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diff --git a/old/11719.txt b/old/11719.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..137b859 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11719.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13040 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Kincaid's Battery, by George W. Cable, +Illustrated by Alonzo Kimball + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Kincaid's Battery + +Author: George W. Cable + +Release Date: March 25, 2004 [eBook #11719] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINCAID'S BATTERY*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Loriba Barber, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 11719-h.htm or 11719-h.zip: + (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/7/1/11719/11719-h/11719-h.htm) + or + (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/7/1/11719/11719-h.zip) + + + + + +KINCAID'S BATTERY + +BY + +GEORGE W. CABLE + +1908 + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +ALONZO KIMBALL + + + + + + +[Illustration: "If anyone alive," he cried, "knows any cause why this +thing should not be."] + + + + +To + +E.C.S.C. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. Carrollton Gardens + II. Carriage Company + III. The General's Choice + IV. Manoeuvres + V. Hilary?--Yes, Uncle? + VI. Messrs. Smellemout and Ketchem + VII. By Starlight + VIII. One Killed + IX. Her Harpoon Strikes + X. Sylvia Sighs + XI. In Column of Platoons + XII. Mandeville Bleeds + XIII. Things Anna Could Not Write + XIV. Flora Taps Grandma's Cheek + XV. The Long Month of March + XVI. Constance Tries to Help + XVII. "Oh, Connie, Dear--Nothing--Go On" + XVIII. Flora Tells the Truth! + XIX. Flora Romances + XX. The Fight for the Standard + XXI. Constance Cross-Examines + XXII. Same Story Slightly Warped + XXIII. "Soldiers!" + XXIV. A Parked Battery Can Raise a Dust + XXV. "He Must Wait," Says Anna + XXVI. Swift Going, Down Stream + XXVII. Hard Going, Up Stream + XXVIII. The Cup of Tantalus + XXIX. A Castaway Rose + XXX. Good-by, Kincaid's Battery + XXXI. Virginia Girls and Louisiana Boys + XXXII. Manassas + XXXIII. Letters + XXXIV. A Free-Gift Bazaar + XXXV. The "Sisters of Kincaid's Battery" + XXXVI. Thunder-Cloud and Sunburst + XXXVII. "Till He Said, 'I'm Come Hame, My Love'" +XXXVIII. Anna's Old Jewels + XXXIX. Tight Pinch + XL. The License, The Dagger + XLI. For an Emergency + XLII. "Victory! I Heard it as PI'--" + XLIII. That Sabbath at Shiloh + XLIV. "They Were all Four Together" + XLV. Steve--Maxime--Charlie-- + XLVI. The School of Suspense + XLVII. From the Burial Squad + XLVIII. Farragut + XLIX. A City in Terror + L. Anna Amazes Herself + LI. The Callender Horses Enlist + LII. Here They Come + LIII. Ships, Shells, and Letters + LIV. Same April Day Twice + LV. In Darkest Dixie and Out + LVI. Between the Millstones + LVII. Gates of Hell and Glory + LVIII. Arachne + LIX. In a Labyrinth + LX. Hilary's Ghost + LXI. The Flag-of-Truce Boat + LXII. Farewell, Jane! + LXIII. The Iron-clad Oath + LXIV. "Now, Mr. Brick-Mason--" + LXV. Flora's Last Throw + LXVI. "When I Hands in My Checks" + LXVII. Mobile + LXVIII. By the Dawn's Early Light + LXIX. Southern Cross and Northern Star + LXX. Gains and Losses + LXXI. Soldiers of Peace + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"If any one alive," he cried, "knows any cause why this thing should not +be" + +Anna + +"'Tis good-by, Kincaid's Battery" + +And the next instant she was in his arms + +"No! not under this roof--nor in sight of _these things_." + +"You 'ave no ri-ight to leave me! _Ah, you shall not_!" + +She dropped into a seat, staring like one demented. + + + + +Kincaid's Battery + + +I + + +CARROLLTON GARDENS + +For the scene of this narrative please take into mind a wide +quarter-circle of country, such as any of the pretty women we are to +know in it might have covered on the map with her half-opened fan. + +Let its northernmost corner be Vicksburg, the famous, on the +Mississippi. Let the easternmost be Mobile, and let the most southerly +and by far the most important, that pivotal corner of the fan from which +all its folds radiate and where the whole pictured thing opens and +shuts, be New Orleans. Then let the grave moment that gently ushers us +in be a long-ago afternoon in the Louisiana Delta. + +Throughout that land of water and sky the willow clumps dotting the +bosom of every sea-marsh and fringing every rush-rimmed lake were yellow +and green in the full flush of a new year, the war year, 'Sixty-one. + +Though rife with warm sunlight, the moist air gave distance and poetic +charm to the nearest and humblest things. At the edges of the great +timbered swamps thickets of young winter-bare cypresses were budding yet +more vividly than the willows, while in the depths of those overflowed +forests, near and far down their lofty gray colonnades, the dwarfed +swamp-maple drooped the winged fruit of its limp bush in pink and +flame-yellow and rose-red masses until it touched its own image in the +still flood. + +That which is now only the "sixth district" of greater New Orleans was +then the small separate town of Carrollton. There the vast Mississippi, +leaving the sugar and rice fields of St. Charles and St. John Baptist +parishes and still seeking the Gulf of Mexico, turns from east to south +before it sweeps northward and southeast again to give to the Creole +capital its graceful surname of the "Crescent City." Mile-wide, brimful, +head-on and boiling and writhing twenty fathoms deep, you could easily +have seen, that afternoon, why its turfed levee had to be eighteen feet +high and broad in proportion. So swollen was the flood that from any +deck of a steamboat touching there one might have looked down upon the +whole fair still suburb. + +Widely it hovered in its nest of rose gardens, orange groves, avenues of +water-oaks, and towering moss-draped pecans. A few hundred yards from +the levee a slender railway, coming from the city, with a highway on +either side, led into its station-house; but mainly the eye would have +dwelt on that which filled the interval between the nearer high road and +the levee--the "Carrollton Gardens." + +At a corner of these grounds closest to the railway station stood a +quiet hotel from whose eastern veranda it was but a step to the centre +of a sunny shell-paved court where two fountains danced and tinkled to +each other. Along its farther bound ran a vine-clad fence where a row of +small tables dumbly invited the flushed visitor to be inwardly cooled. +By a narrow gate in this fence, near its townward end, a shelled walk +lured on into a musky air of verdurous alleys that led and misled, +crossed, doubled, and mazed among flowering shrubs from bower to bower. +Out of sight in there the loiterer came at startling moments face to +face with banks of splendid bloom in ravishing negligee--Diana disrobed, +as it were, while that untiring sensation-hunter, the mocking-bird, +leaped and sang and clapped his wings in a riot of scandalous mirth. + +In the ground-floor dining-room of that unanimated hotel sat an old +gentleman named Brodnax, once of the regular army, a retired veteran of +the Mexican war, and very consciously possessed of large means. He sat +quite alone, in fine dress thirty years out of fashion, finishing a late +lunch and reading a newspaper; a trim, hale man not to be called old in +his own hearing. He had read everything intended for news or +entertainment and was now wandering in the desert of the advertising +columns, with his mind nine miles away, at the other end of New Orleans. + +Although not that person whom numerous men of his acquaintance had begun +affectionately to handicap with the perilous nickname of "the ladies' +man," he was thinking of no less than five ladies; two of one name and +three of another. Flora Valcour and her French grandmother (as well as +her brother of nineteen, already agog to be off in the war) had but +lately come to New Orleans, from Mobile. On a hilly border of that +smaller Creole city stood the home they had left, too isolated, with war +threatening, for women to occupy alone. Mrs. Callender was the young +widow of this old bachelor's life-long friend, the noted judge of that +name, then some two years deceased. Constance and Anna were her +step-daughters, the latter (if you would believe him) a counterpart of +her long-lost, beautiful mother, whose rejection of the soldier's suit, +when he was a mere lieutenant, was the well-known cause of his +singleness. These Callender ladies, prompted by him and with a sweet +modesty of quietness, had just armed a new field battery with its six +splendid brass guns, and it was around these three Callenders that his +ponderings now hung; especially around Anna and in reference to his much +overprized property and two nephews: Adolphe Irby, for whom he had +obtained the command of this battery, which he was to see him drill this +afternoon, and Hilary Kincaid, who had himself cast the guns and who was +to help the senior cousin conduct these evolutions. + +The lone reader's glance loitered down a long row of slim paragraphs, +each beginning with the same wee picture of a steamboat whether it +proclaimed the _Grand Duke_ or the _Louis d'Or_, the _Ingomar_ bound for +the "Lower Coast," or the _Natchez_ for "Vicksburg and the Bends." +Shifting the page, he read of the Swiss Bell-Ringers as back again +"after a six years' absence," and at the next item really knew what he +read. It was of John Owens' appearance, every night, as _Caleb Plummer_ +in "Dot," "performance to begin at seven o'clock." Was it there Adolphe +would this evening take his party, of which the dazzling Flora would be +one and Anna, he hoped, another? He had proposed this party to Adolphe, +agreeing to bear its whole cost if the nephew would manage to include in +it Anna and Hilary. And Irby had duly reported complete success and +drawn on him, but the old soldier still told his doubts to the +newspaper. + +"Adolphe has habits," he meditated, "but success is not one of them." + +Up and down a perpendicular procession on the page he every now and then +mentally returned the salute of the one little musketeer of the same +height as the steamboat's chimneys, whether the Attention he challenged +was that of the Continentals, the Louisiana Grays, Orleans Cadets, +Crescent Blues or some other body of blithe invincibles. Yet his thought +was still of Anna. When Adolphe, last year, had courted her, and the +hopeful uncle had tried non-intervention, she had declined him--"and oh, +how wisely!" For then back to his native city came Kincaid after years +away at a Northern military school and one year across the ocean, and +the moment the uncle saw him he was glad Adolphe had failed. But now if +she was going to find Hilary as light-headed and cloying as Adolphe was +thick-headed and sour, or if she must see Hilary go soft on the slim +Mobile girl--whom Adolphe was already so torpidly enamored +of--"H-m-m-m!" + +Two young men who had tied their horses behind the hotel crossed the +white court toward the garden. They also were in civil dress, yet wore +an air that goes only with military training. The taller was Hilary +Kincaid, the other his old-time, Northern-born-and-bred school chum, +Fred Greenleaf. Kincaid, coming home, had found him in New Orleans, on +duty at Jackson Barracks, and for some weeks they had enjoyed cronying. +Now they had been a day or two apart and had chanced to meet again at +this spot. Kincaid, it seems, had been looking at a point hard by with a +view to its fortification. Their manner was frankly masterful though +they spoke in guarded tones. + +"No," said Kincaid, "you come with me to this drill. Nobody'll take +offence." + +"Nor will you ever teach your cousin to handle a battery," replied +Greenleaf, with a sedate smile. + +"Well, he knows things we'll never learn. Come with me, Fred, else I +can't see you till theatre's out--if I go there with her--and you say--" + +"Yes, I want you to go with her," murmured Greenleaf, so solemnly that +Kincaid laughed outright. + +"But, after the show, of course," said the laugher, "you and I'll ride, +eh?" and then warily, "You've taken your initials off all your stuff?... +Yes, and Jerry's got your ticket. He'll go down with your things, check +them all and start off on the ticket himself. Then, as soon as you--" + +"But will they allow a slave to do so?" + +"With my pass, yes; 'Let my black man, Jerry--'" + +The garden took the pair into its depths a moment too soon for the old +soldier to see them as he came out upon the side veranda with a cloud on +his brow that showed he had heard his nephew's laugh. + + + + +II + + +CARRIAGE COMPANY + +Bareheaded the uncle crossed the fountained court, sat down at a table +and read again. In the veranda a negro, his own slave, hired to this +hotel, held up an elegant military cap, struck an inquiring attitude, +and called softly, "Gen'al?" + +"Bring it with the coffee." + +But the negro instantly brought it without the coffee and placed it on +the table with a delicate flourish, shuffled a step back and bowed low: + +"Coffee black, Gen'al, o' co'se?" + +"Black as your grandmother." + +The servant tittered: "Yas, suh, so whah it flop up-siden de cup it +leave a lemon-yalleh sta-ain." + +He capered away, leaving the General to the little steamboats and to a +blessed ignorance of times to be when at "Vicksburg and the Bends" this +same waiter would bring his coffee made of corn-meal bran and muddy +water, with which to wash down scant snacks of mule meat. The listless +eye still roamed the arid page as the slave returned with the fragrant +pot and cup, but now the sitter laid it by, lighted a cigar and mused:-- + +In this impending war the South would win, of course--oh, God is just! +But this muser could only expect to fall at the front. Then his large +estate, all lands and slaves, five hundred souls--who would inherit that +and hold it together? Held together it must be! Any partition of it +would break no end of sacredly humble household and family ties and +work spiritual havoc incalculable. There must be but one heir. Who? +Hilary's mother had been in heaven these many years, the mother of +Adolphe eighteen months; months quite enough to show the lone brother +how vast a loss is the absence of the right mistress from such very +human interests as those of a great plantation. Not only must there be +but one heir, but he _must have the right wife_. + +The schemer sipped. So it was Anna for Hilary if he could bring it +about. So, too, it must be Hilary for his adjutant-general, to keep him +near enough to teach him the management of the fortune coming to him if +he, Hilary, would only treat his kind uncle's wishes--reasonably. With +the cup half lifted he harkened. From a hidden walk and bower close on +the garden side of this vine-mantled fence sounded footsteps and voices: + +"But, Fred! where on earth did she get--let's sit in here--get that +rich, belated, gradual smile?" + +A memory thrilled the listening General. "From her mother," thought he, +and listened on. + +"It's like," continued his nephew--"I'll tell you what it's like. It's +like--Now, let me alone! You see, one has to _learn_ her beauty--by +degrees. You know, there _is_ a sort of beauty that flashes on you at +first sight, like--like the blaze of a ball-room. I was just now +thinking of a striking instance--" + +"From Mobile? You always are." + +"No such thing! Say, Fred, I'll tell you what Miss Anna's smile is like. +It's as if you were trying--say in a telescope--for a focus, and at last +all at once it comes and--there's your star!" + +The Northerner softly assented. + +"Fred! Fancy Flora Valcour with that smile!" + +"No! Hilary Kincaid, I think you were born to believe in every feminine +creature God ever made. No wonder they nickname you as they do. Now, +some girls are quite too feminine for me." + +In his own smoke the General's eyes opened aggressively. But hark! His +nephew spoke again: + +"Fred, if you knew all that girl has done for that boy and that +grandmother--It may sound like an overstatement, but you must have +observed--" + +"That she's a sort of overstatement herself?" + +"Go to grass! _Your_ young lady's not even an understatement; she's only +a profound pause. See here! what time is it? I prom--" + +On the uncle's side of the fence a quick step brought a newcomer, a +Creole of maybe twenty-nine years, member of his new staff, in bright +uniform: + +"Ah, General, yo' moze ob-edient! Never less al-lone then when al-lone? +'T is the way with myseff--" + +He seemed not unrefined, though of almost too mettlesome an eye; in +length of leg showing just the lack, in girth of waist just the excess, +to imply a better dignity on horseback and to allow a proud tailor to +prove how much art can overcome. Out on the road a liveried black +coachman had halted an open carriage, in which this soldier had arrived +with two ladies. Now these bowed delightedly from it to the General, +while Kincaid and his friend stood close hid and listened agape, equally +amused and dismayed. + +"How are you, Mandeville?" said the General. "I am not nearly as much +alone as I seem, sir!" + +A voice just beyond the green-veiled fence cast a light on this reply +and brought a flush to the Creole's very brows. "Alas! Greenleaf," it +cried, "we search in vain! He is not here! We are even more alone than +we seem! Ah! where is that peerless chevalier, my beloved, accomplished, +blameless, sagacious, just, valiant and amiable uncle? Come let us press +on. Let not the fair sex find him first and snatch him from us forever!" + +The General's scorn showed only in his eyes as they met the blaze of +Mandeville's. "You were about to remark--?" he began, but rose and +started toward the carriage. + +There not many minutes later you might have seen the four men amicably +gathered and vying in clever speeches to pretty Mrs. Callender and her +yet fairer though less scintillant step-daughter Anna. + + + + +III + + +THE GENERAL'S CHOICE + +Anna Callender. In the midst of the gay skirmish and while she yielded +Greenleaf her chief attention, Hilary observed her anew. + +What he thought he saw was a golden-brown profusion of hair with a +peculiar richness in its platted coils, an unconsciously faultless poise +of head, and, equally unconscious, a dreamy softness of sweeping lashes. +As she laughed with the General her student noted further what seemed to +him a rare silkiness in the tresses, a vapory lightness in the short +strands that played over the outlines of temple and forehead, and the +unstudied daintiness with which they gathered into the merest mist of a +short curl before her exquisite ear. + +[Illustration: Anna] + +But when now she spoke with him these charms became forgettable as he +discovered, or fancied he did, in her self-oblivious eyes, a depth of +thought and feeling not in the orbs alone but also in the brows and +lids, and between upper and under lashes as he glimpsed them in profile +while she turned to Mandeville. And now, unless his own insight misled +him, he observed how unlike those eyes, and yet how subtly mated with +them, was her mouth; the delicate rising curve of the upper lip, and the +floral tenderness with which it so faintly overhung the nether, +wherefrom it seemed ever about to part yet parted only when she spoke or +smiled. + +"A child's mouth and a woman's eyes," he mused. + +When her smiles came the mouth remained as young as before, +yet suddenly, as truly as the eyes, showed--showed him at +least--steadfastness of purpose, while the eyes, where fully +half the smile was, still unwittingly revealed their depths of truth. + +"Poor Fred!" he pondered as the General and Mandeville entered the +carriage and it turned away. + +A mile or two from Carrollton down the river and toward the city lay the +old unfenced fields where Hilary had agreed with Irby to help him +manoeuvre his very new command. Along the inland edge of this plain the +railway and the common road still ran side by side, but the river veered +a mile off. So Mandeville pointed out to the two ladies as they, he, and +the General drove up to the spot with Kincaid and Greenleaf as +outriders. The chosen ground was a level stretch of wild turf maybe a +thousand yards in breadth, sparsely dotted with shoulder-high acacias. +No military body was yet here, and the carriage halted at the first good +view point. + +Mrs. Callender, the only member of her family who was of Northern birth +and rearing, was a small slim woman whose smile came whenever she spoke +and whose dainty nose went all to merry wrinkles whenever she smiled. It +did so now, in the shelter of her diminutive sunshade opened flat +against its jointed handle to fend off the strong afternoon beams, while +she explained to Greenleaf--dismounted beside the wheels with +Mandeville--that Constance, Anna's elder sister, would arrive by and by +with Flora Valcour. "Connie", she said, had been left behind in the +clutches of the dressmaker! + +"Flora," she continued, crinkling her nose ever so kind-heartedly at +Greenleaf, "is Lieutenant Mandeville's cousin, you know. Didn't he tell +you something back yonder in Carrollton?" + +Greenleaf smiled an admission and her happy eyes closed to mere chinks. +What had been told was that Constance had yesterday accepted Mandeville. + +"Yes," jovially put in the lucky man, "I have divulge' him that, and he +seem' almoze as glad as the young lady herseff!" + +Even to this the sweet widow's misplaced wrinkles faintly replied, while +Greenleaf asked, "Does the Lieutenant's good fortune account for +the--'clutches of the dressmaker'?" + +It did. The Lieutenant hourly expecting to be ordered to the front, this +wedding, like so many others, would be at the earliest day possible. "A +great concession," the lady said, turning her piquant wrinkles this time +upon Mandeville. But just here the General engrossed attention. His +voice had warmed sentimentally and his kindled eye was passing back and +forth between Anna seated by him and Hilary close at hand in the saddle. +He waved wide: + +"This all-pervading haze and perfume, dew and dream," he was saying, "is +what makes this the Lalla Rookh's land it is!" He smiled at himself and +confessed that Carrollton Gardens always went to his head. "Anna, did +you ever hear your mother sing-- + + "'There's a bower of roses--'?" + +She lighted up to say yes, but the light was all he needed to be lured +on through a whole stanza, and a tender sight--Ocean silvering to +brown-haired Cynthia--were the two, as he so innocently strove to +recreate out of his own lost youth, for her and his nephew, this +atmosphere of poetry. + + "'To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song!'" + +he suavely ended--"I used to make Hilary sing that for me when he was a +boy." + +"Doesn't he sing it yet?" asked Mrs. Callender. + +"My God, madame, since I found him addicted to comic songs I've never +asked him!" + +Kincaid led the laugh and the talk became lively. Anna was merrily +accused by Miranda (Mrs. Callender) of sharing the General's abhorrence +of facetious song. First she pleaded guilty and then reversed her plea +with an absurd tangle of laughing provisos delightful even to herself. +At the same time the General withdrew from his nephew all imputation of +a frivolous mind, though the nephew avowed himself nonsensical from +birth and destined to die so. It was a merry moment, so merry that +Kincaid's bare mention of Mandeville as Mandy made even the General +smile and every one else laugh. The Creole, to whom any mention of +himself, (whether it called for gratitude or for pistols and coffee,) +was always welcome, laughed longest. If he was Mandy, he hurried to +rejoin, the absent Constance "muz be Candy--ha, ha, ha!" And when Anna +said Miranda should always thenceforth be Randy, and Mrs. Callender said +Anna ought to be Andy, and the very General was seduced into suggesting +that then Hilary would be Handy, and when every one read in every one's +eye, the old man's included, that Brodnax would naturally be Brandy, the +Creole bent and wept with mirth, counting all that fine wit exclusively +his. + +"But, no!" he suddenly said, "Hilary he would be Dandy, bic-ause he's +call' the ladies' man!" + +"No, sir!" cried the General. "Hil--" He turned upon his nephew, but +finding him engaged with Anna, faced round to his chum: "For Heaven's +sake, Greenleaf, does he allow--?" + +"He can't help it now," laughed his friend, "he's tagged it on himself +by one of his songs." + +"Oh, by Jove, Hilary, it serves you right for singing them!" + +Hilary laughed to the skies, the rest echoing. + +"A ladies' man!" the uncle scoffed on. "Of all things on God's earth!" +But there he broke into lordly mirth: "Don't you believe _that_ of him, +ladies, at any rate. If only for my sake, Anna, don't you _ever_ +believe a breath of it!" + +The ladies laughed again, but now Kincaid found them a distraction. +Following his glance cityward they espied a broad dust-cloud floating +off toward the river. He turned to Anna and softly cried, "Here come +your guns, trying to beat the train!" + +The ladies stood up to see. An unseen locomotive whistled for a brief +stop. The dust-cloud drew nearer. The engine whistled to start again, +and they could hear its bell and quickening puff. But the dust-cloud +came on and on, and all at once the whole six-gun battery--six horses +to each piece and six to each caisson--captain, buglers, guidon, +lieutenants, sergeants and drivers in the saddle, cannoneers on the +chests--swept at full trot, thumping, swaying, and rebounding, up the +highway and off it, and, forming sections, swung out upon the field in +double column, while the roaring train rolled by it and slowed up to the +little frame box of Buerthe's Station with passengers cheering from +every window. + +The Callenders' carriage horses were greatly taxed in their nerves, yet +they kept their discretion. Kept it even when now the battery flashed +from column into line and bore down upon them, the train meanwhile +whooping on toward Carrollton. And what an elated flock of brightly +dressed citizens and citizenesses had alighted from the cars--many of +them on the moment's impulse--to see these dear lads, with their +romantically acquired battery, train for the holiday task of scaring the +dastard foe back to their frozen homes! How we loved the moment's +impulse those days! + +What a gay show! And among the very prettiest and most fetchingly +arrayed newcomers you would quickly have noticed three with whom this +carriage group exchanged signals. Kincaid spurred off to meet them while +Greenleaf and Mandeville helped Anna and Miranda to the ground. "There's +Constance," said the General. + +"Yes," Mrs. Callender replied, "and Flora and Charlie Valcour!" as if +that were the gleefulest good luck of all. + + + + +IV + + +MANOEUVRES + +Captain Irby, strong, shapely, well clad, auburn-haired, left his halted +command and came into the carriage group, while from the train +approached his cousin and the lithe and picturesque Miss Valcour. + +The tallish girl always looked her best beside some manly form of +unusual stature, and because that form now was Hilary's Irby was +aggrieved. All their days his cousin had been getting into his light, +and this realization still shaded his brow as Kincaid yielded Flora to +him and returned to Anna to talk of things too light for record. + +Not so light were the thoughts Anna kept unuttered. Here again, she +reflected, was he who (according to Greenleaf) had declined to command +her guns in order to let Irby have them. Why? In kindness to his cousin, +or in mild dislike of a woman's battery? If intuition was worth while, +this man was soon to be a captain somewhere. Here was that rare find for +which even maidens' eyes were alert those days--a born leader. No +ladies' man this--"of all things on God's earth!" A men's man! And +yet--nay, _therefore_--a man for some unparagoned woman some day to +yield her heart and life to, and to have for her very own, herself his +consummate adornment. She cast a glance at Flora. + +But her next was to him as they talked on. How nearly black was the +waving abundance of his hair. How placid his brow, above eyes whose long +lashes would have made them meltingly tender had they not been so large +with mirth: "A boy's eyes," thought she while he remembered what he had +just called hers. She noted his mouth, how gently firm: "A man's mouth!" + +Charlie Valcour broke in between them: "Is there not going to be any +drill, after all?" + +"Tell Captain Irby you can't wait any longer," replied Kincaid with a +mock frown and gave Anna yet gayer attention a minute more. Then he +walked beside his cousin toward the command, his horse close at his +back. The group, by pairs, chose view points. Only Miss Valcour stayed +in the carriage with the General, bent on effecting a change in his +mind. In Mobile Flora had been easily first in any social set to which +she condescended. In New Orleans, brought into the Callenders' circles by +her cousin Mandeville, she had found herself quietly ranked second to +Anna, and Anna now yet more pointedly outshining her through the brazen +splendor of this patriotic gift of guns. For this reason and others yet +to appear she had planned a strategy and begun a campaign, one of whose +earliest manoeuvres must be to get Irby, not Kincaid, made their uncle's +adjutant-general, and therefore to persuade the uncle that to give +Kincaid the battery would endear him to Anna and so crown with victory +the old man's perfectly obvious plan. + +Greenleaf left his horse tied and walked apart with Anna. This, he +murmured, was the last time they would be together for years. + +"Yes," she replied with a disheartening composure, although from under +the parasol with which he shaded her she met his eyes so kindly that his +heart beat quicker. But before he could speak on she looked away to his +fretting horse and then across to the battery, where a growing laugh was +running through the whole undisciplined command. "What is it about?" she +playfully inquired, but then saw. In response to the neigh of +Greenleaf's steed Hilary's had paused an instant and turned his head, +but now followed on again, while the laughter ended in the clapping of a +hundred hands; for Kincaid's horse had the bridle free on his neck and +was following his master as a dog follows. Irby scowled, the General set +his jaws, and Hilary took his horse's bridle and led him on. + +"That's what _I_ want to do every time I look at him!" called Charlie to +his sister. + +"Then look the other way!" carolled back the slender beauty. To whom +Anna smiled across in her belated way, and wondered if the impulse to +follow Hilary Kincaid ever came to women. + +But now out yonder the two cousins were in the saddle, Irby's sabre was +out, and soon the manoeuvres were fully under way. Flora, at the +General's side, missed nothing of them, yet her nimble eye kept her well +aware that across here in this open seclusion the desperate Greenleaf's +words to Anna were rarely explanatory of the drill. + +"And now," proclaimed Mandeville, "you'll see them form into line fazed +to the rear!" And Flora, seeing and applauding, saw also Anna turn to +her suitor a glance, half pity for him, half pleading for his pity. + +"I say unless--" Greenleaf persisted-- + +"There is no 'unless.' There can't ever be any." + +"But may I not at least say--?" + +"I'd so much rather you would not," she begged. + +"At present, you mean?" + +"Or in the future," said Anna, and, having done perfectly thus far, +spoiled all by declaring she would "never marry!" Her gaze rested far +across the field on the quietly clad figure of Kincaid riding to and fro +and pointing hither and yon to his gold-laced cousin. Off here on the +left she heard Mandeville announcing: + +"Now they'll form batt'rie to the front by throwing caisson' to the +rear--look--look!... Ah, ha! was not that a prettie?" + +Pretty it was declared to be on all sides. Flora called it "a +beautiful." Part of her charm was a Creole accent much too dainty for +print. Anna and Greenleaf and the other couples regathered about the +carriage, and Miss Valcour from her high seat smiled her enthusiasm down +among them, exalting theirs. And now as a new movement of the battery +followed, and now another, her glow heightened, and she called musically +to Constance, Mrs. Callender and Anna, by turns, to behold and admire. +For one telling moment she was, and felt herself, the focus of her +group, the centre of its living picture. Out afield yet another +manoeuvre was on, and while Anna and her suitor stood close below her +helplessly becalmed each by each, Flora rose to her feet and caught a +great breath of delight. Her gaze was on the glittering mass of men, +horses, and brazen guns that came thundering across the plain in double +column--Irby at its head, Kincaid alone on the flank--and sweeping right +and left deployed into battery to the front with cannoneers springing to +their posts for action. + +"Pretties' of all!" she cried, and stood, a gentle air stirring her +light draperies, until the boys at the empty guns were red-browed and +short of breath in their fierce pretence of loading and firing. Suddenly +the guns were limbered up and went bounding over the field, caissons in +front. And now pieces passed their caissons, and now they were in line, +then in double column, and presently were gleaming in battery again, +faced to the rear. And now at command the tired lads dropped to the +ground to rest, or sauntered from one lounging squad to another, to chat +and chaff and puff cigarettes. Kincaid and Irby lent their horses to +Mandeville and Charlie, who rode to the battery while the lenders joined +the ladies. + +Once more Hilary yielded Flora and sought Anna; but with kinder thought +for Flora Anna pressed herself upon Irby, to the open chagrin of his +uncle. So Kincaid cheerfully paired with Flora. But thus both he and +Anna unwittingly put the finishing touch upon that change of heart in +the General which Flora, by every subtlety of indirection, this hour and +more in the carriage, had been bringing about. + +A query: With Kincaid and Irby the chief figures in their social arena +and Hilary so palpably his cousin's better in looks, in bearing, +talents, and character, is it not strange that Flora, having conquest +for her ruling passion, should strive so to relate Anna to Hilary as to +give her, Anna, every advantage for the higher prize? Maybe it is, but +she liked strangeness--and a stiff game. + + + + +V + + +HILARY?--YES, UNCLE? + +Second half as well as first, the drill was ended. The low acacias and +great live-oaks were casting their longest shadows. The great plain +rested from the trample and whirl of hoofs, guns, and simulated battle. +A whiff of dust showed where the battery ambled townward among roadside +gardens, the Callender carriage spinning by it to hurry its three ladies +and Mandeville far away to the city's lower end. At the column's head +rode Irby in good spirits, having got large solace of Flora's society +since we last saw her paired with Kincaid. Now beside the tiny railway +station Hilary was with her once more as she and Charlie awaited the +train from town. Out afield were left only General Brodnax and +Greenleaf, dismounted between the Northerner's horse and Hilary's. Now +Kincaid came across the turf. + +"Greenleaf," said the old soldier, "why does Hilary forever walk as +though he were bringing the best joke of the season? Can't you make him +quit it?" + +The nephew joined them: "Uncle, if you'd like to borrow my horse I can +go by train." + +That _was_ a joke. "H-m-m! I see! No, Greenleaf's going by train. Would +you like to ride with me?" + +"Well, eh--ha! Why, uncle, I--why, of course, if Fred really--" They +mounted and went. + +"Hilary?" + +"Yes, uncle?" + +"How is it now? Like my girl any better?" + +"Why--yes! Oh, she's fine! And yet I--" + +"You must say? What must you say?" + +"Nothing much; only that she's not the kind to seem like the owner of a +field battery. My goodness! uncle, if she had half Miss Flora's tang--" + +"She hasn't the least need of it! She's the quiet kind, sir, that fools +who love 'tang' overlook!" + +"Yes," laughed Hilary, "she's quiet; quiet as a fortification by +moonlight! Poor Fred! I wish--" + +"Well, thank God you wish in vain! That's just been settled. I asked +him--oh, don't look surprised at _me_. Good Lord! hadn't I the right to +know?" + +The two rode some way in silence. "I wish," mused the nephew aloud, "it +could be as he wants it." + +The uncle's smile was satirical: "Did you ever, my boy, wish anything +could be as _I_ want it?" + +"Now, uncle, there's a big difference--" + +"DAMN THE DIFFERENCE! I'm going to try you. I'm going to make Adolphe my +adjutant-general. Then if you hanker for this battery as it hankers for +you--" + +"Mary, Queen of Scots!" rejoiced Hilary. "That'll suit us both to the +bone! And if it suits you too--" + +"Well it doesn't! You know I've never wanted Adolphe about me. But +you've got me all snarled up, the whole kit of you. What's more, I +don't want him for my heir nor any girl with 'tang' for mistress of my +lands and people. Hilary, I swear! if you've got the sand to want Anna +and she's got the grace to take you, then, adjutant-general or not, I'll +leave you my whole fortune! Well, what amuses you now?" + +"Why, uncle, all the cotton in New Orleans couldn't tempt me to marry +the girl I wouldn't take dry so without a continental cent." + +"But your own present poverty might hold you back even from the girl you +wanted, mightn't it?" + +"No!" laughed the nephew, "nothing would!" + +"Good God! Well, if you'll want Anna I'll make it easy for you to ask +for her. If not, I'll make it as hard as I can for you to get any one +else." + +Still Hilary laughed: "H-oh, uncle, if I loved any girl, I'd rather have +her without your estate than with it." Suddenly he sobered and glowed: +"I wish you'd leave it to Adolphe! He's a heap-sight better business man +than I. Besides, being older, he feels he has the better right to it. +You know you always counted on leaving it to him." + +The General looked black: "You actually decline the gift?" + +"No. No, I don't. I want to please you. But of my own free choice I +wouldn't have it. I'm no abolitionist, but I don't want that kind of +property. I don't want the life that has to go with it. I know other +sorts that are so much better. I'm not thinking only of the moral +responsibility--" + +"By--! sir, I am!" + +"I know you are, and I honor you for it." + +"Bah!... Hilary, I--I'm much obliged to you for your company, but--" + +"You've had enough," laughed the good-natured young man. "Good-evening, +sir." He took a cross-street. + +"Good-evening, my boy." The tone was so kind that Hilary cast a look +back. But the General's eyes were straight before him. + +Greenleaf accompanied the Valcours to their door. Charlie, who disliked +him, and whose admiration for his own sister was privately cynical, had +left them to themselves in the train. There, wholly undetected by the +very man who had said some women were too feminine and she was one, she +had played her sex against his with an energy veiled only by its +intellectual nimbleness and its utterly dispassionate design. Charlie +detected achievement in her voice as she twittered good-by to the +departing soldier from their street door. + + + + +VI + + +MESSRS. SMELLEMOUT AND KETCHEM + +Night came, all stars. The old St. Charles Theatre filled to overflowing +with the city's best, the hours melted away while Maggie Mitchell played +_Fanchon_, and now, in the bright gas-light of the narrow thoroughfare, +here were Adolphe and Hilary helping their three ladies into a carriage. +All about them the feasted audience was pouring forth into the mild +February night. + +The smallest of the three women was aged. That the other two were young +and beautiful we know already. At eighteen the old lady, the +Bohemian-glass one, had been one of those royalist refugees of the +French Revolution whose butterfly endeavors to colonize in Alabama and +become bees make so pathetic a chapter in history. When one knew that, +he could hardly resent her being heavily enamelled. Irby pressed into +the coach after the three and shut the door, Kincaid uncovered, and the +carriage sped off. + +Hilary turned, glanced easily over the heads of the throng, and espied +Greenleaf beckoning with a slender cane. Together they crossed the way +and entered the office of a public stable. + +"Our nags again," said Kincaid to one of a seated group, and passed into +a room beyond. Thence he re-issued with his dress modified for the +saddle, and the two friends awaited their mounts under an arch. "Dost +perceive, Frederic," said the facetious Hilary, "yon modestly arrayed +pair of palpable gents hieing hitherward yet pretending not to descry +us? They be detectives. Oh--eh--gentlemen!" + +The strangers halted inquiringly and then came forward. The hair of one +was black, of the other gray. Hilary brightened upon them: "I was just +telling my friend who you are. You know me, don't you?" A challenging +glint came into his eye. + +But the gray man showed a twinkle to match it: "Why--by sight--yes--what +there is of you." + +Hilary smiled again: "I saw you this morning in the office of the +Committee of Public Safety, where I was giving my word that this friend +of mine should leave the city within twenty-four hours." He introduced +him: "Lieutenant Greenleaf, gentleman, United States Army. Fred, these +are Messrs. Smellemout and Ketchem, a leading firm in the bottling +business." + +Greenleaf and the firm expressed their pleasure. "We hang out at the +corner of Poet and Good-Children Streets," said the black-haired man, +but made his eyes big to imply that this was romance. + +Greenleaf lifted his brows: "Streets named for yourselves, I judge." + +"Aye. Poet for each, Good-Children for both." + +Kincaid laughed out. "The Lieutenant and I," he said as he moved toward +their approaching horses, "live on Love street exactly half-way between +Piety and Desire." His eyes widened, too. Suddenly he stepped between +Greenleaf and the others: "See here, let's begin to tell the truth! You +know Kincaid's Foundry? It was my father's--" + +"And his father's before him," said the gray man. + +"And I've come home to go into this war," Hilary went on. + +"And just at present," said Gray, "you're casting shot and shell and now +and then a cannon; good for you! You want to give us your guarantee--?" + +"That my friend and I will be together every moment till he leaves +to-morrow morning on the Jackson Railroad, bound for the North without a +stop." + +"To go into this war on the other side!" + +"Why, of course!" said the smiling Kincaid. "Now, that's all, isn't it? +I fear we're keeping you." + +"Oh, no." The gray man's crow's-feet deepened playfully. "If you think +you need us we'll stick by you all night." + +"No," laughed Kincaid, "there's no call for you to be so sticky as all +that." The horsemen mounted. + +"Better us than the Patriots' League," said the younger detective to +Hilary as Greenleaf moved off. "They've got your friend down in their +Send-'em-to-hell book and are after him now. That's how come we to be--" + +"I perceive," replied Hilary, and smiled in meditation. "Why--thank you, +both!" + +"Oh, you go right along, Mr. Kincaid. We'll be at the depot to-morrow +ourselves, and to-night we'll see that they don't touch neither one of +you." + +Hilary's smile grew: "Why--thank you again! That will make it more +comfortable for them. Good-night." + +The two friends rode to a corner, turned into Poydras Street, crossed +Magazine and Tchoupitoulas and presently, out from among the echoing +fronts of unlighted warehouses, issued upon the wide, white Levee. + + + + +VII + + +BY STARLIGHT + +"Wait," murmured Greenleaf, as they halted to view the scene. From their +far right came the vast, brimming river, turbid, swift, silent, its +billows every now and then rising and looking back as if they fled from +implacable pursuers; sweeping by long, slumbering ranks of ships and +steamboats; swinging in majestic breadth around the bend a mile or more +below; and at the city's end, still beyond, gliding into mystic +oblivion. Overhead swarmed the stars and across the flood came faintly +the breath of orange-groves, sea-marshes and prairies. + +Greenleaf faced across the wide bend at his left. In that quarter, quite +hidden in live-oaks and magnolias, as both well knew, were the low, red +towers of Jackson Barracks. But it was not for them the evicted young +soldier claimed this last gaze. It was for a large dwelling hard by +them, a fine old plantation house with wide verandas, though it also was +shut from view, in its ancient grove. + +"Fred," said Hilary, "didn't she tell you why?" + +"No," replied the lover when they had turned away and were moving up the +harbor front, "except that it isn't because I'm for the Union." + +Hilary's eyes went wide: "That's wonderful, old man! But I don't believe +she likes a soldier of any sort. If I were a woman I'd be doggoned if +I'd ever marry a soldier!" + +"Yet the man who gets her," said Greenleaf, "ought to be a soldier in +every drop of his blood. You don't know her yet; but you soon will, and +I'm glad." + +"Now, why so? I can't ever please her enough to be pleased with her. I'm +too confounded frivolous! I love nonsense, doggon it, for its own sake! +I love to get out under a sky like this and just reel and whoop in the +pure joy of standing on a world that's whirling round!" + +"But you do please her. She's told me so." + +"Don't you believe her! I don't. I can't. I tell you, Fred, I could +never trust a girl that forever looks so trustworthy! S'pose I should +fall in love with her! Would you--begrudge her to me?" + +"I bequeath her to you." + +"Ah! you know I haven't the ghost of a chance! She's not for po' little +Hil'ry. I never did like small women, anyhow!" + +"My boy! If ever you like this one she'll no more seem small than the +open sea." + +"I suppose," mused Hilary, "that's what makes it all the harder to let +go. If a girl has a soul so petty that she can sit and hear you through +to the last word your heart can bleed, you can turn away from her with +some comfort of resentment, as if you still had a remnant of your own +stature." + +"Precisely!" said the lover. "But when she's too large-hearted to let +you speak, and yet answers your unspoken word, once for all, with a +compassion so modest that it seems as if it were you having compassion +on her, she's harder to give up than--" + +"Doggon her, Fred, I wouldn't give her up!" + +"Ah, this war, Hilary! I may never see her again. There's just one man +in this world whom--" + +"Oh, get out!" + +"I mean what I say. To you I leave her." + +"Ha, ha! No, you don't! It's only to her you leave me. Old boy, promise +me! If you ever come back and she's still in the ring, you'll go for her +again no matter who else is bidding, your humble servant not excepted." + +"Why--yes--I--I promise that. Now, will you promise me?" + +"What! let myself--?" + +"Yes." + +"Ho-o, not by a jug-full! If ever I feel her harpoon in me I'll fight +like a whale! But I promise you this, and warn you, too: That when it +comes to that, a whole platoon of Fred Greenleafs between her and me +won't make a pinch of difference." + +To that Greenleaf agreed, and the subject was changed. With shipping +ever on their left and cotton-yards and warehouses for tobacco and for +salt on their right their horses' feet clinked leisurely over the cobble +pavements, between thousands of cotton-bales headed upon the unsheltered +wharves and only fewer thousands on the narrow sidewalks. + +So passed the better part of an hour before they were made aware, by +unmistakable odors, that they were nearing the Stock-Landing. There, +while they were yet just a trifle too far away to catch its echoes, had +occurred an incident--a fracas, in fact--some of whose results belong +with this narrative to its end. While they amble toward the spot let us +reconnoitre it. Happily it has long been wiped out, this blot on the +city's scutcheon. Its half-dozen streets were unspeakable mud, its air +was stenches, its buildings were incredibly foul slaughter-houses and +shedded pens of swine, sheep, beeves, cows, calves, and mustang ponies. +The plank footways were enclosed by stout rails to guard against the +chargings of long-horned cattle chased through the thoroughfares by +lasso-whirling "bull-drivers" as wild as they. In the middle of the +river-front was a ferry, whence Louisiana Avenue, broad, treeless, +grassy, and thinly lined with slaughter-houses, led across the plain. +Down this untidy plaisance a grimy little street-car, every half-hour, +jogged out to the Carrollton railway and returned. This street and the +water-front were lighted--twilighted--with lard-oil lamps; the rest of +the place was dark. At each of the two corners facing the ferry was a +"coffee-house"--dram-shop, that is to say. + +Messrs. Sam Gibbs and Maxime Lafontaine were president and +vice-president of that Patriots' League against whose machinations our +two young men had been warned by the detectives in St. Charles Street. +They had just now arrived at the Stock-Landing. Naturally, on so +important an occasion they were far from sober; yet on reaching the spot +they had lost no time in levying on a Gascon butcher for a bucket of tar +and a pillow of feathers, on an Italian luggerman for a hurried supper +of raw oysters, and on the keeper of one of the "coffee-houses" for +drinks for the four. + +"Us four and no more!" sang the gleeful Gibbs; right number to manage a +delicate case. The four glasses emptied, he had explained that all +charges must be collected, of course, from the alien gentleman for whom +the plumage and fixative were destined. Hence a loud war of words, which +the barkeeper had almost smoothed out when the light-hearted Gibbs +suddenly decreed that the four should sing, march, pat and "cut the +pigeon-wing" to the new song (given nightly by Christy's Minstrels) +entitled "Dixie's Land." + +Hot threats recurring, Gascony had turned to go, Maxime had headed him +off, Italy's hand had started into his flannel shirt, and "bing! bang! +pop!" rang Gibbs's repeater and one of Maxime's little derringers--shot +off from inside his sack-coat pocket. A whirlwind of epithets filled the +place. Out into the stinking dark leaped Naples and Gascony, and after +them darted their whooping assailants. The shutters of both barrooms +clapped to, over the way a pair of bull-drivers rushed to their +mustangs, there was a patter of hoofs there and of boots here and all +inner lights vanished. A watchman's rattle buzzed remotely. Then silence +reigned. + +Now Sam and Maxime, deeming the incident closed, were walking up the +levee road beyond the stock-pens, in the new and more sympathetic +company of the two mounted bull-drivers, to whose love of patriotic +adventure they had appealed successfully. A few yards beyond a roadside +pool backed by willow bushes they set down tar-bucket and pillow, and +under a low, vast live-oak bough turned and waited. A gibbous moon had +set, and presently a fog rolled down the river, blotting out landscape +and stars and making even these willows dim and unreal. Ideal +conditions! Now if their guest of honor, with or without his friend, +would but stop at this pool to wash the Stock-Landing muck from his +horse's shins--but even luck has its limits. + +Nevertheless, that is what occurred. A hum of voices--a tread of +hoofs--and the very man hoped for--he and Hilary Kincaid--recognized by +their voices--dismounted at the pool's margin. Sam and Maxime stole +forward. + + + + +VIII + + +ONE KILLED + +The newcomers' talk, as they crouched busily over their horses' feet, +was on random themes: Dan Rice, John Owens, Adelina and Carlotta Patti, +the comparative merits of Victor's and Moreau's restaur'--hah! Greenleaf +snatched up his light cane, sprang erect, and gazed close into the mild +eyes of Maxime. Gibbs's more wanton regard had no such encounter; Hilary +gave him a mere upward glance while his hands continued their task. + +"Good-evening," remarked Gibbs. + +"Good-morning," chirped Hilary, and scrubbed on. "Do you happen to be +Mr. Samuel Gibbs?