"Keep them," said Colburne to Ravenel. "We shall want them as look-outs during the night."
There was an evident hesitation in the whole gang as to whether they should go or stay; but Colburne settled the question by pronouncing in a tone of military command, "Forward, march!"
"Ah! they knows how to mind that sort o' talk," said Major Scott, highly gratified with the spectacular nature of the scene. "I'se a been eddycatin' 'em to millingtary ways. They knows a heap a'ready, they doos."
He smiled with a simple and transitory joy, although he could hear the voice of his wife (commonly called Mamma Major) rising in loud lament amid the chorus of sorrow with which the women and children moved away. The poor creature kept no grudge against her husband for his infidelity of a month previous.
In the lonely and imperilled little household Colburne now took command.
"Since you will fight," he said smiling, "you must fight under my orders. I am the military power, and I proclaim martial law."
He forbade the Ravenels to undress; they must be prepared to run at a moment's notice. He laughed at the Doctor's proposition to barricade the doors and windows, and, instead thereof, opened two or three trunks and scattered articles of little value about the rooms. The property would be a bait, he said, which might amuse the raiders while the family escaped. To gratify Major Scott's tremulous enthusiasm he loaded his own revolver and the Doctor's doubled-barreled fowling-piece, smiling sadly to himself to think how absurd was the idea of fighting off a band of Texans with such a feeble artillery. He posted the two negroes as a vidette a quarter of a mile down the road, with strict orders not to build a fire, not to sleep, not to make a noise, but in case of the approach of a party to hasten to the house and give information. The Major begged hard for the fowling-piece, but Colburne would not let him have it.
"He would be worse than a Nine Months' man," he said to the Doctor. "He would be banging away at stumps and shadows all night. There wouldn't be a living field mouse on the plantation by morning."
The Doctor's imagination was seriously affected by thesebusiness-like preparations, and he silently regretted that he had not gone to the fort, or at least sent his daughter thither. Lillie, though quiet, was very pale, and wished herself in the trenches of Port Hudson, safe under the protection of her invincible husband. Colburne urged and finally ordered them to lie down and try to sleep. Two mules were standing in the yard, saddled and ready to do their part in the hegira when it should be necessary. He examined their harness, then returned into the house, buckled on his sword and revolver, extinguished every light, took his seat at an open window looking towards the danger, waited and listened. The youthful veteran was perfectly calm; notwithstanding that he had taken more precautions than a greenhorn, however timorous, would have thought of. Once in each hour he visited the negroes to see if they were awake; then mounted the levee to listen for tramp of men or horses across the bayou; then went to the sugar-house and listened towards the woods which backed the plantation; then resumed his silent watch at the open window. At two o'clock the moon still poured a pale light over the flat landscape. Colburne, feverish with fatigue, want of sleep, and the small remainder of irritation in his wound, was just saying to himself, "Wemustgo to-morrow," when he saw two dark forms glide rapidly towards the house under cover of a fence, and rush crouching across the door-yard. Without waiting to hear what the negroes had to say, he stepped into the parlor and awoke the two sleepers on the sofas.
"What is the matter?" gasped the Doctor, with the wild air common to people startled out of an anxious slumber.
"Perhaps nothing," answered Colburne. "Only be ready."
By this time the two videttes were in the house, breathless with running and alarm.
"Oh, Cap'm! they's a comin'," whispered Scott. "They's a comin' right smart. We heerd the hosses. They's aquarter mile off, mebbe; but they's a comin' right smart. Oh Cap'm, please give me the double-barril gun. I wants to fight for my liberty an' for Mars Ravenel an' for Miss Lillie."
"Take it," said Colburne. "Now then, Doctor, you and Jim will hurry Mrs. Carter directly down the road to the fort. Jim can keep up on foot. The Major and I will go to the woods, fire from there, and draw the enemy in that direction."
Every one obeyed him without a word. The approaching tramp of horses was distinctly audible at the house when the Ravenels mounted the mules and set off at a lumbering trot, the animals being urged forward by resounding whacks from Jim's bludgeon. Colburne scowled and grated his teeth with impatience and vexation.
"I ought to have sent them away last evening," he muttered with a throb of self-reproach.
"Scott, you and I will have to fight," he said aloud. "They never can escape unless we keep the rascals here. We must fire once from the house; then run to the woods and fire again there. We must show ourselves men now."
"Yes, Mars Cap'm," replied the Major. His voice was tremulous, and his whole frame shook, but he was nevertheless ready to die, if need be, for his liberty and his benefactors. Of physical courage the poor fellow had little; but in moral courage he was at this moment sublime.
Colburne posted himself and his comrade at a back corner of the house, where they could obtain a view of the road which led toward Thibodeaux.
"Now, Scott," he said, "you must not fire until I have fired. You must not fire until you have taken aim at somebody. You must fire only one barrel. Then you must make for the woods along the line of this fence. If they follow us on horseback we can bother them by dodging over the fence now and then. If they catch us, we must fight as long as we can. Cheer up, old fellow. It'sall right. It's not bad business as soon as you're used to it."
"Cap'm, I'se ready," answered Scott solemnly. "I'se not gwine for ter be cotched alive."
Then he prayed for some minutes in a low whisper, while Colburne stood at the corner and watched. "Watch and pray," the latter repeated to himself, smiling inwardly at the odd compliance with the double injunction, so strangely does the mind work on such occasions. It was not a deliberate process of intellection with him; it was an instinctive flash of ideas, not traceable to any feeling which was in him at the time; on the contrary, his prevailing emotion was one of extreme anxiety. The tramp which fled toward the fort gently diminished in the distance, while the tramp which approached from the opposite side grew nearer and louder. When the advancing horsemen got within a hundred yards of the house, they slackened their pace to a walk, and finally halted, probably to listen. Some of them must have dismounted at this time, for Colburne suddenly beheld four footmen at the front gate. He scowled at this sign of experienced caution, and gave a hasty glance toward the garden in his rear, to see if others were not cutting off his retreat. He could not discover the features of any of the four, but he could see that they were of the tall and lank Texan type, dressed in brownish clothing, and provided with short guns, no doubt double-barreled fowling-pieces. Inside of the gate they halted and seemed to hearken, while one of them pointed up the road toward the fort, and whispered to his comrades. Colburne had hoped that they would get into the house, and fall to plundering; but they had evidently overheard the fugitives, for there was a simultaneous backward movement in the group—they were going to remount and pursue. Now was his time, if ever, to effect the proposed diversion. Aiming his six-inch revolver at the tallest, he fired a single barrel. The man yelled a curse, staggered, dropped his gun, and leaned against thefence. Two of his comrades sprang across the road, and threw themselves behind the levee as a breast-work, while the fourth, all grit, turned short and brought his fowling-piece to a level as Colburne drew behind his cover. In that same moment, Major Scott, wild with a sudden madness of conflict, shouted like a lion, bounded beyond the angle of the house, planting himself on two feet set wide apart, his mad black face set toward the enemy, and his gun aimed. Both fired at the same instant, and both fell together, probably alike lifeless. The last prayer of the negro was, "My God!" and the last curse of the rebel was "Damnation!"
