"Sergeant-major Bletson, I desire that, in future, on
all occasions of this kind, the women of the regiment
may be kept out of the way. Look to it, sir!"
The sergeant-major, who had stood erect as his own halbert,
which he held before him in a saluting position, during
this brief admonition of his colonel, acknowledged, by
a certain air of deferential respect and dropping of the
eyes, unaccompanied by speech of any kind, that he felt
the reproof, and would, in future, take care to avoid
all similar cause for complaint. He then stalked stiffly
away, and resumed, in a few hasty strides, his position
in rear of the troops.
"Hard-hearted man!" pursued the same voice: "if my prayers
of gratitude to Heaven give offence, may the hour never
come when my lips shall pronounce their bitterest curse
upon your severity!"
There was something so painfully wild--so solemnly
prophetic--in these sounds of sorrow as they fell faintly
upon the ear, and especially under the extraordinary
circumstances of the night, that they might have been
taken for the warnings of some supernatural agency. During
their utterance, not even the breathing of human life
was to be heard in the ranks.
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