--Don't stop, Fred, Maxime won't object to your working +on." + +"Yes, he will!" swore Gibbs, "and so will I!" + +Still Hilary scrubbed: "Why so, Mr. Gibbs?" + +"Bic-ause," put in Maxime, "he's got to go back through the same mud he +came!" + +"Why, then," laughed Hilary, "I may as well knock off, too," and began +to wash his hands. + +"No," growled Gibbs, "you'll ride on; we're not here for you." + +"You can't have either of us without the other, Mr. Gibbs," playfully +remarked Kincaid. The bull-drivers loomed out of the fog. Hilary +leisurely rose and moved to draw a handkerchief. + +"None o' that!" cried Gibbs, whipping his repeater into Kincaid's face. +Yet the handkerchief came forth, its owner smiling playfully and drying +his fingers while Mr. Gibbs went on blasphemously to declare himself +"no chicken." + +"Oh, no," laughed Hilary, "none of us is quite that. But did you ever +really study--_boxing?_" At the last word Gibbs reeled under a blow in +the face; his revolver, going off harmlessly, was snatched from him, +Maxime's derringer missed also, and Gibbs swayed, bleeding and +sightless, from Hilary's blows with the butt of the revolver. Presently +down he lurched insensible, Hilary going half-way with him but +recovering and turning to the aid of his friend. Maxime tore loose from +his opponent, beseeching the bull-drivers to attack, but beseeching in +vain. Squawking and chattering like parrot and monkey, they spurred +forward, whirled back, gathered lassos, cursed frantically as Sam fell, +sped off into the fog, spurred back again, and now reined their ponies +to their haunches, while Kincaid halted Maxime with Gibbs's revolver, +and Greenleaf sprang to the bits of his own and Hilary's terrified +horses. For two other men, the Gascon and the Italian, had glided into +the scene from the willows, and the Gascon was showing Greenleaf two big +knives, one of which he fiercely begged him to accept. + +"Take it, Fred!" cried Hilary while he advanced on the defiantly +retreating Maxime; but as he spoke a new cry of the drovers turned his +glance another way. Gibbs had risen to his knees unaware that the +Italian, with yet another knife, was close behind him. At a bound Hilary +arrested the lifted blade and hurled its wielder aside, who in the next +breath seemed to spring past him head first, fell prone across the +prostrate Gibbs, turned face upward, and slid on and away--lassoed. +Both bull-drivers clattered off up the road. + +"Hang to the nags, Fred!" cried Hilary, and let Maxime leap to Gibbs's +side, but seized the Gascon as with murderous intent he sprang after +him. It took Kincaid's strength to hold him, and Gibbs and his partner +would have edged away, but--"Stand!" called Hilary, and they stood, +Gibbs weak and dazed, yet still spouting curses. The Gascon begged in +vain to be allowed to follow the bull-drivers. + +"Stay here!" said Hilary in French, and the butcher tarried. Hilary +passed the revolver to his friend, mounted and dashed up the highway. + +The Gascon stayed with a lively purpose which the enfeebled Gibbs was +the first to see. "Stand back, you hell-hound!" cried the latter, and +with fresh oaths bade Greenleaf "keep him off!" + +Maxime put Gibbs on Greenleaf's horse (as bidden), and was about to lead +him, when Kincaid galloped back. + +"Fred," exclaimed Hilary, "they've killed the poor chap." He wheeled. +"Come, all hands," he continued, and to Greenleaf added as they went, +"He's lying up here in the road with--" + +Greenleaf picked up something. "Humph!" said Hilary, receiving it, +"knives by the great gross. He must have used this trying to cut the +lasso; the one he had back yonder flew into the pond." He reined in: +"Here's where they--Why, Fred--why, I'll swear! They've come back +and--Stop! there was a skiff"--he moved to the levee and peered +over--"It's gone!" + +The case was plain, and while from Greenleaf's saddle Gibbs broke into +frantic revilings of the fugitives for deserting him and Maxime to sink +their dead in the mid-current of the fog-bound river, Kincaid and his +friend held soft counsel. Evidently the drovers had turned their horses +loose, knowing they would go to their stable. No despatch to stop +Greenleaf could be sent by anyone up the railroad till the Committee of +Public Safety had authorized it, so Hilary would drop them a line out of +his pocket note-book, and by daybreak these prisoners could go free. + +"Mr. Gibbs"--he said as he wrote--"I have the sprout of a notion that +you and Mr. Lafontaine would be an ornament to a field-battery I'm about +to take command of. I'd like to talk with you about that presently." He +tore out the page he had written and beckoned the Gascon aside: + +"_Mon ami_"--he showed a roll of "city money" and continued in +French--"do you want to make a hundred dollars--fifty now and fifty when +you bring me an answer to this?" + +The man nodded and took the missive. + +The old "Jackson Railroad" avoided Carrollton and touched the river for +a moment only, a short way beyond, at a small bunch of flimsy clapboard +houses called Kennerville. Here was the first stop of its early morning +outbound train, and here a dozen or so passengers always poked their +heads out of the windows. This morning they saw an oldish black man step +off, doff his hat delightedly to two young men waiting at the platform's +edge, pass them a ticket, and move across to a pair of saddled horses. +The smaller of the pair stepped upon the last coach, but kept his +companion's hand till the train had again started. + +"Good-by, Tony," cried the one left behind. + +"Good-by, Jake," called the other, and waved. His friend watched the +train vanish into the forest. Then, as his horse was brought, he mounted +and moved back toward the city. + +Presently the negro, on the other horse, came up almost abreast of him. +"Mahs' Hil'ry?" he ventured. + +"Well, uncle Jerry?" + +"Dat's a pow'ful good-lookin' suit o' clo'es what L'tenant Greenfeel got +awn." + +"Jerry! you cut me to the heart!" + +The negro tittered: "Oh, as to dat, I don't 'spute but yone is betteh." + +The master heaved a comforted sigh. The servant tittered again, but +suddenly again was grave. "I on'y wish to Gawd," he slowly said, "dat de +next time you an' him meet--" + +"Well--next time we meet--what then?" + +"Dat you bofe be in de same sawt o' clo'es like you got on now." + + + + +IX + + +HER HARPOON STRIKES + +The home of the Callenders was an old Creole colonial plantation-house, +large, square, strong, of two stories over a stoutly piered basement, +and surrounded by two broad verandas, one at each story, beneath a great +hip roof gracefully upheld on Doric columns. It bore that air of +uncostly refinement which is one of the most pleasing outward features +of the aloof civilization to which it, though not the Callenders, +belonged. + +Inside, its aspect was exceptional. There the inornate beauty of its +finish, the quiet abundance of its delicate woodwork, and the high +spaciousness and continuity of its rooms for entertainment won +admiration and fame. A worthy setting, it was called, for the gentle +manners with which the Callenders made it alluring. + +They, of course, had not built it. The late Judge had acquired it from +the descendants of a planter of indigo and coffee who in the oldest +Creole days had here made his home and lived his life as thoroughly in +the ancient baronial spirit as if the Mississippi had been the mediaeval +Rhine. Only its perfect repair was the Judge's touch, a touch so +modestly true as to give it a charm of age and story which the youth and +beauty of the Callender ladies only enhanced, enhancing it the more +through their lack of a male protector--because of which they were +always going to move into town, but never moved. + +Here, some nine or ten days after Greenleaf's flight, Hilary Kincaid, in +uniform at last, was one of two evening visitors, the other being +Mandeville. In the meantime our lover of nonsense had received a "hard +jolt." So he admitted in a letter to his friend, boasting, however, that +it was unattended by any "internal injury." In the circuit of a single +week, happening to be thrown daily and busily into "her" society, "the +harpoon had struck." + +He chose the phrase as an honest yet delicate reminder of the compact +made when last the two chums had ridden together. + +All three of the Callenders were in the evening group, and the five +talked about an illumination of the city, set for the following night. +In the business centre the front of every building was already being +hung with fittings from sidewalk to cornice. So was to be celebrated the +glorious fact (Constance and Mandeville's adjective) that in the +previous month Louisiana had seized all the forts and lighthouses in her +borders and withdrawn from the federal union by a solemn ordinance +signed in tears. This great lighting up, said Hilary, was to be the +smile of fortitude after the tears. Over the city hall now floated daily +the new flag of the state, with the colors of its stripes-- + +"Reverted to those of old Spain," murmured Anna, mainly to herself yet +somewhat to Hilary. Judge Callender had died a Whig, and politics +interested the merest girls those days. + +Even at the piano, where Anna played and Hilary hovered, in pauses +between this of Mozart and that of Mendelssohn, there was much for her +to ask and him to tell about; for instance, the new "Confederate +States," a bare fortnight old! Would Virginia come into them? +Eventually, yes. + +"Oh, yes, yes, yes!" cried Constance, overhearing. (Whatever did not +begin with oh, those times, began with ah.) + +"And _must_ war follow?" The question was Anna's again, and Hilary sat +down closer to answer confidentially: + +"Yes, the war was already a fact." + +"And might not the Abolitionists send their ships and soldiers against +New Orleans?" + +"Yes, the case was supposable." + +"And might not Jackson's battlefield of 1815, in close view from these +windows, become a new one?" + +To avoid confessing that old battlefields have that tendency the Captain +rose and took up a guitar; but when he would have laid it on her knee +she pushed it away and asked the song of him; asked with something +intimate in her smiling undertone that thrilled him, yet on the next +instant seemed pure dream stuff. The others broke in and Constance +begged a song of the new patriotism; but Miranda, the pretty stepmother, +spoke rather for something a thousand miles and months away from the +troubles and heroics of the hour; and when Anna seconded this motion by +one fugitive glance worth all their beseechings Hilary, as he stood, +gayly threw open his smart jacket lest his brass buttons mar the +instrument, and sang with a sudden fervor that startled and delighted +all the group: + + "Drink to me only with thine eyes." + +In the midst of which Constance lifted a knowing look across to Miranda, +and Miranda sent it back. + +There was never an evening that did not have to end, and at last the +gentlemen began to make a show of leaving. But then came a lively chat, +all standing in a bunch. To-morrow's procession, the visitors said, +would form in Canal Street, move up St. Charles, return down Camp Street +into Canal, pass through it into Rampart, take the Bayou Road and march +to a grand review away out in the new camp of instruction at the Creole +Race-Course. Intermediately, from a certain Canal Street balcony, Flora +would present the flag! the gorgeous golden, silken, satin battle +standard which the Callenders and others had helped her to make. So +--good-night--good-night. + +The last parting was with Mandeville, at the levee-road gate, just below +which he lived in what, during the indigo-planter's life, had been the +overseer's cottage. At a fine stride our artillerist started townward, +his horse being stabled near by in that direction. But presently he +halted, harkened after the Creole's receding step, thought long, softly +called himself names, and then did a small thing which, although it +resulted in nothing tragic at the time, marked a turning point in his +life. He leapt the grove fence, returned to the shadows of the garden, +and silently made his way to its eastern, down-river side. Already the +dwelling's lower lights were going out while none yet shone above, and +he paused in deep shade far enough away to see, over its upper veranda's +edge, the tops of its chamber windows. + + + + +X + + +SYLVIA SIGHS + +The house was of brick. So being, in a land where most dwellings are of +wood, it had gathered beauty from time and dignity from tried strength, +and with satisfying grace joined itself to its grounds, whose abundance +and variety of flowering, broad-leaved evergreens lent, in turn, a +poetic authenticity to its Greek columns and to the Roman arches of its +doors and windows. Especially in these mild, fragrant, blue nights was +this charm potent, and the fair home seemed to its hidden beholder +forever set apart from the discords and distresses of a turbulent world. +And now an upper window brightened, its sash went up, and at the +veranda's balustrade Anna stood outlined against the inner glow. + +She may have intended but one look at the stars, but they and the spiced +air were enchanting, and in confidence that no earthly eye was on her +she tarried, gazing out to the farthest gleam of the river where it +swung southward round the English Turn. + +Down in the garden a mirthful ecstasy ran through all the blood of her +culprit observer and he drank to her only with his eyes. Against the +window's brightness her dark outline showed true, and every smallest +strand of her hair that played along the contours of brow and head +changed his merriment to reverence and bade his heart recognize how +infinitely distant from his was her thought. Hilary Kincaid! can you +read no better than that? + +Her thought was of him. Her mind's eye saw him on his homeward ride. It +marked the erectness of his frame, the gayety of his mien, the dance of +his locks. By her inner ear she heard his horse's tread passing up the +narrow round-stone pavements of the Creole Quarter, presently to echo in +old St. Peter Street under the windows of Pontalba Row--one of which was +Flora's. Would it ring straight on, or would it pause between that +window and the orange and myrtle shades of Jackson Square? Constance had +said that day to Miranda--for this star-gazer to overhear--that she did +not believe Kincaid loved Flora, and the hearer had longed to ask her +why, but knew she could not tell. Why is a man's word. "They're as +helpless without it," the muser recalled having very lately written on a +secret page, "as women are before it. And yet a girl can be very hungry, +at times, for a why. They say he's as brave as a lion--why is he never +brave to me?" + +So futilely ended the strain on the remembered page, but while his +unsuspected gaze abode on her lifted eyes her thought prolonged the +note: "If he meant love to-night, why did he not stand to his meaning +when I laughed it away? Was that for his friend's sake, or is he only +not brave enough to make one wild guess at me? Ah, I bless Heaven he's +the kind that cannot! And still--oh, Hilary Kincaid, if you were the +girl and I the man! I shouldn't be on my way home; I'd be down in this +garden--." She slowly withdrew. + +Hilary, stepping back to keep her in sight, was suddenly aware of the +family coachman close at his side. Together they moved warily a few +steps farther. + +"You mus' escuse me, Cap'n," the negro amiably whispered. "You all +right, o' co'se! Yit dese days, wid no white gen'leman apputtainin' onto +de place--" + +"Old man!" panted Hilary, "you've saved my life!" + +"Oh, my Lawd, no! Cap'n, I--" + +"Yes, you have! I was just going into fits! Now step in and fetch me out +here--" He shaped his arms fantastically and twiddled his fingers. + +Bending with noiseless laughter the negro nodded and went. + +Just within her window, Anna, still in reverie, sat down at a slender +desk, unlocked a drawer, then a second one inside it, and drew forth--no +mere secret page but--a whole diary! "To Anna, from Miranda, Christmas, +1860." Slowly she took up a pen, as gradually laid it by again, and +opposite various dates let her eyes rest on--not this, though it was +still true: + +"The more we see of Flora, the more we like her." + +Nor this: "Heard a great, but awful, sermon on the duty of resisting +Northern oppression." + +But this: "Connie thinks he 'inclines' to me. Ho! all he's ever said has +been for his far-away friend. I wish he would incline, or else go ten +times as far away! Only not to the war--God forbid! Ah, me, how I long +for his inclining! And while I long he laughs, and the more he laughs +the more I long, for I never, never so doted on any one's laugh. Oh, +shame! to love before--" + +What sound was that below? No mocking-bird note, no south wind in the +foliage, but the kiss of fingers on strings! Warily it stole in at the +window, while softly as an acacia the diary closed its leaves. The bent +head stirred not, but a thrill answered through the hearer's frame as a +second cadence ventured up and in and a voice followed it in song. +Tremblingly the book slid into the drawer, inner and outer lock clicked +whisperingly, and gliding to a door she harkened for any step of the +household, while she drank the strains, her bosom heaving with equal +alarm and rapture. + +If any song is good which serves a lover's ends we need claim no more +for the one that rose to Anna on the odors of the garden and drove her +about the room, darting, clinging, fluttering, returning, like her own +terrified bird above her in its cage. + + When Sylvia sighs + And veils the worshipped wonder + Of her blue eyes + Their sacred curtains under, + Naught can so nigh please me as my tender anguish. + Only grief can ease me while those lashes languish. + Woe best beguiles; + Mirth, wait thou other whiles; + Thou shalt borrow all my sorrow + When Sylvia smiles. + +But what a strange effect! Could this be that Anna. Callender who "would +no more ever again seem small, than the ocean?" Is this that maiden of +the "belated, gradual smile" whom the singer himself so lately named "a +profound pause?" Your eyes, fair girl, could hardly be more dilated if +they saw riot, fire, or shipwreck. Nor now could your brow show more +exaltation responsive to angels singing in the sun; nor now your frame +show more affright though soldiers were breaking in your door. Anna, +Anna! your fingers are clenched in your palms, and in your heart one +frenzy implores the singer to forbear, while another bids him sing on +though the heavens fall. Anna Callender! do you not know this? You have +dropped into a chair, you grip the corners of your desk. Now you are up +again, trembling and putting out your lights. And now you seek to +relight them, but cannot remember the place or direction of anything, +and when you have found out what you were looking for, do not know how +much time has flown, except that the song is still in its first stanza. +Are you aware that your groping hand has seized and rumpled into its +palm a long strand of slender ribbon lately unwound from your throat? + +A coy tap sounds on her door and she glides to it. "Who--who?" But in +spite of her it opens to the bearer of a lamp, her sister Constance. + +"Who--who--?" she mocks in soft glee. "That's the question! 'Who is +Sylvia?'" + +"Don't try to come in! I--I--the floor is all strewn with matches!" + +The sister's mirth vanishes: "Why, Nan! what is the matter?" + +"Do-on't whisper so loud! He's right out there!" + +"But, dearie! it's nothing but a serenade." + +"It's an outrage, Con! How did he ever know--how did he dare to +know--this was my window? Oh, put out that lamp or he'll think I lighted +it--No! no! don't put it out, he'll think I did that, too!" + +"Why, Nan! you never in your life--" + +"Now, Connie, that isn't fair! I won't stay with you!" The speaker fled. +Constance put out the light. + +A few steps down and across a hall a soft sound broke, and Anna stood in +Miranda's doorway wearing her most self-contained smile: "Dearie!" she +quietly said, "isn't it _too_ ridiculous!" + +Miranda crinkled a smile so rife with love and insight that Anna's eyes +suddenly ran full and she glided to her knees by the seated one and into +her arms, murmuring, "You ought both of you to be ashamed of yourselves! +You're totally mistaken!" + +Presently, back in the dusk of her own room, an audible breathing +betrayed her return, and Constance endeavoured to slip out, but Anna +clung: "You sha'n't go! You sha'--" Yet the fugitive easily got away. + +Down among the roses a stanza had just ended. Anna tiptoed out half +across the dim veranda, tossed her crumpled ribbon over the rail, +flitted back, bent an ear, and knew by a brief hush of the strings that +the token had drifted home. + +The die was cast. From brow and heart fled all perturbation and once +more into her eyes came their wonted serenity--with a tinge of +exultation--while the strings sounded again, and again rose the song: + + When Sylvia smiles + Her eyes to mine inclining, + Like azure isles + In seas of lovelight shining, + With a merry madness find I endless pleasure-- + Till she sighs--then sadness is my only treasure. + Woe best beguiles; + Mirth, wait thou other whiles, + Thou shalt borrow all my sorrow + When Sylvia smiles. + + + + +XI + + +IN COLUMN OF PLATOONS + +Love's war was declared. From hour to hour of that night and the next +morning, in bed, at board, dressing for the thronged city, spinning with +Constance and Miranda up Love Street across Piety and Desire and on into +the town's centre, Anna, outwardly all peace, planned that war's +defensive strategy. Splendidly maidenly it should be, harrowingly +arduous to the proud invader, and long drawn out. Constance should see +what a man can be put through. But oh, but oh, if, after all, the +invasion should not come! + +In those days New Orleans paved her favorite streets, when she paved +them at all, with big blocks of granite two feet by one. They came from +the North as ballast in those innumerable wide-armed ships whose cloud +of masts and cordage inspiringly darkened the sky of that far-winding +river-front where we lately saw Hilary Kincaid and Fred Greenleaf ride. +Beginning at the great steamboat landing, half a mile of Canal Street +had such a pavement on either side of its broad grassy "neutral ground." +So had the main streets that led from it at right angles. Long +afterward, even as late as when the Nineteenth Century died, some of +those streets were at the funeral, clad in those same old pavements, +worn as smooth and ragged as a gentleman-beggar's coat. St. Charles +Street was one. Another was the old Rue Royale, its squat ground-floor +domiciles drooping their mossy eaves half across the pinched sidewalks +and confusedly trying to alternate and align themselves with tall brick +houses and shops whose ample two-and three-story balconies were upheld, +balustraded, and overhung by slender garlandries of iron openwork as +graceful and feminine as a lace mantilla. With here and there the flag +of a foreign consul hanging out and down, such is the attire the old +street was vain of in that golden time when a large square sign on every +telegraph pole bade you get your shirts at S.N. Moody's, corner of Canal +and Royal Streets. + +At this corner, on the day after the serenade, there was a dense, +waiting crowd. On the other corner of Royal, where the show-windows of +Hyde & Goodrich blazed with diamonds, and their loftily nested gold +pelican forever fed her young from her bleeding breast, stood an equal +throng. Across Canal Street, where St. Charles opens narrowly southward, +were similar masses, and midway between the four corners the rising +circles of stone steps about the high bronze figure of Henry Clay were +hidden by men and boys packed as close as they could sit or stand. A +great procession had gone up-town and would by and by return. Near and +far banners and pennons rose and fell on the luxurious air, and the +ranks and ranks of broad and narrow balconies were so many gardens of +dames and girls, parasols, and diaphanous gowns. Near the front of the +lowest Hyde & Goodrich balcony, close by the gilded pelican, sat the +Callenders, all gladness, holding mute dialogues with Flora and Madame +Valcour here on the balcony of Moody's corner. It was the birthday of +Washington. + +Not of him, however, did Flora and her grandmother softly converse in +Spanish amid the surrounding babel of English and French. Their theme +was our battery drill of some ten days before, a subject urged upon +Flora by the mosquito-like probings of Madame's musically whined +queries. Better to be bled of almost any information by the antique +little dame than to have her light on it some other way, as she had an +amazing knack of doing. Her _acted_ part of things Flora kept untold; +but grandma's spirit of divination could unfailingly supply that, and +her pencilled brows, stiff as they were, could tell the narrator she had +done so. + +Thus now, Flora gave no hint of the beautiful skill and quick success +with which, on her homeward railway trip with Greenleaf that evening, +she had bettered his impressions of her. By no more than a gentle play +of light and shade in her smile and an undulating melody of +voice--without a word that touched the wound itself, but with a timid +glow of compassionate admiration--she had soothed the torture of a heart +whose last hope Anna had that same hour put to death. + +"But before he took the train with you," murmured the mosquito to the +butterfly, "when he said the General was going to take Irby upon his +staff and give the battery to Kincaid, what did you talk of?" + +"Talk of? Charlie. He said I ought to make Charlie join the battery." + +"Ah? For what? To secure Kincaid's protection of your dear little +brother's health--character--morals--eh?" + +"Yes, 'twas so he put it," replied Flora, while the old lady's eyebrows +visibly cried: + +"You sly bird! will you impute _all_ your own words to that Yankee, and +his to yourself?" + +Which is just what Flora continued to do as the grandma tinkled: "And +you said--what?" + +"I said if I couldn't keep him at home I ought to get him into the +cavalry. You know, dear, in the infantry the marches are so cruel, the +camps so--" + +"But in the artillery," piped the small dame, "they ride, eh?" (It was a +trap she was setting, but in vain was the net spread.) + +"No," said the serene girl, "they, too, go afoot. Often they must help +the horses drag the guns through the mire. Only on parade they ride, or +when rushing to and fro in battle, whips cracking, horses plunging, the +hills smoking and shaking!" The rare creature sparkled frankly, seeing +the battery whirling into action with its standard on the wind--this +very flag she expected presently to bestow. + +"And with Kincaid at the head!" softly cried the antique. + +The girl put on a fondness which suddenly became a withering droop of +the eyes: "Don't mince your smile so, grannie dear, I can hear the paint +crack." + +The wee relic flashed, yet instantly was bland again: "You were about to +say, however, that in the artillery--?" + +"The risks are the deadliest of all." + +"Ah, yes!" sang the mosquito, "and for a sister to push her boy brother +into a battery under such a commander would be too much like murder!" + +The maiden felt the same start as when Greenleaf had ventured almost +those words. "Yes," she beamingly rejoined, "that's what I told the +Lieutenant." + +"With a blush?" + +"No," carelessly said the slender beauty, and exchanged happy signals +with the Callenders. + +"You tricksy wretch!" muttered the grandmother to herself. For though +Charlie was in the battery by his own choice, Hilary would have kept him +out had not the sister begged to have him let in. + +Suddenly there was a glad stoppage of all by-play in the swarming +streets. Down St. Charles from LaFayette Square came the shock of +saluting artillery, and up Royal from Jackson Square rolled back +antiphonal thunders. + +"Grandma!" softly cried Flora, as if sharing the general elation, but +had begun again to tell of Greenleaf, when from far over in Camp Street +her subtle ear caught a faint stray sigh of saxhorns. + +"Well? well? about the Yankee--?" urged Madame. + +"Oh, a trifle! He was to go that night, and thinking he might some day +return in very different fashion and we be glad to make use of him, I--" +The speaker's lithe form straightened and her gaze went off to the left. +"Here they come!" she said, and out where Camp Street emerges, a glint +of steel, a gleam of brass, a swarming of the people that way, and again +a shimmer of brass and steel, affirmed her word that the long, plumed, +bristling column had got back to the arms of its darling Canal Street. + +"Yes," cried many, "they're turning this way!" + +"Well?--Well?" insisted the old lady amid the rising din. "And so +you--you?" + +"Be more careful," murmured the girl. "I told him that our +convictions--about this war--yours and mine--not Charlie's--_are the +same as his_." + +A charming sight she was, even in that moment of public enthusiasm and +spectacle, holding the wondering stare of her companion with a gayety +that seemed ready to break into laughter. The dainty Madame went limp, +and in words as slow and soft as her smile, sighed, "You are a genius!" + +"No, only the last thing you would suspect--a good housekeeper. I have +put him up in sugar." + +The distant martial strains became more coherent. In remote balconies +handkerchiefs fluttered wildly, and under nearer and nearer ones the +people began to pack closer and choose their footing along the curb. +Presently from the approaching column came who but Hilary Kincaid, +galloping easily over the slippery pavements. Anna saw his eyes sweep +the bank of human flowers (with its occasional male caterpillar) on +Moody's balcony and light upon Flora. He lifted his kepi and halted. One +could read his soft questions. + +"All right? All ready? Where are the others?--Ah!" He sent an eager +salutation to the Callenders, and two joyfully bowed, but Anna gave no +sign. With great dignity her gaze was bent beyond him on the nearing +host, and when Constance plucked her arm she tardily looked three wrong +ways. + +The rider could not wait. The police were pressing back the jubilant +masses, swarms of ladies on the rear forms were standing up, and Flora, +still seated, had leaned down beamingly and was using every resource of +voice and fan to send him some word through the tumult of plaudits and +drums. He spurred close. In a favoring hush--drum-corps inviting the +band--she bent low and with an arch air of bafflement tried once more, +but an outburst of brazen harmonies tore her speech to threads. +Suddenly-- + + "Ever of thee I'm fondly dreaming--" + +pealed the cornets, pumped the trombones, whipping it out, cracking it +off, with a rigor of rhythm to shame all peace-time languishments-- + + "Thy gentle voice my spirit can cheer. + Thou art the star--" + +What could the balconies do but wave more joyously than ever? The +streets hurrahed! The head of the procession was here! The lone horseman +reined back, wheeled, cast another vain glance toward Anna, and with an +alarming rataplan of slipping and recovering hoofs sped down the column. + +But what new rapture was this? Some glorious luck had altered the route, +and the whole business swung right into this old rue Royale! Now, now +the merry clamor and rush of the crowd righting itself! And behold! this +blazing staff and its commanding general--general of division! He +first, and then all they, bowed to Flora and her grandmother, bowed to +the Callenders, and were bowed to in return. A mounted escort followed. +And now--yea, verily! General Brodnax and his staff of brigade! Wave, +Valcours, wave Callenders! Irby's bow to Flora was majestic, and hers to +him as gracious as the smell of flowers in the air. And here was +Mandeville, most glittering in all the glitter. Flora beamed on him as +well, Anna bowed with a gay fondness, Miranda's dainty nose crimped +itself, and Constance, with a blitheness even more vivid, wished all +these balconies could know that Captain--he _was_ Lieutenant, but that +was away back last week--Captain Etienne Aristide Rofignac de Mandeville +was _hers_, whom, after their marriage, now _so_ near at hand, she was +going always to call Steve! + + + + +XII + + +MANDEVILLE BLEEDS + +Two overflowing brigades! In the van came red-capped artillery. Not the +new battery, though happily known to Flora and the Callenders; the +Washington Artillery. Illustrious command! platoons and platoons of the +flower of the Crescent City's youth and worth! They, too, that day +received their battle-flag. They have the shot-torn rags of it yet. + +Ah, the clanging horns again, and oh, the thundering drums! Another +uniform, on a mass of infantry, another band at its head braying another +lover's song reduced to a military tramp, swing, and clangor-- + + "I'd offer thee this hand of mine + If I could love thee less--" + +Every soldier seemed to have become a swain. Hilary and Anna had lately +sung this wail together, but not to its end, she had called it "so +ungenuine." How rakishly now it came ripping out. "My fortune is too +hard for thee," it declared, "'twould chill thy dearest joy. I'd rather +weep to see thee free," and ended with "destroy"; but it had the swagger +of a bowling-alley. + +All the old organizations, some dating back to '12-'15, had lately grown +to amazing numbers, while many new ones had been so perfectly uniformed, +armed, accoutred and drilled six nights a week that the ladies, in their +unmilitary innocence, could not tell the new from the old. Except in two +cases: Even Anna was aware that the "Continentals," in tasseled +top-boots, were of earlier times, although they had changed their buff +knee-breeches and three-cornered hats for a smart uniform of blue and +gray; while these red-and-blue-flannel Zouaves, drawing swarms of boys +as dray-loads of sugar-hogsheads drew flies, were as modern as 1861 +itself. But oh, ah, one _knew_ so many young men! It was wave, bow, +smile and bow, smile and wave, till the whole frame was gloriously +weary. + +Near Anna prattled a Creole girl of sixteen with whom she now and then +enjoyed a word or so: Victorine Lafontaine, daughter of our friend +Maxime. + +"Louisiana Foot-Rifles--ah! but their true name," she protested, "are +the Chasseurs-a-Pied! 'Twas to them my papa billong' biffo' he join' +hisseff on the batt'rie of Captain Kincaid, and there he's now a +corporeal!" + +What jaunty fellows they were! and as their faultless ranks came close, +their glad, buskined feet beating as perfect music for the roaring drums +as the drums beat for them, Anna, in fond ardor, bent low over the rail +and waved, exhorting Miranda and Constance to wave with her. So marched +the chasseurs by, but the wide applause persisted as yet other hosts, +with deafening music and perfect step and with bayonets back-slanted +like the porcupine's, came on and on, and passed and passed, ignoring in +grand self-restraint their very loves who leaned from the banquettes' +edges and from balustraded heights and laughed and boasted and +worshipped. + +Finally artillery again! every man in it loved by some one--or dozen--in +these glad throngs. Clap! call! wave! Oh, gallant sight! These do not +enter Royal Street. They keep Canal, obliquing to that side of the way +farthest from the balconies-- + +"To make room," cries Victorine, "to form line pritty soon off horses, +in front those cannon'." + +At the head rides Kincaid. Then, each in his place, lieutenants, +sergeants, drivers, the six-horse teams leaning on the firm traces, the +big wheels clucking, the long Napoleons shining like gold, and the +cannoneers--oh, God bless the lads!--planted on limbers and caissons, +with arms tight folded and backs as plumb as the meridian. Now three of +the pieces, half the battery, have gone by and-- + +"Well, well, if there isn't Sam Gibbs, sergeant of a gun! It is, I tell +you, it is! Sam Gibbs, made over new, as sure as a certain monosyllable! +and what could be surer, for Sam Gibbs?" + +So laugh the sidewalks; but society, overhead, cares not for a made-over +Gibbs while round about him are sixty or seventy young heroes who need +no making over. Anna, Anna! what a brave and happy half-and-half of +Creoles and "Americans" do your moist eyes beam down upon: here a +Canonge and there an Ogden--a Zacherie--a Fontennette--Willie +Geddes--Tom Norton--a Fusilier! Nat Frellsen--a Tramontana--a +Grandissime!--and a Grandissime again! Percy Chilton--a Dudley--Arthur +Puig y Puig--a De Armas--MacKnight--Violett--Avendano--Rob Rareshide-- +Guy Palfrey--a Morse, a Bien, a Fuentes--a Grandissme once more! Aleck +Moise--Ralph Fenner--Ned Ferry!