By the light of the moon Colburne looked at his comrade, and saw the brains following the blood from a hole in the centre of his forehead. He cast a glance at the levee, fired one more barrel at a broad-brimmed hat which rose above it, listened for a second to an advancing rush of hoofs in order to decide whether it came by the road or by the fields, turned, crossed the garden on a noiseless run, placed himself on the further side of a high and close plantation-fence, and followed its cover rapidly toward the forest. The distance was less than a quarter of a mile, but he was quite breathless and faint before he had traversed it, so weak was he still, and so little accustomed to exercise. In the edge of the wood he sat down on a fallen and mouldering trunk to listen. If the cavalry were pursuing their course up the road, they were doing it very prudently and slowly, for he could hear no more trampling of horses. Tolerably satisfied as to the safety of the Ravenels, he reloaded his two empty barrels, settled his course in his mind, and pushed as straight as he could for Taylorsville without quitting the cover of the forest. Although the fort was not four miles away in a direct line, it was daybreak when he came in sight of a low flattened outline, as of a truncated mound, which showed dimly through the yellowish morning mist. He had still to cross a dead level offour or five hundred yards, with no points of shelter but three small wooden houses. At this moment, when safety seemed so near and sure, he saw on the bayou road, two hundred yards to his right, half a dozen black and indistinct bunches moving in a direction parallel to his own. They were unquestionably horsemen going toward the fort, and nearer to it than he. Changing his direction, he made straight for the river, struck it above the fortification, and got behind the levee, thus securing both a covered way to hide his course, and an earthwork from behind which he could fight. He lost no time in peeping over the top of the mound, but pushed ahead at his best speed, supposing that no cavalry scouts would dare approach very near to a garrison supplied with artillery. He could see a sentry pacing the ramparts, the dark uniform showing clear against the grey sky beyond. He even thought that the man perceived him, and supposed that his dangers were over for the present. He was full of exhilaration, and glanced back at the events of the night with a sense of satisfaction, taking it all for granted with a resolute faith of satisfaction, that the Ravenels had escaped. Major Scott was dead; he was really quite sorry for that; but then two Texans had been killed, or at least disabled; the war was so much nearer its close. In a small way he felt much as a general does who has effected a masterly retreat, and inflicted severe loss upon the pursuing enemy.
Presently a break in the bank forced him to mount the levee. As he reached the top he stared in astonishment and some dismay at a man in butternut-colored clothing, mounted on a rough pony, with the double-barreled gun of Greene's mosstroopers across his saddle-bow, who was posted on the road not forty feet distant. The Butternut immediately said, in the pleasant way current in armies, "Halt, you son of a bitch!"
He fired, but missed, as Colburne skirted the break on a run, and sprang again behind the levee. The Captainthen fired in return, with no other effect than to make the Butternut gallop beyond revolver range. From this distance he called out, ironically, "I say, Yank, have you heard from Brashear City?"
Colburne made no reply, but continued his retreat unmolested. When the sentinel challenged, "Halt! who comes there?" he thought he had never heard a pleasanter welcome.
"Friend," he answered.
"Halt, friend! Corporal of the guard, number five," shouted the sentry.
The corporal appeared, recognized Colburne, and let him in through the gate in a palisade which connected one angle of the fort with the river. The garrison was already under arms, and the men were lying down behind the low works, with their equipments on and their muskets by their sides. The first person from the plantation whom Colburne saw was Mauma Major.
"Where is Mrs. Carter, aunty?" he asked.
"They's all here, bress the Lord! And now you's come!" shouted the good fat creature, clapping her hands with delight. "Whar my ole man?"
"In heaven," said Colburne, with a solemn tenderness which carried instant conviction. The woman screamed, and went down upon her knees with an air and face of such anguish as might cast shame upon those philosophers as have asserted that the negro is not a man.
"Oh! the Lord gave! The Lord gave!" she repeated, wildly.
Perhaps she had forgotten, perhaps she never knew, the remainder of the text; but its piteous sense of bereavement, and of more than human consolation, was evidently clear in some manner to her soul.
Colburne soon discovered the Ravenels and their retainers bivouacked in an angle of the fortification. The Doctor actually embraced him in delight at his escape; and Mrs. Carter seized both his hands in hers, exclaiming, "Oh, I am so happy!"
She was full of gayety. She had had a splendid nap; had actually slept out of doors. Did he see that tent made out of a blanket? She had slept in that. She could bivouac as well as you, Captain Colburne; she was as good a soldier as you, Captain Colburne. She liked it, of all things in the world. She never would sleep in the house again till she was fif—sixty.
It was curious to note how she checked herself upon the point of mentioning fifty as the era of first decrepitude. Her father was over fifty, and therefore fifty could not be old age, notwithstanding her preconceived opinions on the subject.
"But oh, how obliged we are to you!" she added, changing suddenly to a serious view. "How kind and noble and brave you are! We owe you so much!—Isn't it strange that I should be saying such things to you? I never thought that I should ever say anything of the kind to any man but my father and my husband. I am indeed grateful to you, and thankful that you have escaped."
As she spoke, her eyes filled with tears. There was a singular changeableness about her of late; she shifted rapidly and without warning, almost without cause, from one emotion to another; she felt and expressed all emotions with more than usual fervor. She was sadder at times and gayer at times than circumstances seemed to justify. An ordinary observer, a man especially, would have beenapt to consider some of her conduct odd, if not irrational. The truth is that she had been living a new life for the past two months, and that her being, physical and moral, had not yet been able to settle into a tranquil unity of function and feeling. Many women and a few men will understand me here. Colburne was too merely a young man to comprehend anything; but he could stand a little way off and worship. He thought, as she faced him with her cheeks flushed and her eyes the brighter for tears, that she was very near in guise and nature to an angel. It may be a paradox; it may be a dangerous fact to make public; but he certainly was loving another man's wife with perfect innocence.
"What is the matter with Mauma Major?" asked the Doctor.
Colburne briefly related the martyrdom of Scott; and father and daughter hurried to console the weeping black woman.
