His thoughts revolved with the rapidity of a
pinwheel, throwing off crackling ideas, illuminated with blinding
spurts and exploding colors, in every direction. A vague persistent
pressure sent him toward the city. It was being evacuated; the Union
forces, he knew, were to enter at dawn; but he had stumbled ahead,
careless of consequences, oblivious of possible reprisal.
He was, he recognized by the greater blackness ahead, near the
outskirts of the city--for Richmond was burning. The towering black
mass of smoke was growing more perceptible in the slowly lightening
dawn. Elim Meikeljohn could now hear the low sullen uprush of flames,
the faint crackling of timbers, and a hot aromatic odor met him in
faint waves.
His scabbard beat awkwardly about his heels, and he impatiently
unhooked it and threw it into the gloom of the roadside. The service
revolver was still in its holster; but he had forgotten its presence
and use. In the multicolored confusion of his mind but one conscious
impression remained; and, in its reiteration, he said aloud, over and
over, in dull tones, "Two, Linden Row."
The words held no concrete meaning, they constructed no vision,
embodied no tangible desire; they were merely the mechanical expression
of an obscure and dominating impulse. He was hardly more sensate in his
progress than a nail drawn irresistibly by a magnet.
The gray mist dissolved, and his long haggard face grew visible; it had
not aged in the past four years of struggle--almost from boyhood it had
been marked with somber longitudinal lines--but it had grown keener,
more intense, with the expression of a man whose body had starved
through a great spiritual conflict.
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