_ CHAPTER XV. MYSTERIES
"Do you know, Frank," said Manson, a week later, as once more the two lounged beside their camp fire, "that I have the hardest kind of a task to keep myself from believing in omens, and especially the 'three warnings' business? Now, to illustrate, we lost a man out of our company two nights ago, and he was shot within ten feet of where you and I stood the night we were shot at. His name was Bishop, and an old schoolmate of mine. I was on the morning guard-mount detail, and was the first one to see him as we were going along the picket line. He had been shot in the head, and most likely never knew what hit him. To make the fate of Bishop more impressive his going on for night duty instead of myself had been decided by chance."
"Well, what of it?" said Pullen. "It was his bad luck and not yours that time, wasn't it? That fact ought to drive away your presentiments instead of increasing them, my boy."
"Perhaps, and yet it doesn't," replied Manson. "It keeps crowding me into the belief that I am booked for the same fate in the near future, and, do all I can, I can't put that idea away."
"Nonsense," put in Pullen, "that is all bosh, and in the same list with the Friday business, and seeing the moon over your left shoulder, and all that string of superstition that has come down to us, or rather, up to us from the Dark Ages, when mankind believed in no end of hobgoblin things."
"Say, Frank, don't you believe in luck?" interposed Manson. "Don't you believe there is such a thing as good or ill luck in this world, and that one or the other follows us most of the time all through life?"
"Yes, to a certain extent I do," answered Frank. "But I've noticed that good luck comes oftenest to those who put forth the greatest effort, and ill luck is quite apt to chase those who are seemingly born tired."
Manson was silent, for the wholesome optimism of his friend went far to dispel his grewsome imaginings.
"How does a mystery you can't understand affect you, Frank?" he said at last.
"Oh, as for that, if I can't find some solution for it easily I put it away and think of some other matter. Life is too short to waste in trying to solve all we can't understand. And speaking of mysteries," continued Frank, "you ought to have been born and brought up where I was, on an island off the coast of Maine. There is more mystery to the square mile down that way, I believe, than anywhere else in the world, unless it be Egypt. There is a little village called Pemaquid, where they fence it in and charge an admission. I know of a dozen places where there are old Indian villages; old fort sites; old burial-places that fairly bristle with mystery! If you go anywhere near them the natives will ask you to go and look at this spot, or that, and act as if they expected you to take off your hat while they tell all about it in an awed whisper. Oh, we have mystery to burn down in Maine! Maine would just suit you, Manson! There isn't an island on the coast, a lake or mountain in the interior that hasn't got a fairy tale, or some legend connected with it. You remember what I told you about Pocket Island the other night? Well, that is a fair sample. And speaking of fairy tales, there is a curious one current down our way about a Jew and an Indian who were known to be smugglers and came and went in a mysterious way. They sailed a small sloop called the Sea Fox, and, according to the stories, this Jew was one of the most adroit villains ever born with a hooked nose. Where he hailed from the devil only knew, and he never told, and when after he had mystified everybody for two years, smuggled liquor by the boatload all the time without getting caught once, he mysteriously disappeared, and left the entire coast guessing. According to the stories, and there are hundreds told about him, he was the smoothest Sheeney that ever swore by Moses. Dozens of constables were on the watch for him; his sloop was searched many times; every one believed he was smuggling liquor all the time and yet no one ever caught him. All this happened when I was a boy, and yet to-day no one sees a small tops'l sloop gliding into some uninhabited cove that they don't say 'There goes the Sea Fox.'"
"And did no story ever crop out regarding what became of him, or where he went to?" inquired Manson.
"Not a word or whisper; that is where the mystery lies, and, as I said, it is one more added to the large stock we already have."
"I would love to spend a month down your way, Frank," said Manson, after a pause.
"And why not?" replied Pullen. "I've a good boat, plenty of time, and when we get out of this scrape I would be more than glad to have you visit me. I will take you all around among the islands and show you all the mysteries, even Pocket Island, and who knows but we may run across the Sea Fox? Promise me to come, will you?"
"Yes, if ever I get back alive I will," answered Manson.
It was not long after this pleasant chat that there occurred another episode in Manson's war experience that had a peculiar effect upon his imagination, and one that perhaps will illustrate the pathos of war as well as any.
"We do not pause to think what we are about to do when we are marched into battle," he said to his friend Frank the day after it happened; "we are under orders to kill if we can, and the smell of smoke, the roar of guns, and the awful horror of it all deadens every sense except the brutal one to shed blood. But to deliberately shoot an enemy, even though you know he is only waiting to shoot you, is another matter. I had to do it yesterday morning, however, and how miserable I have been ever since, no one can imagine. As you know, the Rebs have been shooting pickets off and on, for two weeks, and orders have been issued to shoot at sight and ask no questions. I had been on the line all night and was so dead tired and worn out with the nervous strain that I was ready to lie down in the mud even, and go to sleep, when just at daylight I saw a man crawling on all fours across an open space maybe twenty rods away, and across a ravine.
"It was a little lighter up where he was and I knew he couldn't see me. I lay low behind a rock and watched him, and as it grew lighter saw he wore gray, and I knew he was an enemy. For ten minutes he never moved, and I lay there with a bead on him trying to decide what to do. I knew he was there to kill, and that my duty was to shoot, and yet I hesitated. We shoot in battle not really knowing whether we kill or not, but to deliberately pull trigger knowing it means sending a human soul into eternity is an awful thing to do. His own action decided the matter, for, as I saw him lift himself a little and then raise his gun to the shoulder, I fired. Then I saw him spring to his feet, whirl around, clasp his hands to his breast and slowly sink forward half out of sight. I put a fresh cartridge in, and then never took my eyes off that gray heap until the relief guard came along. He was not quite dead when we went to him, for the ball had gone through his lungs, and he was fighting hard for breath. He was a beardless boy, not over eighteen, and as he gasped, the blood gushed out of his mouth. We saw him try to speak, but could not, and then he looked at us three; first one and then another. It must be he saw more pity in my face than in the others, for the poor boy suddenly reached out his hand toward me, and as I took it he drew me down to try and whisper to me. It was of no use; I could not catch the sound.
"I wiped the blood away from his lips and then rolled my blouse up for a pillow and laid his head on it. I could see a mute look of gratitude in his eyes, like those of a dying dog, and, mingling with that, the awful fear of death. It was all over in a few moments, and at the last he drew my hand to his lips and kissed it. The other two boys turned away, and I was glad, for the tears were chasing each other down my face. The one bit of consolation I had was, the poor boy did not know I shot him. When it was all over, we left him, and later we three went up there and buried him beside the rock where he died. I saw his face hovering over me all last night, and it will haunt me as long as I live." _