Then the young soldier bethought himself that he ought to report his knowledge of the rebels to the commandant of the garrison. "You'll find the cuss in there," said a devil-may-care lieutenant, pointing to a brick structure in the centre of the fort. Colburne entered, saw an officer sleeping on a pile of blankets, and to his astonishment recognized him as Major Gazaway. In slumber this remarkable poltroon looked respectably formidable. He was six feet in height and nearly two hundred pounds in weight, large-limbed, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, dark in complexion, aquiline in feature, masculine and even stern in expression. He had begun life as a prize fighter, but had failed in that career, not because he lacked strength or skill, but from want of pluck to stand the hammering. Nevertheless he was a tolerable hand at a rough-and-tumble fight, and still more efficient in election-day bullying and browbeating. For the last ten years he had kept a billiard saloon, had held various small public offices, and had been the Isaiah Rynders of his little city. On thestump he had a low kind of popular eloquence made up of coarse denunciation, slanderous lying, bar-room slang, smutty stories, and profanity. The Rebellion broke out; the Rebel cannon aimed at Fort Sumter knocked the breath out of the Democratic party; and Gazaway turned Republican, bringing over two hundred fighting voters, and changing the political complexion of his district. Consequently he easily got a commission as captain in the three months' campaign, and subsequently as major in the Tenth, much to the disgust of its commandant. He had expected and demanded a colonelcy; he thought that the Governor, in not granting it, had treated him with ingratitude and black injustice; he honestly believed this, and was naively sore and angry on the subject. It needed this trait of born impudence to render his character altogether contemptible; for had he been a conscious, humble coward, he would have merited a pity not altogether disunited from respect. From the day of receiving his commission Gazaway had not ceased to intrigue and bully for promotion in a long series of blotted and ill-spelled letters. How could a mere Major ever hope to go before the people successfully as a candidate for Congress? That distinction was the aim of Gazaway, as of many another more or less successful blackguard. It is true that these horrid battles occasionally shook his ambition and his confidence in his own merits. Under fire he was a meek man, much given to lying low, to praying fervently, to thinking that a whole skin was better than laurels. But in a few hours after the danger was past, his elastic vanity and selfishness rose to the occasion, and he was as pompous in air, as dogmatical in speech, as impudently greedy in his demands for advancement as ever. Such was one of Colburne's superior officers; such was the dastard to whom the wounded hero reported for duty. Colburne, by the way, had never asked for promotion, believing, with the faith of chivalrous youth, that merit would be sure of undemanded recognition.
After several calls of "Major!" the slumberer came tohis consciousness; he used it by rolling over on his side, and endeavoring to resume his dozings. He had not been able to sleep till late the night before on account of his terrors, and now he was reposing like an animal, anxious chiefly to be let alone.
"Major—excuse me—I have something of importance to report," insisted the Captain.
"Well; what is it?" snarled Gazaway. Then, catching sight of Colburne, "Oh! that you, Cap? Whereyoufrom?"
"From a plantation five miles below, on the bayou. I was followed in closely by the rebel cavalry. Their pickets are less than half a mile from the fort."
"My God!" exclaimed Gazaway, sitting up and throwing off his musquito-net. "What do you think? They ain't going to attack the fort, be they?" Then calling his homespun pomposity to his aid, he added, with a show of bravado, "I can't see it. They know better. We can knock spots out of 'em."
"Of course we can," coincided the Captain. "I don't believe they have any siege artillery; and if we can't beat off an assault we ought to be cat-o'-nine-tailed."
"Cap, I vow I wish I had your health," said the Major, gazing shamelessly at Colburne's thin and pale face. "You can stand anything. I used to think I could, but this cussed climate fetchesme. I swear I hain't been myself since I come to Louisianny."
It is true that the Major had not been in field service what he once honestly thought he was. He had supposed himself to be a brave man; he was never disenchanted of this belief except while on the battle-field; and after he had run away he always said and tried to believe that it was because he was sick.
"I was took sick with my old trouble," he continued; "same as I had at New Orleans, you know—the very day that we attacked Port Hudson."
By the way, he had not had it at New Orleans; he hadhad it at Georgia Landing and Camp Beasland; but Colburne did not correct him.
"By George! what a day that was!" he exclaimed, referring to the assault of the 27th of May. "I'll bet more'n a hundred shots come within five feet of me. If I could a kep' up with the regiment, I'd a done it. But I couldn't. I had to go straight to the hospital. I tell you I suffered there. I couldn't get no kind of attention, there was so many wounded there. After a few days I set out for the regiment, and found it in a holler where the rebel bullets was skipping about like parched peas in a skillet. But I was too sick to stand it. I had to put back to the hospital. Finally the Doctor he sent me to New Orleans. Well, I was just gettin' a little flesh on my bones when General Emory ordered every man that could walk to be put to duty. Nothing would do but I must take command of this fort. I got here yesterday morning, and the boat went back in the afternoon, and here we be in a hell of a muss. I brought twenty such invalids along—men no more fit for duty than I be. I swear it's a shame."
Colburne did not utter the disgust and contempt which he felt; he turned away in silence, intending to look up dressings for his arm, which had become dry and feverish. The Major called him back.
"I say, Cap, if the enemy are in force, what are we to do?"
"Why, we shall fight, of course."
"But we ha'n't got men enough to stand an assault."
"How many?"
"One little comp'ny Louisianny men, two comp'nies nine months' men, and a few invalids."
"That's enough. Have you any spare arms?"
"I d'no. I reckon so," said the Major, in a peevish tone. "I reckon you'd better hunt up the Quartermaster, if there is one. I s'pose he has 'em."
"A friend of mine has brought fifteen able-bodied negroes into the fort. I want guns for them."
"Niggers!" sneered the Major. "What good be they?"
Losing all patience, Colburne disrespectfully turned his back without answering, and left the room.
"I say, Cap, if we let them niggers fight we'll be all massacred," were the last words that he heard from Gazaway.
Having got his arm bound anew with wet dressings, he sought out the Quartermaster, and proceeded to accouter the Ravenel negroes, meanwhile chewing a breakfast of hard crackers. Then, meeting the Lieutenant who had directed him to Gazaway's quarters, and who proved to be the commandant of the Louisiana company, they made a tour of the ramparts together, doing their volunteer best to take in the military features of the flat surrounding landscape, and to decide upon the line of approach which the rebels would probably select in case of an assault. There was no cover except two or three wooden houses of such slight texture that they would afford no protection against shell or grape. The levee on the opposite side of the bayou might shelter sharpshooters, but not a column. They trained a twenty-four-pounder iron gun in that direction, and pointed the rest of the artillery so as to sweep the plain between the fort and a wood half a mile distant. The ditch was deep and wide, and well filled with water, but there was no abattis or other obstruction outside of it. The weakest front was toward the Mississippi, on which side the rampart was a mere bank not five feet in height, scarcely dominating the slope of twenty-five or thirty yards which stretched between it and the water.