--and lo! a Raoul Innerarity, image of +his grandfather's portrait--and a Jules St. Ange! a Converse--Jack +Eustis--two Frowenfelds! a Mossy! a Hennen--Bartie Sloo--McVey, McStea, +a De Lavillebuevre--a Thorndyke-Smith and a Grandissime again! + +And ah! see yonder young cannoneer half-way between these two balconies +and the statue beyond; that foppish boy with his hair in a hundred curls +and his eyes wild with wayward ardor! "Ah, Charlie Valcour!" thinks +Anna; "oh, your poor sister!" while the eyes of Victorine take him in +secretly and her voice is still for a whole minute. Hark! From the head +of the column is wafted back a bugle-note, and everything stands. + +Now the trim lads relax, the balcony dames in the rear rows sit down, +there are nods and becks and wafted whispers to a Calder and an Avery, +to tall Numa, Dolhonde and short Eugene Chopin, to George Wood and Dick +Penn and Fenner and Bouligny and Pilcher and L'Hommedieu; and Charlie +sends up bows and smiles, and wipes the beautiful brow he so openly and +wilfully loves best on earth. Anna smiles back, but Constance bids her +look at Maxime, Victorine's father, whom neither his long white +moustaches nor weight of years nor the lawless past revealed in his +daring eyes can rob of his youth. So Anna looks, and when she turns +again to Charlie she finds him sending a glance rife with conquest--not +his first--up to Victorine, who, without meeting it, replies--as she has +done to each one before it--with a dreamy smile into vacancy, and a +faint narrowing of her almond eyes. + +Captain Kincaid comes ambling back, and right here in the throat of +Royal Street faces the command. The matter is explained to Madame +Valcour by a stranger: + +"Now at the captain's word all the cannoneers will spring down, leaving +only guns, teams and drivers at their back, and line up facing us. The +captain will dismount and ascend to the balcony, and there he and the +young lady, whoever she is--" He waits, hoping Madame will say who the +young lady is, but Madame only smiles for him to proceed--"The captain +and she will confront each other, she will present the colors, he, +replying, will receive them, and--ah, after all!" The thing had been +done without their seeing it, and there stood the whole magnificent +double line. Captain Kincaid dismounted and had just turned from his +horse when there galloped up Royal Street from the vanished +procession--Mandeville. Slipping and clattering, he reined up and +saluted: "How soon can Kincaid's Battery be completely ready to go into +camp?" + +"Now, if necessary." + +"It will receive orders to move at seven to-morrow morning!" The +Creole's fervor amuses the rabble, and when Hilary smiles his +earnestness waxes to a frown. Kincaid replies lightly and the rider +bends the rein to wheel away, but the slippery stones have their victim +at last. The horse's feet spread and scrabble, his haunches go low. +Constance snatches both Anna's hands. Ah! by good luck the beast is up +again! Yet again the hoofs slip, the rider reels, and Charlie and a +comrade dart out to catch him, but he recovers. Then the horse makes +another plunge and goes clear down with a slam and a slide that hurl his +master to the very sidewalk and make a hundred pale women cry out. + +Constance and her two companions bend wildly from the balustrade, a +sight for a painter. Across the way Flora, holding back her grandmother, +silently leans out, another picture. In the ranks near Charlie a +disarray continues even after Kincaid has got the battered Mandeville +again into the saddle, and while Mandeville is rejecting sympathy with a +begrimed yet haughty smile. + +"Keep back, ladies!" pleads Madame's late informant, holding off two or +three bodily. "Ladies, sit down! Will you please to keep back!" Flora +still leans out. Some one is melodiously calling: + +"Captain Kincaid!" It is Mrs. Callender. "Captain!" she repeats. + +He smiles up and at last meets Anna's eyes. Flora sees their +glances--angels ascending and descending--and a wee loop of ribbon that +peeps from his tightly buttoned breast. Otherwise another sight, +elsewhere, could not have escaped her, though it still escapes many. + +"Poor boy!" it causes two women behind her to exclaim, "poor boy!" but +Flora pays no heed, for Hilary is speaking to the Callenders. + +"Nothing broken but his watch," he gayly comforts them as to Mandeville. + +"He's bleeding!" moans Constance, very white. But Kincaid softly +explains in his hollowed hands: + +"Only his nose!" + +The nose's owner casts no upward look. Not his to accept pity, even from +a fiancee. His handkerchief dampened "to wibe the faze," two bits of wet +paper "to plug the noztril',"--he could allow no more! + +"First blood of the war!" said Hilary. + +"Yez! But"--the flashing warrior tapped his sword--"nod the last!" and +was off at a gallop, while Kincaid turned hurriedly to find that +Charlie, struck by the floundering horse, had twice fainted away. + +In the balconies the press grew dangerous. An urchin intercepted Kincaid +to show him the Callenders, who, with distressed eyes, pointed him to +their carriage hurrying across Canal Street. + +"For Charlie and Flora!" called Anna. They could not stir "themselves" +for the crush; but yonder, on Moody's side, the same kind citizen +noticed before had taken matters in hand: + +"Keep back, ladies! Make room! Let these two ladies out!" He squeezed +through the pack, holding aloft the furled colors, which all this time +had been lying at Flora's feet. Her anxious eyes were on them at every +second step as she pressed after him with the grandmother dangling from +her elbow. + +The open carriage spun round the battery's right and up its front to +where a knot of comrades hid the prostrate Charlie; the surgeon, +Kincaid, and Flora crouching at his side, the citizen from the balcony +still protecting grandmamma, and the gilded eagle of the unpresented +standard hovering over all. With tender ease Hilary lifted the sufferer +and laid him on the carriage's front seat, the surgeon passed Madame in +and sat next to her, but to Kincaid Flora exclaimed with a glow of +heroic distress: + +"Let me go later--with Anna!" Her eyes overflowed--she bit her lip--"I +must present the flag!" + +A note of applause started, a protest hushed it, and the overbending +Callenders and the distracted Victorine heard Hilary admiringly say: + +"Come! Go! You belong with your brother!" + +He pressed her in. For an instant she stood while the carriage turned, a +hand outstretched toward the standard, saying to Hilary something that +was drowned by huzzas; then despairingly she sank into her seat and was +gone down Royal Street. + +"Attention!" called a lieutenant, and the ranks were in order. To the +holder of the flag Hilary pointed out Anna, lingered for a word with +his subaltern, and then followed the standard to the Callenders' balcony. + + + + +XIII + + +THINGS ANNA COULD NOT WRITE + +"Charlie has two ribs broken, but is doing well," ran a page of the +diary; "so well that Flora and Madame--who bears fatigue +wonderfully--let Captain Irby take them, in the evening, to see the +illumination. For the thunderstorm, which sent us whirling home at +midday, was followed by a clear evening sky and an air just not too cool +to be fragrant. + +"I cannot write. My thoughts jostle one another out of all shape, like +the women in that last crush after the flag-presentation. I begged not +to have to take Flora's place from her. It was like snatching jewels off +her. I felt like a robber! But in truth until I had the flag actually in +my hand I thought we were only being asked to take care of it for a +later day. The storm had begun to threaten. Some one was trying to say +to me--'off to camp and then to the front,' and--'must have the flag +now,' and still I said, 'No, oh, no!' But before I could get any one to +add a syllable there was the Captain himself with the three men of the +color guard behind him, the middle one Victorine's father. I don't know +how I began, but only that I went on and on in some wild way till I +heard the applause all about and beneath me, and he took the colors +from me, and the first gust of the storm puffed them half +open--gorgeously--and the battery hurrahed. And then came his part. +He--I cannot write it." + +Why not, the diary never explained, but what occurred was this: + +"Ladies and gentlemen and comrades in arms!" began Hilary and threw a +superb look all round, but the instant he brought it back to Anna, it +quailed, and he caught his breath. Then he nerved up again. To help his +courage and her own she forced herself to gaze straight into his eyes, +but reading the affright in hers he stood dumb and turned red. + +He began again: "Ladies and gentlemen and comrades in arms!" and pulled +his moustache, and smote and rubbed his brow, and suddenly drove his +hand into an inside pocket and snatched out a slip of paper. But what +should come trailing out with it but a long loop of ribbon! As he pushed +it back he dropped the paper, which another whiff of wind flirted +straight over his head, sent it circling and soaring clear above Moody's +store and dropped it down upon the roof. And there gazed Anna and all +that multitude, utterly blank, until the martyr himself burst into a +laugh. Then a thousand laughs pealed as one, and he stood smiling and +stroking back his hair, till his men began to cry, "song! song!" + +Upon that he raised the flag high in one hand, let it balloon to the +wind, made a sign of refusal, and all at once poured out a flood of +speech--pledges to Anna and her fellow-needlewomen--charges to his +men--hopes for the cherished cause--words so natural and unadorned, so +practical and soldier-like, and yet so swift, that not a breath was +drawn till he had ended. But then what a shout! + +It was over in a moment. The great black cloud that had been swelling +up from the south gave its first flash and crash, and everybody started +pell-mell for home. The speaker stood just long enough for a last bow to +Anna while the guard went before him with the colors. Then he hurried +below and had the whole battery trotting down Canal Street and rounding +back on its farther side, with the beautiful standard fluttering to the +storm, before the Callenders could leave the balcony. + +Canal Street that evening was a veritable fairyland. When, growing tired +of their carriage, the Callenders and Mandeville walked, and Kincaid +unexpectedly joined them, fairyland was the only name he could find for +it, and Anna, in response, could find none at all. Mallard's, +Zimmerman's, Clark's, Levois's, Laroussini's, Moody's, Hyde & +Goodrich's, and even old Piffet's were all aglow. One cannot recount +half. Every hotel, every club-house, all the theatres, all the consul's +offices in Royal and Carondelet streets, the banks everywhere, Odd +Fellows' Hall--with the Continentals giving their annual ball in it--and +so forth and so on! How the heart was exalted! + +But when the heart is that way it is easy to say things prematurely, and +right there in Canal Street Hilary spoke of love. Not personally, only +at large; although when Anna restively said no woman should ever give +her heart where she could not give a boundless and unshakable trust, his +eyes showed a noble misery while he exclaimed: + +"Oh, but there are women of whom no man can ever deserve that!" There +his manner was all at once so personal that she dared not be silent, +but fell to generalizing, with many a stammer, that a woman ought to be +very slow to give her trust if, once giving it, she would not rather die +than doubt. + +"Do you believe there are such women?" he asked. + +"I know there are," she said, her eyes lifted to his, but the next +instant was so panic-smitten and shamed that she ran into a lamp post. +And when he called that his fault her denial was affirmative in its +feebleness, and with the others she presently resumed the carriage and +said good-night. + +"Flippantly!" thought the one left alone on the crowded sidewalk. + +Yet--"It is I who am going to have the hardest of it," said the diary a +short hour after. "I've always thought that when the right one came I'd +never give in the faintest bit till I had put him to every test and task +and delay I could invent. And now I can't invent one! His face +_quenches_ doubt, and if he keeps on this way--Ah, Flora! _is_ he +anything to you? Every time he speaks my heart sees you. I see you now! +And somehow--since Charlie's mishap--more yours than his if--" + +For a full minute the pen hovered over the waiting page, then gradually +left it and sank to rest on its silver rack. + + + + +XIV + + +FLORA TAPS GRANDMA'S CHEEK + +Meanwhile, from a cluster of society folk sipping ices at "Vincent's" +balcony tables, corner of Carondelet Street (where men made the most +money), and Canal (where women spent the most), Flora and her +grandmother, in Irby's care, made their way down to the street. + +Kincaid, once more on horseback with General Brodnax, saw them emerge +beside his cousin's hired carriage, and would have hurried to them, if +only to inquire after the injured boy; but the General gave what he was +saying a detaining energy. It was of erecting certain defences behind +Mobile; of the scarcity of military engineers; and of his having, to +higher authority, named Hilary for the task. The Captain could easily +leave the battery in camp for a day or two, take the Mobile boat--He +ceased an instant and scowled, as Hilary bowed across the way. + +There was a tender raillery in the beam with which Flora held the young +man's eye a second, and as she turned away there was accusation in the +faint toss and flicker of the deep lace that curtained her hat. Both her +companions saw it, but Irby she filled with an instant inebriation by +one look, the kindest she had ever given him. + +"Both barrels!" said the old lady to herself. + +As Irby reached the carriage door Flora's touch arrested him. It was as +light as a leaf, but it thrilled him like wine--whose thrill he well +knew. + +"I've lost one of my gloves," she said. + +He looked about her feet. + +"You mus' have drop' it on the stair," said grandmamma, discerning the +stratagem, and glad to aid it. + +Problem in tactics: To hunt the glove all the way up to the balcony and +return before Hilary, if he was coming, could reach Flora's side. Irby +set his teeth--he loathed problems--and sprang up the steps. + +"No use," chanted Madame with enjoyment; "the other one is not coming." + +But Flora remained benign while the old lady drew a little mocking sigh. +"Ah," said the latter, "if the General would only stop changing his mind +about his two nephews, what a lot of hard work that would save you!" + +"It isn't hard!" cried Flora; so radiantly that passing strangers +brightened back, "I love it!" + +"It!" mocked the grandmother as the girl passed her into the carriage. +"It!" + +"You poor tired old thing!" sighed the compassionate beauty. "Never +mind, dear; how the General may choose no longer gives me any anxiety." + +"Oh, you lie!" + +"No," softly laughed the girl, "not exactly. Don't collapse, love, +you'll get your share of the loot yet. My choice shall fit the General's +as this glove (drawing on the one Irby was still away in search of) fits +this hand." + +Madame smiled her contempt: "Nevertheless you will risk all just to show +Anna--" + +Flora made a gesture of delight but harkened on-- + +"That she cannot have her Captain till--" + +"Till I'm sure I don't want him!" sang the girl. + +"Which will never be!" came the quiet response. + +The maiden flushed: "On the contrary, my dear, I was just going to say, +you will please begin _at once_ to be more civil to _our_ +Captain--Irby." + +Madame gazed: "My God!" + +"Ho!" said Flora, "I'd rather somebody else's." She cheerily smoothed +the bonnet-bows under the old lady's chin: "Now, _chere_, you know the +assets are all you care for--even if with them you have to take a +nincompoop for a grandson." + +She was laughing merrily when Irby reappeared in the crowd, motioning +that he had found nothing. Her gloved hands raised in fond apology, and +Hilary's absence, appeased him, and he entered the vehicle. + +So to Jackson Square, where it was good-by to Irby and the carriage, and +Age and Beauty climbed their staircase together. "To-morrow's Saturday," +gayly sighed the girl. "I've a good mind to lie abed till noon, counting +up the week's successes." + +"Especially to-day's," smirked weary Age. + +"Ho-o-oh!" laughed the maiden, "you and to-day be--" The rest was +whispered close, with a one-fingered tap on the painted cheek. In the +gloom of the upper landing she paused to murmur, "hear this: Two things +I have achieved this week worth all to-day's bad luck ten times +over--you don't believe me?" + +"No, you pretty creature; you would have told me sooner, if only for +vanity." + +"I swear to you it is true!" whispered the lithe boaster, with a gleeful +quiver from head to foot. "Listen! First--purely, of course, for love of +Anna--I have conspired with the General to marry her to Kincaid. And, +second, also purely for love of her, I have conspired with Irby to keep +her and Kincaid forever and a day apart!" + +She tapped both the aged cheeks at once: "I hate to share anything so +delicious with you, but I must, because--" + +"Ah-h! because, as usual--" + +"Yes! Yes, you sweet old pelican! Because you are to turn the crank! But +it's all for love of Anna. Ah, there's no inspiration like +exasperation!" + +"Except destitution!" said the grandmother. + +They came before Charlie with arms about each other and openly enjoyed +his only comment--a scornful rounding of his eyes. + +In the Callender house, as the stair clock sounded the smallest hour of +the night, Miranda, seeing the chink under Anna's door to be still +luminous, stole to the spot, gently rapped, and winning no response +warily let herself in. + +From the diary on her desk Anna lifted her cheek, looked up, reclosed +her lids, smiled and reopened them. Miranda took the blushing face +between her palms, and with quizzing eyes--and nose--inquired: + +"Is there any reason under heaven why Anna Callender shouldn't go to bed +and have glad dreams?" + +"None that I know of," said Anna. + + + + +XV + + +THE LONG MONTH OF MARCH + + Ole mahs' love' wine, ole mis' love' silk, + De piggies, dey loves buttehmilk, + An' eveh sence dis worl' began, + De ladies loves de ladies' man. + I loves to sing a song to de ladies! + I loves to dance along o' de ladies! + Whilse eveh I can breave aw see aw stan' + I's bound to be a ladies' man. + +So sang Captain Hilary Kincaid at the Mandeville-Callender wedding +feast, where his uncle Brodnax, with nearly everyone we know, was +present. Hilary had just been second groomsman, with Flora for his "file +leader," as he said, meaning second bridesmaid. He sat next her at +table, with Anna farthest away. + +Hardly fortunate was some one who, conversing with the new Miss +Callender, said the charm of Kincaid's singing was that the song came +from "the entire man." She replied that just now it really seemed so! In +a sense both comments were true, and yet never in the singer's life had +so much of "the entire man" refused to sing. All that night of the +illumination he had not closed his eyes, except in anguish for having +tried to make love on the same day when--and to the same Anna Callender +before whom--he had drawn upon himself the roaring laugh of the crowded +street; or in a sort of remorse for letting himself become the rival of +a banished friend who, though warned that a whole platoon of him would +make no difference, suddenly seemed to plead a prohibitory difference +to one's inmost sense of honor. + +At dawn he had risen resolved to make good his boast and "fight like a +whale." Under orders of his own seeking he had left the battery the +moment its tents were up and had taken boat for Mobile. Whence he had +returned only just in time to stand beside Flora Valcour, preceded by a +relative of the bridegroom paired with Anna. + +Yet here at the feast none was merrier than Kincaid, who, charmingly +egged on by Flora, kept those about him in gales of mirth, and even let +himself be "cajoled" (to use his own term) into singing this song whose +title had become his nickname. Through it all Anna smiled and laughed +with the rest and clapped for each begged-for stanza. Yet all the time +she said in her heart, "He is singing it at me!" + + De squir'l he love' de hick'ry tree, + De clover love' de bummle-bee, + De flies, dey loves mullasses, an'-- + De ladies loves de ladies' man. + I loves to be de beau o' de ladies! + I loves to shake a toe wid de ladies! + Whilse eveh I'm alive, on wateh aw Ian', + I's bound to be a ladies' man. + +The General, seeing no reason why Hilary should not pay Anna at least +the attentions he very properly paid his "file leader," endured the song +with a smile, but took revenge when he toasted the bride: + +"In your prayers to-night, my dear Constance, just thank God your +husband is, at any rate, without the sense of humor--Stop, my friends! +Let me finish!" + +A storm of laughter was falling upon Mandeville, but the stubborn +General succeeded after all in diverting it to Hilary, to whom in solemn +mirth he pointed as--"_that_ flirtatious devotee of giddiness, without +a fault big enough to make him interesting!" ["Hoh!"--"Hoh!"--from men +and maidens who could easily have named huge ones.] Silent Anna knew at +least two or three; was it not a fault a hundred times too grave to be +uninteresting, for a big artillerist to take a little frightened lassie +as cruelly at her word as he was doing right here and now? + +Interesting to her it was that his levity still remained unsubmerged, +failing him only in a final instant: Their hands had clasped in +leave-taking and her eyes were lifted to his, when some plea with which +"the entire man" seemed overcharged to the very lips was suddenly, +subtly, and not this time by disconcertion, but by self-mastery, +withheld. Irby put in a stiff good-by, and as he withdrew, Hilary echoed +only the same threadbare word more brightly, and was gone; saying to +himself as he looked back from the garden's outmost bound: + +"She's _cold;_ that's what's the matter with Anna; cold and cruel!" + +Tedious was the month of March. Mandeville devise' himself a splandid +joke on that, to the effect that soon enough there would be months of +tedieuse marches--ha, ha, ha!--and contribute' it to the news-pape'. Yet +the tedium persisted. Always something about to occur, nothing ever +occurring. Another vast parade, it is true, some two days after the +marriage, to welcome from Texas that aged general (friend of the +Callenders) who after long suspense to both sides had at last joined +the South, and was to take command at New Orleans. Also, consequent upon +the bursting of a gun that day in Kincaid's Battery, the funeral +procession of poor, handsome, devil-may-care Felix de Gruy; saxhorns +moaning and wailing, drums muttering from their muffled heads, Anna's +ensign furled in black, captain and lieutenants on foot, brows inclined, +sabres reversed, and the "Stars and Bars," new flag of the Confederacy, +draping the slow caisson that bore him past the Callenders' gates in +majesty so strange for the gay boy. + +Such happenings, of course; but nothing that ever brought those things +for which one, wakening in the night, lay and prayed while forced by the +songster's rapture to "listen to the mocking-bird." + +While the Judge lived the Callenders had been used to the company of men +by the weight of whose energies and counsel the clock of public affairs +ran and kept time; senators, bishops, bank presidents, great lawyers, +leading physicians; a Dr. Sevier, for one. Some of these still enjoyed +their hospitality, and of late in the old house life had recovered much +of its high charm and breadth of outlook. Yet March was tedious. + +For in March nearly all notables felt bound to be up at Montgomery +helping to rock the Confederacy's cradle. Whence came back sad stories +of the incapacity, negligence, and bickerings of misplaced men. It was +"almost as bad as at Washington." Friends still in the city were +tremendously busy; yet real business--Commerce--with scarce a moan of +complaint, lay heaving out her dying breath. Busy at everything but +business, these friends, with others daily arriving in command of +rustic volunteers, kept society tremendously gay, by gas-light; and +courage and fortitude and love of country and trust in God and scorn of +the foe went clad in rainbow colors; but at the height of all manner of +revels some pessimist was sure to explain to Anna why the war must be +long, of awful cost, and with a just fighting chance to win. + +"Then why do we not turn about right here?" + +"Too late now." + +Such reply gave an inward start, it seemed so fitted to her own +irrevealable case. But it was made to many besides her, and women came +home from dinings or from operas and balls for the aid of this or that +new distress of military need, and went up into the dark and knelt in +all their jewels and wept long. In March the poor, everywhere, began to +be out of work, and recruiting to be lively among them too, because for +thousands of them it was soldier's pay or no bread. Among the troops +from the country death had begun to reap great harvests ere a gun was +fired, and in all the camps lovers nightly sang their lugubrious +"Lorena," feeling that "a hundred months had passed" before they had +really dragged through one. March was so tedious, and lovers are such +poor arithmeticians. Wherever Hilary Kincaid went, showing these how to +cast cannon (that would not burst), those where to build fortifications, +and some how to make unsickly camps, that song was begged of him in the +last hour before sleep; last song but one, the very last being +always--that least liked by Anna. + +Tedious to Kincaid's Battery were his absences on so many errands. +Behind a big earthwork of their own construction down on the river's +edge of the old battle ground, close beyond the Callenders', they lay +camped in pretty white tents that seemed to Anna, at her window, no +bigger than visiting-cards. Rarely did she look that way but the fellows +were drilling, their brass pieces and their officers' drawn sabres +glinting back the sun, horses and men as furiously diligent as big and +little ants, and sometimes, of an afternoon, their red and yellow silk +and satin standard unfurled--theirs and hers. Of evenings small bunches +of the boys would call to chat and be sung to; to threaten to desert if +not soon sent to the front; and to blame all delays on colonels and +brigadiers "known" by them to be officially jealous of--They gave only +the tedious nickname. + +"Why belittle him with that?" queried Miranda, winning Anna's silent +gratitude. + +"It doesn't belittle _him_," cried Charlie. "That's the joke. It makes +_him_ loom larger!" + +Others had other explanations: Their guns were "ladies' guns!" Were the +guns the foremost cause? Some qualified: "Foremost, yes; fundamental, +no." Rather the fact that never was a woman cited in male gossip but +instantly he was her champion; or that no woman ever brought a grievance +to any camp where he might be but she wanted to appeal it to him. + +Anna "thought the name was all from the song." + +"Oh, fully as much from his hundred and one other songs! Had he never +sung to her-- + + "'I'd offer thee this hand of mine--'?" + +Frankly, it was agreed, he did most laughably love ladies' company; +that he could always find it, as a horse can find water; that although +no evening in their society could be so gay or so long that he would not +be certain to work harder next day than any one else, no day could be so +cruelly toilsome that he could not spend half the next night dancing +with the girls; and lastly, that with perfect evenness and a boyish +modesty he treated them all alike. + +Anna laughed with the rest, but remembered three separate balls to +which, though counted on, he had not come, she uninformed that military +exigencies had at the last moment curtly waved him off, and he unaware +that these exigencies had been created by Irby under inspiration from +the daintiest and least self-assertive tactician in or about New +Orleans. + + + + +XVI + + +CONSTANCE TRIES TO HELP + +One day, in Canal Street, Kincaid met "Smellemout and Ketchem." It was +pleasant to talk with men of such tranquil speech. He proposed a glass +of wine, but just then they were "strictly temperance." They alluded +familiarly to his and Greenleaf's midnight adventure. The two +bull-drivers, they said, were still unapprehended. + +Dropping to trifles they mentioned a knife, a rather glittering gewgaw, +which, as evidence, ought-- + +"Oh, that one!" said Hilary. "Yes, I have it, mud, glass jewels and all. +No," he laughed, "I can keep it quite as safely as you can." + +So they passed to a larger matter. "For, really, as to Gibbs and +Lafontaine--" + +"You can't have them either," interrupted their Captain, setting the +words to a tune. Then only less melodiously--"No, sir-ee! Why, +gentlemen, they weren't trying to kill the poor devil, he was trying to +kill them, tell your Committee of Public Safety. And tell them times are +changed. You can _take_ Sam and Maxime, of course, _if_ you can take the +whole battery; we're not doing a retail business. By the by--did you +know?--'twas Sam's gun broke the city's record, last week, for rapid +firing! Funny, isn't it!--Excuse me, I must speak to those ladies." + +The ladies, never prettier, were Mrs. Callender and Constance. They were +just reentering, from a shop, their open carriage. In amiable reproach +they called him a stranger, yet with bewitching resignation accepted and +helped out his lame explanations. + +"You look--" began Constance--but "careworn" was a risky term and she +stopped. He suggested "weather-beaten," and the ladies laughed. + +"Yes," they said, "even they were overtasked with patriotic activities, +and Anna had almost made herself ill. Nevertheless if he would call he +should see her too. Oh, no, not to-day; no, not to-morrow; but--well-- +the day after." (Miss Valcour passed so close as to hear the +appointment, but her greeting smile failed to draw their attention.) +"And oh, then you must tell us all about that fearful adventure in which +you saved Lieutenant Greenleaf's life! Ah, we've heard, just heard, _in +a letter_." The horses danced with impatience. "We shall expect you!" + +As they drove into Royal Street with Constance rapturously pressing +Miranda's hand the latter tried vainly to exchange bows with a third +beauty and a second captain, but these were busy meeting each other in +bright surprise and espied the carriage only when it had passed. + +Might the two not walk together a step or so? With pleasure. They were +Flora and Irby. Presently-- + +"Do you know," she asked, "where your cousin proposes to be day after +to-morrow evening--in case you should want to communicate with him?" + +He did not. She told him. + + + + +XVII + + +"OH, CONNIE, DEAR--NOTHING--GO ON" + +The third evening came. On all the borders of dear Dixie more tents than +ever whitened sea-shores and mountain valleys, more sentinels paced to +and fro in starlight or rain, more fifers and trumpeters woke the echoes +with strains to enliven fortitude, more great guns frowned silently at +each other over more parapets, and more thousands of lovers reclined +about camp fires with their hearts and fancies at home, where mothers +and maidens prayed in every waking moment for God's mercy to keep the +brave truants; and with remembrance of these things Anna strove to +belittle her own distress while about the library lamp she and Miranda +seemed each to be reading a book, and Constance the newspaper sent from +Charleston by Mandeville. + +Out in the mellow night a bird sang from the tip-top of a late-blooming +orange tree, and inside, away inside, inside and through and through the +poor girl's heart, the "years"--which really were nothing but the mantel +clock's quarter-hours--"crept slowly by." + +At length she laid her book aside, softly kissed each seated companion, +and ascended to her room and window. There she stood long without sound +or motion, her eyes beyond the stars, her head pressed wearily against +the window frame. Then the lids closed while her lips formed soft words: + +"Oh, God, he is not coming!" Stillness again. And then--"Oh, let me +believe yet that only Thy hand keeps him away! Is it to save him for +some one fairer and better? God, I ask but to know! I'm a rebel, but not +against Thee, dear Lord. I know it's a sin for me to suffer this way; +Thou dost not _owe_ me happiness; I owe it Thee. Oh, God, am I clamoring +for my week's wages before I've earned an hour's pay? Yet oh! yet +oh!"--the head rocked heavily on its support--"if only--if only--" + +She started--listened! A gate opened--shut. She sprang to her glass and +then from it. In soft haste she needlessly closed the window and drew +its shade and curtains. She bathed her eyelids and delicately dried +them. At the mirror again she laid deft touches on brow and crown, +harkening between for any messenger's step, and presently, without +reason, began to set the room more exquisitely to rights. Now she faced +the door and stood attentive, and now she took up a small volume and sat +down by her lamp. + +A tap: Constance entered, beaming only too tenderly. "It was better, +wasn't it," she asked, hovering, "to come than to send?" + +"Why, of course, dear; it always is." + +A meditative silence followed. Then Anna languidly inquired, "Who is +it?" + +"Nobody but Charlie." + +The inquirer brightened: "And why isn't Charlie as good as any one?" + +"He is, to-night," replied the elder beauty, "except--the one +exception." + +"Oh, Connie"--a slight flush came as the seated girl smilingly drew her +sister's hands down to her bosom--"there isn't any one exception, and +there's not going to be any. Now, that smile is downright mean of you!" + +The offender atoned with a kiss on the brow. + +"Why do you say," asked its recipient, "'as good as any one, +_to-night_'?" + +"Because," was the soft reply, "to-night he comes from--the other--to +explain why the other couldn't come." + +"Why!"--the flush came back stronger--"why, Connie! why, that's +positively silly--ha, ha, ha!" + +"I don't see how, Nan." + +"My dear Con! Isn't his absence equally and perfectly innocent whether +he couldn't come or wouldn't come? But an explanation sent!--by +courier!--to--to shorten--ah, ha, ha!--to shorten our agony! Why, Con, +wouldn't you have thought better of him than that? H-oh, me! What a +man's 'bound to be' I suppose he's bound to be. What is the precious +explanation?" + +With melting eyes Constance shook her head. "You don't deserve to hear +it," she replied. Her tears came: "My little sister, I'm on the man's +side in this affair!" + +"That's not good of you," murmured Anna. + +"I don't claim to be good. But there's one thing, Nan Callender, I never +did; I never chained up my lover to see if he'd stay chained. When +Steve--" + +"Oh-h! Oh-h!" panted Anna, "you're too cruel! Hilary Kincaid wears no +chain of mine!" + +"Oh, yes, he does! He's broken away, but he's broken away, chain and +all, to starve and perish, as one look into his face would show you!" + +"He doesn't show his face. He sends--" + +"An explanation. Yes. Which first you scorn and then consent to hear." + +"Don't scorn _me_, Connie. What's the explanation?" + +"It's this: he's been sent back to those Mobile fortifications--received +the order barely in time to catch the boat by going instantly. Nan, the +Valcours' house is found to stand right on their proposed line, and he's +gone to decide whether the line may be changed or the house must be +demolished." + +Anna rose, twined an arm in her sister's and with her paced the chamber. +"How perfectly terrible!" she murmured, their steps ceasing and her eyes +remote in meditation. "Poor Flora! Oh, the poor old lady! And oh, oh, +poor Flora!--But, Con! The line will be changed! He--you know what the +boys call him!" + +"Yes, but there's the trouble. He's no one lady's man. Like Steve, he's +so absolutely fair--" + +"Connie, I tell you it's a strange line he won't change for Flora +Valcour!" + +"Now, Nan Callender! The line will go where it ought to go. By the by, +Charlie says neither Flora nor her grandmother knows the house is in +danger. Of course, if it is harmed, the harm will be paid for." + +"Oh, paid for!" + +"Why, Nan, I'm as sorry for them as you. But _I_ don't forget to be +sorry for Hilary Kincaid too." + +"Connie"--walk resumed, speaker's eyes on the floor--"if you'd only see +that to me he's merely very interesting--entertaining--nothing more +whatever--I'd like to say just a word about him." + +"Say on, precious." + +"Well--did you ever see a man so fond of men?" + +"Oh, of course he is, or men wouldn't be so fond of him." + +"_I_ think he's fonder of men than of women!" + +Constance smiled: "Do you?" + +"And I think," persisted Anna, "the reason some women find him so +agreeable is that our collective society is all he asks of us, or ever +will ask." + +"Nan Callender, look me in the eye! You can't! My little sister, you've +got a lot more sense than I have, and you know it, but I can tell you +one thing. When Steve and I--" + +"Oh, Connie, dear--nothing--go on." + +"I won't! Except to say some lovers take love easy and some--can't. I +must go back to Charlie. I know, Nan, it's those who love hardest that +take love hardest, and I suppose it's born in Hilary Kincaid, and it's +born in you, to fight it as you'd fight fire. But, oh, in these strange +times, don't do it! Don't do it. You're going to have trouble a-plenty +without." + +The pair, moving to the door with hands on each other's shoulders, +exchanged a melting gaze. "Trouble a-plenty," softly asked Anna, "why do +you--?" + +"Oh, why, why, why!" cried the other, with a sudden gleam of tears. "I +wish you and Miranda had never learned that word." + + + + +XVIII + + +FLORA TELLS THE TRUTH! + +You ask how the Valcour ladies, living outwardly so like the most of us +who are neither scamps nor saints, could live by moral standards so +different from those we have always thought essential to serenity of +brow, sweetness of bloom or blitheness of companionship, and yet could +live so prettily--remain so winsome and unscarred. + +Well, neither of them had ever morally _fallen_ enough even to fret the +brow. It is the fall that disfigures. They had lived up to inherited +principles (such as they were), and one of the minor of these was, to +adapt their contours to whatever they impinged upon. + +We covet solidity of character, but Flora and Madame were essentially +fluid. They never let themselves clash with any one, and their private +rufflings of each other had only a happy effect of aerating their +depths, and left them as mirror-smooth and thoroughly one as the bosom +of a garden lake after the ripples have died behind two jostling swans. +To the Callenders society was a delightful and sufficient end. To the +Valcours it was a means to all kinds of ends, as truly as commerce or +the industries, and yet they were so fragrantly likable that to call +them accomplices seems outrageous--clogs the pen. Yes, they were actors, +but you never saw that. They never stepped out of their parts, and they +had this virtue, if it is one: that behind all their roles they were +staunchly for each other in every pinch. When Kincaid had been away a +few days this second time, these two called at the Callender house. + +To none was this house more interesting than to Flora. In her adroit +mind she accused it of harboring ancient secrets in its architecture, +shrewd hiding-places in its walls. Now as she stood in the panelled +drawing-rooms awaiting its inmates, she pointed out to her seated +companion that this was what her long-dead grandsire might have made +their own home, behind Mobile, had he spent half on its walls what he +had spent in them on wine, cards, and-- + +"Ah!" chanted the old lady, with a fierce glint and a mock-persuasive +smile, "add the crowning word, the capsheaf. You have the stamina to do +it." + +"Women," said the girl of stamina beamingly, and went floating about, +peering and tapping for hollow places. At one tap her eye, all to +itself, danced; but on the instant Anna, uninformed of their presence, +and entering with a vase of fresh roses, stood elated. Praise of the +flowers hid all confusion, and Flora, with laughing caresses and a droll +hardihood which Anna always enjoyed, declared she would gladly steal +roses, garden, house and all. Anna withdrew, promising instant return. + +"Flora dear!" queried the grandmother in French, "why did you tell her +the truth? For once you must have been disconcerted!" + +The sparkling girl laughed: "Why, isn't that--with due +modifications--just what we're here for?" + +Madame suddenly looked older, but quickly brightened again as Flora +spoke on: "Don't you believe the truth is, now and then, the most +effective lie? I've sometimes inferred you did." + +The old lady rather enjoyed the gibe: "My dear, I can trust you never to +give any one an overdose of it. Yet take care, you gave it a bit too +pure just now. Don't ever risk it so on that fool Constance, she has the +intuitive insight of a small child--the kind you lost so early." + +The two exchanged a brief admiring glance. "Oh, I'm all right with +Constance," was the reply. "I'm cousin to 'Steve'!" + +There the girl's gayety waned. The pair were at this moment in desperate +need of money. Mandeville was one of the old coffee-planter's +descendants. Had fate been less vile, thought Flora, this house might +have been his, and so hers in the happy event of his demise. But now, in +such case, to Constance, as his widow, would be left even the leavings, +the overseer's cottage; which was one more convenient reason for +detesting--not him, nor Constance--that would be to waste good +ammunition; but-- + +"Still thinking of dear Anna?" asked the dame. + +The maiden nodded: "Grandma"--a meditative pause--"I love Anna. Anna's +the only being on earth I can perfectly trust." + +"Ahem!" was the soft rejoinder, and the two smilingly held each other's +gaze for the larger part of a minute. Then one by one came in the ladies +of the house, and it was kiss and chirrup and kiss again. + +"_Cousin_ Constance--ah, ha, ha!--_cousin_ Flora!" + +The five talked of the wedding. Just to think! 'Twas barely a month ago, +they said. + +Yet how much had occurred, pursued Miranda, and how many things hoped +and longed for had not occurred, and how time had dragged! At those +words Flora saw Anna's glance steal over to Miranda. But Miranda did not +observe, and the five chatted on. How terrifying, at still noon of the +last Sabbath--everybody in church--had been that explosion of the +powder-mill across the river. The whole business blown to dust. Nothing +but the bare ground left. Happily no workmen there. No, not even a +watchman, though the city was well known to be full of the enemy's +"minions" (Flora's term). Amazing negligence, all agreed. Yet only of a +piece--said Constance--etc. + +And how sad to find there was a victim, after all, when poor, threadbare +old Doctor Visionary, inventor of the machine-gun and a new kind of +powder, began to be missed by his landlady, there being, in Captain +Kincaid's absence, no one else to miss him. Yes, it was the Captain who +had got him a corner to work in at the powder-mill. So much the worse +for both. Now plans, models, formulae, and inventor were gone in that +one flash and roar that shook the whole city and stopped all talk of +Captain Kincaid's promotion as an earthquake stops a clock. + +"Well," cried Constance to Flora, who had grown silent, "the battery +will love him all the more!" + +"And so will we all!" said Madame, also to Flora; and Flora, throwing +off a look of pain, explained to Anna, "He is so good to my brother!" + +"Naturally," quizzed Miranda, with her merriest wrinkles. Flora +sparkled, made a pretty face at her and forced a change of theme; gave +Anna's roses new praise, and said she had been telling grandma of the +swarms of them in the rear garden. So the old lady, whom she had told no +such thing, let Constance and Miranda conduct her there. But Flora +softly detained Anna, and the moment they were alone seized both her +hands. Whereat through all Anna's frame ran despair, crying, "He has +asked her! He has asked her!" + + + + +XIX + + +FLORA ROMANCES + +"Dearest," warily exclaimed the Creole beauty, with a sudden excess of +her pretty accent, "I am in a situation perfectly dreadful!" + +Anna drew her to a sofa, seeing pictures of her and Hilary together, and +tortured with a belief in their exquisite fitness to be so. "Can I help +you, dear?" she asked, though the question echoed mockingly within her. + +"Ah, no, except with advice," said Flora, "only with advice!" + +"Ho-o-oh! if I were worthy to advise you it wouldn't flatter me so to be +asked." + +"But I muz' ask. 'Tis only with you that I know my secret will be--to +everybody--and forever--at the bed of the ocean. You can anyhow promise +me that." + +"Yes, I can anyhow promise you that." + +"Then," said Flora, "let me speak whiles--" She dropped her face into +her hands, lifted it again and stared into her listener's eyes so +piteously that through Anna ran another cry--"He has not asked! No girl +alive could look so if he had asked her!" + +Flora seemed to nerve herself: "Anna, every dollar we had, every +picayune we could raise, grandma and I, even on our Mobile house and our +few best jewels, is--is--" + +"Oh, what--what? Not lost? Not--not stolen?" + +"Blown up! Blown up with that poor old man in the powder-mill!" + +"Flora, Flora!" was all Anna, in the shame of her rebuked conjectures, +could cry, and all she might have cried had she known the very truth: +That every dollar, picayune, and other resource had disappeared +_gradually_ in the grist-mill of daily need and indulgence, and never +one of them been near the powder-mill, the poor old man or any of his +devices. + +"His theories were so convincing," sighed Flora. + +"And you felt so pitiful for him," prompted Anna. + +"Grandma did; and I was so ambitious to do some great patriotic +service--like yours, you Callenders, in giving those cannon--and--" + +"Oh, but you went too far!" + +"Ah, if we had only gone no farther!" + +"You went farther? How could you?" + +"Grandma did. You know, dear, how suddenly Captain Kincaid had to leave +for Mobile--by night?" + +"Yes," murmured Anna, with great emphasis in her private mind. + +"Well, jus' at the las' he gave Charlie a small bag of gold, hundreds +of dollars, for--for--_me to keep for him till his return_. Anna! I was +offended." + +"Oh, but surely he meant no--" + +"Ah, my dear, did I ever give him the very least right to pick me out in +that manner? No. Except in that one pretty way he has with all of +us--and which you know so well--" + +An uncourageous faint smile seemed the safest response. + +"Yes," said Flora, "you know it. And I had never allowed myself--" + +With eyes down the two girls sat silent. Then the further word came +absently, "I refused to touch his money," and there was another +stillness. + +"Dear," slowly said Anna, "I don't believe it was his. It would not have +been in gold. Some men of the battery were here last evening--You know +the Abolition schoolmistress who was sent North that day?" + +"Yes, I know, 'twas hers." + +"Well, dear, if she could entrust it to him--" + +"Ah! _she_ had a sort of right, being, as the whole battery knows, in +love with him"--the beauty swept a finger across her perfect brows--"up +to there! For that I don't know is he to blame. If a girl has no more +sense--" + +"No," murmured Anna as the cruel shaft went through her. "What did +Charlie do with the money?" + +Flora tossed a despairing hand: "Gave it to grandma! And poor innocent +grandma lent it to the old gentleman! 