I rose to my feet slowly, wondering at the strange lassitude which made me so indifferent to that life I had always before so highly valued. Bungay noticed my hopelessness.

"Durned if prison life don't take all the sand out o' a feller," he said cheerfully. "Blame me, but ye move as if ye wus 'bout half dead. But I reckon, Cap, if ye cud manage ter git out o' yere ternight, an' take some news ter Lee thet I've picked up, he'd 'bout make both of us ginerals. 'Speed, Malise, speed! The dun deer's hide on fleeter foot was never tied.'"

These words brought back to me in an instantaneous flash the old dominant military spirit. For Lee! Yes, for Lee I would yet take chances, undergo fatigue, brave death. If life must be given up, let it be yielded gallantly in the open, and on behalf of my distant comrades.

"News for Lee?" I exclaimed, staring eagerly at him through the now darkened room. "Do you mean it? What news?"

"Thought maybe thet wud wake ye up," he chuckled.

"'Speed on the signal, clansman, speed!' Stan' up on ther bench, Cap, an' put yer ear up yere an' I'LL tell ye. This yere's gospel truth: Sheridan hes started his infantry on a half-circle march fer Minersville. Ther first division left et three o'clock, an' thar won't be nary Yank loafin' en ther valley by noon termorrow. An' more," he added rapidly, his eyes dancing wildly with suppressed excitement,-- "Hancock is a swingin' of his corps west ter meet 'em thar, an' I reckon, as how thar'll be hell fer sartain up ther Shenandoah in less ner a week--es Scott ses, 'the wild sounds of border war.'"