"I wish the river was higher—smack up to the fortifications," said the Louisiana lieutenant. "They can wade around them fences," he added, pointing to the palisades which connected the work with the river.
This officer was not a Louisianian by birth, any more than the men whom he commanded. They were a medley of all nations, principally Irish and Germans, and he had begun his martial career as a volunteer in an Indianaregiment. He was chock full of fight and confidence; this was the only fort he had ever garrisoned, and he considered it almost impregnable; his single doubt was lest the assailants "might wade in around them fences." Colburne, remembering how Banks had been repulsed twice from inferior works at Port Hudson, also thought the chances good for a defence. Indeed, he looked forward to the combat with something like a vindictive satisfaction. Heretofore he had always attacked; and he wanted to fight the rebels once from behind a rampart; he wanted to teach them what it was to storm fortifications. If he had been better educated in his profession he would have found the fort alarmingly small and open, destitute as it was of bomb-proofs, casemates and traverses. The river showed no promise of succor; not a gunboat or transport appeared on its broad, slow, yellow current; not a friendly smoke could be seen across the flat distances. The little garrison, it seemed, must rely upon its own strength and courage. But, after taking a deliberate view of all the circumstances, Colburne felt justified in reporting to Major Gazaway that the fort could beat off as many Texans as could stand between it and the woods, which was the same as to say a matter of one or two hundred thousand. Leaving his superior officer in a state of spasmodic and short-lived courage, he spread his rubber blanket in a shady corner, rolled up his coat for a pillow, laid himself down, and slept till nearly noon. When he awoke, the Doctor was holding an umbrella over him.
"I am ever so much obliged to you," said Colburne, sitting up.
"Not at all. I was afraid you might get the fever. Our Louisiana sun, you know, doesn't dispense beneficence alone. I saw that it had found you out, and I rushed to the rescue."
"Is Mrs. Carter sheltered?" asked the Captain.
"She is very comfortably off, considering the circumstances."
He was twiddling and twirling his umbrella, as though he had something on his mind.
"I want you to do me a favor," he said, after a moment. "I should really like a gun, if it is not too much trouble."
The idea of the Doctor, with his fifty-five years, his peaceful habits, and his spectacles, rushing to battle made Colburne smile. Another imaginary picture, the image of Lillie weeping over her father's body, restored his seriousness.
"What would Mrs. Carter say to it?" he asked.
"I should be obliged if you would not mention it to her," answered the Doctor. "I think the matter can be managed without her knowledge."
Accordingly Colburne fitted out this unexpected recruit with a rifle-musket, and showed him how to load it, and how to put on his accoutrements. This done, he reverted to the subject which most interested his mind just at present.
"Mrs. Carter must be better sheltered than she is," he said. "In case of an assault, she would be in the way where she is, and, moreover, she might get hit by a chance bullet. I will tell the Major that his Colonel's wife is here, and that he must turn out for her."
"Do you think it best?" questioned the Doctor. "Really, I hate to disturb the commandant of the fort."
But Colburne did think it best, and Gazaway was not hard to convince. He hated to lose his shelter, poor as it was, but he had a salutary dread of his absent Colonel, and remembering how dubious had been his own record in field service, he thought it wise to secure the favor of Mrs. Carter. Accordingly Lillie, accompanied by Black Julia, moved into the brick building, notwithstanding her late declarations that she liked nothing so well as sleeping in the open air.
"Premature old age," laughed Colburne. "Sixty already."
"It is the African Dahomey, and not the American, which produces the Amazons," observed the Doctor.
"If you don't stop I shall be severe," threatened Lillie. "I have a door now to turn people out of."
"Just as though that was a punishment," said Colburne. "I thought out-of-doors was the place to live."
As is usual with people in circumstances of romance which are not instantly and overpoweringly alarming, there was an exhilaration in their spirits which tended towards gayety. While Mrs. Carter and Colburne were thus jesting, the Doctor shyly introduced his martial equipments into the house, and concealed them under a blanket in one corner. Presently the two men adjourned to the ramparts, to learn the cause of a commotion which was visible among the garrison. Far up the bayou road thin yellow clouds of dust could be seen rising above the trees, no doubt indicating a movement of troops in considerable force. From that quarter no advance of friends, but only of Texan cavalry and Louisianian infantry, could be expected. Nearly all the soldiers had left their shelters of boards and rubber blankets, and were watching the threatening phenomenon with a grave fixedness of expression which showed that they fully appreciated its deadly significance. Sand-columns of the desert, water-spouts of the ocean, are a less impressive spectacle than the approaching dust of a hostile army. The old and tried soldier knows all that it means; he knows how tremendous will be the screech of the shells and the ghastliness of the wounds; he faces it with an inward shrinking, although with a calm determination to do his duty; his time for elation will not come until his blood is heated by fighting, and he joins in the yell of the charge. The recruit, deeply moved by the novelty of the sight, and the unknown grandeur of horror or of glory which it presages, is either vaguely terrified or full of excitement. Calm as is the exterior of most men in view of approaching battle, not one of them looks upon it with entire indifference. But let theeyes on the fortifications strain as they might, no lines of troops could be distinguished, and there was little, if any, increase in the number of the rebel pickets who sat sentinel in their saddles under the shade of scattered trees and houses. Presently the murmur "A flag of truce!" ran along the line of spectators. Down the road which skirted the northern bank of the bayou rode slowly, amidst a little cloud of dust, a party of four horsemen, one of whom carried a white flag.
"What does that mean," asked Gazaway. "Do you think peace is proclaimed?"
"It means that they want this fort," said Colburne. "They are going to commit the impertinence of asking us to surrender."
The Major's aquiline visage was very pale, and his outstretched hand shook visibly; he was evidently seized by the complaint which had so troubled him at Port Hudson.
"Cap, what shall I do?" he inquired in a confidential whisper, twisting one of his tremulous fingers into Colburne's buttonhole, and drawing him aside.
"Tell them to go to ——, and then send them there," said the Captain, angrily, perceiving that Gazaway's feelings inclined toward a capitulation. "Send out an officer and escort to meet the fellows and bring in their message. They mustn't be allowed to come inside."
"No, no; of course not. We couldn't git very good terms if they should see how few we be," returned the Major, unable to see the matter in any other light than that of his own terrors. "Well, Cap, you go and meet the feller. No, you stay here; I want to talk to you. Here, where's that Louisianny Lieutenant? Oh, Lieutenant, you go out to that feller with jest as many men 's he's got; stop him 's soon 's you git to him, and send in his business. Send it in by one of your men, you know; and take a white flag, or han'kerch'f, or suthin'."
When Gazaway was in a perturbed state of mind, his conversation had an unusual twang of the provincialismsof tone and grammar amidst which he had been educated, or rather had grown up without an education.