'Twas to do wonders for the powder +and gun, and be return' in three days. But the next--" + +"I see," sighed Anna, "I see!" + +"Yes, next day 'twas Sunday, and whiles I was _kneeling in the church_ +the powder, the gun, the old man and the money--Oh, Anna, what shall I +do?" + +"My dear, I will tell you," began Anna, but the seeker of advice was not +quite ready for it. + +"We have a few paltry things, of course," she spoke on, "but barely +would they pay half. They would neither save our honor, neither leave us +anything for rent or bread! Our house, to be sure, is worth more than we +have borrowed on it, but in the meantime--" + +"In the meantime, dear, you shall--" But still Flora persisted: + +"Any day, any hour, Captain Kincaid may return. Oh, if 'twere anybody in +this worl' but him! For, Anna, I must take all the blame--all!" The face +went again into the hands. + +"My dear, you shall take none. You shall hand him every dollar, every +picayune, on sight." + +"Ah, how is that possible? Oh, no, no, no. Use your money? Never, never, +never!" + +"It isn't money, Flora. And no one shall ever know. I've got some old +family jewellery--" + +"Family--Oh, sweet, for shame!" + +"No shame whatever. There's a great lot of it--kinds that will never be +worn again. Let me--" The speaker rose. + +"No, no, no! No, Anna, no! For Heaven's sake--" + +"Just a piece or two," insisted Anna. "Barely enough to borrow the +amount." She backed away, Flora clinging to her fingers and faltering: +"No, blessed angel, you must not! No, I will not wait. I'll--I'll--" + +But Anna kissed the clinging hands and vanished. + +A high elation bore her quite to her room and remained with her until +she had unlocked the mass of old jewels and knelt before them. But then +all at once it left her. She laid her folded hands upon them, bent her +brow to the hands, then lifted brow and weeping eyes and whispered to +Heaven for mercy. + +"Oh"--a name she could not speak even there went through her heart in +two big throbs--"if only we had never met! I never set so much as a +smile to snare you, you who have snared me. Can Connie be right? Have +you felt my thraldom, and are you trying to throw me off? Then I must +help you do it. Though I covet your love more than life I will not +tether it. Oh, it's because I so covet that I will not tether it! With +the last gem from my own throat will I rather help you go free if you +want to go. God of mercy, what else can I do!" + +In grave exultancy Flora moved up and down the drawing-room enjoying her +tread on its rich carpet. She would have liked to flit back to the side +of yonder great chimney breast, the spot where she had been surprised +while sounding the panel work, but this was no time for postponable +risks. She halted to regale her critical eye on the goodly needlework of +a folding-screen whose joints, she noticed, could not be peered through, +and in a pretty, bird-like way stole a glance behind it. Nothing there. +She stepped to a front window and stood toying with the perfect round of +her silken belt. How slimly neat it was. Yet beneath the draperies it +so trimly confined lay hid, in a few notes of "city money," the proceeds +of the gold she had just reported blown into thin air with the old +inventor--who had never seen a glimmer of it. Not quite the full amount +was there; it had been sadly nibbled. But now by dear Anna's goodness +(ahem!) the shortage could be restored, the entire hundreds handed back +to Captain Kincaid, and a snug sum be retained "for rent and bread." Yet +after all--as long as good stories came easy--why hand anything back--to +anybody--even to--him? + +He! In her heart desire and odium beat strangely together. Fine as +martial music he was, yet gallingly out of her rhythm, above her key. +Liked her much, too. Yes, for charms she had; any fool could be liked +that way. What she craved was to be liked for charms she had not, graces +she scorned; and because she could not be sure how much of that sort she +was winning she tingled with heat against him--and against Anna--Anna +giver of guns--who _had the money_ to give guns--till her bosom rose +and fell. But suddenly her musing ceased, her eyes shone. + +A mounted officer galloped into the driveway, a private soldier +followed, and the private was her brother. Now they came close. The +leader dismounted, passed his rein to Charlie and sprang up the veranda +steps. Flora shrank softly from the window and at the same moment Anna +reentered gayly, showing a glitter of values twice all expectation: + +"If these are not enough--" She halted with lips apart. Flora had made +sign toward the front door, and now with a moan of fond protest covered +the gem-laden hand in both her palms and pushed it from her. + +"Take them back," she whispered, yet held it fast, "'tis too late! +There--the door-bell! 'Tis Hilary Kincaid! All is too late, take them +back!" + +"Take them, you!" as vehemently whispered Anna. "You must take them! You +must, you shall!" + +Flora had half started to fly, but while she hung upon Anna's words she +let her palms slip under the bestowing hand and the treasure slide into +her own fingers. + +"Too late, too late! And oh, I can never, never use them any'ow!" She +sprang noiselessly aside. To a maid who came down the hall Anna quietly +motioned to show the newcomer into an opposite room, but Flora saw that +the sign was misinterpreted: "She didn't understan'! Anna, she's going +to bring him!" Before the words were done the speaker's lithe form was +gliding down the room toward the door by which the other ladies had gone +out, but as she reached it she turned with a hand-toss as of some +despairing afterthought and flitted back. + +Out in the hall the front door opened and closed and a sabre clinked: +"Is Miss Callender at home?" + +Before the question was half put its unsuspected hearers had recovered a +faultless poise. Beside a table that bore her roses she whom the +inquirer sought stood retouching them and reflecting a faint excess of +their tint, while Flora, in a grave joy of the theatrical, equal to her +companion's distress of it, floated from view behind the silken screen. + + + + +XX + + +THE FIGHT FOR THE STANDARD + +His red kepi in hand and with all the stalwart briskness of the +flag-presentation's day and hour Hilary Kincaid stepped into the room +and halted, as large-eyed as on that earlier occasion, and even more +startled, before the small figure of Anna. + +Yet not the very same Hilary Kincaid. So said her heart the instant +glance met glance. The tarnish of hard use was on all his trappings; +like sea-marshes on fire he was reddened and browned; about him hung +palpably the sunshine and air of sands and waves, and all the stress and +swing of wide designs; and on brow and cheek were new lines that looked +old. From every point of his aspect the truth rushed home to her +livelier, deadlier than ever hitherto, that there was War, and that he +and she were already parts of it. + +But the change was more than this. A second and quieter look, the +hand-grasp lingering, showed something deeper; something that wove and +tangled itself through and about all designs, toils, and vigils, and +suddenly looking out of his eyes like a starved captive, cried, +"you--you--" and prophesied that, whether they would or not, this war +was to be his and hers together. A responding thrill must have run from +her fingers into his and belied the unaccountable restraint of her +welcome, for a joy shone from him which it took her ignoring smile and +her hand's withdrawal to quench. + +"Miss Anna--" + +They sat down. His earlier boyishness came again somewhat, but only +somewhat, as he dropped his elbows to his knees, looking now into his +cap and now into her face. A glance behind her had assured Anna that +there was no shadow on the screen, behind which sat Flora on the carpet, +at graceful ease listening while she eagerly appraised the jewels in her +hands and lap. + +"Miss Anna," said the soldier again, "I've come--I've come to tell you +something. It's mighty hard to tell. It's harder than I thought it would +be. For, honestly, Miss Anna, you--from the first time I ever saw you, +you--you--Were you going to speak?" + +Behind the screen Flora smiled malignly while Anna said, "No, I--I was +only--no, not at all; go on." + +"Yes, Miss Anna, from the first time I--" + +"When did you get back from Mobile?" asked Anna seeing he must be headed +off. + +"From Mobile? Just now, almost. You don't sup--" + +"Oh! I hope"--she must head him off again--"I hope you bring good news?" +There was risk in the question, but where was there safety? At her back +the concealed listener waited keenly for the reply. + +"Yes," said Hilary, "news the very best and hardly an hour old. Didn't +you hear the battery cheering? That's what I've come to tell you. Though +it's hard to tell, for I--" + +"It's from Mobile, you say?" + +"No, I can tell you the Mobile news first, but it's bad. Miss Flora's +home--" + +Anna gave a start and with a hand half upthrown said quietly, "Don't +tell me. No, please, don't, I don't want to hear it. I can't explain, +but I--I--" Tears wet her lashes, and her hands strove with each other. +"I don't like bad news. You should have taken it straight to Flora. Oh, +I wish you'd do that now, won't you--please?" + +Behind the screen the hidden one stiffened where she crouched with +fierce brow and fixed eyes. + +Kincaid spoke: "Would you have me pass you by with my good news to go +first to her with the bad?" + +"Oh, Captain Kincaid, yes, yes! Do it yet. Go, do it now. And tell her +the good news too!" + +"Tell her the good first and then stab her with the bad?" + +"Oh, tell her the bad first. Do her that honor. She has earned it. +She'll bear the worst like the heroine she is--the heroine and patriot. +She's bearing it so now!" + +"What! she knows already?" + +In her hiding Flora's intent face faintly smiled a malevolence that +would have startled even the grandam who still killed time out among the +roses with her juniors. + +"Yes," replied Anna, "she knows already." + +"Knows! Miss Anna--that her home is in ashes?" + +Anna gave a wilder start: "Oh, no-o-oh! Oh, yes--oh, no--oh, yes, yes! +Oh, Captain Kincaid, how could you? Oh, monstrous, monstrous!" She made +all possible commotion to hide any sound that might betray Flora, who +had sprung to her feet, panting. + +"But, but, Miss Anna!" protested Hilary. "Why, Miss Anna--" + +"Oh, Captain Kincaid, how could you?" + +"Why, you don't for a moment imagine--?" + +"Oh, it's done, it's done! Go, tell her. Go at once, Captain Kincaid. +Please go at once, won't you?... Please!" + +He had risen amazed. Whence such sudden horror, in this fair girl, of a +thing known by her already before he came? And what was this beside? +Horror in the voice yet love beaming from the eyes? He was torn with +perplexity. "I'll go, of course," he said as if in a dream. "Of course +I'll go at once, but--why--if Miss Flora already--?" Then suddenly he +recovered himself in the way Anna knew so well. "Miss Anna"--he +gestured with his cap, his eyes kindling with a strange mixture of +worship and drollery though his brow grew darker--"I'm gone now!" + +"In mercy, please go!" + +"I'm gone, Miss Anna, I'm truly gone. I always am when I'm with you. +Fred said it would be so. You scare the nonsense out of me, and when +that goes I go--the bubble bursts! Miss Anna--oh, hear me--it's my last +chance--I'll vanish in a moment. The fellows tell me I always know just +what to say to any lady or to anything a lady says; but, on my soul, I +don't think I've ever once known what to say to you or to anything +you've ever said to me, and I don't know now, except that I must and +will tell you--" + +"That you did not order the torch set! Oh, say that!" + +"No one ordered it. It was a senseless mistake. Some private soldiers +who knew that my lines of survey passed through the house--" + +"Ah-h! ah-h!" + +"Miss Anna, what would you have? Such is war! Many's the Southern home +must go down under the fire of--of Kincaid's Battery, Miss Anna, before +this war is over, else we might as well bring you back your flag and +guns. Shall we? We can't now, they're ordered to the front. There! I've +got it out! That's my good news. Bad enough for mothers and sisters. Bad +for the sister of Charlie Valcour. Good for you. So good and bad in one +for me, and so hard to tell and say no more! Don't you know why?" + +"Oh, I've no right to know--and you've no right--oh, indeed, you +mustn't. It would be so unfair--to you. I can't tell you why, but it--it +would be!" + +"And it wouldn't be of--?" + +"Any use? No, no!" + +Torturing mystery! that with such words of doom she should yet blush +piteously, beam passionately. + +"Good-by, then. I go. But I go--under your flag, don't I? Under your +flag! captain of your guns!" + +"Ah--one word--wait! Oh, Captain Kincaid, right is right! Not half those +guns are mine. That flag is not mine." + +There was no quick reply. From her concealment Flora, sinking +noiselessly again to the carpet, harkened without avail. The soldier--so +newly and poignantly hurt that twice when he took breath he failed to +speak--gazed on the disclaiming girl until for; very distress she broke +the silence: "I--you--every flag of our cause--wherever our brave +soldiers--" + +"Oh, but Kincaid's Battery!--and _that_ flag, Anna Callender! The flag +you gave us! That sacred banner starts for Virginia to-morrow--goes into +the war, it and your guns, with only this poor beggar and his boys to +win it honor and glory. Will you deny us--who had it from your +hands--your leave to call it yours? Oh, no, no! To me--to me you will +not!" + +For reply there came a light in Anna's face that shone into his heart +and was meant so to shine, yet her dissent was prompt: "I must. I must. +Oh, Capt--Captain Kincaid, I love that flag too well to let it go +misnamed. It's the flag of all of us who made it, us hundred girls--" + +"Hundred--yes, yes, true. But how? This very morning I chanced upon your +secret--through little Victorine--that every stitch in all that flag's +embroideries is yours." + +"Yet, Captain Kincaid, it is the flag of all those hundred girls; and if +to any one marching under it it is to be the flag of any one of us +singly, that one can only be--you know!" + +Majestically in her hiding-place the one implied lowered and lifted her +head in frigid scorn and awaited the commander's answer. + +"True again," he said, "true. Let the flag of my hundred boys be to all +and each the flag of a hundred girls. Yet will it be also the flag of +his heart's one choice--sister, wife, or sweetheart--to every man +marching, fighting, or dying under it--and more are going to die under +it than are ever coming back. To me, oh, to me, let it be yours. My +tasks have spared me no time to earn of you what would be dearer than +life, and all one with duty and honor. May I touch your hand? Oh, just +to say good-by. But if ever I return--no, have no fear, I'll not say it +now. Only--only--" he lifted the hand to his lips--"good-by. God's smile +be on you in all that is to come." + +"Good-by," came her answering murmur. + +"And the flag?" he exclaimed. "The flag?" By the clink of his sabre +Flora knew he was backing away. "Tell me--me alone--the word to perish +with me if I perish--that to me as if alone"--the clinking came nearer +again--"to me and for me and with your blessing"--again the sound drew +away--"the flag--the flag I must court death under--is yours." + +Silence. From out in the hall the lover sent back a last beseeching +look, but no sound reached the hiding of the tense listener whose own +heart's beating threatened to reveal her; no sound to say that now Anna +had distressfully shaken her head, or that now her tears ran down, or +that now in a mingled pain and rapture of confession she nodded--nodded! +and yet imploringly waved him away. + +It was easy to hear the door open and close. Faintly on this other hand +the voices of the ladies returning from the garden foreran them. The +soldier's tread was on the outer stair. Now theirs was in the rear +veranda. With it tinkled their laughter. Out yonder hoofs galloped. + +The hidden one stole forth. A book on a table was totally engaging the +eyes of her hostess and at the instant grandma reentered laden with +roses. Now all five were in, and Anna, pouring out words with every +motion, and curiously eyed by Constance, took the flowers to give them a +handier form, while Flora rallied her kinswoman on wasting their +friends' morning these busy times, and no one inquired, and no one +told, who had been here that now had vanished. + + + + +XXI + + +CONSTANCE CROSS-EXAMINES + +It was like turning to the light the several facets of one of those +old-fashioned jewels Flora was privately bearing away, to see the five +beauties part company: "Good-by, good-by," kiss, kiss--ah, the sad waste +of it!--kiss left, kiss right, "good-by." + +As the Callenders came in again from the veranda, their theme was Flora. +"Yet who," asked Constance, "ever heard her utter a moral sentiment?" + +"Oh, her beauty does that," rejoined the kindly Miranda. "As Captain +Kincaid said that evening he--" + +"Yes, I know. He said he would pass her into heaven on her face, and I +think it was a very strange thing for him to say!" + +"Why?" daringly asked Miranda--and ran from the room. + +The hater of whys turned upon her sister: "Nan, what's the matter?... +Oh, now, yes, there is. What made you start when Miranda mentioned--Yes, +you did. You're excited, you know you are. When we came in from the +garden you and Flora were both--" + +"Now, Connie--" + +"Pshaw, Nan, I know he's been here, it's in your face. Who was with him; +Charlie?" + +"Yes. They just dropped in to say good-by. The battery's ordered to +Virginia. Virginia hasn't seceded yet, but he feels sure she will before +they can get there, and so do I. Don't you? If Kentucky and Maryland +would only--" + +"Now, Nan, just hush. When does he go?" + +"To-morrow. But as to us"--the girl shrugged prettily while caressing +her roses--"he's gone now." + +"How did he talk?" + +"Oh--quite as usual." The head bent low into the flowers. "In the one +pretty way he has with all of us, you know." + +Constance would not speak until their eyes met again. Then she asked, +"Did Charlie and Flora give him any chance--to express himself?" + +"Oh, Con, don't be foolish. He didn't want any. He as much as said so!" + +"Ye-es," drawled the bride incredulously, "but--" + +"Oh, he really did not, Con. He talked of nothing but the battery flag +and how, because I'd presented it, they would forever and ever and ever +and ever--" She waved her hands sarcastically. + +"Nan, behave. Come here." The pair took the sofa. "How did he look and +act when he first came in? Before you froze him stiff?" + +"I didn't freeze him." The quiet, hurt denial was tremulous. "Wood +doesn't freeze." The mouth drooped satirically: "You know well enough +that the man who says his tasks have spared him no time to--to--" + +"Nan, honest! Did _you_ give him a fair chance--the kind I gave Steve?" + +"Oh, Con! He had all the chance any man ever got, or will get, from +me." + +The sister sighed: "Nan Callender, you are the _poorest_ fisherman--" + +"I'm not! I'm none! And if I were one"--the disclaimant glistened with +mirth--"I couldn't be as poor a one as he is; he's afraid of his own +bait." She began to laugh but had to force back her tears: "I didn't +mean that! He's never had any bait--for me, nor wanted any. Neither he +nor I ever--Really, Con, you are the only one who's made any mistake as +to either of us! You seem to think--" + +"Oh, dearie, I don't think at all, I just know. I know he's furiously in +love with you--Yes, furiously; but that he's determined to be fair to +Fred Greenleaf--" + +"Oh!"--a yet wickeder smile. + +"Yes, and that he feels poor. You know that if the General--" + +The hearer lifted and dropped both arms: "Oh!--to be continued!" + +"Well, I know, too, that he doesn't believe, anyhow, in soldiers +marrying. I've never told you, sweet, but--if I hadn't cried so +hard--Steve would have challenged Hilary Kincaid for what he said on +that subject the night we were married!" + +Anna straightened, flashed, and then dropped again as she asked, "Is +that all you know?" + +"No, I know what counts for more than all the rest; I know you're a +terror to him." + +Remotely in the terror's sad eyes glimmered a smile that was more than +half satisfaction. "You might as well call him a coward," she murmured. + +"Not at all. _You_ know you've been a terror to every suitor you've +ever had--except Fred Greenleaf; he's the only one you couldn't keep +frightened out of his wits. Now this time I know it's only because +you're--you're bothered! You don't know how you're going to feel--" + +"Now, Con--" + +"And you _don't_ want to mislead him, and you're just bothered to death! +It was the same way with me." + +"It wasn't!" silently said Anna's lips, her face averted. Suddenly she +turned and clutched her sister's hands: "Oh, Con, while we talk trifles +Flora's home lies in ashes!... Yes, he told me so just now." + +"Didn't he tell her too?" + +"Why, no, Connie, he--he couldn't very well. It--it would have been +almost indelicate, wouldn't it? But he's gone now to tell her." + +"He needn't," said Constance. "She knows it now. The moment I came in +here I saw, through all her lightness, she'd got some heavy news. She +must have overheard him, Nan." + +"Connie, I--I believe she did!" + +"Well, that's all right. What are you blushing for?" + +"Blushing! Every time I get a little warm--" The speaker rose to go, but +the sister kept her hand: + +"Keep fresh for this evening, honey. He'll be back." + +"No, he won't. He doesn't propose to if he could and he couldn't if he +did. To get the battery off to-morrow--" + +"It won't get off to-morrow, nor the next day, nor the next. You know +how it always is. When Steve--" + +"Oh, I don't know anything," said Anna, pulling free and moving off. +"But you, oh, you know it all, you and Steve!" + +But the elder beauty was right. The battery did not go for more than a +fortnight, and Hilary came again that evening. Sitting together alone, +he and Anna talked about their inner selves--that good old sign! and +when she gave him a chance he told her what Greenleaf had said about her +and the ocean. Also he confided to her his envy of small-statured +people, and told how it hurt him to go about showing the bigness of his +body and hiding the pettiness of his soul. And he came the next evening +and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. + + + + +XXII + + +SAME STORY SLIGHTLY WARPED + +Not literally. That evening, yes, an end of it, but not the very next +four, did Kincaid spend with Anna. It merely looked so to Flora Valcour. + +Even on that first day, after his too prompt forenoon gallop from +Callender House to the Valcour apartment had, of course, only insured +his finding Flora not at home, all its evening except the very end was +passed with her, Flora, in her open balcony overlooking the old Place +d'Armes. His head ringing with a swarm of things still to be done and +ordered done, he had purposed to remain only long enough to tell his +dire news manfully, accept without insistent debate whatever odium it +might entail, and decently leave its gentle recipients to their grief +and dismay. What steps they should take to secure compensation it were +far better they should discuss with Adolphe, who would be here to aid +them when he, Kincaid, would be in far Virginia. The only other +imperative matter was that of the young schoolma'am's gold, which must +be left in bank. Awkward business, to have to ask for it in scrambling +haste at such a moment. + +But on a starlit balcony with two such ladies as the Valcours, to do +one's errands, such errands, in scrambling haste proved not even a +military possibility. Their greeting inquiries had to be answered: + +"Yes, Charlie was well. He would be along soon, with fresh messages from +division headquarters. The battery was at last--Pardon?... Yes, the +Callenders were well--he supposed! He had seen only Miss Anna, and her +only for so brief an instant--" + +No, Madame Valcour had merely cleared her throat. "That climate is hard +on those throat'." + +He had seen Miss Anna, he resumed, "for so brief an instant--on an +errand--that he had not made civil inquiry after the others, but had +left good-by for them about as a news-carrier wads and throws in the +morning paper!" + +It was so pretty, the silvery way the questioning pair laughed to each +other--at his simile, if that was the genuine source of their +amusement--that he let himself laugh with them. + +"But how?" they further asked. "He had left good-by? Good-day, yes! But +for what good-by when juz' returning?" + +"Ah, because here to them, also, it must be good-by, and be as brief as +there! The battery--he had sent word to them at sunrise, but had just +learned that his messenger had missed them--the battery was at last +ordered"--etc. + +"_Mon Dieu!_" gasped the old lady as if this was too cruelly sudden, +and, "Oh, my brother! Oh, Captain Kincaid!" beautifully sighed Flora, +from whom the grandmother had heard the news hours before. + +Yet, "Of course _any_ time 'twould have to be sudden," they had +presently so recovered as to say, and Flora, for both, spoke on in +accents of loveliest renunciation. She easily got the promise she +craved, that no ill should come to Charlie which a commander's care +could avert. + +The loss of their Mobile home, which also Madame had perfectly known +since morning, was broken to them with less infelicity, though they +would talk cheerily of the house as something which no evil ever would +or could befall, until suddenly the girl said, "Grandma, dearest, that +night air is not so pretty good for your rheum; we better pass inside," +and the old lady, insistently unselfish, moved a step within, leaving +the other two on the balcony. There, when the blow came at last, Flora's +melodious grievings were soon over, and her sweet reasonableness, her +tender exculpation not alone of this dear friend but even of the silly +fellows who had done the deed, and her queenly, patriotic +self-obliteration, were more admirable than can be described. Were, as +one may say, good literature. The grateful soldier felt shamed to find, +most unaccountably, that Anna's positively cruel reception of the same +news somehow suited him better. It was nearer his own size, he said to +himself. At any rate the foremost need now, on every account, was to be +gone. But as he rose Flora reminded him of "those few hundred gold?" +Goodness! he had clean forgotten the thing. He apologized for the +liberty taken in leaving it with her, but--"Oh!" she prettily +interrupted, "when I was made so proud!" + +Well, now he would relieve her and take it at once to a bank cashier who +had consented to receive it at his house this very night. She assured +him its custody had given her no anxiety, for she had promptly passed it +over to another! He was privately amazed: + +"Oh--o-oh--oh, yes, certainly. That was right! To whom had she--?" + +She did not say. "Yes," she continued, "she had at once thought it ought +to be with some one who could easily replace it if, by any strange +mishap--flood, fire, robbery--it should get lost. To do which would to +her be impossible if at Mobile her house--" she tossed out her hands and +dropped them pathetically. "But I little thought, Captain Kincaid--" she +began a heart-broken gesture-- + +"Now, Miss Flora!" the soldier laughingly broke out, "if it's lost it's +lost and no one but me shall lose a cent for it!" + +"Ah, that," cried the girl, with tears in her voice, "'tis impossible! +'Twould kill her, that mortification, as well as me, for you to be the +loser!" + +"Loser! mortification!" laughed Hilary. "And what should I do with _my_ +mortification if I should let you, or her, be the loser? Who is she, +Miss Flora? If I minded the thing, you understand, I shouldn't ask." + +Flora shrank as with pain: "Ah, you must not! And you must not guess, +for you will surely guess wrong!" Nevertheless she saw with joy that he +had guessed Anna, yet she suffered chagrin to see also that the guess +made him glad. "And this you must make me the promise; that you never, +never will let anybody know you have discover' that, eh?" + +"Oh, I promise." + +"And you must let her pay it me back--that money--and me pay it you. +'Twill be easy, only she mus' have time to get the money, and without +needing to tell anybody for why, and for why in gold. Alas! I could have +kept that a secret had it not have been you are to go to-morrow morning" + +"Oh, rest easy," said the cheerful soldier, "mum's the word. But, Miss +Flora, tell me this: How on earth did she lose it?" + +"Captain Kincaid, by the goodness of the heart!" + +"But how did it go; was it--?" + +"Blown up! Blown up with that poor old man in the powder-mill! Ah, what +do we know about money, Captain Kincaid, we silly women? That poor, +innocent child, she lent it to the old gentleman. His theories, they +were so convincing, and she, she was so ambitious to do a great +patriotic service. 'Twas to make wonders for the powder and gun, and to +be return' in three days. But that next day 'twas Sunday, and whiles I +was _kneeling in the church_ the powder, the gun, the old man and the +money--" + +Hilary gestured facetiously for the narrator: "That's how millions have +got to go in this business, and this driblet--why, I might have lent it, +myself, if I'd been here! No, I'm the only loser, and--" + +"Ah, Captain Kincaid, no, no! I implore you, no!--and for her sake! Oh, +what are those few hundred for her to lose, if so she can only wipe that +mistake? No, they shall be in the charge of that cashier before you're +at Virginia, and that shall be my first news written to my +brother--though he'll not comprehend except that he is to tell it you." + +So it was arranged and agreed. As again he moved to go she won a new +pledge of unending secrecy, and Charlie came with a document. Beside the +parlor lamp, where, with one tiny foot covertly unslippered for the +easement of angry corns, Madame sat embroidering, Kincaid broke the seal +and read. He forced a scowl, but through it glimmered a joy in which +Flora discerned again the thought of Anna. "Charlie," he said as a smile +broke through, "prepare yourself." + +"Now, Captain, if those old imbeciles--" + +The commander's smile broadened: "Our battery, ladies and gentlemen, +can't go for a week." + +All laughed but Charlie. He swore at the top of his voice and threw +himself from the room. + +When his Captain had followed, Flora, standing and smiling, drew from +her bosom a small, well-filled jewel-bag, balanced it on her uplifted +palm and, rising to her toes, sang, "At last, at last, _grace au ciel_, +money is easy!" + +"Yet at the same time my gifted granddaughter," remarked the old lady, +in her native tongue and intent on her embroidery, "is uneasy, eh?" + +Flora ignored the comment. She laid a second palm, on the upraised +booty, made one whole revolution, her soft crinoline ballooning and +subsiding with a seductive swish as she paused: "And you shall share +these blessings, grannie, love, although of the assets themselves"--she +returned the bag to its sanctuary and smoothed the waist where the paper +proceeds of the schoolmistress's gold still hid--"you shall never handle +a dime." She sparkled airily. + +"No?" said Madame, still moving the needle and still in French. +"Nevertheless, morning and evening together, our winnings are--how +much?" + +"Ours?" melodiously asked the smiling girl, "they are not ours, they are +mine. And they are--at the least"--she dropped to her senior's footstool +and spoke caressingly low--"a clean thousand! Is not that sweet enough +music to the ear of a venerable"--she whispered--"cormorant?" She +sparkled anew. + +"I am sorry," came the mild reply, "you are in such torture you have to +call me names. But it is, of course, entirely concerning--the +house--ahem!" + +Flora rose, walked to a window, and, as she gazed out across the old +plaza, said measuredly in a hard voice: "Never mind! Never mind her--or +him either. I will take care of the two of them!" + +A low laugh tinkled from the ancestress: "Ha, ha! you thought the fool +would be scandalized, and instead he is only the more enamored." + +The girl flinched but kept her face to the window: "_He_ is not the +fool." + +"No? We can hardly tell, when we are--in love." + +Flora wheeled and flared, but caught herself, musingly crossed the room, +returned half-way, and with frank design resumed the stool warily +vacated by the unslippered foot; whose owner was mincing on, just +enough fluttered to play defiance while shifting her attack-- + +"Home, sweet home! For our ravished one you will, I suppose, permit his +beloved country to pay--in its new paper money at 'most any +discount--and call it square, eh?" Half the bitterness of her tone was +in its sweetness. + +In a sudden white heat the granddaughter clutched one aged knee with +both hands: "Wait! If I don't get seven times all it was ever worth, the +Yankees shall!" Then with an odd gladness in her eyes she added, "And +_she_ shall pay her share!" + +"You mean--his?" asked the absorbed embroiderer. But on her last word +she stiffened upward with a low cry of agony, shut her eyes and swung +her head as if about to faint. Flora had risen. + +"Oh-h-h!" the girl softly laughed, "was that your foot?" + + + + +XXIII + + +"SOLDIERS!" + +With what innocent openness did we do everything in '61! "Children and +fools" could not tell the truth any faster or farther than did our +newspapers--_Picayune, Delta, True Delta, Crescent, L'Abeille, and +L'Estafette du Sud._ After every military review the exact number in +line and the name of every command and commander were hurried into +print. When at last we began to cast siege guns, the very first one was +defiantly proclaimed to all the Confederacy's enemies: an eight-inch +Dahlgren, we would have them to know. Kincaid and his foundry were +given full credit, and the defence named where the "iron monster" was to +go, if not the very embrasure designated into which you must fire to +dismount it. + +The ladies, God bless them, were always free to pass the guard on the +city side of that small camp and earthwork, where with the ladies' guns +"the ladies' man" had worn the grass off all the plain and the zest of +novelty out of all his nicknamers, daily hammering--he and his only less +merciful lieutenants--at their everlasting drill. + +Such ladies! Why shouldn't they pass? Was it not safe for the cause and +just as safe for them? Was not every maid and matron of them in the +"Ladies' Society of the Confederate Army"--whereof Miss Callender was a +secretary and Miss Valcour one of the treasurers? And had not the +fellows there, owing to an influence or two in the camp itself and +another or two just outside it, all become, in a strong, fine sense and +high degree, ladies' men? It was good for them spiritually, and good for +their field artillery evolutions, to be watched by maidenly and matronly +eyes. Quite as good was it, too, for their occasional heavy-gun practice +with two or three huge, new-cast, big-breeched "hell-hounds," as Charlie +and others called them, whose tapering black snouts lay out on the +parapet's superior slope, fondled by the soft Gulf winds that came up +the river, and snuffing them for the taint of the enemy. + +One afternoon when field-gun manoeuvres were at a close, Kincaid spoke +from the saddle. Facing him stood his entire command, "in order in the +line," their six shining pieces and dark caissons and their twice six +six-horse teams stretching back in six statuesque rows; each of the +three lieutenants--Bartleson, Villeneuve, Tracy--in the front line, +midway between his two guns, the artificers just six yards out on the +left, and guidon and buglers just six on the right. At the commander's +back was the levee. Only now it had been empty of spectators, and he was +seizing this advantage. + +"Soldiers!" It was his first attempt since the flag presentation, and it +looked as though he would falter, but he hardened his brow: "Some days +ago you were told not to expect marching orders for a week. Well the +week's up and we're told to wait another. Now that makes me every bit as +mad as it makes you! I feel as restless as any man in this battery, and +I told the commanding general to-day that you're the worst discontented +lot I've yet seen, and that I was proud of you for it. That's all I said +to him. But! if there's a man here who doesn't yet know the difference +between a soldierly discontent and unsoldierly _grumbling_ I want him to +GO! Kincaid's Battery is not for him. Let him transfer to infantry or +cavalry. Oh, I know it's only that you want to be in the very first +fight, and that's all right! But what we can't get we don't _grumble +for_ in Kincaid's Battery!" + +He paused. With his inspired eyes on the splendid array, visions of its +awful destiny only exalted him. Yet signs which he dared not heed lest +he be confounded told him that every eye so fixed on his was aware of +some droll distraction. He must speak on. + +"My boys! as sure as this war begins it's going to last. There'll be +lots of killing and dying, and I warn you now, your share'll be a double +one. So, then, no indecent haste. Artillery can't fight every day. +Cavalry can--in its small way, but you may have to wait months and +months to get into a regular hell on earth. All the same you'll get +there!--soon enough--times enough. Don't you know why, when we have to +be recruited--to fill up the shot holes--they'll go by the cavalry to +the infantry, and pick the best men there, and _promote_ them to your +ranks? It's because of how you've got to fight when your turn comes; +like devils, to hold up, for all you may know, the butt end of the whole +day's bloody business. That's why--and because of how you may have to +wait, _un-com-plain-ing_, in rotting idleness for the next tea party." + +Again he ceased. What _was_ the matter? There sat his matchless hundred, +still and straight as stone Egyptians, welcoming his every word; yet +some influence not his was having effect and, strangest of all, was +enhancing his. + +"One more word," he said. "You're sick of the drill-ground. Well, the +man that's spoiling for a fight and yet has no belly for drill--he--oh, +he belongs to the cavalry by birth! We _love_ these guns. We're mighty +dogg--we're extremely proud of them. Through thick and thin, through +fire and carnage and agony, remembering where we got them, we propose to +_keep_ them; and some proud day, when the trouble's all over, say two +years hence, and those of us who are spared come home, we propose to +come with these same guns unstained by the touch of a foe's hand, a +virgin battery still. Well, only two things can win that: infernal +fighting and perpetual toil. So, as you love honor and your country's +cause, wait. Wait in self-respectful patience. Wait and work, and you +shall be at the front--the foremost front!--the very first day and hour +my best licks can get you there. That's all." + +Bartleson advanced from the line: "By section!" he called, "right +wheel--" + +"Section," repeated each chief of section, "right wheel--" + +"March!" commanded Bartleson. + +"March," echoed the chiefs, and the battery broke into column. "Forward! +Guide right!" chanted Bartleson, and all moved off save Kincaid. + +He turned his horse, and lo! on the grassy crest of the earthwork, +pictured out against the eastern pink and blue, their summer gauzes +filled with the light of the declining sun, were half a dozen smiling +ladies attended by two or three officers of cavalry, and among them +Flora, Constance, and Miranda. + +Anna? Only when he had dismounted did his eager eye find her, where she +had climbed and seated herself on a siege gun and was letting a cavalier +show her how hard it would be for a hostile ship, even a swift steamer, +to pass, up-stream, this crater of destruction, and _ergo_ how +impossible for a fleet--every ship a terror to its fellows the moment it +was hurt--to run the gauntlet of Forts Jackson and St. Philip on a far +worse stretch of raging current some eighty miles farther down the +river. + +Not for disbelief of the demonstration, but because of a general laugh +around a tilt of words between Kincaid and the cavalry fellows, Anna +lighted down and faced about, to find him, for the third time in five +days, at close range. With much form he drew nearer, a bright assurance +in his eyes, a sort of boyish yes, for a moment, but the next moment +gone as it met in hers a womanly no. + +"You little artist," thought Flora. + + + + +XXIV + + +A PARKED BATTERY CAN RAISE A DUST + +Down in the camp the battery was forming into park; a pretty movement. +The ladies watched it, the cavalrymen explaining. Now it was done. The +command broke ranks, and now its lieutenants joined the fair company and +drank its eulogies--grimly, as one takes a dram. + +Back among the tents and mess fires-- + +"Fellows!" said the boys, in knots, "yonder's how he puts in his 'best +licks' for us!" But their wanton gaze was also fond as it followed the +procession of parasols and sword-belts, muslins and gold lace that +sauntered down along the levee's crest in couples, Hilary and Anna +leading. + +Flora, as they went, felt a most unusual helplessness to avert a course +of things running counter to her designs. It is true that, having +pledged herself to the old General to seek a certain issue and to Irby +to prevent it, she might, whichever way the matter drifted, gather some +advantage if she could contrive to claim credit for the trend; an _if_ +which she felt amply able to take care of. To keep two men fooled was no +great feat, nor even to beguile her grandmother, whose gadfly insistence +centred ever on the Brodnax fortune as their only true objective; but so +to control things as not to fool herself at last--that was the pinch. +It pinched more than it would could she have heard how poorly at this +moment the lover and lass were getting on--as such. Her subtle +interferences--a mere word yesterday, another the day before--were +having more success than she imagined, not realizing how much they were +aided by that frantic untamableness to love's yoke, which, in Hilary +only less than in Anna, qualified every word and motion. + +Early in the talk of these two Hilary had mentioned his speech just +made, presently asking with bright abruptness how Anna liked it and, +while Anna was getting her smile ready for a safe reply, had added that +he never could have made it at all had he dreamed she was looking on. +"Now if she asks why," he thought to himself in alarm, "I've got to +blurt it out!" + +But she failed to ask; only confessed herself unfit to judge anybody's +English. + +"English! oh, pass the English!" he said, he "knew how bad that was." +What he wanted her criticism on was--"its matter--its spirit--whichever +it was, matter or spirit!" How comical that sounded! They took pains +that their laugh should be noticed behind them. Flora observed both the +laugh and the painstaking. + +"Matter or spirit," said Anna more gravely, "I can't criticise it. I +can't even praise it--oh! but that's only be--because I haven't--the +courage!" + +The lover's reply was low and full of meaning: "Would you praise it if +you had the courage?" + +She could have answered trivially, but something within bade her not. +"Yes," she murmured, "I would." It was an awful venture, made +unpreparedly, and her eyes, trying to withstand his, dropped. Yet they +rallied splendidly--"They've got to!" said something within her--and, "I +could," she blushingly qualified, "but--I could criticise it too!" + +His heart warmed at her defiant smile. "I'd rather have that honor than +a bag of gold!" he said, and saw his slip too late. Gold! Into Anna's +remembrance flashed the infatuation of the poor little schoolmistress, +loomed Flora's loss and distress and rolled a smoke of less definite +things for which this man was going unpunished while she, herself, stood +in deadly peril of losing her heart to him. + +"Oh, Captain Kincaid!" Like artillery wheeling into action came her +inconsequent criticism, her eyes braving him at last, as bright as his +guns, though flashing only tears. "It was right enough for you to extol +those young soldiers' willingness to serve their country _when called_. +But, oh, how _could_ you commend their _chafing_ for battle and +slaughter?" + +"Ah, Miss Anna, you--" + +"Oh, when you know that the sooner they go the sooner comes the +heartache and heartbreak for the hundreds of women they so +light-heartedly leave behind them! I looked from Charlie to Flora--" + +"You should have looked to Victorine. She wants the boy to go and her +dad to go with him." + +"Poor thoughtless child!" + +"Why, Miss Anna, if I were a woman, and any man--with war coming +on--could _endure_ to hang back at home for love of me, I should feel--" + +"Captain Kincaid! What we womenkind may feel is not to the point. It's +how the men themselves feel toward the women who love them." + +"They ought," replied the soldier, and his low voice thrilled like a +sounding-board, "to love the women--out of every fibre of their being." + +"Ah!" murmured the critic, as who should say, "checkmate!" + +"And yet--" persisted this self-sung "ladies' man"-- + +"Yet what?" she softly challenged. (Would he stand by his speech, or his +song?) + +"Why, honestly, Miss Anna, I think a man can love a woman--even his +heart's perfect choice--too much. I know he can!" + +The small lady gave the blunderer a grave, brief, now-you-_have_-done-it +glance and looked down. "Well, I know," she measuredly said, "that a man +who can _tell_ a woman that, isn't capable of loving her half enough." +She turned to go back, with a quickness which, I avow, was beautifully +and tenderly different from irritation, yet which caused her petticoat's +frail embroidery to catch on one of his spurs and cling till the whole +laughing bevy had gathered round to jest over Flora's disentanglement of +it. + + * * * * * + +"But really, Nan, you know," said Constance that evening in their home, +"you used to believe that yourself! The day Steve left you said almost +exact--" + +"Con--? Ah, Con! I think the _sister_ who could remind a _sister_ of +that--!" The sufferer went slowly up to her room, where half an hour +later she was found by Miranda drying her bathed eyes at a mirror and +instantly pretending that her care was for any other part of her face +instead. + +"Singular," she remarked, "what a dust that battery can raise!" + + + + +XXV + + +"HE MUST WAIT," SAYS ANNA + +About the middle of the first week in April--when the men left in the +stores of Common, Gravier, Poydras, or Tchoupitoulas street could do +nothing but buy the same goods back and forth in speculation; loathed by +all who did not do it, or whittle their chairs on the shedded sidewalks +and swap and swallow flaming rumors and imprecate the universal inaction +and mis-management--there embarked for Pensacola-- + +"What? Kincaid's Bat--?" + +"No-o, the Zouaves! Infantry! when the one only sane thing to do," cried +every cannoneer of Camp Callender--in its white lanes or on three-hours' +leave at home on Bayou Road or Coliseum Square or Elysian Fields or +Prytania street--"the one sane thing to do," insisted the growingly +profane lads to their elders, and assented the secretly pained elders to +them, "the one thing that, if only for shame's sake, ought to have been +done long ago, was to _knock_ Fort Pickens to HELL with SHELL!" Sadly +often they added the tritest three-monosyllabled expletive known to +red-hot English. + +Charlie--mm-mm! how he could rip it out! Sam Gibbs, our veritable Sam, +sergeant of the boy's gun, "Roaring Betsy," privately remarked to the +Captain what a blank-blank shame it was, not for its trivial self, of +course, but in view of the corruptions to which it opened the way. And +the blithe commander, in the seclusion of his tent, standing over the +lad and holding him tenderly by both pretty ears, preached to him of his +sister and grandmother until with mute rage the youngster burned as red +as his jacket facings; and then of the Callenders--"who gave us our +guns, and one of whom is the godmother of our flag, Charlie"--until the +tears filled Charlie's eyes, and he said: + +"I'll try, Captain, but it's--oh, it's no use! If anything could make me +swear _worse_"--he smiled despairingly--"it would be the hope of being +hauled up again for another talk like this!" + +One Sunday, three days after the going of the Zouaves, while out in +Jackson Square "Roaring Betsy" sang a solo of harrowing thunder-claps, +the Callenders and Valcours, under the cathedral's roof, saw consecrated +in its sacred nave the splendid standard of the Chasseurs-a-Pied. + +Armed guards, keeping the rabble out, passed the ladies in before the +procession had appeared in the old Rue Conde. But now here it came, its +music swelling, the crowd--shabbier than last month and more vacant of +face--parting before it. Carrying their sabres, but on foot and without +their pieces, heading the column as escort of honor, lo, Kincaid's +Battery; rearmost the Chasseurs, masses and masses of them; and in +between, a silver crucifix lifted high above a body of acolytes in white +lace over purple, ranks of black-gowned priests, a succession of +cloth-of-gold ecclesiastics, and in their midst the mitred archbishop. + +But the battery! What a change since last February! Every man as spruce +as ever, but with an added air of tested capability that inspired all +beholders. Only their German musicians still seemed fresh from the mint, +and oh! in what unlucky taste, considering the ecclesiastics, the song +they brayed forth in jaunty staccato. + +"They're offering us that hand of theirs again," murmured Anna to +Constance, standing in a side pew; but suddenly the strain ceased, she +heard Hilary's voice of command turning the column, and presently, +through a lane made by his men, the Chasseurs marched in to the nave, +packed densely and halted. Then in close order the battery itself +followed and stood. Now the loud commands were in here. Strange it was +to hear them ring through the holy place (French to the Chasseurs, +English to the battery), and the crashing musket-butts smite the paved +floor as one weapon, to the flash of a hundred sabres. + +So said to itself the diary on the afternoon of the next day, and there +hurriedly left off. Not because of a dull rumble reaching the writer's +ear from the Lake, where Kincaid and his lieutenants were testing +new-siege-guns, for that was what she was at this desk and window to +hear; but because of the L.S.C.A., about to meet in the drawing-room +below and be met by a friend of the family, a famed pulpit orator and +greater potentate, in many eyes, than even the Catholic archbishop. + +He came, and later, in the battery camp with the Callenders, Valcours, +and Victorine, the soldiers clamoring for a speech, ran them wild +reminding them with what unique honor and peculiar responsibility they +were the champions of their six splendid guns. In a jostling crowd, yet +with a fine decorum, they brought out their standard and--not to be +outdone by any Chasseurs under the sky--obliged Anna to stand beside its +sergeant, Maxime, and with him hold it while the man of God invoked +Heaven to bless it and bless all who should follow it afield or pray for +it at home. So dazed was she that only at the "amen" did she perceive +how perfectly the tables had been turned on her. For only then did she +discover that Hilary Kincaid had joined the throng exactly in time to +see the whole tableau. + +Every officer of the camp called that evening, to say graceful things, +Kincaid last. As he was leaving he wanted to come to the same old point, +but she would not let him. Oh! how could she, a scant six hours after +such a _bid_ from herself? He ought to have seen she couldn't--and +wouldn't! But he never saw anything--of that sort. Ladies' man indeed! +He couldn't read a girl's mind even when she wanted it read. He went +away looking so haggard--and yet so tender--and still so determined--she +could not sleep for hours. Nevertheless-- + +"I can't help his looks, Con, he's got to wait! I owe that to all +womanhood! He's got to practise to me what he preaches to his men. Why, +Connie, if _I'm_ willing to wait, why shouldn't he be? Why--?" + +Constance fled. + +Next day, dining with Doctor Sevier, said the Doctor, "That chap's +working himself to death, Anna," and gave his fair guest such a stern +white look that she had to answer flippantly. + +She and Hilary were paired at table and talked of Flora, he telling how +good a friend to her Flora was. The topic was easier, between them, than +at any other time since the loss of the gold. Always before, she had +felt him thinking of that loss and trying to guess something about her; +but now she did not, for on Sunday, in the cathedral, Flora had told her +at last, ever so gratefully and circumstantially, that she had repaid +the Captain everything! yes, the same day on which she had first told +Anna of the loss; and there was nothing now left to do but for her to +reimburse Anna the moment she could. + +Hilary spoke of Adolphe's devotion to Flora--hoped he would win. Told +with great amusement how really well his cousin had done with her +government claim--sold it to his Uncle Brodnax! And Flora--how +picturesque everything she did!