Chapter XIV. The Rock of Chickamauga

Dick, after eating the cold food which was served to him, sank into a state which was neither sleep nor stupor. It was a mystic region between the conscious and the unconscious, in which all things were out of proportion, and some abnormal.

He saw before him a vast stretch of dead blackness which he knew nevertheless was peopled by armed hosts ready to spring upon them at dawn. The darkness and silence were more oppressive than sound and light, even made by foes, would have been. It numbed him to think there was so little of stirring life, where nearly two hundred thousand men had fought.

Then a voice arose that made him shiver. But it was only the cold wind from the mountains whistling a dirge. Nevertheless it seemed human to Dick. It was at once a lament and a rebuke. He edged over a little and touched Warner.

"Is that you, Dick?" asked the Vermonter.

"What's left of me. I've one or two wounds, mere scratches, George, but I feel all pumped out. I'm like one of those empty wine-skins that you read about, empty, all dried up, and ready to be thrown away."

"Something of the same feeling myself, Dick. I'm empty and dried up, too, but I'm not ready to be thrown away. Nor are you. We'll fill up in the night. Our hearts will pump all our veins full of blood again, and we'll be ready to go out in the morning, and try once more to get killed."

"I don't see how you and Pennington and I, all three of us, came out of it alive to-day."

"That question is bothering me, too, Dick. A million bullets were fired at each of us, not to count thousands of pieces of shell, shrapnel, canister, grape, and slashes of swords. Take any ratio of percentage you please and something should have got us. According to every rule of algebra, not more than one of us three should be alive now. Yet here we are."

"Maybe your algebra is wrong?"

"Impossible. Algebra is the most exact of all sciences. It does not admit of error. Both by algebra and by the immutable law of averages at least two of us are dead."

"But we don't know which two."

"That's true. Nevertheless it's certain that those two, whoever they may be, are here on borrowed time. What do your wounds amount to, Dick?"

"Nothing, I had forgotten 'em. I've lost a little blood, but what does it amount to on a day like this, when blood is shed in rivers?"

"That's true. My own skin has been broken, but just barely, four times by bullets. I've a notion that those bullets were coming straight for some vital part of me, but seeing who it was, and knowing that such a noble character ought not to be slain, they turned aside as quickly as possible, but not so quickly that they could avoid grazing my skin."

Dick and Pennington laughed. Warner's fooling amused them and relieved