At sight of the Union flag of truce, the rebel one, now only a quarter of a mile from the fort, halted under the shadow of an evergreen oak by the roadside. After a parley of a few minutes, the Louisiana Lieutenant returned, beaded with perspiration, and delivered to Gazaway a sealed envelope. The latter opened it with fingers which worked as awkwardly as a worn-out pair of tongs, read the enclosed note with evident difficulty, cast a troubled eye up and down the river, as if looking in vain for help, beckoned Colburne to follow him, and led the way to a deserted angle of the fort.
"I say, Cap," he whispered, "we've got to surrender."
Colburne looked him sternly in the face, but could not catch his cowardly eye.
"Take care, Major," he said.
Gazaway started as if he had been threatened with personal violence.
"You are a ruined man if you surrender this fort," pursued Colburne.
The Major writhed his Herculean form, and looked all the anguish which so mean a nature was capable of feeling; for it suddenly occurred to him that if he capitulated he might never be promoted, and never go to Congress.
"What in God's name shall I do?" he implored. "They've got six thous'n' men."
"Call the officers together, and put it to vote."
"Well, you fetch 'em, Cap. I swear I'm too sick to stan' up."
Down he sat in the dust, resting his elbows on his knees, and his head between his hands. Colburne sought out the officers, seven in number, besides himself, and all, as it chanced, Lieutenants.
"Gentlemen," he said, "we are dishonored cowards if we surrender this fort without fighting."
"Dam'd if we don't have the biggest kind of a scrimmage first," returned the Louisianian.
The afflicted Gazaway rose to receive them, opened the communication of the rebel general, dropped it, picked it up, and handed it to Colburne, saying, "Cap, you read it."
It was a polite summons to surrender, stating the investing force at six thousand men, declaring that the success of an assault was certain, offering to send the garrison on parole to New Orleans, and closing with the hope that the commandant of the fort would avoid a useless effusion of blood.
"Now them's what I call han'some terms," broke in Gazaway eagerly. "We can't git no better if we fight a week. And we can't fight a day. We hain't got the men to whip six thous'n' Texans. I go for takin' terms while we can git 'em."
"Gentlemen, I go for fighting," said Colburne.
"That's me," responded the Louisiana lieutenant; and there was an approving murmur from the other officers.
"This fort," continued our Captain, "is an absolute necessity to the prosecution of the siege of Port Hudson. If it is lost, the navigation of the river is interrupted, and our army is cut off from its supplies. If we surrender, we make the whole campaign a failure. We must not do it. We never shall be able to face our comrades after it; we never shall be able to look loyal man or rebel in the eye. Wecandefend ourselves. General Banks has been repulsed twice from inferior works. It is an easy chance to do a great deed—to deserve the thanks of the army and the whole country. Just consider, too, that if we don't hold the fort, we may be called on some day to storm it. Which is the easiest? Gentlemen, I say, No surrender!"
Every officer but Gazaway answered, "That's my vote." The Louisiana Lieutenant fingered his revolver threatening, and swore by all that was holy or infernal that he would shoot the first man who talked of capitulating.Gazaway's mouth had opened to gurgle a remonstrance, but at this threat he remained silent and gasping like a stranded fish.
"Well, Cap, you write an answer to the cuss, and the Major'll sign it," said the Louisianian to Colburne, with a grin of humorous malignity. Our friend ran to the office of the Quartermaster, and returned in a minute with the following epistle:
"Sir: It is my duty to defend Fort Winthrop to the last extremity, and I shall do it."
The signature which the Major appended to this heroic document was so tremulous and illegible that the rebel general must have thought that the commandant was either very illiterate or else a very old gentleman afflicted with the palsy.
Thus did the unhappy Gazaway have greatness thrust upon him. He would have been indignant had he not been so terrified; he thought of court-martialing Colburne some day for insubordination, but said nothing of it at present; he was fully occupied with searching the fort for a place which promised shelter from shell and bullet. The rest of the day he spent chiefly on the river front, looking up and down the stream in vain for the friendly smoke of gunboats, and careful all the while to keep his head below the level of the ramparts. His trepidation was so apparent that the common soldiers discovered it, and amused themselves by slyly jerking bullets at him, in order to see him jump, fall down and clap his hand to the part hit by the harmless missile. He must have suspected the trick; but he did not threaten vengeance nor even try to discover the jokers: every feeble source of manliness in him had been dried up by his terrors. He gave no orders, exacted no obedience, and would have received none had he demanded it. Late in the afternoon, half a dozen veritable rebel balls whistling over the fort sent him cowering into the room occupied by Mrs. Carter, where he appropriated a blanket and stretched himself at full length on the floor,fairly grovelling and flattening in search of safety. It was a case of cowardice which bordered upon mania or physical disease. He had just manliness enough to feel a little ashamed of himself, and mutter to Mrs. Carter that he was "too sick to stan' up." Even she, novel as she was to the situation, understood him, after a little study; and the sight of his degrading alarm, instead of striking her with a panic, roused her pride and her courage. With what an admiring contrast of feeling she looked at the brave Colburne and thought of her brave husband!
The last rays of the setting sun showed no sign of an enemy except the wide thin semicircle of rebel pickets, quiet but watchful, which stretched across the bayou from the river above to the river below. As night deepened, the vigilance of the garrison increased, and not only the sentinels but every soldier was behind the ramparts, each officer remaining in rear of his own company or platoon, ready to direct it and lead it at the first alarm. Colburne, who was tacitly recognized as commander-in-chief, made the rounds every hour. About midnight a murmur of joy ran from bastion to bastion as the news spread that two steamers were close at hand, coming up the river. Presently every one could see their engine-fires glowing like fireflies in the distant, and hear through the breathless night the sighing of the steam, the moaning of the machinery, and at last the swash of water against the bows. The low, black hulks, and short, delicate masts, distinctly visible on the gleaming groundwork of the river, and against the faintly lighted horizon, showed that they were gunboats; and the metallic rattle of their cables, as they came to anchor opposite the fort, proved that they had arrived to take part in the approaching struggle. Even Gazaway crawled out of his asylum to look at the cheering reinforcement, and assumed something of his native pomposity as he observed to Colburne, "Cap, they won't dare to pitch into us, with them fellers alongside."