--had put--? yes, they both knew the +secret--had put the proceeds into one of those beautiful towboats that +were being fitted up as privateers! Hilary laughed with delight. Yes, it +was for that sort of thing the boys were so fond of her. But when Anna +avowed a frank envy he laughed with a peculiar tenderness that thrilled +both him and her, and murmured: + +"The dove might as well envy the mocking-bird." + +"If I were a dove I certainly should," she said. + +"Well, you are, and you shouldn't!" said he. + +All of which Flora caught; if not the words, so truly the spirit that +the words were no matter. + +"Just as we were starting home," soliloquized, that night, our diary, +"the newsboys came crying all around, that General Beauregard had opened +fire on Fort Sumter, and the war has begun. Poor Constance! it's little +she'll sleep to-night." + + + + +XXVI + + +SWIFT GOING, DOWN STREAM + +Strangely slow travelled news in '61. After thirty hours' bombardment +Fort Sumter had fallen before any person in New Orleans was sure the +attack had been made. When five days later a yet more stupendous though +quieter thing occurred, the tidings reached Kincaid's Battery only on +the afternoon of the next one in fair time to be read at the close of +dress parade. But then what shoutings! The wondering Callenders were +just starting for a drive up-town. At the grove gate their horses were +frightened out of all propriety by an opening peal, down in the camp, +from "Roaring Betsy." And listen! + +The black driver drew in. From Jackson Square came distant thunders and +across the great bend of the river they could see the white puff of each +discharge. What _could_ it mean? + +"Oh, Nan, the Abolitionists must have sued for peace!" exclaimed the +sister. + +"No-no!" cried Miranda. "Hark!" + +Behind them the battery band had begun-- + + "O, carry me back to old Vir--" + +"Virginia!" sang the three. "Virginia is out! Oh, Virginia is out!" They +clapped their mitted hands and squeezed each other's and laughed with +tears and told the coachman and said it over and over. + +In Canal Street lo! it was true. Across the Neutral Ground they saw a +strange sight; General Brodnax bareheaded! bareheaded yet in splendid +uniform, riding quietly through the crowd in a brilliantly mounted group +that included Irby and Kincaid, while everybody told everybody, with +admiring laughter, how the old Virginian, dining at the St. Charles +Hotel, had sallied into the street cheering, whooping, and weeping, +thrown his beautiful cap into the air, jumped on it as it fell, and +kicked it before him up to one corner and down again to the other. Now +he and his cavalcade came round the Clay statue and passed the carriage +saluting. What glory was in their eyes! How could our trio help but wave +or the crowd hold back its cheers! + +Up at Odd Fellows' Hall a large company was organizing a great military +fair. There the Callenders were awaited by Flora and Madame, thither +they came, and there reappeared the General and his train. There, too, +things had been so admirably cut and dried that in a few minutes the +workers were sorted and busy all over the hall like classes in a +Sunday-school. + +The Callenders, Valcours, and Victorine were a committee by themselves +and could meet at Callender House. So when Kincaid and Irby introduced a +naval lieutenant whose amazingly swift despatch-boat was bound on a +short errand a bend or so below English Turn, it was agreed with him in +a twinkling--a few twinklings, mainly Miranda's--to dismiss horses, take +the trip, and on the return be set ashore at Camp Callender by early +moonlight. + +They went aboard at the head of Canal Street. The river was at a fair +stage, yet how few craft were at either long landing, "upper" or +"lower," where so lately there had been scant room for their crowding +prows. How few drays and floats came and went on the white, shell-paved +levees! How little freight was to be seen except what lay vainly begging +for export--sugar, molasses, rice; not even much cotton; it had gone to +the yards and presses. That natty regiment, the Orleans Guards, was +drilling (in French, superbly) on the smooth, empty ground where both to +Anna's and to Flora's silent notice all the up-river foodstuffs--corn, +bacon, pork, meal, flour--were so staringly absent, while down in yonder +streets their lack was beginning to be felt by a hundred and twenty-five +thousand consumers. + +Backing out into mid-stream brought them near an anchored steamer lately +razeed and now being fitted for a cloud of canvas on three lofty masts +instead of the two small sticks she had been content with while she +brought plantains, guava jelly, coffee, and cigars from Havana. The +_Sumter_ she was to be, and was designed to deliver some of the many +agile counter-thrusts we should have to make against that "blockade" for +which the Yankee frigates were already hovering off Ship Island. So said +the Lieutenant, but Constance explained to him (Captain Mandeville +having explained to her) what a farce that blockade was going to be. + +How good were these long breaths of air off the sea marshes, enlivened +by the speed of the craft! But how unpopulous the harbor! What a crowd +of steamboats were laid up along the "Algiers" shore, and of Morgan's +Texas steamers, that huddled, with boilers cold, under Slaughter-House +Point, while all the dry-docks stood empty. How bare the ship wharves; +hardly a score of vessels along the miles of city front. About as many +more, the lieutenant said, were at the river's mouth waiting to put to +sea, but the towboats were all up here being turned into gunboats or +awaiting letters of marque and reprisal in order to nab those very ships +the moment they should reach good salt water. Constance and Miranda +tingled to tell him of their brave Flora's investment, but dared not, it +was such a secret! + +On a quarter of the deck where they stood alone, what a striking pair +were Flora and Irby as side by side they faced the ruffling air, softly +discussing matters alien to the gliding scene and giving it only a +dissimulative show of attention. Now with her parasol he pointed to the +sunlight in the tree tops of a river grove where it gilded the windows +of the Ursulines' Convent. + +"Hum!" playfully murmured Kincaid to Anna, "he motions as naturally as +if that was what they were talking about." + +"It's a lovely picture," argued Anna. + +"Miss Anna, when a fellow's trying to read the book of his fate he +doesn't care for the pictures." + +"How do you know that's what he's doing?" + +"He's always doing it!" laughed Hilary. + +The word was truer than he meant. The Irby-value of things was all that +ever seriously engaged the ever serious cousin. Just now his eyes had +left the shore, where Flora's lingered, and he was speaking of Kincaid. +"I see," he said, "what you think: that although no one of these +things--uncle Brodnax's nonsense, Greenleaf's claims, Hilary's own +preaching against--against, eh--" + +"Making brides to-day and widows to-morrow?" + +"Yes, that while none of these is large enough in his view to stop him +by itself, yet combined they--" + +"All working together they do it," said the girl. Really she had no such +belief, but Irby's poor wits were so nearly useless to her that she +found amusement in misleading them. + +"Hilary tells me they do," he replied, "but the more he says it the less +I believe him. Miss Flora, the fate of all my uncle holds dear is +hanging by a thread, a spider's web, a young girl's freak! If ever she +gives him a certain turn of the hand, the right glance of her eye, he'll +be at her feet and every hope I cherish--" + +"Captain Irby," Flora softly asked with her tinge of accent, "is not +this the third time?" + +"Yes, if you mean again that--" + +"That Anna, she is my dear, dear frien'! The fate of nothing, of nobody, +not even of me--or of--you--" she let that pronoun catch in her +throat--"can make me to do anything--oh! or even to wish anything--not +the very, very best for her!" + +"Yet I thought it was our understanding--" + +"Captain: There is bitwin us no understanding excep'"--the voice grew +tender--"that there is no understanding bitwin us." But she let her eyes +so meltingly avow the very partnership her words denied, that Irby felt +himself the richest, in understandings, of all men alive. + +"What is that they are looking?" asked his idol, watching Anna and +Hilary. The old battle ground had been passed. Anna, gazing back toward +its townward edge, was shading her eyes from the burnished water, and +Hilary was helping her make out the earthwork from behind which peered +the tents of Kincaid's Battery while beyond both crouched low against +the bright west the trees and roof of Callender House--as straight in +line from here, Flora took note, as any shot or shell might ever fly. + + + + +XXVII + + +HARD GOING, UP STREAM + +Very pleasant it was to stand thus on the tremulous deck of the swiftest +craft in the whole Confederate service. Pleasant to see on either hand +the flat landscape with all its signs of safety and plenty; its orange +groves, its greening fields of young sugar-cane, its pillared and +magnolia-shaded plantation houses, its white lines of slave cabins in +rows of banana trees, and its wide wet plains swarming with wild birds; +pleasant to see it swing slowly, majestically back and melt into a +skyline as low and level as the ocean's. + +Anna and Kincaid went inside to see the upper and more shining portions +of the boat's beautiful machinery. No one had yet made rods, cranks, and +gauge-dials sing anthems; but she knew it was Hilary and an artisan or +two in his foundry whose audacity in the remaking of these gliding, +plunging, turning, vanishing, and returning members had given them their +fine new speed-making power, and as he stood at her side and pointed +from part to part they took on a living charm that was reflected into +him. Pleasant it was, also, to hear two or three droll tales about his +battery boys; the personal traits, propensities, and soldierly value of +many named by name, and the composite character and temper that +distinguished the battery as a command; this specific quality of each +particular organic unit, fighting body, among their troops being as +needful for commanders to know as what to count on in the individual +man. So explained the artillerist while the pair idled back to the open +deck. With hidden vividness Anna liked the topic. Had not she a right, +the right of a silent partner? A secret joy of the bond settled on her +like dew on the marshes, as she stood at his side. + +Hilary loved the theme. The lives of those boys were in his hands; at +times to be hoarded, at times to be spent, in sudden awful junctures to +be furiously squandered. He did not say this, but the thought was in +both of them and drew them closer, though neither moved. The boat +rounded to, her engines stopped, an officer came aboard from a skiff, +and now she was under way again and speeding up stream on her return, +but Hilary and Anna barely knew it. He began to talk of the boys' +sweethearts. Of many of their tender affairs he was confidentially +informed. Yes, to be frank, he confessed he had prompted some fellows to +let their hearts lead them, and to pitch in and win while-- + +"Oh! certainly!" murmured Anna in compassion, "some of them." + +"Yes," said their captain, "but they are chaps--like Charlie--whose +hearts won't keep unless they're salted down and barrelled, and I give +the advice not in the sweethearts' interest but--" + +"Why not? Why shouldn't a--" The word hung back. + +"A lover?" + +"Yes. Why shouldn't he confess himself in _her_ interest? That needn't +pledge her." + +"Oh! do you think that would be fair?" + +"Perfectly!" + +"Well, now--take an actual case. Do you think the mere fact that Adolphe +truly and stick-to-it-ively loves Miss Flora gives her a right to know +it?" + +"I do, and to know it a long, long time before he can have any right to +know whether--" + +"Hum! while he goes where glory waits him--?" + +"Yes." + +"And lets time--?" + +"Yes." + +"And absence and distance and rumor try his unsupported constancy?" + +"Yes." + +With tight lips the soldier drew breath. "You know my uncle expects now +to be sent to Virginia at once?" + +"Yes." + +"Adolphe, of course, goes with him." + +"Yes." + +"Yet you think--the great principle of so-much-for-so-much to the +contrary notwithstanding--he really owes it to her to--" + +Anna moved a step forward. She was thinking what a sweet babe she was, +thus to accept the surface of things. How did she know that this +laughing, light-spoken gallant, seemingly so open and artless--oh! more +infantile than her very self!--was not deep and complex? Or that it was +not _he_ and Flora on whose case she was being lured to speculate? The +boat, of whose large breathings and pulsings she became growingly aware, +offered no reply. Presently from the right shore, off before them, came +a strain of band music out of Camp Callender. + +"Anna." + +"What hosts of stars!" said she. "How hoveringly they follow us." + +The lover waited. The ship seemed to breathe deeper--to glide faster. He +spoke again: "May I tell you a secret?" + +"Doesn't the boat appear to you to tremble more than ever?" was the sole +response. + +"Yes, she's running up-stream. So am I. Anna, we're off this time--sure +shot--with the General--to Virginia. The boys don't know it yet, +but--listen." + +Over in the unseen camp the strain was once more-- + + "I'd offer thee this hand of mine--" + +"We're turning in to be landed, are we not?" asked Anna as the stars +began to wheel. + +"Yes. Do you really believe, Anna, that that song is not the true word +for a true lover and true soldier, like Adolphe, for instance--to say to +himself, of course, not to _her_?" + +"Oh, Captain Kincaid, what does it matter?" + +"Worlds to me. Anna, if I should turn that song into a solemn avowal--to +you--" + +"Please don't!--Oh, I mean--I don't mean--I--I mean--" + +"Ah, I know your meaning. But if I love you, profoundly, abidingly, +consumingly--as I do, Anna Callender, as I do!--and am glad to pledge my +soul to you knowing perfectly that you have nothing to confess to me--" + +"Oh, don't, Captain Kincaid, don't! You are not fair to me. You make me +appear--oh--we were speaking only of your cousin's special case. I don't +want your confession. I'm not ready for--for anybody's! You mustn't make +it! You--you--" + +"It's made, Anna Callender, and it makes me fair to you at last." + +"Oh-h-h!" + +"I know that matters little to you--" + +"Oh, but you're farther from fair than ever, Captain Kincaid; you got my +word for one thing and have used it for another!" She turned and they +tardily followed their friends, bound for the gangway. A torch-basket of +pine-knots blazing under the bow covered flood and land with crimson +light and inky shadows. The engines had stopped. The boat swept the +shore. A single stage-plank lay thrust half out from her forward +quarter. A sailor stood on its free end with a coil of small line. The +crouching earthwork and its fierce guns glided toward them. Knots of +idle cannoneers stood along its crest. A few came down to the water's +edge, to whom Anna and Hilary, still paired alone, were a compelling +sight. They lifted their smart red caps. Charlie ventured a query: "It's +true, Captain, isn't it, that Virginia's out?" + +"I've not seen her," was the solemn reply, and his comrades tittered. + +"Yes!" called Constance and Miranda, "she's out!" + +"Miss Anna," murmured Hilary with a meekness it would have avenged +Charlie to hear, "I've only given you the right you claim for every +woman." + +"Oh, Captain Kincaid, I didn't say every woman! I took particular--I--I +mean I--" + +"If it's any one's right it's yours." + +"I don't want it!--I mean--I mean--" + +"You mean, do you not? that I've no right to say what can only distress +you." + +"Do _you_ think you have?--Oh, Lieutenant, it's been a perfectly lovely +trip! I don't know when the stars have seemed so bright!" + +"They're not like us dull men, Miss Callender," was the sailor's unlucky +reply, "they can rise to any occasion a lady can make." + +"Ladies don't _make_ occasions, Lieutenant." + +"Oh, don't they!" laughed the sea-dog to Hilary. But duty called. "No, +no, Miss Val--! Don't try that plank alone! Captain Kincaid, will you +give--? That's right, sir.... Now, Captain Irby, you and Miss +Callender--steady!" + +Seventh and last went the frail old lady, led by Kincaid. She would have +none other. She kept his arm with definite design while all seven waved +the departing vessel good-by. Then for the walk to the house she shared +Irby with Anna and gave Flora to Hilary, with Miranda and Constance in +front outmanoeuvred by a sleight of hand so fleeting and affable that +even you or I would not have seen it. + + + + +XXVIII + + +THE CUP OF TANTALUS + +Queer world. Can you be sure the next pair you meet walking together of +a summer eve are as starry as they look? Lo, Constance and Miranda. Did +the bride herself realize what a hunger of loneliness was hers? Or Anna +and Irby, with Madame between them. Could you, maybe, have guessed the +veritable tempest beneath the maiden's serenity, or his inward gnashings +against whatever it was that had blighted his hour with the elusive +Flora? + +Or can any one say, in these lives of a thousand concealments and +restraints, _when_ things _are_ happening and when not, within us or +without, or how near we are _now_ to the unexpected--to fate? See, Flora +and Hilary. He gave no outward show that he was burning to flee the spot +and swing his fists and howl and tear the ground. + +Yet Flora knew; knew by herself; by a cold rage in her own fair bosom, +where every faculty stood gayly alert for each least turn of incident, +to foil or use it, while they talked lightly of Virginia's great step, +or of the night's loveliness, counting the stars. "How small they look," +she said, "how calm how still." + +"Yes, and then to think what they really are! so fearfully far from +small--or cold--or still!" + +"Like ourselves," she prompted. + +"Yes!" cried the transparent soldier. "At our smallest the smallest +thing in us is that we should feel small. And how deep down are we calm +or cold? Miss Flora, I once knew a girl--fine outside, inside. Lovers +-she had to keep a turnstile. I knew a pair of them. To hear those two +fellows separately tell what she was like, you couldn't have believed +them speaking of the same person. The second one thought the first +had--sort o'--charted her harbor for him; but when he came to sail in, +'pon my soul, if every shoal on the chart wasn't deep water, and every +deep water a fortified shore--ha, ha, ha!" + +Flora's smile was lambent. "Yes," she said, "that sweet Anna she's very +intric-ate." Hilary flamed and caught his breath, but she met his eyes +with the placidity of the sky above them. + +Suddenly he laughed: "Now I know what I am! Miss Flora, I--I wish you'd +be my pilot." + +She gave one resenting sparkle, but then shook her averted head +tenderly, murmured "Impossible," and smiled. + +"You think there's no harbor there?" + +"Listen," she said. + +"Yes, I hear it, a horse." + +"Captain Kincaid?" + +"Miss Flora?" + +"For dear Anna's sake _and_ yours, shall I be that little bit your +pilot, to say--?" + +"What! to say. Don't see her to-night?" + +Flora's brow sank. + +"May I go with you, then, and learn why?" The words were hurried, for a +horseman was in front and the others had so slackened pace that all were +again in group. Anna caught Flora's reply: + +"No, your cousin will be there. But to-morrow evening, bif-ore--" + +"Yes," he echoed, "before anything else. I'll come. Why!"--a whinny of +recognition came from the road--"why, that's my horse!" + +The horseman dragged in his rein. Constance gasped and Kincaid +exclaimed, "Well! since when and from where, Steve Mandeville?" + +The rider sprang clanking to the ground and whipped out a document. All +pressed round him. He gave his bride two furious kisses, held her in one +arm and handed the missive to Kincaid: + +"With the compliment of General Brodnax!" + +Irby edged toward Flora, drawn by a look. + +Hilary spoke: "Miss Anna, please hold this paper open for me while +I--Thank you." He struck a match. The horse's neck was some shelter and +the two pressed close to make more, yet the match flared. The others +listened to Mandeville: + +"And 'twas me dizcover' that tranzportation, juz' chanzing to arrive by +the railroad--" + +"Any one got a newspaper?" called Hilary. "Steve--yes, let's have a wisp +o' that." + +The paper burned and Hilary read. "Always the man of the moment, me!" +said Mandeville. "And also 't is thangs to me you are the firs' inform', +and if you are likewise the firs' to ripport--" + +"Thank you!" cried Kincaid, letting out a stirrup leather. "Adolphe, +will you take that despatch on to Bartleson?" He hurried to the other +stirrup. + +"_Tell him no!_" whispered Flora, but in vain, so quickly had Anna +handed Irby the order. + +"Good-night, all!" cried Hilary, mounting. He wheeled, swung his cap and +galloped. + +"Hear him!" laughed Miranda to Flora, and from up the dim way his song +came back: + + "'I can't stand the wilderness + But a few days, a few days.'" + +Still swinging his cap he groaned to himself and dropped his head, then +lifted it high, shook his locks like a swimmer, and with a soft word to +his horse sped faster. + +"Yo' pardon, sir," said Mandeville to Irby, declining the despatch, "I +wou'n't touch it. For why he di'n' h-ask me? But my stable is juz +yondeh. Go, borrow you a horse--all night 'f you like." + +Thence Irby galloped to Bartleson's tent, returned to Callender House, +dismounted and came up the steps. There stood Anna, flushed and eager, +twining arms with the placid Flora. "Ah," said the latter, as he offered +her his escort home, "but grandma and me, we--" + +Anna broke in: "They're going to stay here all night so that you may +ride at once to General Brodnax. Even we girls, Captain Irby, must do +all we can to help your cousin get away with the battery, the one wish +of his heart!" She listened, untwined and glided into the house. + +Instantly Flora spoke: "Go, Adolphe Irby, go! Ah, _snatch_ your luck, +you lucky--man! Get him away to-night, cost what cost!" Her fingers +pushed him. He kissed them. She murmured approvingly, but tore them +away: "Go, go, go-o!" + +Anna, pacing her chamber, with every gesture of self-arraignment and +distress, heard him gallop. Then standing in her opened window she +looked off across the veranda's balustrade and down into the camp, where +at lines of mess-fires like strings of burning beads the boys were +cooking three days' rations. A tap came on her door. She snatched up a +toilet brush: "Come in?" + +She was glad it was only Flora. "Cherie," tinkled the visitor, "they +have permit' me!" + +Anna beamed. "I was coming down," she recklessly replied, touching her +temples at the mirror. + +"Yes," said the messenger, "'cause Mandeville he was biggening to tell +about Fort Sumter, and I asked them to wait--ah"--she took Anna's late +pose in the window--"how plain the camp!" + +"Yes," responded Anna with studied abstraction, "when the window happens +to be up. It's so warm to-night, I--" + +"Ah, Anna!" + +"What, dear?" In secret panic Anna came and looked out at Flora's side +caressingly. + +"At last," playfully sighed the Creole, "'tis good-by, Kincaid's +Battery. Good-by, you hun'red good fellows, with yo' hun'red horses and +yo' hun'red wheels and yo' hun'red hurras." + +"And hundred brave, true hearts!" said Anna. + +"Yes, and good-by, Bartleson, good-by, Tracy, good-by ladies' man!--my +dear, tell me once more! For him why always that name?" Both laughed. + +"I don't know, unless it's because--well--isn't it--because every lady +has a piece of his heart and--no one wants all of it?" + +"Ah! no one?--when so many?--" + +"Now, Flora, suppose some one did! What of it, if he can't, himself, +get his whole heart together to give it to any one?" The arguer offered +to laugh again, but Flora was sad: + +"You bil-ieve he's that way--Hilary Kincaid?" + +"There are men that way, Flora. It's hard for us women to realize, but +it's true!" + +"Ah, but for him! For him that's a dreadful!" + +"Why, no, dear, I fancy he's happiest that way." + +"But not best, no! And there's another thing--his uncle! You know ab-out +that, I su'pose?" + +"Yes, but he--come, they'll be sending--" + +"No,--no! a moment! Anna! Ah, Anna, you are too wise for me! Anna, do +you think"--the pair stood in the room with the inquirer's eyes on the +floor--"you think his cousin is like that?" + +Anna kissed her temples, one in pity, the other in joy: "No, dear, he's +not--Adolphe Irby is not." + +On the way downstairs Flora seized her hands: "Oh, Anna, like +always--this is just bit-win us? Ah, yes. And, oh, I wish you'd try not +to bil-ieve that way--ab-out _his_ cousin! Me, I hope no! And yet--" + +"Yet what, love?" (Another panic.) + +"Nothing, but--ah, he's so ki-ind to my brother! And his cousin +Adolphe," she whispered as they moved on down, "I don't know, but I fear +perchanze he don't like his cousin Adolphe--his cousin Adolphe--on the +outside, same as the General, rough--'t is a wondrous how his cousin +Adolphe is fond of him!" + +Poor Anna. She led the way into the family group actually wheedled into +the belief that however she had blundered with her lover, with Flora she +had been clever. And now they heard the only true account of how +Captain Beauregard and General Steve had taken Fort Sumter. At the same +time every hearer kept one ear alert toward the great open windows. Yet +nothing came to explain that Kincaid's detention up-town was his fond +cousin's contriving, and Sumter's story was at its end when all started +at once and then subsided with relief as first the drums and then the +bugles sounded--no alarm, but only, drowsily, "taps," as if to say to +Callender House as well as to the camp, "Go to slee-eep ... Go to +slee-eep ... Go to bed, go to bed, go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-eep, go +to slee-eep ... Go to slee-ee-eep." + +[Illustration: "'Tis good-by, Kincaid's Battery"] + + + + +XXIX + + +A CASTAWAY ROSE + +Gone to sleep the camp except its sentinels, and all Callender House +save one soul. Not Miranda, not the Mandevilles, nor Madame Valcour, nor +any domestic. Flora knew, though it was not Flora. In her slumbers she +knew. + +Two of the morning. Had the leader, the idol of Kincaid's Battery, +failed in his endeavor? Anna, on her bed, half disrobed, but sleepless +yet, still prayed he might not succeed. Just this one time, oh, Lord! +this one time! With Thee are not all things possible? Canst Thou not so +order all things that a day or two's delay of Kincaid's Battery need +work no evil to the Cause nor any such rending to any heart as must be +hers if Kincaid's Battery should go to-night? Softly the stair clock +boomed three. She lifted her head and for a full three minutes harkened +toward the camp. Still no sound there, thank God! She turned upon her +pillow. + +But--what! Could that be the clock again, and had she slumbered? "Three, +four," murmured the clock. She slipped from her bed and stole to the +window. Just above the low, dim parapet, without a twinkle, the morning +star shone large, its slender, mile-long radiance shimmering on the +gliding river. In all the scented landscape was yet no first stir of +dawn, but only clearness enough to show the outlines of the camp ground. +She stared. She stared again! Not a tent was standing. Oh! and oh! +through what bugling, what rolling of drums and noise of hoofs, wheels, +and riders had she lain oblivious at last? None, really; by order of the +commanding general--on a private suggestion of Irby's, please notice, +that the practice would be of value--camp had been struck in silence. +But to her the sole fact in reach was that all its life was gone! + +Sole fact? Gone? All gone? What was this long band of darkness where the +gray road should be, in the dull shadow of the levee? Oh, God of mercy, +it was the column! the whole of Kincaid's Battery, in the saddle and on +the chests, waiting for the word to march! Ah, thou ladies' man! Thus to +steal away! Is this your profound--abiding--consuming love? The whisper +was only in her heart, but it had almost reached her lips, when she +caught her breath, her whole form in a tremor. She clenched the +window-frame, she clasped her heaving side. + +For as though in reply, approaching from behind the house as if already +the producer had nearly made its circuit, there sounded close under the +balustrade the walking of a horse. God grant no other ear had noted it! +Now just beneath the window it ceased. Hilary Kincaid! She could not +see, but as sure as sight she knew. Her warrior, her knight, her emperor +now at last, utterly and forever, she his, he hers, yet the last moment +of opportunity flitting by and she here helpless to speak the one word +of surrender and possession. Again she shrank and trembled. Something +had dropped in at the window. There it lay, small and dark, on the +floor. She snatched it up. Its scant tie of ribbon, her touch told her, +was a bit of the one she had that other time thrown down to him, and the +thing it tied and that looked so black in the dusk was a red, red rose. + +She pressed it to her lips. With quaking fingers that only tangled the +true-love knot and bled on the thorns, she stripped the ribbon off and +lifted a hand high to cast it forth, but smote the sash and dropped the +emblem at her own feet. In pain and fear she caught it up, straightened, +and glanced to her door, the knot in one hand, the rose in the other, +and her lips apart. For at some unknown moment the door had opened, and +in it stood Flora Valcour. + +Furtively into a corner fluttered rose and ribbon while the emptied +hands extended a counterfeit welcome and beckoned the visitor's aid to +close the window. As the broad sash came down, Anna's heart, in final +despair, sunk like lead, or like the despairing heart of her disowned +lover in the garden, Flora's heart the meantime rising like a recovered +kite. They moved from the window with their four hands joined, the +dejected girl dissembling elation, the elated one dejection. + +"I don't see," twittered Anna, "how I should have closed it! How chilly +it gets toward--" + +"Ah!" tremulously assented the subtler one. "And such a dream! I was +oblige' to escape to you!" + +"And did just right!" whispered and beamed poor Anna. "What did you +dream, dear?" + +"I dremp the battery was going! and going to a battle! and with the res' +my brother! And now--" + +"Now it's but a dream!" said her comforter. + +"Anna!" the dreamer flashed a joy that seemed almost fierce. She fondly +pressed the hands she held and drew their owner toward the ill-used +rose. "Dearest, behold me! a thief, yet innocent!" + +Anna smiled fondly, but her heart had stopped, her feet moved haltingly. +A mask of self-censure poorly veiled Flora's joy, yet such as it was it +was needed. Up from the garden, barely audible to ears straining for it, +yet surging through those two minds like a stifling smoke, sounded the +tread of the departing horseman. + +"Yes," murmured Anna, hoping to drown the footfall, and with a double +meaning though with sincere tenderness, "you are stealing now, not +meaning to." + +"Now?" whispered the other, "how can that be?" though she knew. "Ah, if +I could steal now your heart al-_so_! But I've stolen, I fear, +only--your--confidenze!" Between the words she loosed one hand, stooped +and lifted the flower. Each tried to press it to the other's bosom, but +it was Anna who yielded. + +"I'd make you take it," she protested as Flora pinned it on, "if I +hadn't thrown it away." + +"Dearest," cooed the other, "that would make me a thief ag-ain, and +this time guilty." + +"Can't I give a castaway rose to whom I please?" + +"Not this one. Ah, sweet, a thousand thousand pardon!"--the speaker bent +to her hearer's ear--"I saw you when you kiss' it--and before." + +Anna's face went into her hands, and face and hands to Flora's shoulder; +but in the next breath she clutched the shoulder and threw up her head, +while the far strain of a bugle faintly called, "Head of column to the +right." + +The cadence died. "Flora! your dream is true and that's the battery! +It's going, Flora. It's gone! Your brother's gone! Your brother, Flora, +your brother! Charlie! he's _gone_." So crying Anna sprang to the window +and with unconscious ease threw it up. + +The pair stood in it. With a bound like the girl's own, clear day had +come. Palely the river purpled and silvered. No sound was anywhere, no +human sign on vacant camp ground, levee, or highroad. "Ah!"--Flora made +a well pretended gesture of discovery and distress--"'tis true! That +bugl' muz' have meant us good-by." + +"Oh, then it was cruel!" exclaimed Anna. "To you, dear, cruel to you to +steal off in that way. Run! dress for the carriage!" + +Flora played at hesitation: "Ah, love, if perchanze that bugl' was to +call you?" + +"My dear! how could even _he_--the 'ladies' man,' ha, ha!--_imagine_ any +true woman would come to the call of a bugle? Go! while I order the +carriage." + +They had left the window. The hostess lifted her hand toward a +bell-cord but the visitor stayed it, absently staring while letting +herself be pressed toward the door, thrilled with a longing as wild as +Anna's and for the same sight, yet cunningly pondering. Nay, waiting, +rather, on instinct, which the next instant told her that Anna would +inevitably go herself, no matter who stayed. + +"You'll come al-long too?" she pleadingly asked. + +"No, dear, I cannot! Your grandmother will, of course, and Miranda." The +bell-cord was pulled. + +"Anna, you _must_ go, else me, I will not!" + +"Ah, how can I? Dear, dear, you're wasting such _golden_ moments! Well, +I'll go with you! Only _make_ haste while I call the others--stop!" +Their arms fell lightly about each other's neck. "You'll never tell on +me?... Not even to Miranda?... Nor h-his--his uncle?... Nor"--the +petitioner pressed closer with brightening eyes--"nor his--cousin?" + +Softly Flora's face went into her hands, and face and hands to Anna's +shoulder, as neat a reduplication as ever was. But suddenly there were +hoof-beats again. Yes, coming at an easy gallop. Now they trotted +through the front gate. The eyes of the two stared. "A courier," +whispered Anna, "to Captain Mandeville!" though all her soul hoped +differently. + +Only a courier it was. So said the maid who came in reply to the late +ring, but received no command. The two girls, shut in together, Anna +losing moments more golden than ever, heard the rider at the veranda +steps accost the old coachman and so soon after greet Mandeville that it +was plain the captain had already been up and dressing. + +"It's Charlie!" breathed Anna, and Flora nodded. + +Now Charlie trotted off again, and now galloped beyond hearing, while +Mandeville's booted tread reascended to his wife's room. And now came +Constance: "Nan, where on earth is Fl--? Oh, of course! News, Nan! Good +news, Flora! The battery, you know--?" + +"Yes," said Anna, with her dryest smile, "it's sneaked off in the dark." + +"Nan, you're mean! It's marching up-town now, Flora. At least the guns +and caissons are, so as to be got onto the train at once. And oh, girls, +those poor, dear boys! the train--from end to end it's to be nothing but +a freight train!" + +"Hoh!" laughed the heartless Anna, "that's better than staying here." + +The sister put out her chin and turned again to Flora. "But just now," +she said, "the main command are to wait and rest in Congo Square, and +about ten o'clock they're to be joined by all the companies of the +Chasseurs that haven't gone to Pensacola and by the whole regiment of +the Orleans Guards, as an escort of honor, and march in that way to the +depot, led by General Brodnax and his staff--and Steve! And every one +who wants to bid them good-by must do it there. Of course there'll be a +perfect jam, and so Miranda's ordering breakfast at seven and the +carriage at eight, and Steve--he didn't tell even me last night +because--" Her words stuck in her throat, her tears glistened, she +gnawed her lips. Anna laid tender hands on her. + +"Why, what, Connie, dear?" + +"St--Ste--Steve--" + +"Is Steve going with them to Virginia?" + +The face of Constance went into her hands, and face and hands to Anna's +shoulder. Meditatively smiling, Flora slipped away to dress. + + + + +XXX + + +GOOD-BY, KINCAID'S BATTERY + +At one end of a St. Charles Hotel parlor a group of natty officers stood +lightly chatting while they covertly listened. At the other end, with +Irby and Mandeville at his two elbows, General Brodnax conversed with +Kincaid and Bartleson, the weather-faded red and gray of whose uniforms +showed in odd contrast to the smartness all about them. + +Now he gave their words a frowning attention, and now answered abruptly: +"Humph! That looks tremendously modest in you, gentlemen,--what?... +Well, then, in your whole command if it's their notion. But it's vanity +at last, sirs, pure vanity. Kincaid's Battery 'doesn't want to parade +its dinginess till it's done something'--pure vanity! 'Shortest +way'--nonsense! The shortest way to the train isn't the point! The point +is to make so inspiring a show of you as to shame the damned +stay-at-homes!" + +"You'll par-ade," broke in the flaming Mandeville. "worse' dress than +presently, when you rit-urn conqueror'!" But that wearied the General +more. + +"Oh, hell," he mumbled. "Captain Kincaid, eh--" He led that officer +alone to a window and spoke low: "About my girl, Hilary,--and me. I'd +like to decide that matter before you show your heels. You, +eh,--default, I suppose?" + +"No, uncle, she does that. I do only the hopeless loving." + +"The wha-at? Great Lord! You don't tell me you--?" + +"Yes, I caved in last night; told her I loved her. Oh, I didn't do it +just in this ashes-of-roses tone of voice, but"--the nephew smiled--the +General scowled--"you should have seen me, uncle. You'd have thought it +was Mandeville. I made a gorgeous botch of it." + +"You don't mean she--?" + +"Yes, sir, adjourned me _sine die_. Oh, it's no use to look at me." He +laughed. "The calf's run over me. My fat's in the fire." + +The General softly swore and continued his gaze. "I believe," he slowly +said, "that's why you wanted to slink out of town the back way." + +"Oh, no, it's not. Or at least--well, anyhow, uncle, now you can decide +in favor of Adolphe." + +The uncle swore so audibly that the staff heard and exchanged smiles: "I +neither can nor will decide--for either of you--yet! You understand? I +_don't do it_. Go, bring your battery." + +The city was taken by surprise. Congo Square was void of soldiers before +half Canal street's new red-white-and-red bunting could be thrown to the +air. In column of fours--escort leading and the giant in the bearskin +hat leading it--they came up Rampart street. On their right hardly did +time suffice for boys to climb the trees that in four rows shaded its +noisome canal; on their left not a second too many was there for the +people to crowd the doorsteps, fill windows and garden gates, line the +banquettes and silently gather breath and ardor while the escort moved +by, before the moment was come in which to cheer and cheer and cheer, as +with a hundred flashing sabres at shoulder the dismounted, +heavy-knapsacked, camp-worn battery, Kincaid's Battery--you could read +the name on the flag--Kincaid's Battery! came and came and passed. In +Canal street and in St. Charles there showed a fierceness of pain in the +cheers, and the march was by platoons. At the hotel General Brodnax and +staff joined and led it--up St. Charles, around Tivoli Circle, and so at +last into Calliope street. + +Meantime far away and sadly belated, with the Valcours cunningly to +blame and their confiding hostesses generously making light of it, up +Love street hurried the Callenders' carriage. Up the way of Love and +athwart the oddest tangle of streets in New Orleans,--Frenchmen and +Casacalvo, Greatmen, History, Victory, Peace, Arts, Poet, Music, +Bagatelle, Craps, and Mysterious--across Elysian Fields not too Elysian, +past the green, high-fenced gardens of Esplanade and Rampart flecked +red-white-and-red with the oleander, the magnolia, and the rose, spun +the wheels, spanked the high-trotters. The sun was high and hot, shadows +were scant and sharp, here a fence and there a wall were as blinding +white as the towering fair-weather clouds, gowns were gauze and the +parasols were six, for up beside the old coachman sat Victorine. She it +was who first saw that Congo Square was empty and then that the crowds +were gone from Canal street. It was she who first suggested Dryads +street for a short cut and at Triton Walk was first to hear, on before, +the music,--ah, those horn-bursting Dutchmen! could they never, never +hit it right?