I
tested my bullets time and again, and weighed out the powder as if it
had been gold dust. It was short range, so I made my charges small. I
tried my old device of wrapping each bullet in soft wool smeared with
beeswax. All this passed the midnight hours, and then I lay down for a
little rest, but not for sleep.
I was glad when Faulkner summoned me half an hour before sunrise. I
remember that I bathed head and shoulders in cold water, and very
carefully dressed myself in my best clothes. My pistols lay in the box
which Faulkner carried. I drank a glass of wine, and as we left I took
a long look at the place I had created, and the river now lit with the
first shafts of morning. I wondered incuriously if I should ever see it
again.
My tremors had all gone by now, and I was in a mood of cold,
thoughtless despair. The earth had never looked so bright as we rode
through the green aisles all filled with the happy song of birds. Often
on such a morning I had started on a journey, with my heart grateful
for the goodness of the world. Could I but keep the road, I should come
in time to the swampy bank of the York; and then would follow the
chestnut forest: and the wide marshes towards the Rappahannock; and
everywhere I should meet friendly human faces, and then at night I
should eat a hunter's meal below the stars.
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