A bullet or two from the rebel sharpshooters posted onthe southern side of the bayou sent him back to his house of refuge. He thought the assault was about to commence, and was entirely absorbed in hearkening for its opening clamor. When Mrs. Carter asked him what was going on, he made her no answer. He was listening with all his pores; his very hair stood on end to listen. Presently he stretched himself upon the floor in an instinctive effort to escape a spattering of musketry which broke through the sultry stillness of the night. A black speck had slid around the stern of one of the gunboats, and was making for the bank, saluted by quick spittings of fire from the levee above and below the junction of the bayou with the river. In reply, similar fiery spittings scintillated from the dark mass of the fort, and there was a rapidwhit-whitof invisible missiles. A cutter was coming ashore; the rebel pickets were firing upon it; the garrison was firing upon the pickets; the pickets upon the garrison. The red flashes and irregular rattle lasted until the cutter had completed its return voyage. There was an understanding now between the little navy and the little army; the gunboats knew where to direct their cannonade so as best to support the garrison; and the soldiers were full of confidence, although they did not relax their vigilance. Doctor Ravenel and Mrs. Carter supposed in their civilian inexperience that all danger was over, and by two o'clock in the morning were fast asleep.
While it was still darkness Lillie was awakened from her sleep by an all-pervading, startling, savage uproar. Through the hot night came tramplings and yellings of a rebel brigade; roaring of twenty-four-pounders and whirring of grape from the bastions of the fort; roaring of hundred-pounders and flight of shrieking, cracking,flashing shells from the gunboats; incessant spattering and fiery spitting of musketry, with whistling and humming of bullets; and, constant through all, the demoniac yell advancing like the howl of an infernal tide. Bedlam, pandemonium, all the maniacs of earth and all the fiends of hell, seemed to have combined in riot amidst the crashings of storm and volcano. The clamor came with the suddenness and continued with more than the rage of a tornado. Lillie had never imagined anything so unearthly and horrible. She called loudly for her father, and was positively astonished to hear his voice close at her side, so strangely did the familiar tones sound in that brutal uproar.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It must be the assault," he replied, astonished into telling the alarming truth. "I will step out and take a look."
"You shall not," she exclaimed, clutching him. "What if you should be hit!"
"My dear, don't be childish," remonstrated the Doctor. "It is my duty to attend to the wounded. I am the only surgeon in the fort. Just consider the ingratitude of neglecting these brave fellows who are fighting for our safety."
"Will you promise not to get hurt?"
"Certainly, my dear."
"Will you come back every five minutes and let me see you?"
"Yes, my dear. I'll keep you informed of everything that happens."
She thought a few moments, and gradually loosened her hold on him. Her curiosity, her anxiety to know how this terrible drama went on, helped her to be brave and to spare him. As soon as her fingers had unclosed from his sleeve he crept to where his rifle stood and softly, seized it; and in so doing he stepped on the recumbent Gazaway, who groaned, whereupon the Doctor politelyapologized. As he stepped out of the building he distinguished Colburne's voice on the river front, shouting, "This way, men!" In that direction ran the Doctor, holding his rifle in both hands, at something like the position of a charge bayonet, with his thumb on the trigger so as to be ready for immediate conflict. Suddenly bang! went the piece at an angle of forty-five degrees, sending its ball clean across the Mississippi, and causing a veteran sergeant near him to inquire "what the hell he was about."
"Really, that explosion was quite extraordinary," said the surprised Doctor. "I had not the least intention of firing. Would you, sir, have the goodness to load it for me?"
But the sergeant was in a hurry, and ran on without answering. The Doctor began to finger his cartridge-box in a wild way, intending to get out a cartridge if he could, when a faint voice near him said, "I'll load your gun for you, sir."
"Wouldyou be so kind?" replied the Doctor, delighted. "I am so dreadfully inexperienced in these operations! I am quite sorry to trouble you."
The sick man—one of the invalids whom Gazaway had brought from New Orleans—loaded the piece, capped it, and added some brief instructions in the mysteries of half-cock and full-cock.
"Really you are very good. I am quite obliged," said the Doctor, and hurried on to the river front, guided by the voice of Colburne. At the rampart he tried to shoot one of our men who was coming up wounded from the palisade, and would probably have succeeded, but that the lock of his gun would not work. Colburne stopped him in this well-intentioned but mistaken labor, saying, "Those are our people." Then, "Your gun is at half-cock.—There.—Now keep your finger off the trigger until you see a rebel."
Then shouting, "Forward, men!" he ran down to thepalisade followed by twenty or thirty, of whom one was the Doctor.
The assailing brigade, debouching from the woods half a mile away from the front, had advanced in a wide front across the flat, losing scarcely any men by the fire of the artillery, although many, shaken by the horrible screeching of the hundred-pound shells, threw themselves on the ground in the darkness or sought the frail shelter of the scattered dwellings. Thus diminished in numbers and broken up by night and obstacles and the differing speed of running men, the brigade reached the fort, not an organization, but a confused swarm, flowing along the edge of the ditch to right and left in search of an entrance. There was a constant spattering of flashes, as individuals returned the steady fire of the garrison; and the sharp clean whistle of round bullets and buckshot mingled in the thick warm air with the hoarse whiz of Minies. Now and then an angry shout or wailing scream indicated that some one had been hit and mangled. The exhortations and oaths of the rebel officers could be distinctly heard, as they endeavored to restore order, to drive up stragglers, and to urge the mass forward. A few jumped or fell into the ditch and floundered there, unable to climb up the smooth facings of brickwork. Two or three hundred collected around the palisade which connected the northern front with the river, some lying down and waiting, and others firing at the woodwork or the neighboring ramparts, while a few determined ones tried to burst open the gate by main strength.
The Doctor put the whole length of his barrel through one of the narrow port holes of the palisade and immediately became aware that some on the outside had seized it and was pulling downwards. "Let go of my gun!" he shouted instinctively, without considering the unreasonable nature of the request. "Let go yourself, you son of a bitch!" returned the outsider, not a whit more rational. The Doctor pulled trigger with a sense of just indignation, anddrew in his gun, the barrel bent at a right angle and bursted. Whether he had injured the rebel or only startled him into letting go his hold, he never knew and did not then pause to consider. He felt his ruined weapon all over with his hands, tried in vain to draw the ramrod, and, after bringing all his philosophical acumen to bear on the subject, gave up the idea of reloading. Casting about for a new armament, he observed behind him a man lying in one of the many little gullies which seemed to slope between the fort and the river, his eyes wide open and fixed upon the palisade, and his right hand loosely holding a rifle. The Doctor concluded that he was sick, or tired, or seeking shelter from the bullets.
"Would you be good enough to lend me your gun for a few moments?" he inquired.