-- + + "When other lips and other hearts + Their tale of love shall tell--" + +and it was she who, as they crossed Calliope street, first espied the +rear of the procession, in column of fours again, it was she who flashed +tears of joy as they whirled into Erato street to overtake the van and +she was first to alight at the station. + +The General and his staff were just reaching it. Far down behind them +shone the armed host. The march ceased, the music--"then you'll +rememb'"--broke off short. The column rested. "Mon Dieu!" said even the +Orleans Guards, "quel chaleur! Is it not a terrib', thad sun!" Hundreds +of their blue kepis, hundreds of gray shakos in the Confederate Guards, +were lifted to wipe streaming necks and throats, while away down beyond +our ladies' ken all the drummers of the double escort, forty by count, +silently came back and moved in between the battery and its band to make +the last music the very bravest. Was that Kincaid, the crowd asked, one +of another; he of the thick black locks, tired cheek and brow, and eyes +that danced now as he smiled and talked? "Phew! me, I shou'n' love to be +tall like that, going to be shot at, no! ha, ha! But thad's no wonder +they are call' the ladies' man batt'rie!" + +"Hah! they are not call' so because him, but because themse'v's! Every +one he is that, and they didn' got the name in Circus street neither, +ha, ha!--although--Hello, Chahlie Valcour. Good-by, Chahlie. Don't ged +shoot in the back--ha, ha!--" + +A command! How eternally different from the voice of prattle. The crowd +huddled back to either sidewalk, forced by the opening lines of the +escort backed against it, till the long, shelled wagon-way gleamed white +and bare. Oh, Heaven! oh, home! oh, love! oh, war! For hundreds, +hundreds--beat Anna's heart--the awful hour had come, had come! She and +her five companions could see clear down both bayonet-crested living +walls--blue half the sun-tortured way, gray the other half--to where in +red kepis and with shimmering sabres, behind their tall captain, +stretched the dense platoons and came and came, to the crash of horns, +the boys, the boys, the dear, dear boys who with him, with him must go, +must go! + +"Don't cry, Connie dear," she whispered, though stubborn drops were +salting her own lips, "it will make it harder for Steve." + +"Harder!" moaned the doting bride, "you don't know him!" + +"Oh, let any woman cry who can," laughed Flora, "I wish I could!" and +verily spoke the truth. Anna meltingly pressed her hand but gave her no +glance. All eyes, dry or wet, were fixed on the nearing mass, all ears +drank the rising peal and roar of its horns and drums. How superbly +rigorous its single, two-hundred-footed step. With what splendid +rigidity the escorts' burnished lines walled in its oncome. + +But suddenly there was a change. Whether it began in the music, which +turned into a tune every Tom, Dick, and Harry now had by heart, or +whether a moment before among the blue-caps or gray-shakos, neither +Anna nor the crowd could tell. Some father in those side ranks lawlessly +cried out to his red-capped boy as the passing lad brushed close against +him, "Good-by, my son!" and as the son gave him only a sidelong glance +he seized and shook the sabre arm, and all that long, bristling lane of +bayonets went out of plumb, out of shape and order, and a thousand +brass-buttoned throats shouted good-by and hurrah. Shakos waved, +shoulders were snatched and hugged, blue kepis and red were knocked +awry, beards were kissed and mad tears let flow. And still, with a rigor +the superbest yet because the new tune was so perfect to march by, fell +the unshaken tread of the cannoneers, and every onlooker laughed and +wept and cheered as the brass rent out to the deafening drums, and the +drums roared back to the piercing brass,-- + + De black-snake love' de blackbird' nes', + De baby love' his mamy's bres', + An' raggy-tag, aw spick-an'-span, + De ladies loves de ladies' man. + I loves to roll my eyes to de ladies! + I loves to sympathize wid de ladies! + As long as eveh I knows sugah f'om san' + I's bound to be a ladies' man. + +So the black-hatted giant with the silver staff strode into the wide +shed, the puffy-cheeked band reading their music and feeling for +foothold as they followed, and just yonder behind them, in the middle of +the white way, untouched by all those fathers, unhailed by any brother +of his own, came Hilary Kincaid with all the battery at his neat heels, +its files tightly serried but its platoons in open order, each flashing +its sabres to a "present" on nearing the General and back to a "carry" +when he was passed, and then lengthening into column of files to enter +the blessed shade of the station. + +In beside them surged a privileged throng of near kin, every one calling +over every one's head, "Good-by!" "Good-by!" "Here's your mother, +Johnnie!" and, "Here's your wife, Achille!" Midmost went the Callenders, +the Valcours, and Victorine, willy-nilly, topsy-turvy, swept away, +smothering, twisting, laughing, stumbling, staggering, yet saved alive +by that man of the moment Mandeville, until half-way down the shed and +the long box-car train they brought up on a pile of ordnance stores and +clung like drift in a flood. And at every twist and stagger Anna said in +her heart a speech she had been saying over and over ever since the +start from Callender House; a poor commonplace speech that must be +spoken though she perished for shame of it; that must be darted out just +at the right last instant if such an instant Heaven would only send: "I +take back what I said last night and I'm glad you spoke as you did!" + +Here now the moment seemed at hand. For here was the officers' box-car +and here with sword in sheath Kincaid also had stopped, in conference +with the conductor, while his lieutenants marched the column on, now +halted it along the train's full length, now faced it against the open +cars and now gave final command to break ranks. In comic confusion the +fellows clambered aboard stormed by their friends' fond laughter at the +awkwardness of loaded knapsacks, and their retorting mirth drowned in a +new flood of good-bys and adieus, fresh waving of hats and +handkerchiefs, and made-over smiles from eyes that had wept themselves +dry. The tear-dimmed Victorine called gay injunctions to her father, the +undimmed Flora to her brother, and Anna laughed and laughed and waved hi +all directions save one. There Mandeville had joined Kincaid and the +conductor and amid the wide downpour and swirl of words and cries was +debating with them whether it were safer to leave the shed slowly or +swiftly; and there every now and then Anna's glance flitted near enough +for Hilary to have caught it as easily as did Bartleson, Tracy, every +lieutenant and sergeant of the command, busy as they were warning the +throng back from the cars; yet by him it was never caught. + +The debate had ended. He gave the conductor a dismissing nod that sent +him, with a signalling hand thrown high, smartly away toward the +locomotive. The universal clatter and flutter redoubled. The bell was +sounding and Mandeville was hotly shaking hands with Flora, Miranda, +all. The train stirred, groaned, crept, faltered, crept on--on--one's +brain tingled to the cheers, and women were crying again. + +Kincaid's eyes ran far and near in final summing up. The reluctant train +gave a dogged joggle and jerk, hung back, dragged on, moved a trifle +quicker; and still the only proof that he knew she was here--here within +three steps of him--was the careful failure of those eyes ever to light +on her. Oh, heart, heart, heart! would it be so to the very end and +vanishment of all? + +"I take back--I take--" was there going to be no chance to begin it? Was +he grief blind? or was he scorn blind? No matter! what she had sown she +would reap if she had to do it under the very thundercloud of his frown. +All or any, the blame of estrangement should be his, not hers! Oh, +Connie, Connie! Mandeville had clutched Constance and was kissing her on +lips and head and cheeks. He wheeled, caught a hand from the nearest +car, and sprang in. Kincaid stood alone. The conductor made him an eager +sign. The wheels of the train clicked briskly. He glanced up and down +it, then sprang to Miranda, seized her hand, cried "Good-by!" snatched +Madame's, Flora's, Victorine's, Connie's,--"Good-by--Good-by!"--and came +to Anna. + +And did she instantly begin, "I take--?" Not at all! She gave her hand, +both hands, but her lips stood helplessly apart. Flora, Madame, +Victorine, Constance, Miranda, Charlie from a car's top, the three +lieutenants, the battery's whole hundred, saw Hilary's gaze pour into +hers, hers into his. Only the eyes of the tumultuous crowd still +followed the train and its living freight. A woman darted to a car's +open door and gleaned one last wild kiss. Two, ten, twenty others, while +the conductor ran waving, ordering, thrusting them away, repeated the +splendid theft, and who last of all and with a double booty but +Constance! Anna beheld the action, though with eyes still captive. With +captive eyes, and with lips now shut and now apart again as she vainly +strove for speech, she saw still plainer his speech fail also. His hands +tightened on hers, hers in his. + +"Good-by!" they cried together and were dumb again; but in their mutual +gaze--more vehement than their voices joined--louder than all the din +about them--confession so answered worship that he snatched her to his +breast; yet when he dared bend to lay a kiss upon her brow he failed +once more, for she leaped and caught it on her lips. + +Dishevelled, liberated, and burning with blushes, she watched the end of +the train shrink away. On its last iron ladder the conductor swung aside +to make room for Kincaid's stalwart spring. So! It gained one handhold, +one foothold. But the foot slipped, the soldier's cap tumbled to the +ground, and every onlooker drew a gasp. No, the conductor held him, and +erect and secure, with bare locks ruffling in the wind of the train, he +looked back, waved, and so passed from sight. + +Archly, in fond Spanish, "How do you feel now?" asked Madame of her +scintillant granddaughter as with their friends and the dissolving +throng they moved to the carriage; and in the same tongue Flora, with a +caressing smile, rejoined, "I feel like swinging you round by the hair." + +Anna, inwardly frantic, chattered and laughed. "I don't know what +possessed me!" she cried. + +But Constance was all earnestness: "Nan, you did it for the Cause--the +flag--the battery--anything but him personally. _He_ knows it. Everybody +saw that. Its very publicity--" + +"Yes?" soothingly interposed Madame, "'t was a so verrie pewblic that--" + +"Why, Flora," continued the well-meaning sister, "Steve says when he +came back into Charleston from Fort Sumter the ladies--" + +"Of course!" said Flora, sparkling afresh. "Even Steve understands +that, grandma." Her foot was on a step of the carriage. A child plucked +her flowing sleeve: + +"Misses! Mom-a say'"--he pressed into her grasp something made of +broadcloth, very red and golden--"here yo' husband's cap." + + + + +XXXI + + +VIRGINIA GIRLS AND LOUISIANA BOYS + +Thanks are due to Mr. Richard Thorndyke Smith for the loan of his copy +of a slender and now extremely rare work which at this moment lies +before me. "A History of Kincaid's Battery," it is called, "From Its +Origin to the Present Day," although it runs only to February, '62, and +was printed (so well printed, on such flimsy, coarse paper) just before +the dreadful days of Shiloh and the fall of New Orleans. + +Let us never paint war too fair; but this small volume tells of little +beyond the gold-laced year of 'Sixty-one, nor of much beyond Virginia, +even over whose later war-years the color effects of reminiscence show +blue and green and sun-lit despite all the scarlet of carnage, the black +and crimson of burning, and the grim hues of sickness, squalor, and +semi-starvation; show green and blue in the sunlight of victory, +contrasted with those of the states west and south of her. + +It tells--this book compiled largely from correspondence of persons well +known to you and me--of the first "eight-days' crawl" that conveyed the +chaffing, chafing command up through Mississippi, across East Tennessee +into southeast Virginia and so on through Lynchburg to lovely Richmond; +tells how never a house was passed in town or country but handkerchiefs, +neckerchiefs, snatched-off sunbonnets, and Confederate flags wafted them +on. It tells of the uncounted railway stations where swarmed the girls +in white muslin aprons and red-white-and-red bows, who waved them, in as +they came, and unconsciously squinted and made faces at them in the +intense sunlight. It tells how the maidens gave them dainties and sweet +glances, and boutonnieres of tuberoses and violets, and bloodthirsty +adjurations, and blarney for blarney; gave them seven wild well-believed +rumors for as many impromptu canards, and in their soft plantation drawl +asked which was the one paramount "ladies' man," and were assured by +every lad of the hundred that it was himself. It tells how, having heard +in advance that the more authentic one was black-haired, handsome, and +overtowering, they singled out the drum-major, were set right only by +the roaring laughter, and huddled backward like caged quails from +Kincaid's brazen smile, yet waved again as the train finally jogged on +with the band playing from the roof of the rear car,-- + + "I'd offer thee this hand of mine + If I could love thee less!" + +To Anna that part seemed not so killingly funny or so very interesting, +but she was not one of the book's editors. + +Two or three pages told of a week in camp just outside the Virginian +capital, where by day, by night, on its rocky bed sang James river; of +the business quarter, noisy with army wagons--"rattling o'er the stony +street," says the page; of colonels, generals, and statesmen by +name--Hampton, Wigfall, the fiery Toombs, the knightly Lee, the wise +Lamar; of such and such headquarters, of sentinelled warehouses, glowing +ironworks, galloping aides-de-camp and couriers and arriving and +departing columns, some as trig (almost) as Kincaid's Battery, with +their black servants following in grotesque herds along the sidewalks; +and some rudely accoutred, shaggy, staring, dust-begrimed, in baggy +butternut jeans, bearing flint-lock muskets and trudging +round-shouldered after fifes and drums that squealed and boomed out the +strains of their forgotten ancestors: "The Campbells are coming," +"Johnnie was a piper's son," or-- + + "My heart is ever turning back + To the girl I left behind me." + +"You should have seen the girls," laughs the book. + +But there were girls not of the mountains or sand-hills, whom also you +should have seen, at battery manoeuvres or in the tulip-tree and maple +shade of proud Franklin street, or in its rose-embowered homes by night; +girls whom few could dance with, or even sit long beside in the +honeysuckle vines of their porticos, without risk of acute heart +trouble, testifies the callow volume. They treated every lad in the +battery like a lieutenant, and the "ladies' man" like a king. You should +have seen him waltz them or in quadrille or cotillon swing, balance, and +change them, their eyes brightening and feet quickening whenever the +tune became-- + + "Ole mahs' love' wine, ole mis' love' silk, + De piggies, dey loves buttehmilk." + +Great week! tarheel camp-sentries and sand-hill street-patrols mistaking +the boys for officers, saluting as they passed and always getting an +officer's salute in return! Hilary seen every day with men high and +mighty, who were as quick as the girls to make merry with him, yet +always in their merriment seeming, he and they alike, exceptionally +upright, downright, heartright, and busy. It kept the boys straight and +strong. + +Close after came a month or so on the Yorktown peninsula with that +master of strategic ruse, Magruder, but solely in the dreariest +hardships of war, minus all the grander sorts that yield glory; rains, +bad food, ill-chosen camps, freshets, terrible roads, horses sick and +raw-boned, chills, jaundice, emaciation, barely an occasional bang at +the enemy on reconnoissances and picketings, and marches and +countermarches through blistering noons and skyless nights, with men, +teams, and guns trying to see which could stagger the worst, along with +columns of infantry mutinously weary of forever fortifying and never +fighting. Which things the book bravely makes light of, Hilary +maintaining that the battery boys had a spirit to bear them better than +most commands did, and the boys reporting--not to boast the special +kindness everywhere of ladies for ladies' men--that Hilary himself, +oftenest by sunny, but sometimes by cyclonic, treatment of commissaries, +quartermasters, surgeons, and citizens, made their burdens trivial. + +So we, too, lightly pass them. After all, the things most important here +are matters not military of which the book does not tell. Of such +Victorine, assistant editor to Miranda, learned richly from Anna--who +merely lent letters--without Anna knowing it. Yet Flora drew little from +Victorine, who was as Latin as Flora, truly loved Anna, and through +Charlie was a better reader of Flora's Latin than he or Flora or any one +suspected. + +For a moment more, however, let us stay with the chronicle. At last, +when all was suffered, the infuriated boys missed Ben Butler and Big +Bethel! One day soon after that engagement, returning through Richmond +in new uniforms--of a sort--with scoured faces, undusty locks, full +ranks, fresh horses, new harness and shining pieces, and with every +gun-carriage, limber, and caisson freshly painted, they told their wrath +to Franklin street girls while drinking their dippers of water. +Also--"Good-by!-- + + "'I'd offer thee this hand of mine--'" + +They were bound northward to join their own Creole Beauregard at a +railway junction called--. + + + + +XXXII + + +MANASSAS + +Femininely enough, our little borrowed book, Miranda's and Victorine's +compilation of letters from the front, gives no more than a few lines to +the first great battle of the war. + +Fred Greenleaf was one of its wounded prisoners. Hilary cared for him +and sought his exchange; but owing to some invisible wire-pulling by +Flora Valcour, done while with equal privacy she showed the captive much +graciousness, he was still in the Parish Prison, New Orleans, in +February, '62, when the book was about to be made, though recovered of +wounds and prison ills and twice or thrice out on his parole, after dusk +and in civilian's dress, at Callender House. + +The Callenders had heard the combat's proud story often, of course, not +only from battery lads bringing home dead comrades, or coming to get +well of their own hurts, or never to get well of them, but also from +gold-sleeved, gray-breasted new suitors of Anna (over-staying their +furloughs), whom she kept from tenderer themes by sprightly queries that +never tired and constantly brought forth what seemed totally unsought +mentions of the battery. And she had gathered the tale from Greenleaf as +well. Constance, to scandalized intimates, marvelled at her sister's +tolerance of his outrageous version; but Miranda remembered how easy it +is to bear with patience (on any matter but one) a rejected lover who +has remained faithful, and Flora, to grandma, smiled contentedly. + +Anna's own private version (sum of all), though never written even in +her diary, was illustrated, mind-pictured. Into her reveries had +gradually come a tableau of the great field. Inaccurate it may have +been, incomplete, even grotesquely unfair; but to her it was at least +clear. Here--through the middle of her blue-skied, pensive +contemplation, so to speak--flowed Bull Run. High above it, circling in +eagle majesty under still, white clouds, the hungry buzzard, vainly as +yet, scanned the green acres of meadow and wood merry with the lark, the +thrush, the cardinal. Here she discerned the untried gray +brigades--atom-small on nature's face, but with Ewell, Early, +Longstreet, and other such to lead them--holding the frequent fords, +from Union Mills up to Lewis's. Here near Mitchell's, on a lonesome +roadside, stood Kincaid's Battery, fated there to stay for hours yet, in +hateful idleness and a fierce July sun, watching white smoke-lines of +crackling infantry multiply in the landscape or bursting shells make +white smoke-rings in the bright air, and to listen helplessly to the +boom, hurtle and boom of other artilleries and the far away cheering and +counter-cheering of friend and foe. Yonder in the far east glimmered +Centerville, its hitherward roads, already in the sabbath sunrise, full +of brave bluecoats choking with Virginia dust and throwing away their +hot blankets as they came. Here she made out Stone Bridge, guarded by a +brigade called Jackson's; here, crossing it east and west, the Warrenton +turnpike, and yonder north of them that rise of dust above the trees +which meant a flanking Federal column and crept westward as Evans +watched it, toward Sudley Springs, ford, mill, and church, where already +much blue infantry had stolen round by night from Centerville. Here, +leading south from these, she descried the sunken Sudley road, that with +a dip and a rise crossed the turnpike and Young's Branch. There eastward +of it the branch turned north-east and then southeast between those +sloping fields beyond which Evans and Wheat were presently fighting +Burnside; through which Bee, among bursting shells, pressed to their aid +against such as Keyes and Sherman, and back over which, after a long, +hot struggle, she could see--could hear--the aiders and the aided swept +in one torn, depleted tumult, shattered, confounded, and made the more +impotent by their own clamor. Here was the many-ravined, tree-dotted, +southward rise by which, in concave line, the Northern brigades and +batteries, pressing across the bends of the branch, advanced to the +famed Henry house plateau--that key of victory where by midday fell all +the horrid weight of the battle; where the guns of Ricketts and Griffen +for the North and of Walton and Imboden for the South crashed and mowed, +and across and across which the opposing infantries volleyed and bled, +screamed, groaned, swayed, and drove each other, staggered, panted, +rallied, cheered, and fell or fought on among the fallen. Here cried Bee +to the dazed crowd, "Look at Jackson's brigade standing like a stone +wall." Here Beauregard and Johnson formed their new front of half a +dozen states on Alabama's colours, and here a bit later the Creole +general's horse was shot under him. Northward here, down the slope and +over the branch, rolled the conflict, and there on the opposite rise, +among his routed blues, was Greenleaf disabled and taken. + +All these, I say, were in Anna's changing picture. Here from the left, +out of the sunken road, came Howard, Heintzelman, and their like, and +here in the oak wood that lay across it the blue and gray lines spent +long terms of agony mangling each other. Here early in that part of the +struggle--sent for at last by Beauregard himself, they say--came +Kincaid's Battery, whirling, shouting, whip-cracking, sweating, with +Hilary well ahead of them and Mandeville at his side, to the ground +behind the Henry house when it had been lost and retaken and all but +lost again. Here Hilary, spurring on away from his bounding guns to +choose them a vantage ground, broke into a horrid melee alone and was +for a moment made prisoner, but in the next had handed his captors over +to fresh graycoats charging; and here, sweeping into action with all the +grace and precision of the drill-ground at Camp Callender, came his +battery, his and hers! Here rode Bartleson, here Villeneuve, Maxime with +the colors, Tracy, Sam Gibbs; and here from the chests sprang Violett, +Rareshide, Charlie and their scores of fellows, unlimbered, sighted, +blazed, sponged, reloaded, pealed again, sent havoc into the enemy and +got havoc from them. Here one and another groaned, and another and +another dumbly fell. Here McStea, and St. Ange, Converse, Fusilier, +Avendano, Ned Ferry and others limbered up for closer work, galloped, +raced, plunged, reared, and stumbled, gained the new ground and made it +a worse slaughter-pen than the first, yet held on and blazed, pealed, +and smoked on, begrimed and gory. Here was Tracy borne away to field +hospital leaving Avendano and McStea groveling in anguish under the +wheels, and brave Converse and young Willie Calder, hot-headed Fusilier +and dear madcap Jules St. Ange lying near them out of pain forever. Yet +here their fellows blazed on and on, black, shattered, decimated, short +of horses, one caisson blown up, and finally dragged away to bivouac, +proud holders of all their six Callender guns, their silken flag +shot-torn but unsoiled and furled only when shells could no longer reach +the flying foe. + + + + +XXXIII + + +LETTERS + +Hardly any part of this picture had come to Anna from Hilary himself. + +Yes, they were in correspondence--after a fashion. That signified +nothing, she would have had you understand; so were Charlie and +Victorine, so were--oh!--every girl wrote to somebody at the front; one +could not do less and be a patriot. Some girl patriots had a dozen on +their list. Some lads had a dozen on theirs. + +Ah, me! those swan-white, sky-blue, rose-pink maidens who in every town +and on every plantation from Memphis to Charleston, from Richmond to New +Orleans, despatched their billets by the forlornly precarious post only +when they could not send them by the "urbanity" of such or such a one! +Could you have contrasted with them the homeless, shelterless, +pencil-borrowing, elbow-scratching, musty, fusty tatterdemalions who +stretched out on the turfless ground beside their mess fires to extort +or answer those cautious or incautious missives, or who for the fortieth +time drew them from hiding to reread into their guarded or unguarded +lines meanings never dreamed by their writers, you could not have +laughed without a feeling of tears, or felt the tears without smiling. +Many a chap's epistle was scrawled, many a one even rhymed, in a +rifle-pit with the enemy's shells bursting over. Many a one was feebly +dictated to some blessed, unskilled volunteer nurse in a barn or +smoke-house or in some cannon-shattered church. From the like of that +who with a woman's heart could withhold reply? Yes, Anna and Hilary were +in correspondence. + +So were Flora and Irby. So were Hilary and Flora. Was not Flora Anna's +particular friend and Hilary's "pilot"? She had accepted the office on +condition that, in his own heart's interest, their dear Anna should not +know of it. + +"The better part of life"--she wrote--"is it not made up of such loving +concealments?" + +And as he read the words in his tent he smilingly thought, "That looks +true even if it isn't!" + +Her letters were much more frequent than Anna's and always told of Anna +fondly, often with sweet praises--not so sweet to him--of her impartial +graciousness to her semicircle of brass-buttoned worshippers. Lately +Flora had mentioned Greenleaf in a modified way especially disturbing. + +If Anna could have made any one a full confidante such might have been +Flora, but to do so was not in her nature. She could trust without +stint. Distrust, as we know, was intolerable to her. She could not doubt +her friends, but neither could she unveil her soul. Nevertheless, more +than once, as the two exchanged--in a purely academical way--their +criticisms of life, some query raised by Anna showed just what had been +passing between her and Hilary and enabled Flora to keep them steered +apart. + +No hard task, the times being so highly calculated to make the course of +true love a "hard road to travel," as the singing soldier boys called +"Jordan." Letters, at any time, are sufficiently promotive of +misunderstandings, but in the Confederacy they drifted from camp to +camp, from pocket to pocket, like letters in bottles committed to the +sea. The times being such, I say, and Hilary and Anna as they were: he a +winner of men, yes! but by nature, not art; to men and women equally, a +grown up, barely grown up, boy. That is why women could afford to like +him so frankly. The art of courtship--of men or women--was not in him. +Otherwise the battery--every gun of which, they say, counted for two as +long as he was by--must have lost him through promotion before that +first year was half out. The moment he became a conscious suitor, to man +or woman, even by proxy, his power went from him; from pen, from tongue, +from countenance. And Anna--I may have shown the fact awkwardly, but +certainly you see--Anna was incurably difficult. + +Too much else awaits our telling to allow here a recital of their +hearts' war while love--and love's foes--hid in winter quarters, as it +were. That is to say, from the season of that mad kiss which she had +never forgiven herself (much less repented), to the day of Beauregard's +appeal, early in '62, to all the plantations and churches in Dixie's +Land to give him their bells, bells, bells--every bit of bronze or brass +they could rake up or break off--to be cast into cannon; and to his own +Louisiana in particular to send him, hot speed, five thousand more men +to help him and Albert Sidney Johnston drive Buel and Grant out of +Tennessee. + +Before the battery had got half way to Virginia Hilary had written back +to Anna his inevitable rhapsody over that amazing performance of hers, +taking it as patent and seal of her final, utter, absolute +self-bestowal. And indeed this it might have turned out to be had he but +approached it by a discreet circuit through the simplest feminine +essentials of negative make-believe. But to spring out upon it in that +straightforward manner--! From May to February her answer to this was +the only prompt reply he ever received from her. It crowds our story +backward for a moment, for it came on one of those early Peninsula days +previous to Manassas, happening, oddly, to reach him--by the hand of +Villeneuve--as he stood, mounted, behind the battery, under a smart +skirmish fire. With a heart leaping in joyous assurance he opened the +small missive and bent his eyes upon its first lines. + +As he did so a hostile shell, first that had ever come so near, burst +just in front of his guns. A big lump of metal struck one of them on the +chase, glanced, clipped off half the low top of his forage-cap and +struck in the trunk of an oak behind him, and as his good horse flinched +and quivered he looked unwillingly from the page toward a puff of white +smoke on a distant hill, and with a broad smile said--a mere nonsense +word; but the humor of such things has an absurd valuation and +persistency in camps, and for months afterward, "Ah-r?--indeed!" was +the battery's gay response to every startling sound. He had luck in +catchwords, this Hilary. He fought the scrimmage through with those +unread pages folded slim between a thumb and forefinger, often using +them to point out things, and when after it he had reopened them and +read them through--and through again--to their dizzying close, the +battery surgeon came murmuring privately-- + +"Cap, what's wrong; bad news?" + +"Oh!" said Hilary, looking up from a third reading, "what, this? No-o! +nothing wrong in this. I was wrong. I'm all right now." + +"No, you're not, Captain. You come along now and lie down. The windage +of that chunk of iron has--" + +"Why, Doc, I shouldn't wonder! If you'll just keep everybody away from +me awhile, yourself included, I will lie down," said the unnerved +commander, and presently, alone and supine, softly asked himself with +grim humor, "Which chunk of iron?" + +The actual text of Anna's chunk was never divulged, even to Flora. We do +not need it. Neither did Flora. One of its later effects was to give the +slender correspondence which crawled after it much more historical value +to the battery and the battery's beloved home city than otherwise it +might have had. From Virginia it told spiritedly of men, policies, and +movements; sketched cabinet officers, the president, and the great +leaders and subleaders in the field--Stuart, Gordon, Fitzhugh Lee. It +gave droll, picturesque accounts of the artillerist's daily life; of the +hard, scant fare and the lucky feast now and then on a rabbit or a +squirrel, turtles' eggs, or wild strawberries. It depicted moonlight +rides to dance with Shenandoah girls; the playing of camp charades; and +the singing of war, home, and love songs around the late camp fire, +timed to the antic banjo or the sentimental guitar. Drolly, yet with +tenderness for others, it portrayed mountain storm, valley freshet, and +heart-breaking night marches beside tottering guns in the straining, +sucking, leaden-heavy, red clay, and then, raptly, the glories of +sunrise and sunset over the contours of the Blue Ridge. And it explained +the countless things which happily enable a commander to keep himself as +busy as a mud-dauber, however idle the camp or however torn his own +heart. + +From Anna's side came such stories as that of a flag presentation to the +_Sumter_, wherein she had taken some minor part; of seeing that slim +terror glide down by Callender House for a safe escape through the +blockading fleet to the high seas and a world-wide fame; of Flora's +towboat privateer sending in one large but empty prize whose sale did +not pay expenses, and then being itself captured by the blockaders; of +"Hamlet" given by amateurs at the St. Charles Theatre; of great distress +among the poor, all sorts of gayeties for their benefit, bad money, bad +management, a grand concert for the army in Arkansas, women in mourning +as numerous as men in uniform, and both men and women breaking down in +body and mind under the universal strain. + +Historically valuable, you see. Yet through all this impersonal +interchange love shone out to love like lamplight through the blinds of +two opposite closed windows, and every heart-hiding letter bore enough +interlinear revealment of mind and character to keep mutual admiration +glowing and growing. We might very justly fancy either correspondent +saying at any time in those ten months to impatient or compassionate +Cupid what Hilary is reported to have said on one of the greatest days +between Manassas and Shiloh, in the midst of a two-sided carnage: "Yes, +General, hard hit, but please don't put us out of action." + + + + +XXXIV + + +A FREE-GIFT BAZAAR + +Again it was February. The flag of Louisiana whose lone star and red and +yellow stripes still hovered benignly over the Ionic marble porch of the +city hall, was a year old. A new general, young and active, was in +command of all the city's forces, which again on the great Twenty-second +paraded. Feebly, however; see letters to Irby and Mandeville under +Brodnax in Tennessee, or to Kincaid's Battery and its commander in +Virginia. For a third time the regimental standards were of a new sort. +They were the battle-flag now. Its need had been learned at Manassas; +eleven stars on St. Andrew's Cross, a field blood red, and the cross +spanning all the field! + +Again marched Continentals, Chasseurs, and so on. Yet not as before; all +their ranks were of new men; the too old, the too frail, the too young, +they of helpless families, and the "British subjects." Natives of France +made a whole separate "French Legion," in red kepis, blue frocks, and +trousers shaped like inverted tenpins, as though New Orleans were Paris +itself. The whole aspect of things was alert, anxious, spent. + +But it was only now this spent look had come. Until lately you might +have seen entire brigades of stout-hearted men in camps near by: Camps +Benjamin, Walker, Pulaski and, up in the low pine hills of Tangipahoa, +Camp Moore. From Camp Lewis alone, in November, on that plain where +Kincaid's Battery had drilled before it was Kincaid's, the Bienville, +Crescent City and many similar "Guards," Miles' Artillery, the Orleans +Light Horse, the Orleans Howitzers, the Orleans Guards, the Tirailleurs +d'Orleans, etc., had passed in front of Governor Moore and half a dozen +generals, twenty-four thousand strong. + +Now these were mostly gone--to Bragg--to Price--to Lee and Joe Johnston, +or to Albert Sidney Johnston and Beauregard. For the foe swarmed there, +refusing to stay "hurled back." True he was here also, and not merely by +scores as battle captives, but alarmingly near, in arms and by +thousands. Terrible Ship Island, occupied by the boys in gray and +fortified, anathematized for its horrid isolation and torrid sands, had +at length been evacuated, and on New Year's Day twenty-four of the +enemy's ships were there disembarking bluecoats on its gleaming white +dunes. Fair Carrollton was fortified (on those lines laid out by +Hilary), and down at Camp Callender the siege-guns were manned by new +cannoneers; persistently and indolently new and without field-pieces or +brass music or carriage company. + +The spent look was still gallant, but under it was a feeling of having +awfully miscalculated: flour twelve dollars a barrel and soon to be +twenty. With news in abundance the papers had ceased their evening +issues, so scarce was paper, and morning editions told of Atlantic +seaports lost, of Johnston's retreat from Kentucky, the fall of Fort +Donelson with its fifteen thousand men, the evacuation of Columbus (one +of the Mississippi River's "Gibraltars") and of Nashville, which had +come so near being Dixie's capital. And yet the newspapers-- + +"'We see no cause for despondency,'" read Constance at the late +breakfast table--"oh, Miranda, don't you see that with that spirit we +can never be subjugated?" She flourished the brave pages, for which Anna +vainly reached. + +"Yes!" said Anna, "but find the report of the Bazaar!"--while Constance +read on: "'Reverses, instead of disheartening, have aroused our people +to the highest pitch of animation, and their resolution to conquer is +invincible.'" + +"Oh, how true! and ah, dearie!"--she pressed her sister's hand amid the +silver and porcelain on the old mahogany--"that news (some item read +earlier, about the battery), why, Miranda, just that is a sign of +impending victory! Straws tell! and Kincaid's Battery is the--" + +"Biggest straw in Dixie!" jeered Anna, grasping the paper, which +Constance half yielded with her eye still skimming its columns. + +"Here it is!" cried both, and rose together. + +'"Final Figures of the St. Louis Hotel Free-Gift Lottery and Bazaar'!" +called Constance, while Anna's eyes flew over the lines. + +"What are they?" exclaimed Miranda. + +"Oh, come and see! Just think, Nan: last May, in Odd-Fellows' Hall, how +proud we were of barely thirteen thousand, and here are sixty-eight +thousand dollars!" + +Anna pointed Miranda to a line, and Miranda, with their cheeks together, +read out: "'Is there no end to the liberality of the Crescent City?'" + +"No-o!" cried gesturing Constance, "not while one house stands on +another! Why, 'Randa, though every hall and hotel from here to +Carrollton--" + +Anna beamingly laid her fingers on the lips of the enthusiast: +"Con!--Miranda!--_we_ can have a bazaar right in this house! Every +friend we've got, and every friend of the bat'--Oh, come in, Flora +Valcour! you're just in the nick o' time--a second Kirby Smith at +Manassas!" + +Thus came the free-gift lottery and bazaar of Callender House. For her +own worth as well as to enlist certain valuable folk from Mobile, Flora +was, there and then--in caucus, as it were--nominated chairman of +everything. "Oh, no, no, no!"--"Oh, yes, yes, yes!"--she "yielded at +last to overpowering numbers." + +But between this first rapturous inception and an all-forenoon +argumentation on its when, who, how, what, and for what, other matters +claimed notice. "Further news from Charlie! How was his wound? What! a +letter from his own hand--with full account of--what was this one? not a +pitched battle, but--?" + +"Anyhow a victory!" cried Constance. + +"You know, Flora, don't you," asked Miranda, "that the battery's ordered +away across to Tennessee?" + +Flora was genuinely surprised. + +"Yes," put in Constance, "to rejoin Beauregard--and Brodnax!" + +Flora turned to Anna: "You have that by letter?" + +"No!" was the too eager reply, "It's here in the morning paper." They +read the item. The visitor flashed as she dropped the sheet. + +"Now I see!" she sorely cried, and tapped Charlie's folded letter. "My +God! Anna, wounded like that, Hilary Kincaid is letting my brother go +with them!" + +"Oh-h-h!" exclaimed the other two, "but--my dear! if he's so much better +that he can be allowed--" + +"Allowed!--and in those box-car'!--and with that +snow--rain--gangrene--lockjaw--my God! And when 'twas already _arrange_' +to bring him home!" + +Slow Callenders! not to notice the word "bring" in place of "send": "Ah, +good, Flora! ah, fine! You'll see! The dear boy's coming that far with +the battery only on his way home to us!" + +"H-m-m!" Flora nodded in sore irony, but then smiled with recovered +poise: "From Tennessee who will bring him--before they have firs' fight +another battle?--and he--my brother?"--her smile grew droll. + +"Your brother sure to be in it!" gasped Anna. The Callenders looked +heart-wrung, but Flora smiled on as she thought what comfort it would be +to give each of them some life-long disfigurement. + +Suddenly Constance cheered up: "Flora, I've guessed something! Yes, I've +guessed who was intending--and, maybe, still intends--to bring him!" + +Flora turned prettily to Anna: "Have you?" + +Quite as prettily Anna laughed. "Connie does the guessing for the +family," she said. + +Flora sparkled: "But don't you _know_--perchanze?" + +Anna laughed again and blushed to the throat as she retorted, "What has +that to do with our bazaar?" + +It had much to do with it. + + + + +XXXV + + +THE "SISTERS OF KINCAID'S BATTERY" + +A week or two ran by, and now again it was March. Never an earlier +twelvemonth had the women of New Orleans--nor of any town or time--the +gentlewomen--spent in more unselfish or arduous toil. + +At any rate so were flutteringly construed the crisp declarations of our +pale friend of old, Doctor Sevier, as in Callender House he stood (with +Anna seated half behind him as near as flounced crinoline would allow) +beside a small table whose fragile beauty shared with hers the +enthralled contemplation of every member of a numerous flock that +nevertheless hung upon the Doctor's words; such a knack have women of +giving their undivided attention to several things at once. Flora was +getting her share. + +This, he said, was a women's--a gentlewomen's--war. + +"Ah!" A stir of assent ran through all the gathering. The long married, +the newly wed, the affianced, the suspected, the debutantes, the +post-marriageable, every one approved. Yes, a gentlewomen's war--for the +salvation of society! + +Hardly had this utterance thrilled round, however, when the speaker fell +into an error which compelled Anna softly to interrupt, her amazed eyes +and protesting smile causing a general hum of amusement and quickening +of fans. "No-o!" she whispered to him, "she was not chairman of the +L.S.C.A., but only one small secretary of that vast body, and chairman +pro tem.--nothing more!