“Look at the Yank with the sword.  Wing him!  Bring him down.”  And bullets sped after the fearless boy.  But he fled on undeterred, and plunged into the mass of flame and smoke.  The fire had gained too great headway by this time for any living thing to pass through it unhurt.  He saw it was useless to attempt to cross as before, and belting the sword about him, he dropped beneath the stringers and tried to make his way hand over hand.  All about him fell the blazing brands.  The biting smoke blinded him.  The very flesh was burning from his arms.  The enemies’ bullets sung about him.  But still he struggled on.  In sheer admiration of his courage, the Confederate general gave the order to cease firing, and the two armies stood silent and watched the plucky fight of this brave boy.  Inch by inch, he gained on his path of fire.  But he could see no longer.  In torturing blackness he groped on, fearful only that he might not succeed in saving the precious sword, that in his blindness he might grasp a blazing timber and his hand be burnt from him, that death in a tongue of flame be swept down into his face, that the bridge might fall and the sword be lost.  At last he heard his comrades shouting.  They guided him with their cheers, “A little farther,” “Keep straight on,” “You’re all right now.”  And then he dropped blazing into the outstretched arms of his comrades, while a mighty shout went up from both sides of the river, as enemy and friend paid the tribute of brave men to a brave deed.

[Illustration:  Lieutenant-Colonel Conwell]

With swelling hearts and tear-blinded eyes, they tenderly laid the insensible hero on a gun carriage and took him to the hospital.  Two days of quivering agony followed and then he met and bravely faced his last enemy.  Opening his eyes, he said clearly and distinctly, “Give the Captain his sword.”  Then his breath fluttered and the little armor-bearer slept the sleep of peace.

CHAPTER XI.

A SOLDIER OF THE CROSS

Under Arrest for Absence Without Leave.  Order of Court Reversed by President.  Certificate from State Legislature of Massachusetts for Patriotic Services.  Appointed by President Lincoln Lieutenant-Colonel on General McPherson’s Staff.  Wounded at Kenesaw Mountain.  Conversion.  Public Profession of Faith.

The tragic death of John Ring was the final crushing news that came to Captain Conwell at Newberne.  Combined with the nervous strain he had been under in trying to get back to his men, the condemnation from his superior officers for his absence, it threw him into a brain fever.  Long days and nights he rolled and tossed, fighting over again the attack on the fort, making heroic efforts to rescue John Ring from his fiery death, urging his horse through tangled forests and dark rivers that seemed never to have another shore.  For weeks the fever racked and wasted him, and finally when feeble and weak, he was once more able to walk, he found himself under arrest for absence without leave during a time of danger.