The man made no reply; he was perfectly dead. The Doctor being short-sighted and without his spectacles, and not accustomed, as yet, to appreciating the effects of musketry, did not suspect this until he bent over him, and saw that his woolen shirt was soaked with blood. He picked up the rifle, guessed that it was loaded, stumbled back to the palisade, insinuated the mere muzzle into a port-hole, and fired, with splintering effect on the woodwork. The explosion was followed by a howl of anguish from the exterior, which gave him a mighty throb, partly of horror and partly of loyal satisfaction. "After all, it is only a species of surgical operation," he thought, and proceeded to reload, according to the best of his speed and knowledge. Suddenly he staggered under a violent impulse, precisely as if a strong man had jerked him by the coat-collar, and putting his hand to the spot, he found that a bullet (nearly spent in penetrating the palisades) had punched its way through the cloth. This was the nearest approach to a wound that he received during the engagement.
Meantime things were going badly with the assailants. Disorganized by the night, cut up by the musketry,demoralized by the incessant screaming and bursting of the one-hundred-pound shells, unable to force the palisade or cross the ditch, they rapidly lost heart, threw themselves on the earth, took refuge behind the levees, dropped away in squads through the covering gloom, and were, in short, repulsed. In the course of thirty minutes, all that yelling swarm had disappeared, except the thickly scattered dead and wounded, and a few well-covered stragglers, who continued to fire as sharpshooters.
"We have whipped them!" shouted Colburne. "Hurrah for the old flag!"
The garrison caught the impulse of enthusiasm, and raised yell on yell of triumph. Even the wounded ceased to feel their anguish for a moment, and uttered a feeble shout or exclamation of gladness. The Doctor bethought himself of his daughter, and hurried back to the brick building to inform her of the victory. She threw herself into his arms with a shriek of delight, and almost in the same breath reproached him sharply for leaving her so long.
"My dear, it can't be more than five minutes," said the Doctor, fully believing what he said, so rapidly does time pass in the excitement of successful battle.
"Is it really over?" she asked.
"Quite so. They are rushing for the woods like pelted frogs for a puddle. They are going in all directions, as though they were bound for Cowes and a market. I don't believe they will ever get together again. We have gained a magnificent victory. It is the grandest moment of my life."
"Is Captain Colburne unhurt?" was Lillie's next question.
"Perfectly. We haven't lost a man—except one," he added, bethinking himself of the poor fellow whose gun he had borrowed.
"Oh!" she sighed, with a long inspiration of relief, for the life of her brave defender had become precious in her eyes.
The Doctor had absent-mindedly brought his rifle into the room, and was much troubled with it, not caring to shock Lillie with the fact that he had been personally engaged. He held it behind his back with one hand, after the manner of a naughty boy who has been nearly detected in breaking windows, and who still has a brickbat in his fist which he dares not show, and cannot find a chance to hide. He was slyly setting it against the wall when she discovered it.
"What!" she exclaimed. "Have you been fighting, too? You dear, darling, wicked papa!"
She kissed him violently, and then laughed hysterically.
"I thought you were up to some mischief all the while," she added. "You were gone a dreadful time, and I screaming and looking out for you. Papa, you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"I have reason to be. I am the most disgraceful ignoramus. I don't know how to load my gun. I think I must have put the bullet in wrong end first. The ramrod won't go down."
"Well, put it away now. You don't want it any more. You must take care of the wounded."
"Wounded!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Are there any wounded?"
"Oh dear! several of them. I forgot to tell you. They are to bring them in here. I am going to our trunks to get some linen."
The Doctor was quite astonished to find that there were a number of wounded; for having escaped unhurt himself, he concluded that every one else had been equally lucky, excepting, of course, the man who lay dead in the gulley. As he laid down his gun he heard a groaning in one corner, and went softly towards it, expecting to find one of the victims of the conflict. Lifting up one end of a blanket, and lighting a match to dispel the dimness, he beheld the prostrate Gazaway, his face beaded with the perspiration of heat and terror.
"Oh!" said the Doctor, with perhaps the merest twang of contempt in the exclamation.
"My God, Doctor!" groaned the Major. "I tell you I'm a sick man. I've got the most awful bilious colic that ever a feller had. If you can give me something, do, for God's sake!"
"Presently," answered Ravenel, and paid no more attention to him.
"If I could have discharged my gun," he afterwards said, in relating the circumstance, "I should have been tempted to rid him of his bilious colic by a surgical operation."
The floor of the little building was soon cumbered with half a dozen injured men, and dampened with their blood. The Doctor had no instruments, but he could probe with his finger and dress with wet bandages. Lillie aided him, pale at the sight of blood and suffering, but resolute to do what she could. When Colburne looked in for a moment, she nodded to him with a sweet smile, which was meant to thank him for having defended her.
"I am glad to see you at this work," he said. "There will be more of it."
"What! More fighting!" exclaimed the Doctor, looking up from a shattered finger.
"Oh yes. We mustn't hope that they will be satisfied with one assault. There is a supporting column, of course; and it will come on soon. But do you stay here, whatever happens. You will be of most use here."
He had scarcely disappeared when the whole air became horribly vocal, as, with a long-drawn, screaming battle-yell, the second brigade of Texans moved to the assault, and the "thunders of fort and fleet" replied. Taking the same direction as before, but pushing forward with superior solidity and energy, the living wave swept up to the fortifications, howled along the course of the ditch, and surged clamorously against the palisade. Colburne was there with half the other officers and half the strength of thegarrison, silent for the most part, but fighting desperately. Suddenly there was a shout of, "Back! back! They are coming round the palisade."
There was a stumbling rush for the cover of the fortification proper; and there the last possible line of defence was established instinctively and in a moment. Officers and men dropped on their knees behind the low bank of earth, and continued an irregular, deliberate fire, each discharging his piece as fast as he could load and aim. The garrison was not sufficient to form a continuous rank along even this single front, and on such portions of the works as were protected by the ditch, the soldiers were scattered almost as sparsely as sentinels. Nothing saved the place from being carried by assault except the fact that the assailants were unprovided with scaling ladders. The adventurous fellows who had flanked the palisade, rushed to the gate, and gave entrance to a torrent of tall, lank men in butternut or dirty grey clothing, their bronzed faces flushed with the excitement of supposed victory, and their yells of exultation drowning for a minute the sharp outcries of the wounded, and the rattle of the musketry. But the human billow was met by such a fatal discharge that it could not come over the rampart. The foremost dead fell across it, and the mass reeled backward. Unfortunately for the attack, the exterior slope was full of small knolls and gullies, beside being cumbered with rude shanties, of four or five feet in height made of bits of board, and shelter tents, which had served as the quarters of the garrison. Behind these covers scores if not hundreds sought refuge, and could not be induced to leave them for a second charge. They commenced with musketry, and from that moment the great peril was over. The men behind the rampart had only to lie quiet, to shoot every one who approached or rose at full length, and to wait till daylight should enable the gunboats to open with grape. In vain the rebel officers, foreseeing this danger, strove with voice and example to raise a yell and a rush. The impetuosityof the attack had died out, and could not be brought to life.
