“Certainly, since I took the initiative.”

“Well, I did not hear the order.  I suppose that I fired at the very moment, and that the noise of my gun prevented my hearing it.  At any rate, a few moments afterward I saw that I was alone, and retreated as skilfully as I knew how.  The company was out of sight.  I saw some signs of water, and soon found a branch, at a place which impressed me so strongly that for a moment I forgot even that the battle was going on.  I am almost certain that I had quenched my thirst at that spot once before.  Besides, there was an extraordinary—­”

“Jones,” interrupted the Captain, “you may have been in the first battle of Manassas.  Why not?  But if you saw the place in last year’s battle, you came upon it from the east or the south.  The positions of the armies the other day were almost opposite their positions last year.  In sixty-one the Federals had almost our position of last Friday.  It will be well to find out what South Carolina troops were in the first battle.  By the way, General Bee, who was killed there, was from South Carolina; I will ask Aleck to tell us what regiments were in Bee’s brigade.”

“Captain,” said I, “when I saw that spot I felt as though I had been there in some former life.”

“Yes?  I have had such feelings.  More than once I have had a thought or have seen a face or a landscape that impressed me with such an idea.”

“Do you believe in a succession of lives?”

“I cannot say that I do,” he replied; “but your question surprises me, sir.  May I ask if you remember reading of such subjects?”

“No, I do not, Captain; but I know that the thought must have once been familiar to me.”

“I dare say you have read some romance,” said he “or, there is no telling, you may have known some one who believed, the doctrine; you may have believed it yourself.  And I doubt that mere reading would have influenced your mind to attach itself so strongly to thoughtful subjects.  I find you greatly interested philosophy.  I think it quite probable, sir, without flattery, that at college your professor had an apt student.”

“But you do not believe the doctrine?”

“I believe in Christ and His holy apostles, sir; I believe that we live after death.”

“And that I shall be I again and again?”

“Pardon me for not following you entirely.  I believe that you will be you again; but my opinion is not fixed as to more than one death.”

“Do you believe that when you live again you will remember your former experiences?”

“I lean to that belief, sir, yet I consider it unimportant; I might go so far as to say that it makes no difference.”

“But how can I be I if I do not remember?  What will connect the past me with the present me?  I have a strange, elusive thought there, Captain.  It sometimes seems to me that I am two,—­one before, and another now,—­and that really I have lived this present time, or these present times, in two bodies and with two minds.”