern spring night.
Farther down the rail, from the obscurity of the jostling throng, a stout male voice sent up the opening bars of the dear familiar song, “The Cove of Cork.” The ballad trembled upon the air as it progressed, then broke into something like sobs, and ceased.
“Ah, Barney,” a sympathetic voice cried out, “ ’tis no longer the Cove; ’tis Queenstown they’re after calling it now. Small wandher the song won’t listen to itself be sung!”
“But they haven’t taken the Cove away—God bless it!” the other rejoined, bitterly. “ ’Tis there, beyant the lights, waitin’ for its honest name to come back to it when—when things are set right once more.”
“Is it the Cove you think you see yonder?” queried another, captiously. “Thim’s the Fastnet and Cape Clear lights. We’re fifty miles and more from Cork.”
“Thin if ’twas daylight,” croaked an old man between coughs, “we’d be in sight of The O’Mahony’s castles, or what bloody Cromwell left of them.”
“It’s mad ye are, Martin,” remonstrated a female voice. “The’re laygues beyant on Dunmanus Bay. Wasn’t I born mesilf at Durrus?”
“The O’Mahony of Murrisk is on board,” whispered some one else, “returnin’ to his estates. I had it this day from the cook’s helper. The quantity of mate that same O’Mahony’s been ’atin’! An’ dhrink, is it? Faith, there’s no English nobleman could touch him!”
On the saloon deck, aft, the interest excited by these distant lights was less volubly eager, but it had sufficed to break up the card-games in the smoking-room, and even to tempt some malingering passengers from the cabins below. Such talk as passed among the group lounging along the rail, here in the politer quarter, bore, for the most part, upon the record of the Moldavian on this and past voyages, as contrasted with the achievements of other steamships. No one confessed to reverential sensations in looking at the lights, and no one lamented the change of name which sixteen years before, had befallen the Cove of Cork; but there was the liveliest speculation upon the probabilities of the Bahama, which had sailed from New York the same day, having beaten