"They don't like the way it works," laughed the Louisiana lieutenant in high glee. "They ain't on it so much as they was."
For an hour the exchange of close musketry continued, the strength of the assailants steadily decreasing, as some fell wounded or dead, and others stole out of the fatal enclosure. Daylight showed more than a hundred fallen and nearly two hundred unharmed men; all lying or crouching among the irregularities of that bloody and bullet-torn glacis. Several voices cried out, "Stop firing. We surrender."
An officer in a lieutenant-colonel's uniform repeated these words, waving a white handkerchief. Then rising from his refuge he walked up to the rampart, leaped upon it, and stared in amazement at the thin line of defenders, soldiers and negroes intermingled.
"By ——! I won't surrender to such a handful," he exclaimed. "Come on, boys!"
A sergeant immediately shot him through the breast, and his body fell inside of the works. Not a man of those whom he had appealed to followed him; and only a few rose from their covers, to crouch again as soon as they witnessed his fate. The fire of the garrison reopened with violence, and soon there were new cries of, "We surrender," with a waving of hats and handkerchiefs.
"What shall we do?" asked the Louisiana lieutenant. "They are three to our one. If we let the d—n scoundrels in, they will knock us down and take our guns away from us."
Colburne rose and called out, "Do you surrender?"
"Yes, yes," from many voices, and a frantic agitation of broadbrims.
"Then throw your arms into the river."
First one, then another, then several together obeyed this order, until there was a general rush to the bank, anda prodigious splashing of double-barreled guns and bowie-knives in the yellow water.
"Now sit down and keep quiet," was Colburne's next command.
They obeyed with the utmost composure. Some filled their pipes and fell to smoking; others produced corn-cake from their havresacks and breakfasted; others busied themselves with propping the wounded and bringing them water. Quite a number crawled into the deserted shanties and went to sleep, apparently worn out with the night's work and watching. A low murmur of conversation, chiefly concerning the events of the assault, and not specially gloomy in its tenor, gradually mingled with the groans of the wounded. When the gate of the palisade was closed upon them and refastened, they laughed a little at the idea of being shut up in a pen like so many chickens.
"Trapped, by Jiminy!" said one. "You must excuse me if I don't know how to behave myself. I never was cotched before. I'm a wild man of the prairies, I am."
On all sides the attack had failed, with heavy loss to the assailants. The heroic little garrison, scarcely one hundred and fifty strong, including officers, camp-followers and negroes (all of whom had fought), had captured more than its own numbers, and killed and wounded twice its own numbers. The fragments of the repulsed brigades had fallen back beyond the range of fire, and even the semicircle of pickets had almost disappeared in the woods. The prisoners and wounded were taken on board the gunboats, and forwarded to New Orleans by the first transport down the river. As the last of the unfortunates left the shore Colburne remarked, "I wonder if those poor fellows will ever get tired of fighting for an institution which only prolongs their own inferiority."
"I am afraid not—I am afraid not," said the Doctor. "Not, at least, until they are whipped into reason. They have been educated under an awful tyranny of prejudice,conceit, and ignorance. They are more incapable of perceiving their own true interests than so many brutes. I have had the honor to be acquainted with dogs who were their superiors in that respect. In Tennessee, on one of my excursions, I stopped over night in the log-cabin of a farmer. It was rather chilly, and I wanted to poke the fire. There was no poker. 'Ah,' said the farmer, 'Bose has run off with the poker again.' He went out for a moment, and came in with the article. I asked him if his dog had a fancy for pokers. 'No,' said he; 'but one of my boys once burnt the critter's nose with a hot poker; and ever since then he hides it every time that he comes across it. We know whar to find it. He allays puts it under the house and kivers it up with leaves. It's curious,' said he, 'to watch him go at it, snuffing to see if it is hot, and picking it up and sidling off as sly as a horse-thief. He has an awful bad conscience about it. Perhaps you noticed that when you asked for the poker, Bose he got up and travelled.'—Now, you see, the dog knew what had burned him. But these poor besotted creatures don't know that it is slavery which has scorched their stupid noses. They have no idea of getting rid of their hot poker. They are fighting to keep it."
When it had become certain that the fighting was quite over, Major Gazaway reappeared in public, complaining much of internal pains, but able to dictate and sign a pompous official report of his victory, in which he forgot to mention the colic or the name of Captain Colburne. During the following night the flare of widespread fires against the sky showed that the enemy were still in the neighborhood; and negroes who stole in from the swamps reported that the country was "cram full o' rebs, way up beyon' Mars Ravenel's plantashum."
"You won't be able to reoccupy your house for a long time, I fear," said Colburne.
"No," sighed the Doctor. "My experiment is over. I must get back to New Orleans."
"And I must go to Port Hudson. I shall be forgiven, I presume, for not reporting back to the hospital."
Such was the defence of Fort Winthrop, one of the most gallant feats of the war. Those days are gone by, and there will be no more like them forever, at least, not in our forever. Not very long ago, not more than two hours before this ink dried upon the paper, the author of the present history was sitting on the edge of a basaltic cliff which, overlooked a wide expanse of fertile earth, flourishing villages, the spires of a city, and, beyond, a shining sea flecked with the full-blown sails of peace and prosperity. From the face of another basaltic cliff two miles distant, he saw a white globule of smoke dart a little way upward, and a minute afterwards heard a dull, deeppum!of exploding gunpowder. Quarrymen there were blasting out rocks from which to build hives of industry and happy family homes. But the sound reminded him of the roar of artillery; of the thunder of those signal guns which used to presage battle; of the alarums which only a few months previous were a command to him to mount and ride into the combat. Then he thought, almost with a feeling of sadness, so strange is the human heart, that he had probably heard those clamors, uttered in mortal earnest, for the last time. Never again, perhaps, even should he live to the age of threescore and ten, would the shriek of grapeshot, and the crash of shell, and the multitudinous whiz of musketry be a part of his life. Nevermore would he hearken to that charging yell which once had stirred his blood more fiercely than the sound of trumpets: the Southern battle-yell, full of howls and yelpings as of brute beasts rushing hilariously to the fray: the long-sustained Northern yell, all human, but none the less relentless and stern; nevermore the one nor the other. No more charges of cavalry, rushing through the dust of the distance; no more answering smoke of musketry, veiling unshaken lines and squares; no more columns of smoke, piling high above deafening batteries. No more groans of wounded,nor shouts of victors over positions carried and banners captured, nor reports of triumphs which saved a nation from disappearing off the face of the earth. After thinking of these things for an hour together, almost sadly, as I have said, he walked back to his home; and read with interest a paper which prattled of town elections, and advertised corner-lots for sale; and decided to make a kid-gloved call in the evening, and to go to church on the morrow.