--of this mere contingent of it, these 'Sisters +of Kincaid's Battery.'" + +Pro tem., nothing more! But that is how--silly little Victorine leading +the hue and cry which suddenly overwhelmed all counter-suggestion as a +levee crevasse sweeps away sand-bags--that is how the permanent and +combined chairmanship of Sisters and Bazaar came to be forcibly thrust +upon Anna instead of Flora. + +Experienced after Odd-Fellows' Hall and St. Louis Hotel, the ladies were +able to take up this affair as experts. Especially they had learned how +to use men; to make them as handy as--"as hairpins," prompted Miranda, +to whom Anna had whispered it; and of men they needed all they could +rally, to catch the first impact of the vast and chaotic miscellany of +things which would be poured into their laps, so to speak, and upon +their heads: bronzes, cutlery, blankets, watches, thousands of brick +(orders on the brick-yards for them, that is), engravings, pianos, +paintings, books, cosmetics, marbles, building lots (their titles), +laces, porcelain, glass, alabaster, bales of cotton, big bank checks, +hair flowers, barouches, bonds, shawls, carvings, shell-work boxes, +jewellery, silks, ancestral relics, curios from half round the world, +wax fruits, tapestries, and loose sapphires, diamonds, rubies, and +pearls. The Callenders and Valcours could see, in fancy, all the first +chaos of it and all the fair creation that was to arise from it. + +What joy of planning! The grove should be ruddy with pine-knot flares +perched high, and be full of luminous tents stocked with stuffs for sale +at the most patriotic prices by Zingaras, Fatimas, and Scheherazades. +All the walks of the garden would be canopied with bunting and gemmed +with candles blinking like the fireflies round that bower of roses by +Bendermere's stream. The verandas would be enclosed in canvas and be +rich in wares, textiles, and works of art. Armed sentries from that +splendid command, the Crescent Regiment, would be everywhere in the +paved and latticed basement (gorged with wealth), and throughout the +first and second floors. The centrepiece in the arrangement of the +double drawing-rooms would be a great field-piece, one of Hilary's +casting, on its carriage, bright as gold, and flanked with stacks of +muskets. The leading item in the hall would be an allegorical +painting--by a famous Creole artist of nearly sixty years +earlier--Louisiana Refusing to Enter the Union. Glass cases borrowed of +merchants, milliners and apothecaries would receive the carefully +classified smaller gifts of rare value, and a committee of goldsmiths, +art critics, and auctioneers, would set their prices. If one of those +torrential hurricanes--however, there came none. + +How much, now, could they hope to clear? Well, the women of Alabama, to +build a gun-boat, had raised two hundred thousand dollars, and-- + +"They will 'ave to raise mo'," twittered Madame Valcour, "if New Orleans +fall'." + +"She will not fall," remarked Anna from the chair, and there was great +applause, as great as lace mitts could make. + +Speaking of that smaller stronghold, Flora had a capital suggestion: +Let this enterprise be named "for the common defence." Then, in the +barely conceivable event of the city's fall, should the proceeds still +be in women's hands--and it might be best to keep them so--let them go +to the defence of Mobile! + +Another idea--Miranda's and Victorine's--quite as gladly accepted, and +they two elected to carry it out--was, to compile, from everybody's +letters, a history of the battery, to be sold at the bazaar. The large +price per copy which that work commanded was small compared with what it +would bring now. + + + + +XXXVI + + +THUNDER-CLOUD AND SUNBURST + +Could they have known half the toil, care, and trial the preparation of +this Bazaar was to cost their friends, apologized the Callenders as it +neared completion, they would never have dared propose it. + +But the smiling reply was Spartan: "Oh! what are such trifles when we +think how our own fathers, husbands, and brothers have suffered--even in +victory!" The "Sisters" were still living on last summer's glory, and +only by such indirections alluded to defeats. + +Anna smiled as brightly as any, while through her mind flitted spectral +visions of the secondary and so needless carnage in those awful +field-hospitals behind the battles, and of the storms so likely to +follow the fights, when the midnight rain came down in sheets on the +wounded still lying among the dead. On all the teeming, bleeding front +no father, husband, or brother was hers, but amid the multitudinous +exploits and agonies her thoughts were ever on him who, by no tie but +the heart's, had in the past year grown to be father, mother, sister, +and brother to the superb hundred whom she so tenderly knew, who so +worshipingly knew her, and still whose lives, at every chance, he was +hurling at the foe as stones from a sling. + +"After all, in these terrible time'," remarked Miss Valcour in committee +of the whole--last session before the public opening--"any toil, even +look' at selfishly, is better than to be idle." + +"As if you ever looked at anything selfishly!" said a matron, and there +was a patter of hands. + +"Or as if she were ever in danger of being idle!" fondly put in a young +battery sister. + +As these two rattled and crashed homeward in a deafening omnibus they +shouted further comments to each other on this same subject. It was +strange, they agreed, to see Miss Valcour, right through the midst of +these terrible times, grow daily handsomer. Concerning Anna, they were +of two opinions. The matron thought that at moments Anna seemed to have +aged three years in one, while, to the girl it appeared that her +beauty--Anna's--had actually increased; taken a deeper tone, "or +something." This huge bazaar business, they screamed, was something a +girl like Anna should never have been allowed to undertake. + +"And yet," said the matron on second thought, "it may really have helped +her to bear up." + +"Against what?" + +"Oh,--all our general disturbance and distress, but the battery's in +particular. You know its very guns are, as we may say, hers, and +everything that happens around them, or to any one who belongs to them +in field, camp, or hospital, happens, in her feeling, to her." + +The girl interrupted with a knowing touch: "You realize there's +something else, don't you?" + +Her companion showed pain: "Yes, but--I hoped you hadn't heard of it. I +can't bear to talk about it. I know how common it is for men and girls +to trifle with each other, but for such as he--who had the faith of all +of us, yes, and of all his men, that he wasn't as other men are--for +Hilary Kincaid to dawdle with Anna--with Anna Callender--" + +"Oh!" broke in the girl, a hot blush betraying her own heart, "I don't +think you've got the thing right at all. Why, it's Anna who's making the +trouble! The dawdling is all hers! Oh, I have it from the best +authority, though I'm not at liberty--" + +"My dear girl, you've been misled. The fault is all his. I know it from +one who can't be mistaken." + +The damsel blushed worse. "Well, at any rate," she said, "the case +doesn't in any slightest way involve Miss Valcour." + +"Oh, I know that!" was the cocksure reply as they alighted in Canal +Street to take an up-town mule-car. + +Could Madame and Flora have overheard, how they would have smiled to +each other. + +With now a wary forward step and now a long pause, and now another short +step and another pause, Hilary, in his letters to Anna, despite Flora's +often successful contrivings, had ventured back toward that +understanding for which the souls of both were starving, until at +length he had sent one which seemed, itself, to kneel, for him, at her +feet--would have seemed, had it not miscarried. But, by no one's craft, +merely through the "terribleness" of the times, it had gone forever +astray. When, not knowing this, he despatched another, this latter had +promptly arrived, but its unintelligible allusions to lines in the lost +forerunner were unpardonable for lack of that forerunner's light, and it +contained especially one remark--trivial enough--which, because written +in the irrepressible facetiousness so inborn in him, but taken, alas! in +the ineradicable earnest so natural to her, had compelled her to reply +in words which made her as they went, and him as they smote him, seem +truly to have "aged three years in one." Yet hardly had they left her +before you would have said she had recovered the whole three years and a +fraction over, on finding a postscript, till then most unaccountably +overlooked, which said that its writer had at that moment been ordered +(as soon as he could accomplish this and that and so and so) to hasten +home to recruit the battery with men of his own choice, and incidentally +to bring the wounded Charlie with him. Such godsends raise the +spring-tides of praise and human kindness in us, and it was on the very +next morning, after finding that postscript, that there had come to Anna +her splendid first thought of the Bazaar. + +And now behold it, a visible reality! Unlighted as yet, unpeopled, but +gorgeous, multiform, sentinelled, and ready, it needed but the touch of +the taper to set forth all the glories of art and wealth tenfolded by +self-sacrifice for a hallowed cause. Here was the Bazaar, and yonder, +far away on the southern border of Tennessee, its wasted ranks still +spruce in their tatters, the battery; iron-hearted Bartleson in command; +its six yellow daughters of destruction a trifle black in the lips, but +bright on the cheeks and virgins all; Charlie on the roster though not +in sight, the silken-satin standard well in view, rent and pierced, but +showing seven red days of valor legended on its folds, and with that +white-moustached old centaur, Maxime, still upholding it in action and +review. + +Intermediate, there, yonder, and here, from the farthest Mississippi +State line clear down to New Orleans, were the camps of instruction, +emptying themselves northward, pouring forth infantry, cavalry, +artillery by every train that could be put upon the worn-out rails and +by every main-travelled wagon road. But homeward-bound Charlie and his +captain, where were they? Irby knew. + +Flora, we have seen, had been willing, eager, for them to come--to +arrive; not because Charlie, but because his captain, was one of the +two. But Irby, never sure of her, and forever jealous of the ladies' +man, had contrived, in a dull way, to detain the home-comers in +mid-journey, with telegraphic orders to see here a commandant and there +a factory of arms and hurry men and munitions to the front. So he killed +time and tortured hope for several hearts, and that was a comfort in +itself. + +However, here was the Bazaar. After all, its sentinels were not of the +Crescent Regiment, for the same grave reason which postponed the opening +until to-morrow; the fact that to-day that last flower of the city's +young high-life was leaving for the fields of war, as Kincaid's Battery +had left in the previous spring. Yet, oh, how differently! Again up St. +Charles Street and down Calliope the bands played, the fifes squealed; +once more the old men marched ahead, opened ranks, let the serried +youngsters through and waved and hurrahed and kissed and wept; but all +in a new manner, far more poignant than the earlier. God only knew what +was to happen now, to those who went or to those who stayed, or where or +how any two of them should ever meet again. The Callenders, as before, +were there. Anna had come definitely resolved to give one particular +beardless Dick Smith a rousing kiss, purely to nullify that guilty one +of last year. But when the time came she could not, the older one had +made it impossible; and when the returning bands broke out-- + + "Charlie is my darling! my darling! my darling!" + +and the tears came dripping from under Connie's veil and Victorine's and +Miranda's and presently her own, she was glad of the failure. + +As they were driving homeward across Canal Street, she noted, out beyond +the Free Market, a steamboat softly picking its way in to the levee. +Some coal-barges were there, she remembered, lading with pitch-pine and +destined as fire-ships, by that naval lieutenant of the despatch-boat +whom we know, against the Federal fleet lying at the head of the passes. + +The coachman named the steamer to Constance: "Yass, 'm, de ole _Genl al +Quitman_; dass her." + +"From Vicksburg and the Bends!" cried the inquirer. "Why, who knows but +Charlie Val--?" + +With both hands she clutched Miranda and Victorine, and brightened upon +Anna. + +"And Flora not with us!" was the common lament. + + + + +XXXVII + + +"TILL HE SAID, 'I'M COME HAME, MY LOVE'" + +How absurdly poor the chance! Yet they bade the old coachman turn that +way, and indeed the facts were better than the hope of any one of them. +Charlie, very gaunt and battered, but all the more enamored of himself +therefor and for the new chevrons of a gun corporal on his dingy sleeve, +was actually aboard that boat. In one of the small knots of passengers +on her boiler deck he was modestly companioning with a captain of +infantry and two of staff, while they now exchanged merry anecdotes of +the awful retreat out of Tennessee into Mississippi, now grimly damned +this or that bad strategy, futile destruction, or horrible suffering, +now re-discussed the comical chances of a bet of General Brodnax's, +still pending, and now, with the crowd, moved downstairs to the freight +deck as the boat began to nose the wharf. + +Meanwhile the Callenders' carriage had made easy speed. Emerging by the +Free Market, it met an open hack carrying six men. At the moment every +one was cringing in a squall of dust, but as well as could be seen these +six were the driver, a colored servant at his side, an artillery +corporal, and three officers. Some army wagons hauling pine-knots to the +fire-fleet compelled both carriages to check up. Thereupon, the gust +passing and Victorine getting a better glance at the men, she tossed +both hands, gave a stifled cry and began to laugh aloud. + +"Charlie!" cried Anna. "Steve!" cried Constance. + +"And Captain Irby!" remarked Miranda. + +The infantry captain, a transient steamboat acquaintance, used often +afterward to say that he never saw anything prettier than those four +wildly gladdened ladies unveiling in the shade of their parasols. I +doubt if he ever did. He talked with Anna, who gave him so sweet an +attention that he never suspected she was ravenously taking in every +word the others dropped behind her. + +"But where he is, that Captain Kincaid?" asked Victorine of Charlie a +second time. + +"Well, really," stammered the boy at last, "we--we can't say, just now, +where he is." + +("He's taken prisoner!" wailed Anna's heart while she let the infantry +captain tell her that hacks, in Nashville on the Sunday after Donelson, +were twenty-five dollars an hour.) + +"He means," she heard Mandeville put in, "he means--Charlie--only that +we _muz_ not tell. 'Tis a sicret." + +"You've sent him into the enemy's lines!" cried Constance to Irby in one +of her intuitions. + +"We?" responded the grave Irby, "No, not we." + +"Captain Mandeville," exclaimed Victorine, "us, you don't need to tell +us some white lies." + +The Creole shrugged: "We are telling you only the whitess we can!" + +("Yes," the infantry captain said, "with Memphis we should lose the +largest factory of cartridges in the Confederacy.") + +But this was no place for parleying. So while the man next the +hack-driver, ordered by Mandeville and laden with travelling-bags, +climbed to a seat by the Callenders' coachman the aide-de-camp crowded +in between Constance and Victorine, the equipage turned from the +remaining soldiers, and off the ladies spun for home, Anna and Miranda +riding backward to have the returned warrior next his doting wife. +Victorine was dropped on the way at the gate of her cottage. When the +others reached the wide outer stair of their own veranda, and the +coachman's companion had sprung down and opened the carriage, Mandeville +was still telling of Mandeville, and no gentle hearer had found any +chance to ask further about that missing one of whom the silentest was +famishing to know whatever--good or evil--there was to tell. Was Steve +avoiding their inquiries? wondered Anna. + +Up the steps went first the married pair, the wife lost in the hero, the +hero in himself. Was he, truly? thought Anna, or was he only trying, +kindly, to appear so? The ever-smiling Miranda followed. A step within +the house Mandeville, with eyes absurdly aflame, startled first his wife +by clutching her arm, and then Miranda by beckoning them into a door at +their right, past unheeded treasures of the Bazaar, and to a front +window. Yet through its blinds they could discover only what they had +just left; the carriage, with Anna still in it, the garden, the grove, +an armed soldier on guard at the river gate, another at the foot of the +steps, a third here at the top. + +It was good to Anna to rest her head an instant on the cushioning +behind it and close her eyes. With his rag of a hat on the ground and +his head tightly wrapped in the familiar Madras kerchief of the slave +deck-hand, the attendant at the carriage side reverently awaited the +relifting of her lids. The old coachman glanced back on her. + +"Missy?" he tenderly ventured. But the lids still drooped, though she +rose. + +"Watch out fo' de step," said the nearer man. His tone was even more +musically gentle than the other's, yet her eyes instantly opened into +his and she started so visibly that her foot half missed and she had to +catch his saving hand. + +"Stiddy! stiddy!" He slowly let the cold, slim fingers out of his as she +started on, but she swayed again and he sprang and retook them. For half +a breath she stared at him like a wild bird shot, glanced at the +sentinels, below, above, and then pressed up the stair. + +Constance, behind the shutters, wept. "Go away," she pleaded to her +husband, "oh, go away!" but pushed him without effect and peered down +again. "He's won!" she exclaimed in soft ecstasy, "he's won at last!" + +"Yes, he's win!" hoarsely whispered the aide-de-camp. "He's win the +bet!" + +Constance flashed indignantly: "What has he bet?" + +"Bet. 'He has bet three-ee general' he'll pazz down Canal Street and +through the middl' of the city, unreco'nize! And now he's done it, +they'll let him do the rest!" From his Creole eyes the enthusiast blazed +a complete argument, that an educated commander, so disguised and +traversing an enemy's camp, can be worth a hundred of the common run +who go by the hard name of spy, and may decide the fortunes of a whole +campaign: "They'll let him! and he'll get the prom-otion!" + +"Ho-oh!" breathed the two women, "he's getting all the promotion _he_ +wants, right now!" The three heard Anna pass into the front drawing-room +across the hall, the carriage move off and the disguised man enter the +hall and set down the travelling-bags. They stole away through the +library and up a rear stair. + +It was not yet late enough to set guards within the house. No soul was +in the drawing-rooms. In the front one, on its big wheels between two +stacks of bayoneted rifles, beneath a splendor of flags and surrounded +by innumerable costly offerings, rested as mutely as a seated idol that +superior engine of death and woe, the great brass gun. Anna stole to it, +sunk on her knees, crossed her trembling arms about its neck and rested +her brow on its face. + +She heard the tread in the hall, quaked to rise and flee, and yet could +not move. It came upon the threshold and paused. "Anna," said the voice +that had set her heart on fire across the carriage step. She sprang up, +faced round, clutched the great gun, and stood staring. Her follower was +still in slave garb, but now for the first time he revealed his full +stature. His black locks were free and the "Madras" dropped from his +fingers to the floor. He advanced a pace or two. + +"Anna," he said again, "Anna Callender,"--he came another step--"I've +come back, Anna, to--to--" he drew a little nearer. She gripped the +gun. + +He lighted up drolly: "Don't you know what I've come for? I didn't +know, myself, till just now, or I shouldn't have come in this rig, +though many a better man's in worse these days. I didn't +know--because--I couldn't hope. I've come--" he stole close--his arms +began to lift--she straightened to her full height, but helplessly +relaxed as he smiled down upon it. + +"I've come not just to get your promise, Anna Callender, but to muster +you in; to _marry_ you." + +She flinched behind the gun's muzzle in resentful affright. He lowered +his palms in appeal to her wisdom. "It's the right thing, Anna, the only +safe way! I've known it was, ever since Steve Mandeville's wedding. Oh! +it takes a colossal assurance to talk to you so, Anna Callender, but +I've got the _colossal assurance_. I've got that, beloved, and you've +got all the rest--my heart--my soul--my life. Give me yours." + +Anna had shrunk in against the farther wheel, but now rallied and moved +a step forward. "Let me pass," she begged. "Give me a few moments to +myself. You can wait here. I'll come back." + +He made room. She moved by. But hardly had she passed when a soft word +stopped her. She turned inquiringly and the next instant--Heaven only +knows if first on his impulse or on hers--she was in his arms, half +stifled on his breast, and hanging madly from his neck while his kisses +fell upon her brow--temples--eyes--and rested on her lips. + + +Flora sat reading a note just come from that same "A.C." Her brother had +gone to call on Victorine. Irby had just bade the reader good-by, to +return soon and go with her to Callender House to see the Bazaar. +Madame Valcour turned from a window with a tart inquiry: + +[Illustration: And the next instant she was in his arms] + +"And all you had to do was to say yes to him?" + +"That would have been much," absently replied the reader, turning a +page. + +"'Twould have been little!--to make him rich!--and us also!" + +"Not us," said the abstracted girl; "me." Something in the missive +caused her brows to knit. + +"And still you trifle!" nagged the grandam, "while I starve! And while +at any instant may arrive--humph--that other fool." + +Even this did not draw the reader's glance. "No." she responded. "He +cannot. Irby and Charlie lied to us. He is already here." She was +re-reading. + +The grandmother stared, tossed a hand and moved across the floor. As she +passed near the girl's slippered foot it darted out, tripped her and +would have sent her headlong, but she caught by the lamp table. Flora +smiled with a strange whiteness round the lips. Madame righted the +shaken lamp, quietly asking, "Did you do that--h-m-m--for hate of the +lady, or, eh, the ladies' man?" + +"The latter," said the reabsorbed girl. + +"Strange," sighed the other, "how we can have--at the same time--for the +same one--both feelings." + +But Flora's ears were closed. "Well," she audibly mused, "he'll get a +recall." + +"Even if it must be forged?" twittered the dame. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +ANNA'S OLD JEWELS + +A Reporters' heaven, the Bazaar. So on its opening night Hilary named it +to Flora. + +"A faerye realm," the scribes themselves itemed it; "myriad +lights--broad staircases gracef'y asc'd'g--ravish'g perfumes--met our +gaze--garlandries of laurel and magn'a--prom'd'g from room to room--met +our gaze--directed by masters of cerem'y in Conf'te G'd's unif'm--here +turn'g to the right--fair women and brave men--carried thither by the +dense throng--music with its volup's swell--met our gaze--again +descend'g--arriv'g at din'g-hall--new scene of ench't bursts--refr't +tables--enarched with ev'gr's and decked with labarums and +burgees--thence your way lies through--costly volumes and shimm'g +bijoutries--met our gaze!" + +It was Kincaid who saw their laborious office in this flippant light, +and so presented it to Anna that she laughed till she wept; laughing was +now so easy. But when they saw one of the pencillers writing awkwardly +with his left hand, aided by half a right arm in a pinned-up sleeve, her +mirth had a sudden check. Yet presently it became a proud thrill, as the +poor boy glowed with delight while Hilary stood and talked with him of +the fearful Virginia day on which that ruin had befallen him at Hilary's +own side in Kincaid's Battery, and then brought him to converse with +her. This incident may account for the fervor with which a next +morning's report extolled the wonders of the "fair chairman's" +administrative skill and the matchless and most opportune executive +supervision of Captain Hilary Kincaid. Flora read it with interest. + +With interest of a different kind she read in a later issue another +passage, handed her by the grandmother with the remark, "to warn you, my +dear." The matter was a frothy bit of tragical romancing, purporting to +have been gathered from two detectives out of their own experience of a +year or so before, about a gift made to the Bazaar by Captain Kincaid, +which had--"met our gaze jealously guarded under glass amid a brilliant +collection of reliques, jewels, and bric-a-brac; a large, evil-looking +knife still caked with the mud of the deadly affray, but bearing legibly +in Italian on its blade the inscription, 'He who gets me in his body +never need take a medicine,' and with a hilt and scabbard encrusted with +gems." + +Now, one of the things that made Madame Valcour good company among +gentlewomen was her authoritative knowledge of precious stones. So when +Flora finished reading and looked up, and the grandmother faintly smiled +and shook her head, both understood. + +"Paste?" + +"Mostly." + +"And the rest--not worth--?" + +"Your stealing," simpered the connoisseur, and, reading, herself, added +meditatively, "I should hate anyhow, for you to have that thing. The +devil would be always at your ear." + +"Whispering--what?" + +The grandmother shrugged: "That depends. I look to see you rise, yet, to +some crime of dignity; something really tragic and Italian. Whereas at +present--" she pursed her lips and shrugged again. + +The girl blandly laughed: "You venerable ingrate!" + +At the Bazaar that evening, when Charlie and grandma and the crowd were +gone, Flora handled the unlovely curiosity. She and Irby had seen Hilary +and Anna and the Hyde & Goodrich man on guard just there draw near the +glass case where it lay "like a snake on a log," as Charlie had said, +take it in their hands and talk of it. The jeweller was expressing +confidentially a belief that it had once been set with real stones, and +Hilary was privately having a sudden happy thought, when Flora and +Adolphe came up only in time to hear the goldsmith's statement of its +present poor value. + +"But surely," said Kincaid, "this old jewellery lying all about it +here--." + +"That? that's the costliest gift in the Bazaar!" + +Irby inquired whose it was, Anna called it anonymous, and Flora, +divining that the giver was Anna, felt herself outrageously robbed. As +the knife was being laid back in place she recalled, with odd interest, +her grandmother's mention of the devil, and remembered a time or two +when for a moment she had keenly longed for some such bit of steel; +something much more slender, maybe, and better fitting a dainty hand, +but quite as long and sharp. A wave from this thought may have prompted +Anna's request that the thing be brought forth again and Flora allowed +to finger it; but while this was being done Flora's main concern was to +note how the jeweller worked the hidden spring by which he opened the +glass case. As she finally gave up the weapon: "Thank you," she sweetly +said to both Anna and Hilary, but with a meaning reserved to herself. + +You may remember how once she had gone feeling and prying along the fair +woodwork of these rooms for any secret of construction it might hold. +Lately, when the house began to fill with secretable things of large +money value, she had done this again, and this time, in one side of a +deep chimney-breast, had actually found a most innocent-looking panel +which she fancied to be kept from sliding only by its paint. Now while +she said her sweet thanks to Anna and Hilary she could almost believe in +fairies, the panel was so near the store of old jewels. With the knife +she might free the panel, and behind the panel hide the jewels till +their scent grew cold, to make them her bank account when all the banks +should be broken, let the city fall or stand. No one need ever notice, +so many were parting with their gems perforce, so many buying them as a +form of asset convenient for flight. So good-night, old dagger and +jewels; see you again, but don't overdo your limited importance. Of the +weapon Flora had further learned that it was given not to the Bazaar but +to Anna, and of the jewels that they were not in that lottery of +everything, with which the affair was to end and the proceeds of whose +tickets were pouring in upon Anna, acting treasurer, the treasurer being +ill. + +Tormentingly in Hilary's way was this Lottery and Bazaar. Even from +Anna, sometimes especially from Anna, he could not understand why +certain things must not be told or certain things could not be done +until this Bazaar--etc. Why, at any hour he might be recalled! Yes, +Anna saw that--through very moist eyes. True, also, she admitted, +Beauregard and Johnston _might_ fail to hold off Buell and Grant; and +true, as well, New Orleans _could_ fall, and might be sacked. It was +while confessing this that with eyes down and bosom heaving she accepted +the old Italian knife. Certainly unless the pooh-poohing Mandeville was +wrong, who declared the forts down the river impregnable and Beauregard, +on the Tennessee, invincible, flight (into the Confederacy) was +safest--but--the Bazaar first, flight afterward. "We women," she said, +rising close before him with both hands in his, "must stand by _our_ +guns. We've no more right"--it was difficult to talk while he kissed her +fingers and pressed her palms to his gray breast--"no more right--to be +cowards--than you men." + +Her touch brought back his lighter mood and he told the happy +thought--project--which had come to him while they talked with the +jeweller. He could himself "do the job," he said, "roughly but well +enough." Anna smiled at the fanciful scheme. Yet--yes, its oddity was in +its favor. So many such devices were succeeding, some of them to the +vast advantage of the Southern cause. + +When Flora the next evening stole a passing glance at the ugly trinket +in its place she was pleased to note how well it retained its soilure of +clay. For she had that day used it to free the panel, behind which she +had found a small recess so fitted to her want that she had only to +replace panel and tool and await some chance in the closing hours of the +show. Pleased she was, too, to observe that the old jewels lay in a +careless heap. Now to conceal all interest and to divert all eyes, even +grandmama's! Thus, however, night after night an odd fact eluded her: +That Anna and her hero, always singly, and themselves careful to lure +others away, glimpsed that disordered look of the gems and unmolested +air of the knife with a content as purposeful as her own. Which fact +meant, when came the final evening, that at last every sham jewel in the +knife's sheath had exchanged places with a real one from the loose heap, +while, nestling between two layers of the sheath's material, reposed, +payable to bearer, a check on London for thousands of pounds sterling. +Very proud was Anna of her lover's tremendous versatility and +craftsmanship. + + + + +XXXIX + + +TIGHT PINCH + +From Camp Villere, close below small Camp Callender, one more last +regiment--Creoles--was to have gone that afternoon to the Jackson +Railroad Station and take train to join their Creole Beauregard for the +defence of their own New Orleans. + +More than a day's and a night's journey away was "Corinth," the village +around which he had gathered his forces, but every New Orleans man and +boy among them knew, and every mother and sister here in New Orleans +knew, that as much with those men and boys as with any one anywhere, lay +the defence and deliverance of this dear Crescent City. With Grant swept +back from the Tennessee, and the gunboats that threatened Island Ten +and Memphis sunk, blown up; or driven back into the Ohio, New Orleans, +they believed, could jeer at Farragut down at the Passes and at Butler +out on horrid Ship Island. "And so can Mobile," said the Callenders to +the Valcours. + +"The fortunes of our two cities are one!" cried Constance, and the +smiling Valcours were inwardly glad to assent, believing New Orleans +doomed, and remembering their Mobile home burned for the defence of the +two cities of one fortune. + +However, the Camp Villere regiment had not got off, but would move at +midnight. On the train with them Hilary was sending recruits to the +battery, younger brothers of those who had gone the year before. He had +expected to conduct, not send, them, but important work justified--as +Anna told Flora--his lingering until his uncle should bid him come. +Which bidding Irby might easily have incited, by telegraph, had Flora +let him. But Flora's heart was too hopelessly entangled to release +Hilary even for the gain of separating him from Anna; and because it was +so entangled (and with her power to plot caught in the tangle), she was +learning to hate with a distemper of passion that awed even herself. + +"But I must clear out mighty soon," said Hilary that evening to +Greenleaf, whose exchange he had procured at last and, rather rashly, +was taking him to Callender House to say good-by. They talked of Anna. +Greenleaf knew the paramount secret; had bravely given his friend a hand +on it the day he was told. Now Hilary said he had been begging her again +for practical steps, and the manly loser commended. + +"But think of that from me, Fred! who one year ago--you know how I +talked--about Steve, for instance. Shame!--how reckless war's made us. +Here we are, by millions, in a perpetual crash of victory and calamity, +and yet--take me for an example--in spite of me my one devouring +anxiety--that wakes me up in the night and gives me dreams in the +day--is how to get her before this next battle get's me. Yes, the +instant I'm ordered I go, and if I'm not ordered soon I go anyhow. I +wouldn't have my boys"--etc. + +And still the prison-blanched Greenleaf approved. But the next +revelation reddened his brow: Anna, Hilary said, had at last "come +round--knuckled down! Yes, sir-ee, cav-ed in!" and this evening, after +the Bazaar, to a few younger sisters of the battery whom she would ask +to linger for a last waltz with their young heroes, she would announce +her engagement and her purpose to be wed in a thrillingly short time. + +The two men found the Bazaar so amusingly collapsed that, as Hilary +said, you could spell it with a small b. A stream of vehicles coming and +going had about emptied the house and grounds. No sentries saluted, no +music chimed. In the drawing-rooms the brass gun valiantly held its +ground, but one or two domestics clearing litter from the floors seemed +quite alone there, and some gay visitors who still tarried in the +library across the hall were hardly enough to crowd it. "Good," said +Hilary beside the field-piece. "You wait here and I'll bring the +Callenders as they can come." + +But while he went for them whom should Greenleaf light upon around a +corner of the panelled chimney-breast but that secret lover of the +Union and all its defenders, Mademoiselle Valcour. Her furtive +cordiality was charming as she hurriedly gave and withdrew a hand in joy +for his liberation. + +"Taking breath out of the social rapids?" he softly inquired. + +"Ah, more! 'Tis from that deluge of--" + +He understood her emotional gesture. It meant that deluge of +disloyalty--rebellion--there across the hall, and all through this +turbulent city and land. But it meant, too, that they must not be seen +to parley alone, and he had turned away, when Miranda, to Flora's +disgust, tripped in upon them with her nose in full wrinkle, archly +surprised to see Flora here, and proposing to hale both into the general +throng to applaud Anna's forthcoming "proclamation!" + +Greenleaf de trop? Ah, nay! not if he could keep the old Greenleaf +poise! and without words her merry nose added that his presence would +only give happier point to what every one regarded as a great +Confederate victory. At a subtle sign from Flora the hostess and he +went, expecting her to follow. + +But Flora was in a perilous strait. Surprised by Hilary's voice, with +the panel open and the knife laid momentarily in the recess that both +hands might bring the jewels from the case, she had just closed the +opening with the dagger inside when Greenleaf confronted her. Now, in +this last instant of opportunity at his and Miranda's back, should she +only replace the weapon or still dare the theft? At any rate the panel +must be reopened. But when she would have slid it her dainty fingers +failed, failed, failed until a cold damp came to her brow and she +trembled. Yet saunteringly she stepped to the show-case, glancing airily +about. The servants had gone. She glided back, but turned to meet +another footfall, possibly Kincaid's, and felt her anger rise against +her will as she confronted only the inadequate Irby. A sudden purpose +filled her, and before he could speak: + +"Go!" she said, "telegraph your uncle! instantly!" + +"I've done so." + +Her anger mutinied again: "Without consult'--! And since when?" + +"This morning." + +She winced yet smiled: "And still--your cousin--he's receive' no +order?" Her fingers tingled to maim some one--this dolt--anybody! Her +eyes sweetened. + +Irby spoke: "The order has come, but--" + +"What! you have not given it?" + +"Flora, it includes me! Ah, for one more evening with you I am +risking--" + +Her look grew fond though she made a gesture of despair: "Oh, +short-sighted! Go, give it him! Go!" + +Across the hall a prolonged carol of acclamation, confabulation, +laughter, and cries of "Ah-r, indeed!" told that Anna's word was out. +"What difference," Irby lingered to ask, "can an hour or two between +trains--?" + +But the throng was upon them. "We don't know!" cried Flora. "Give it +him! We don't know!" and barely had time herself to force a light laugh +when here were Charlie and Victorine, Hilary, Anna, Miranda, Madame, +Constance, Mandeville, and twenty others. + +"Fred!" called Hilary. His roaming look found the gray detective: +"Where's Captain Greenleaf?" + +"Gone." + +"With never a word of good-by? Oh, bless my soul, he _did_ say good-by!" +There was a general laugh. "But this won't do. It's not safe for him--" + +The gray man gently explained that his younger associate was with +Greenleaf as bodyguard. The music of harp and violins broke out and +dancers swept round the brass gun and up and down the floors. + + + + +XL + + +THE LICENSE, THE DAGGER + +Hilary had bent an arm around Anna when Flora called his name. Irby +handed him the order. A glance made it clear. Its reader cast a wide +look over the heads of the dancers and lifting the missive high beckoned +with it to Mandeville. Then he looked for some one else: "Charlie!" + +"Out on the veranda," said a passing dancer. + +"Send him here!" The commander's eye came back to Irby: "Old man, how +long have you had this?" + +"About an hour." + +"Oh, my stars, Adolphe, you should have told me!" + +It was a fair sight, though maddening to Flora yonder by the glass case, +to see the two cousins standing eye to eye, Hilary's brow dark with +splendid concern while without a glance at Anna he passed her the +despatch and she read it. + +"Steve," he said, as the Mandeville pair pressed up, "look at that! +boots-and-saddles! now! to-night! for you and Adolphe and me! Yes, +Charlie, and you; go, get your things and put Jerry on the train with +mine." + +The boy's partner was Victorine. Before she could gasp he had kissed +her. Amid a laugh that stopped half the dance he waved one farewell to +sister, grandmother and all and sprang away. "Dance on, fellows," called +Hilary, "this means only that I'm going with you." The lads cheered and +the dance revived. + +Their captain turned: "Miss Flora, I promised your brother he should go +whenever--" + +"But me al-_so_ you promised!" she interrupted, and a fair sight also, +grievous to Irby, startling to Anna, were this pair, standing eye to +eye. + +"Yes," replied Kincaid, "and I'll keep my word. In any extremity you +shall come to him." + +"As likewise my wive to me!" said the swelling Mandeville, openly +caressing the tearful Constance. "Wive to 'usband," he declaimed, +"sizter to brother--" But his audience was lost. Hilary was speaking +softly to Anna. She was very pale. The throng drew away. You could see +that he was asking if she only could in no extremity come to him. His +words were inaudible, but any one who had ever loved could read them. +And now evidently he proposed something. There was ardor in his +eye--ardor and enterprise. She murmured a response. He snatched out his +watch. + +"_Just_ time," he was heard to say, "time enough by soldier's measure!" +His speech grew plainer: "The law's right for me to call and for you to +come, that's all we want. What frightens you?" + +"Nothing," she said, and smiled. "I only feared there wasn't time." + +The lover faced his cousin so abruptly that all started and laughed, +while Anna turned to her kindred, as red as a rose. "Adolphe," cried he, +"I'm going for my marriage license. While I'm getting it, will you--?" + +Irby went redder than Anna. "You can't get it at this hour!" he said. +His eyes sought Flora, but she was hurriedly conferring with her +grandmother. + +Hilary laughed: "You'll see. I fixed all that a week ago. Will you get +the minister?" + +"Why, Hilary, this is--" + +"Yass!" piped Madame, "he'll obtain him!" + +The plaudits of the dancers, who once more had stopped, were loud. +Flora's glance went over to Irby, and he said, "Why, yes, Hilary, if +you--why, of course I will." There was more applause. + +"Steve," said Hilary, "some one must go with me to the clerk's office +to--" + +"To vouch you!" broke in the aide-de-camp. "That will be Steve +Mandeville!" Constance sublimely approved. As the three Callenders moved +to leave the room one way and the three captains another, Anna seized +the hands of Flora and her grandmother. + +"You'll keep the dance going?" she solicited, and they said they would. +Flora gave her a glowing embrace, and as Irby strode by murmured to him. + +"Put your watch back half an hour." + +In such disordered days social liberty was large. When the detective, +after the Callenders were gone up-stairs and the captains had galloped +away, truthfully told Miss Valcour that his only object in tarrying here +was to see the love-knot tied, she heard him affably, though inwardly +in flames of yearning to see him depart. She burned to see him go +because she believed him, and also because there in the show-case still +lay the loosely heaped counterfeit of the booty whose reality she had +already ignorantly taken and stowed away. + +What should she do? Here was grandma, better aid than forty Irbys; but +with both phases of her problem to deal with at once--how to trip +headlong this wild matrimonial leap and how to seize this treasure by +whose means she might leave Anna in a fallen city and follow Hilary to +the war--she was at the end of her daintiest wits. She talked on with +the gray man, for that kept him from the show-case. In an air full of +harmonies and prattle, of fluttering draperies, gliding feet, undulating +shoulders, twinkling lights, gallantry, fans, and perfume, she dazzled +him with her approval when he enlarged on the merits of Kincaid and when +he pledged all his powers of invention to speed the bridal. Frantic to +think what better to do, she waltzed with him, while he described the +colonel of the departing regiment as such a martinet that to ask him to +delay his going would only hasten it; waltzed on when she saw her +grandmother discover the knife's absence and telegraph her a look of +contemptuous wonder. But ah, how time was flying! Even now Kincaid must +be returning hitherward, licensed! + +The rapturous music somewhat soothed her frenzy, even helped her +thought, and in a thirst for all it could give she had her partner swing +her into the wide hall whence it came and where also Hilary must first +reappear. Twice through its length they had swept, when Anna, in +altered dress, came swiftly down the stair with Constance protestingly +at her side. The two were speaking anxiously together as if a choice of +nuptial adornments (for Constance bore a box that might have held the +old jewels) had suddenly brought to mind a forgotten responsibility. As +they pressed into the drawing-rooms the two dancers floated after them +by another door. + +When presently Flora halted beside the gun and fanned while the dance +throbbed on, the two sisters stood a few steps away behind the opened +show-case, talking with her grandmother and furtively eyed by a few +bystanders. They had missed the dagger. Strangely disregarded by Anna, +but to Flora's secret dismay and rage, Constance, as she talked, was +dropping from her doubled hands into the casket the last of the gems. +Now she shut the box and laid it in Anna's careless arms. + +Leaving the gray man by the gun, Flora sprang near. Anna was enduring, +with distracted smiles, the eager reasonings of Madame and Constance +that the vanished trinket was but borrowed; a thief would have taken the +_jewels_, they argued; but as Flora would have joined in, every line of +Anna's face suddenly confided to her a consternation whose cause the +silenced Flora instantly mistook. "Ah, if you knew--!" Anna began, but +ceased as if the lost relic stood for something incommunicable even to +nearest and dearest. + +"They've sworn their love on it!" was the thought of Flora and the +detective in the same instant. It filled her veins with fury, yet her +response was gentle and meditative. "To me," she said, "it seemed such a +good-for-nothing that even if I saw it is gone, me, I think I wouldn' +have take' notice." All at once she brightened: "Anna! without a doubt! +without a doubt Captain Kincaid he has it!" About to add a caress, she +was startled from it by a masculine voice that gayly echoed out in the +hall: + +"Without a doubt!" + +The dance ceased and first the short, round body of Mandeville and then +the tall form of Hilary Kincaid pushed into the room. "Without a doubt!" +repeated Hilary, while Mandeville asked right, asked left, for Adolphe. +"Without a doubt," persisted the lover, "Captain Kincaid he has it!" and +proffered Anna the law's warrant for their marriage. + +She pushed it away. Her words were so low that but few could hear. "The +dagger!" she said. "Haven't you got the dagger? You haven't got it?" + + + + +XLI + + +FOR AN EMERGENCY + +Hilary stared, reddened as she paled, and with a slow smile shook his +head. She murmured again: + +"It's lost! the dagger! with all--" + +"Why,--why, Miss Anna,"--his smile grew playful, but his thought ran +back to the exploded powder-mill, to the old inventor, to Flora in those +days, the deported schoolmistress's gold still unpaid to him, the +jeweller and the exchanged gems, the Sterling bill--"Why, Miss Anna! how +do you mean, lost?" + +"Taken! gone! and by my fault! I--_I forgot all about it_." + +He laughed aloud and around: "Pshaw! Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is +some joke you're"--he glanced toward the show-case-- + +"No," insisted Anna, "it's taken! Here are the other things." She +displayed the box. + +Madame, very angry, smiled from it to Flora: "Oh, thou love's fool! not +to steal _that_ and leave the knife, with which, luckily! now that you +have it, you dare not strike!" + +All this the subtle girl read in the ancient lady's one small "ahem!" +and for reply, in some even more unvoiced way, warned her against the +eye of the gray man near the gun. To avoid whose scrutiny herself she +returned sociably to his side. + +"The other things!" scoffed meantime the gay Hilary, catching up Anna's +word. "No! if you please, _here_ is the only other thing!" and boyishly +flaunted the license at Mandeville and all the Callenders, the throng +merrily approving. His eye, falling upon the detective, kindled +joyfully: "Oh, you godsend! _You_ hunt up the lost frog-sticker, will +you--while we--?" He flourished the document again and the gray man +replied with a cordial nod. Kincaid waved thanks and glanced round. +"Adolphe!" he called. "Steve, where in the dickens--?" + +Whether he so designed it or not, the contrast between his levity and +Anna's agitation convinced Flora, Madame, all, that the weapon's only +value to the lovers was sentimental. "Or religious," thought the +detective, whose adjectives could be as inaccurate as his divinations. +While he conjectured, Anna spoke once more to Hilary. Her vehement words +were too soft for any ear save his, but their tenor was so visible, her +distress so passionate and her firmness of resolve so evident that every +mere beholder fell back, letting the Callender-Valcour group, with Steve +and the gentle detective, press closer. With none of them, nor yet with +Hilary, was there anything to argue; their plight seemed to her +hopeless. For them to marry, for her to default, and for him to fly, all +in one mad hour--one whirlwind of incident--"It cannot be!" was all she +could say, to sister, to stepmother, to Flora, to Hilary again: "We +cannot do it! I will not!--till that lost thing is found!" + +With keen sympathy the detective, in the pack, enjoyed the play of +Hilary's face, where martial animation strove inspiringly against a +torture of dashed hopes. Glancing aside to Flora's as she turned from +Anna, he caught there no sign of the storm of joy which had suddenly +burst in her bosom; but for fear he might, and to break across his +insight and reckoning, she addressed him. + +"Anna she don't give any _reason_" she exclaimed. "Ask her, you, the +reason!" + +"'Tain't reason at all," he softly responded, "it's superstition. But +hold on. Watch me." He gestured for the lover's attention and their eyes +met. It made a number laugh, to see Hilary's stare gradually go +senseless and then blaze with intelligence. Suddenly, joyfully, with +every eye following his finger, he pointed into the gray man's face: + +"Smellemout, you've got it!" + +The man shook his head for denial, and his kindly twinkle commanded the +belief of all. Not a glint in it showed that his next response, however +well-meant, was to be a lie. + +"Then Ketchem has it!" cried Kincaid. + +The silent man let his smile mean yes, and the alert company applauded. +"Go h-on with the weddingg!" ordered the superior Mandeville. + +"Where's Adolphe?" cried Kincaid, and "On with the wedding!" clamored +the lads of the battery, while Anna stood gazing on the gray man and +wondering why she had not guessed this very thing. + +"Yes," he quietly said to her, "it's all right. You'll have it back +to-morrow. 'Twon't cut love if you don't." + +At that the gay din redoubled, but Flora, with the little grandmother +vainly gripping her arms, flashed between the two. + +"Anna!" she cried, "I don't bil-ieve!" + +Whether it was true or false Mandeville cared nothing, but--"Yes, 'tis +true!" he cried in Flora's face, and then to the detective--"Doubtlezz +to phot-ograph it that's all you want!" + +The detective said little, but Anna assured Flora that was all. "He +wants to show it at the trial!" + +"Listen!" said Flora. + +"Here's Captain Irby!" cried Mrs. Callender--Constance--half a dozen, +but-- + +"Listen!" repeated Flora, and across the curtained veranda and in at the +open windows, under the general clamor, came a soft palpitating rumble. +Did Hilary hear it, too? He was calling: + +"Adolphe, where's your man--the minister? Where in the--three +parishes--?" and others were echoing, "The minister! where's the +minister?" + +Had they also caught the sound? + +"Isn't he here?" asked Irby. He drew his watch. + +"Half-hour slow!" cried Mandeville, reading it. + +"But have you heard noth--?" + +"Nothingg!" roared Mandeville. + +"Where'd you leave him?" sharply asked Kincaid. + +His cousin put on great dignity: "At his door, my dear sir, waiting for +the cab I sent him." + +"Oh, sent!" cried half the group. "Steve," called Kincaid, "your horse +is fresh--" + +"But, alas, without wings!" wailed the Creole, caught Hilary's shoulder +and struck a harkening pose. + +"Too late!" moaned Flora to the detective, Madame to Constance and +Miranda, and the battery lads to their girls, from whose hands they +began to wring wild good-byes as a peal of fifes and drums heralded the +oncome of the departing regiment. + +Thus Charlie Valcour found the company as suddenly he reappeared in it, +pushing in to the main group where his leader stood eagerly engaged with +Anna. + +"All right, Captain!" He saluted: "All done!" But a fierce anxiety was +on his brow and he gave no heed to Hilary's dismissing thanks: "Captain, +what's 'too late'?" He turned, scowling, to his sister: "What are we too +late for, Flo? Good God! not the wedding? Not your wedding, Miss Anna? +It's _not_ too late. By Jove, it sha'n't be too late." + +All the boyish lawlessness of his nature rose into his eyes, and a boy's +tears with it. "The minister!" he retorted to Constance and his +grandmother, "the minister be--Oh, Captain, don't wait for him! Have the +thing without a minister!" + +The whole room was laughing, Hilary loudest, but the youth's voice +prevailed. "It'll hold good!" He turned upon the detective: "Won't it?" + +A merry nod was the reply, with cries of "Yes," "Yes," from the battery +boys, and he clamored on: + +"Why, there's a kind of people--" + +"Quakers!" sang out some one. + +"Yes, the Quakers! Don't they do it all the time! Of course they do!" +With a smile in his wet eyes the lad wheeled upon Victorine: "Oh, by +S'n' Peter! if that was the only--" + +But the small, compelling hand of the detective faced him round again +and with a sudden swell of the general laugh he laughed too. "He's +trying to behave like Captain Kincaid," one battery sister tried to tell +another, whose attention was on a more interesting matter. + +"Here!" the gray man was amiably saying to Charlie. "It's your advice +that's too late. Look." + +Before he had half spoken a hush so complete had fallen on the company +that while every eye sought Hilary and Anna every ear was aware that out +on the levee road the passing drums had ceased and the brass--as if +purposely to taunt the theatrical spirit of Flora--had struck up The +Ladies' Man. With military curtness Kincaid was addressing the score or +so of new cannoneers: + +"Corporal Valcour, this squad--no, keep your partners, but others please +stand to the right and left--these men are under your command. When I +presently send you from here you'll take them at a double-quick and +close up with that regiment. I'll be at the train when you reach it. +Captain Mandeville,"--he turned to the married pair, who were hurriedly +scanning the license Miranda had just handed them,--"I adjure you as a +true and faithful citizen and soldier, and you, madam, as well, to +testify to us, all, whether that is or is not the license of court for +the marriage of Anna Callender to Hilary Kincaid." + +"It is!" eagerly proclaimed the pair. + +"Hand it, please, to Charlie. Corporal, you and your men look it over." + +"And now--" His eyes swept the throng. Anna's hand, trembling but ready, +rose shoulder-high in his. He noted the varied expressions of face among +the family servants hurriedly gathering in the doors, and the beautiful +amaze of Flora, so genuine yet so well acted. Radiantly he met the +flushed gaze of his speechless cousin. "If any one alive," he cried, +"knows any cause why this thing should not be, let him now speak or +forever hereafter hold his peace." He paused. Constance handed something +to her husband. + +"Oh, go on," murmured Charlie, and many smiled. + +"Soldiers!" resumed the lover, "this fair godmother of your flag agrees +that for all we two want just now Kincaid's Battery is minister enough. +For all we want is--" Cheers stopped him. + +"The prayer-book!" put in Mandeville, pushing it at him. The boys +harkened again. + +"No," said Kincaid, "time's too short. All we want is to bind ourselves, +before Heaven and all mankind, in holy wedlock, for better, or worse, +till death us do part. And this we here do in sight of you all, and in +the name and sight and fear of God." He dropped his glance to Anna's: +"Say Amen." + +"Amen," said Anna. At the same moment in one of the doors stood a +courier. + +"All right!" called Hilary to him. "Tell your colonel we're coming! Just +a second more, Captain Irby, if you please. Soldiers!--I, Hilary, take +thee, Anna, to be my lawful wedded wife. And you--" + +"I, Anna," she softly broke in, "take thee, Hilary, to be my--" She +spoke the matter through, but he had not waited. + +"Therefore!" he cried, "you men of Kincaid's Battery--and you, sir,--and +you,"--nodding right and left to Mandeville and the detective,--"on this +our solemn pledge to supply as soon as ever we can all form of law and +social usage here omitted which can more fully solemnize this union--do +now--" + +Up went the detective's hand and then Mandeville's and all the boys', +and all together said: + +"Pronounce you man and wife." + +"Go!" instantly rang Kincaid to Charlie, and in a sudden flutter of +gauzes and clink of trappings, with wringing of soft fingers by hard +ones, and in a tender clamor of bass and treble voices, away sprang +every cannoneer to knapsacks and sabres in the hall, and down the outer +stair into ranks and off under the stars at double-quick. Sisters of the +battery, gliding out to the veranda rail, faintly saw and heard them a +precious moment longer as they sped up the dusty road. Then Irby stepped +quickly out, ran down the steps, mounted and galloped. A far rumble of +wheels told the coming of two omnibuses chartered to bear the dancers +all, with the Valcours and the detective, to their homes. Now out to +the steps came Mandeville. His wife was with him and the maidens kindly +went in. There the detective joined them. At a hall door Hilary was +parting with Madame, Flora, Miranda. Anna was near him with Flora's arm +about her in melting fondness. Now Constance rejoined the five, and now +Hilary and Anna left the other four and passed slowly out to the garden +stair alone. + +Beneath them there, with welcoming notes, his lone horse trampled about +the hitching-rail. Dropping his cap the master folded the bride's hands +in his and pressed on them a long kiss. The pair looked deeply into each +other's eyes. Her brow drooped and he laid a kiss on it also. "Now you +must go," she murmured. + +"My own beloved!" was his response. "My soul's mate!" He tried to draw +her, but she held back. + +"You must go," she repeated. + +"Yes! kiss me and I fly." He tried once more to draw her close, but +still in vain. + +"No, dearest," she whispered, and trembled. Yet she clutched his +imprisoning fingers and kissed them. He hugged her hands to his breast. + +"Oh, Hilary," she added, "I wish I could! But--don't you know why I +can't? Don't you see?" + +"No, my treasure, not any more. Why, Anna, you're Anna Kincaid now. +You're my wed'--" + +Her start of distress stopped him short. "Don't call me that,--my--my +own," she faltered. + +"But if you are that--?" + +"Oh, I am! thank God, I am! But don't name the name. It's too fearfully +holy. We're married for an emergency, love, an awful crisis! which +hasn't come to you yet, and may not come at all. When it does, so will +I! in that name! and you shall call me by it!" + +"Ah, if then you can come! But what do we know?" + +"We know in whom we trust, Hilary; must, must, must trust, as we trust +and must trust each other." + +Still hanging to his hands she pushed them off at arm's-length: "Oh, my +Hilary, my hero, my love, my life, my commander, go!" And yet she clung. +She drew his fingers close down again and covered them with kisses, +while twice, thrice, in solemn adoration, he laid his lips upon her +heavy hair. Suddenly the two looked up. The omnibuses were here in the +grove. + +Here too was the old coachman, with the soldier's horse. The vehicles +jogged near and halted. A troop of girls, with Flora, tripped out. And +still, in their full view, with Flora closest, the bride's hands held +the bridegroom's fast. He had neither the strength to pull free nor the +wit to understand. + +"What is it?" he softly asked, as the staring men waited and the girls +about Flora hung back. + +"Don't you know?" murmured Anna. "Don't you see--the--the difference?" + +All at once he saw! Throwing away her hands he caught her head between +his big palms. Her arms flew round his neck, her lips went to his, and +for three heart-throbs they clung like bee and flower. Then he sprang +down the stair, swung into the saddle, and fled after his men. + + + + +XLII + + +"VICTORY! I HEARD IT AS PL'--" + +The last few days of March and first three or four of April, since the +battery boys and the three captains had gone, were as full of frightened +and angry questions as the air is of bees around a shaken hive. + +So Anna had foreboded, yet it was not so for the causes she had in mind; +not one fierce hum asked another where the bazaar's money was. That +earlier bazaar, in the St. Louis Hotel, had taken six weeks to report +its results, and now, with everybody distracted by a swarm and buzz of +far larger, livelier, hotter queries, the bazaar's sponsors might report +or not, as they chose. Meanwhile, was the city really in dire and +shameful jeopardy, or was it as safe as the giddiest boasted? Looking +farther away, over across Georgia to Fort Pulaski, so tremendously +walled and armed, was the "invader" merely wasting lives, trying to take +it? On North Carolina's coast, where our priceless blockade-runners +plied, had Newbern, as so stubbornly rumored, and had Beaufort, already +fallen, or had they really not? Had the _Virginia_ not sunk the +_Monitor_ and scattered the Northern fleets? Was it _not_ by France, +after all (asked the Creoles), but only by Paraguay that the Confederacy +had been "reco'nize'"? Was there _no_ truth in the joyous report that +McClellan had vanished from Yorktown peninsula? _Was_ the loss of +Cumberland Gap a trivial matter, and did it in fact not cut in two our +great strategic front? Up yonder at Corinth, our "new and far better" +base, was Sidney Johnston an "imbecile," a "coward," a "traitor"? or +was he not rather an unparagoned strategist who, having at last "lured +the presumptuous foe" into his toils, was now, with Beauregard, +notwithstanding Beauregard's protracted illness, about to make the "one +fell swoop" of our complete deliverance? And after the swoop and its joy +and its glory, when Johnnie should come marching home, whose Johnnies, +and how many, would never return? As to your past-and-gone bazaar, law, +honey--! + +So, as to that item, in all the wild-eyed city shaking with its ague of +anxieties only Anna was troubled when day after day no detective came +back with the old mud-caked dagger and now both were away on some quite +alien matter, no one could say where. She alone was troubled, for she +alone knew it was the bazaar's proceeds which had disappeared. Of what +avail to tell even Miranda, Connie, or Flora if they must not tell +others? It would only bind three more souls on the rack. "Vanished with +the dagger!" That would be all they could gasp, first amazed, then +scandalized, at a scheme of safe-keeping so fantastically reckless; +reckless and fantastical as her so-called marriage. Yes, they would be +as scandalized as they would have been charmed had the scheme prospered. +And then they would blame not her but Hilary. Blame him in idle fear of +a calamity that was not going to befall! + +She might have told that sternest, kindest, wisest of friends, Doctor +Sevier. As the family's trustee he might yet have to be told. But on +that night of fantastical recklessness he had been away, himself at +Corinth to show them there how to have vastly better hospitals, and to +prescribe for his old friend Beauregard. He had got back but yesterday. +Or she might have told the gray detective, just to make him more +careful, as Hilary, by letter, suggested. In part she had told him, +through Flora; told him that to save that old curio she would risk her +life. Surely, knowing that, he would safeguard it, in whatever hands, +and return it the moment he could. Who ever heard of a detective not +returning a thing the moment he could? Not Flora, _not_ yet Madame, they +said. To be sure, thought Anna, those professional masters of delay, the +photographers, might be more jewel-wise than trustworthy, but what +photographer could ever be so insane as to rob a detective? So, rather +ashamed of one small solicitude in this day of great ones, she urged her +committees for final reports--which never came--and felt very wisely in +writing her hero for his consent to things, and to assure him that at +the worst her own part of the family estate would make everything good, +the only harrowing question being how to keep Miranda and Connie from +sharing the loss. + +On the first Sunday evening in April Doctor Sevier took tea with the +Callenders, self-invited, alone and firmly oblivious of his own tardy +wedding-gift to Anna as it gleamed at him on the board. To any of a +hundred hostesses he would have been a joy, to share with as many +friends as he would consent to meet; for in the last week he had eaten +"hog and hominy," and sipped corn-meal coffee, in lofty colloquy with +Sidney Johnston and his "big generals"; had talked confidentially with +Polk, so lately his own bishop; had ridden through the miry streets of +Corinth with all the New Orleans commanders of division or +brigade--Gibson, Trudeau, Ruggles, Brodnax; out on the parapets, between +the guns, had chatted with Hilary and his loved lieutenants; down among +the tents and mess-fires had given his pale hand, with Spartan +injunctions and all the home news, to George Gregory, Ned Ferry, Dick +Smith, and others of Harper's cavalry, and--circled round by Charlie +Valcour, Sam Gibbs, Maxime, and scores of their comrades in Kincaid's +Battery--had seen once more their silken flag, so faded! and touched its +sacred stains and tatters. Now at the tea table something led him to +remark that here at home the stubborn illness of this battery sister for +whom Anna was acting as treasurer had compelled him to send her away. + +Timely topic: How to go into the country, and whither. The Callenders +were as eager for all the facts and counsel he could give on it as if +they were the "big generals" and his facts and counsel were as to the +creeks, swamps, ridges, tangled ravines, few small clearings, and many +roads and by-roads in the vast, thinly settled, small-farmed, +rain-drenched forests between Corinth and the clay bluffs of the +Tennessee. For now the Callenders also were to leave the city, as soon +as they could be ready. + +"Don't wait till then," crisply said the Doctor. + +"We must wait till Nan winds up the bazaar." + +He thought not. In what bank had she its money? + +When she said not in any he frowned. Whereupon she smilingly stammered +that she was told the banks themselves were sending their treasure into +the country, and that even ten days earlier, when some one wanted to +turn a fund into its safest portable form, three banks had declined to +give foreign exchange for it at any price. + +"Hmm!" he mused. "Was that your, eh,--?" + +"My husband, yes," said Anna, so quietly that the sister and stepmother +exulted in her. As quietly her eyes held the doctor's, and his hers, +while the colour mounted to her brow. He spoke: + +"Still he got it into some good shape for you, the fund, did he not?" +Then suddenly he clapped a hand to a breast pocket and stared: "He gave +me a letter for you. Did I--? Ah, yes, I have your written thanks. Anna, +I thoroughly approve what you and he have done." + +Constance and Miranda were overjoyed. He turned to them: "I told Hilary +so up in camp. I told Steve. Yes, Anna, you were wise. You are wise. +I've no doubt you're doing wisely about that fund." + +It was hard for the wise one not to look guilty. + +"Have you told anybody," he continued, "in what form you have it, or +where?" + +"No!" put in the aggrieved Constance, "not even her blood kin!" + +"Wise again. Best for all of you. Now just hang to the lucre. It comes +too late to be of use here; this brave town will have to stand or fall +without it. But it's still good for Mobile, and Mobile saved may be New +Orleans recovered." + +On a hint from the other women, and urged by their visitor, Anna brought +the letter and read him several closely written pages on the strategic +meaning of things. The zest with which he discussed the lines made her +newly proud of their source. + +"They're so like his very word o' mouth," said he, "they bring him right +back here among us. Yes, and the whole theatre of action with him. They +draw it about us so closely and relate it all to us so vitally that +it--" + +"Seems," broke in the delighted Constance, "as if we saw it all from the +top of this house!" + +The Doctor's jaw set. Who likes phrases stuffed into his mouth? Yet +presently he allowed himself to resume. It confirmed, he said, +Beauregard's word in his call for volunteers, that there, before +Corinth, was the place to defend Louisiana. Soon he had regained his +hueless ardor, and laid out the whole matter on the table for the +inspiration of his three confiding auditors. Here at Chattanooga, so +impregnably ours, issued Tennessee river and the Memphis and Charleston +railroad from the mountain gateway between our eastern and western seats +of war. Here they swept down into Alabama, passed from the state's +north-east to its north-west corner and parted company. Here the railway +continued westward, here it crossed the Mobile and Ohio railroad at +Corinth, here the Mississippi Central at Grand Junction, and pressed on +to Memphis, our back-gate key of the Mississippi. + +"In war," said the Doctor, "rivers and railro'--" + +"Are the veins and arteries of--oh, pardon!" The crime was Anna's this +time. + +"Are the lines fought for," resumed the speaker, "and wherever two or +three of them join or cross you may look for a battle." His long finger +dropped again to the table. Back here in Alabama the Tennessee turned +north to seek the Ohio, and here, just over the Mississippi state line, +in Tennessee, some twenty miles north of Corinth, it became navigable +for the Ohio's steamboats--gunboats--transports--at a place called in +the letter "Pittsburg Landing." + +Yes, now, between Hilary's pages and the Doctor's logic, with Hilary +almost as actually present as the physician, the ladies saw why this +great Memphis-Chattanooga fighting line was, not alone pictorially, but +practically, right at hand! barely beyond sight and hearing or the feel +of its tremor; a veritable back garden wall to them and their beloved +city; as close as forts Jackson and St. Philip, her front gate. Yes, +and--Anna ventured to point out and the Doctor grudgingly admitted--if +the brave gray hosts along that back wall should ever--could ever--be +borne back so far southward, westward, the last line would have to run +from one to another of the Crescent City's back doorsteps and doors; +from Vicksburg, that is, eastward through Jackson, Mississippi's +capital, cross the state's two north-and-south railways, and swing down +through Alabama to Mobile on the Gulf. This, she silently perceived, was +why the letter and the Doctor quite agreed that Connie, Miranda, and she +ought to find their haven somewhere within the dim region between New +Orleans and those three small satellite cities; not near any two +railways, yet close enough to a single one for them to get news, public +or personal, in time to act on it. + +At leave-taking came the guest's general summing up of fears and faiths. +All his hope for New Orleans, he said, was in the forts down at the +Passes. Should they fall the city could not stand. But amid their +illimitable sea marshes and their impenetrable swamp forests, chin-deep +in the floods of broken levees, he truly believed, they would hold out. +Let them do so only till the first hot breath of real Delta summer +should bring typhoid, breakbone, yellow, and swamp fevers, the last by +all odds the worst, and Butler's unacclimated troops would have to +reembark for home pell-mell or die on Ship Island like poisoned fish. So +much for the front gate. For the back gate, Corinth, which just now +seemed--the speaker harkened. + +"Seemed," he resumed, "so much more like the front--listen!" There came +a far, childish call. + +"An extra," laughed Constance. "Steve says we issue one every time he +brushes his uniform." + +"But, Con," argued Anna, "an extra on Sunday evening, brought away down +here--" The call piped nearer. + +"Victory!" echoed Constance. "I heard it as pl'--" + +"Beauregard! Tennessee!" exclaimed both sisters. They flew to the +veranda, the other two following. Down in the gate could be seen the old +coachman, already waiting to buy the paper. Constance called to him +their warm approval. "I thought," murmured Miranda, "that Beauregard was +in Miss'--" + +Anna touched her, and the cry came again: "Great victory--!" Yes, yes, +but by whom, and where? Johnston? Corinth? "Great victory at--!" Where? +Where, did he say? The word came again, and now again, but still it was +tauntingly vague. Anna's ear seemed best, yet even she could say only, +"I never heard of such a place--out of the bible. It sounds +like--Shiloh." + +Shiloh it was. At a table lamp indoors the Doctor bent over the fresh +print. "It's true," he affirmed. "It's Beauregard's own despatch. 'A +complete victory,' he says. 'Driving the enemy'--" The reader ceased and +stared at the page. "Why, good God!" Slowly he lifted his eyes upon +those three sweet women until theirs ran full. And then he stared once +more into the page: "Oh, good God! Albert Sidney Johnston is dead." + + + + +XLIII + + +THAT SABBATH AT SHILOH + +"Whole theatre of action." + +The figure had sounded apt to Anna on that Sunday evening when the +Doctor employed it; apt enough--until the outburst of that great and +dreadful news whose inseparable implications and forebodings robbed her +of all sleep that night and made her the first one astir at daybreak. +But thenceforward, and now for half a week or more, the aptness seemed +quite to have passed. Strange was the theatre whose play was all and +only a frightful reality; whose swarming, thundering, smoking stage had +its audience, its New Orleans audience, wholly behind it, and whose +curtain of distance, however thin, mocked every bodily sense and +compelled all to be seen and heard by the soul's eye and ear, with all +the joy and woe of its actuality and all its suspense, terror, triumph, +heartbreak, and despair. + +Yet here was that theatre, and the Doctor's metaphor was still good +enough for the unexacting taste of the two Valcour ladies, to whom Anna +had quoted it. And here, sprinkled through the vast audience of that +theatre, with as keen a greed for its play as any, were all the various +non-combatants with whom we are here concerned, though not easily to be +singled out, such mere units were they of the impassioned multitude +every mere unit of which, to loved and loving ones, counted for more +than we can tell. + +However, our favourites might be glimpsed now and then. On a certain +midday of that awful half-week the Callenders, driving, took up +Victorine at her gate and Flora at her door and sped up-town to the +newspaper offices in Camp street to rein in against a countless surge of +old men in fine dress, their precious dignity thrown to the dogs, each +now but one of the common herd, and each against all, shouldering, +sweating, and brandishing wide hands to be the first purchaser and +reader of the list, the long, ever-lengthening list of the killed and +wounded. Much had been learned of the great two-days' battle, and many +an infantry sister, and many a battery sister besides Anna, was +second-sighted enough to see, night and day, night and day, the muddy +labyrinth of roads and by-roads that braided and traversed the wide, +unbroken reaches of dense timber--with their deep ravines, their long +ridges, and their creek-bottom marshes and sloughs--in the day's journey +from Corinth to the bluffs of the Tennessee. They saw them, not empty, +nor fearlessly crossed by the quail, the wild turkey, the fox, or the +unhunted deer, nor travelled alone by the homespun "citizen" or by +scouts or foragers, but slowly overflowed by a great gray, silent, +tangled, armed host--cavalry, infantry, ordnance trains, batteries, +battery wagons and ambulances: Saw Hilary Kincaid and all his heroes and +their guns, and all the "big generals" and their smart escorts and busy +staffs: Saw the various columns impeding each other, taking wrong ways +and losing priceless hours while thousands of inexperienced boys, +footsore, drenched and shivering yet keen for the fight, ate their +five-days' food in one, or threw it away to lighten the march, and +toiled on in hunger, mud, cold and rain, without the note of a horn or +drum or the distant eye of one blue scout to tell of their oncoming. + +They saw, did Anna and those sisters (and many and many a wife and +mother from Callender House to Carrollton), the vast, stealthy, fireless +bivouac at fall of night, in ear-shot of the enemy's tattoo, unsheltered +from the midnight storm save by raked-up leaves: Saw, just in the +bivouac's tortuous front, softly reddening the low wet sky, that huge, +rude semicircle of camps in the dark ridged and gullied forests about +Shiloh's log meeting-house, where the victorious Grant's +ten-thousands--from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, +Wisconsin, Michigan, as new to arms as their foe, yet a band of lions in +lair--lay dry-tented, full fed and fast asleep, safely flanked by +swollen streams, their gunboats behind them and Buell coming, but +without one mounted outpost, a scratch of entrenchment or a whisper of +warning. + +Amid the eager carriage talk, in which Anna kept her part, her mind's +eye still saw the farther scene as it changed again and the gray dawn +and gray host furtively rose together and together silently spread +through the deep woods. She watched the day increase and noon soar up +and sink away while the legions of Hardee, Bragg, Polk and Breckinridge +slowly writhed out of their perplexed folds and set themselves, still +undetected in their three successive lines of battle. She beheld the +sun set calm and clear, the two hosts lie down once more, one in its +tents, the other on its arms, the leafy night hang over them resplendent +with stars, its watches near by, the Southern lines reawaken in +recovered strength, spring up and press forward exultantly to the awful +issue, and the Sabbath dawn brighten into a faultless day with the boom +of the opening gun. + +As the ladies drew up behind the throng and across the throat of +Commercial Alley the dire List began to flutter from the Picayune office +in greedy palms and over and among dishevelled heads like a feeding +swarm of white pigeons. News there was as well as names, but every eye +devoured the names first and then--unless some name struck lightning in +the heart, as Anna saw it do every here and there and for that poor old +man over yonder--after the names the news. + +"Nan, we needn't stay if you--" + +"Oh, Miranda, isn't all this ours?" + +The bulletin boards were already telling in outline, ahead of the list, +thrilling things about the Orleans Guards, the whirlwind onset of whose +maiden bayonets had captured double its share of the first camp taken +from the amazed, unbreakfasted enemy, and who again and again, hour by +hour, by the half-mile and mile, had splendidly helped to drive +him--while he hammered back with a deadly stubbornness all but a match +for their fury. Through forests, across clearings, over streams and bogs +and into and out of ravines and thickets they had swept, seizing +transiently a whole field battery, permanently hundreds of prisoners, +and covering the strife's broad wake with even more appalling numbers +of their own dead and wounded than of the foe's: wailing wounded, +ghastly, grimy dead, who but yesterday were brothers, cousins and +playmates of these very men snatching and searching the list. They told, +those boards, of the Washington Artillery (fifth company, never before +under fire) being thanked on the field by one of the "big generals," +their chests and wheels shot half to splinters but no gun lost. They +told of all those Louisiana commands whose indomitable lines charged and +melted, charged and withered, over and over the torn and bloody ground +in that long, horrible struggle that finally smoked out the "Hornets' +Nest." They told of the Crescent Regiment, known and loved on all these +sidewalks and away up to and beyond their Bishop-General Polk's Trinity +Church, whose desperate gallantry had saved that same Washington +Artillery three of its pieces, and to whose thinned and bleeding ranks +swarms of the huddled Western farm boys, as shattered and gory as their +captors and as glorious, had at last laid down their arms. And they told +of Kincaid's Battery, Captain Kincaid commanding; how, having early lost +in the dense oak woods and hickory brush the brigade--Brodnax's--whose +way they had shelled open for a victorious charge, they had followed +their galloping leader, the boys running beside the wheels, from +position to position, from ridge to ridge, in rampant obedience of an +order to "go in wherever they heard the hottest firing", how for a time +they had fought hub to hub beside the Washington Artillery; how two of +their guns, detached for a special hazard and sweeping into fresh action +on a flank of the "Hornets' Nest," had lost every horse at a single +volley of the ambushed foe, yet had instantly replied with slaughterous +vengeance; and how, for an hour thereafter, so wrapped in their own +smoke that they could be pointed only by the wheel-ruts of their recoil, +they had been worked by their depleted gunners on hands and knees with +Kincaid and Villeneuve themselves at the trails and with fuses cut to +one second. So, in scant outline said the boards, or more in detail read +one man aloud to another as they hurried by the carriage. + +"But," said Anna, while Flora enjoyed her pallor, "all that is about the +first day's fight!" + +"No," cried Constance, "it's the second day's, that Beauregard calls 'a +great and glorious victory!'" + +"Yes," interposed Flora, "but writing from behind his fortification' at +Corinth, yes!" + + + + +XLIV + + +"THEY WERE ALL FOUR TOGETHER" + +Both Constance and Victorine flashed to retort, but saw the smiling +critic as pale as Anna and recalled the moment's truer business, the +list still darting innumerably around them always out of reach. The +carriage had to push into the very surge, and Victorine to stand up and +call down to this man and that, a fourth and fifth, before one could be +made to hear and asked to buy for the helpless ladies. Yet in this +gentlewomen's war every gentlewoman's wish was a military command, and +when at length one man did hear, to hear was to vanish in the turmoil on +their errand. Now he was back again, with the list, three copies! Oh, +thank you, thank you and thank you! + +Away trotted the handsome span while five pairs of beautiful eyes +searched the three printed sheets, that bore--oh, marvellous +fortune!--not one of the four names writ largest in those five hearts. +Let joy be--ah, let joy be very meek while to so many there is +unutterable loss. Yet let it meekly abound for the great loved cause so +splendidly advanced. Miranda pointed Anna to a bit of editorial: + +"Monday was a more glorious day than Sunday. We can scarcely forbear to +speculate upon the great results that are to flow from this decisive +victory. An instant pursuit of the flying enemy should--" + +Why did the carriage halt at a Gravier Street crossing obliquely +opposite the upper front corner of the St. Charles Hotel? Why did all +the hotel's gold-braided guests and loungers so quietly press out +against its upper balustrades? Why, under its arches, and between +balcony posts along the curbstones clear down to Canal Street, was the +pathetically idle crowd lining up so silently? From that point why, now, +did the faint breeze begin to waft a low roar of drums of such grave +unmartial sort? And why, gradually up the sidewalks' edges in the hot +sun, did every one so solemnly uncover? Small Victorine stood up to see. + +At first she made out only that most commonplace spectacle, home guards. +They came marching in platoons, a mere company or two. In the red and +blue of their dress was all the smartness yet of last year, but in their +tread was none of it and even the bristle of their steel had vanished. +Behind majestic brasses and muffled drums grieving out the funeral +march, they stepped with slow precision and with arms reversed. But now +in abrupt contrast there appeared, moving as slowly and precisely after +them, widely apart on either side of the stony way, two single +attenuated files of but four bronzed and shabby gray-jackets each, with +four others in one thin, open rank from file to file in their rear, and +in the midst a hearse and its palled burden. Rise, Anna, Constance, +Miranda--all. Ah, Albert Sidney Johnston! Weep, daughters of a +lion-hearted cause. The eyes of its sons are wet. Yet in your gentle +bosoms keep great joy for whoever of your very own and nearest the awful +carnage has spared; but hither comes, here passes slowly, and yonder +fades at length from view, to lie a day in state and so move on to +burial, a larger hope of final triumph than ever again you may fix on +one mortal man. + +Hats on again, softly. Drift apart, aimless crowd. Cross the two streets +at once, diagonally, you, young man from the St. Charles Hotel with +purpose in your rapid step, pencil unconsciously in hand and trouble on +your brow. Regather your reins, old coachman--nay, one moment! The +heavy-hearted youth passed so close under the horses' front that only +after he had gained the banquette abreast the carriage did he notice its +occupants and Anna's eager bow. It was the one-armed Kincaid's Battery +boy reporter. With a sudden pitying gloom he returned the greeting, +faltered as if to speak, caught a breath and then hurried on and away. +What did that mean; more news; news bad for these five in particular? +Silently in each of them, without a glance from one to another, the +question asked itself. + +"The True Delta," remarked Anna to Miranda, "is right down here on the +next square," and of his own motion the driver turned that way. + +"Bitwin Common Strit and Can-al," added Victorine, needless words being +just then the most needed. + +Midway in front of the hotel Anna softly laid a hand on Flora, who +respondingly murmured. For the reporter was back, moving their way along +the sidewalk almost at a run. Now Constance was aware of him. + +"When we cross Common Street," she observed to Miranda, "he'll want to +stop us." + +In fact, as soon as their intent to cross was plain, he sped out beside +them and stood, his empty sleeve pinned up, his full one raised and +grief evident in his courteous smile. Some fifty yards ahead, by the +True Delta office, men were huddling around a fresh bulletin. Baring his +brow to the sun, the young man came close to the wheels. + +"Wouldn't you-all as soon--?" he began, but Constance interrupted: + +"The news is as good as ever, isn't it?" + +"Yes, but wouldn't you-all as soon drive round by Carondelet Street?" A +gesture with his hat showed a piece of manifold writing in his fingers. + +He looked to Miranda, but she faltered. Flora, in her own way, felt all +the moment's rack and stress, but some natures are built for floods and +rise on them like a boat. So thought she of herself and had parted her +lips to speak for all, when, to her vexed surprise, Anna lifted a hand +and in a clear, firm tone inquired, "Is there any bad news for us five?" +The youth's tongue failed; he nodded. + +"Brodnax's brigade?" she asked. "Our battery?" + +"Yes, Monday, just at the last," he murmured. + +"Not _taken?_" + +"Not a gun!" replied the boy, with a flash. Anna reflected it, but her +tone did not change: + +"There are four men, you know, whom we five--" + +"Yes." + +"Which of them is the bad news about?" + +"All four," murmured the youth. His eyes swam. His hat went under the +stump of his lost arm and he proffered the bit of writing. Idlers were +staring. "Take that with you," he said. "They were all four together and +they're only--" + +The carriage was turning, but the fair cluster bent keenly toward him. +"Only what?" they cried. + +"Missing." + + + + +XLV + + +STEVE--MAXIME--CHARLIE-- + +There was no real choice. Nothing seemed quite rational but the heaviest +task of all--to wait, and to wait right here at home. + +To this queenly city must come first and fullest all news of her own +sons, and here the "five" would not themselves be "missing" should +better tidings--or worse--come seeking them over the wires. + +"At the front?" replied Doctor Sevier to Anna, "why, at the front you'll +be kept in the rear, lost in a storm of false rumors." + +General Brodnax, in a letter rife with fatherly romantic tenderness and +with splendid praise of Hilary as foremost in the glorious feat which +had saved old "Roaring Betsy" but lost (or mislaid) him and his three +comrades, also bade her wait. Everything, he assured her, that human +sympathy or the art of war--or Beauregard's special orders--could effect +was being done to find the priceless heroes. In the retreat of a great +host--ah, me! retreat was his very word and the host was +Dixie's--retreating after its first battle, and that an awful one, in +deluging rains over frightful roads and brimming streams, unsheltered, +ill fed, with sick and wounded men and reeling vehicles hourly breaking +down, a hovering foe to be fended off, and every dwelling in the land a +hospitable refuge, even captains of artillery or staff might be most +honorably and alarmingly missing yet reappear safe and sound. So, for a +week and more it was sit and wait, pace the floor and wait, wake in the +night and wait; so for Flora as well as for Anna (with a difference), +both of them anxious for Charlie--and Steve--and Maxime, but in anguish +for another. + +Then tidings, sure enough! glad tidings! Mandeville and Maxime safe in +camp again and back to duty, whole, hale and in the saddle. Their +letters came by the wasted yellow hands of two or three of the +home-coming wounded, scores of whom were arriving by every south-bound +train. From the aide-de-camp and the color-bearer came the first whole +story of how Kincaid, with his picked volunteers, barely a gun +detachment, and with Mandeville, who had brought the General's consent, +had stolen noiselessly over the water-soaked leaves of a thickety oak +wood in the earliest glimmer of a rainy dawn and drawn off the +abandoned gun by hand to its waiting horses; also how, when threatened +by a hostile patrol, Hilary, Mandeville, Maxime and Charlie had hurried +back on foot into the wood and hotly checked the pursuit long enough for +their fellows to mount the team, lay a shoulder to every miry wheel and +flounder away with the prize. But beyond that keen moment when the four, +after their one volley from ambush, had sprung this way and that +shouting absurd orders to make-believe men, cheering and firing from +behind trees, and (cut off from their horses) had made for a gully and +swamp, the two returned ones could tell nothing of the two unreturned +except that neither of them, dead or alive, was anywhere on the ground +of the fight or flight as they knew it. For days, inside the enemy's +advancing lines, they had prowled in ravines and lain in blackberry +patches and sassafras fence-rows, fed and helped on of nights by the +beggared yet still warm-hearted farm people and getting through at last, +but with never a trace of Kincaid or Charlie, though after their own +perilous search they had inquired, inquired, inquired. + +So, wait, said every one and every dumb condition, even the miseries of +the great gray army, of which Anna had mind pictures again, as it toiled +through mire and lightning, rain, sleet and hail, and as its thousands +of sick and shattered lay in Corinth dying fifty a day. And Flora and +Anna waited, though with minds placid only to each other and the outer +world. + +"Yes," moaned Anna to Constance, when found at dead of night staring +Corinthward from a chamber window. "Yes, friends advise! All our friends +advise! What daring thing did any one ever do who waited for friends to +advise it? Does your Steve wait for friends to advise?... Patience? Ah, +lend me yours! You don't need it now.... Fortitude? Oh, I never had +any!... What? command the courage to do nothing when nothing is the only +hard thing to do? Who, I? Connie! I don't even want it. I'm a craven; I +want the easy thing! I want to go nurse the box-carloads and +mule-wagonloads of wounded at Corinth, at Okolona and strewed all the +way down to Mobile--that's full of them. Hilary may be somewhere among +them--unidentified! They say he wore no badge of rank that morning, you +know, and carried the carbine of a wounded cavalryman to whom he had +given his coat. Oh, he's mine, Con, and I'm his. We're not engaged, +we're _married,_ and I _must_ go. It's only a step--except in miles--and +I'm going! I'm going for your sake and Miranda's. You know you're +staying on my account, not for me to settle this bazaar business but to +wait for news that's never coming till I go and bring it!" + +This tiny, puny, paltry business of the bazaar--the whereabouts of the +dagger and its wealth, or of the detectives, gone for good into military +secret service at the front--she drearily smiled away the whole trivial +riddle as she lay of nights contriving new searches for that +inestimable, living treasure, whose perpetual "missing," right yonder +"almost in sight from the housetop," was a dagger in her heart. + +And the Valcours? Yes, they, too, had their frantic impulses to rise and +fly. For Madame, though her lean bosom bled for the lost boy, the +fiercest pain of waiting was that its iron coercion lay in their +penury. For Flora its sharpest pangs were in her own rage; a rage not of +the earlier, cold sort against Anna and whoever belonged to Anna--that +transport had always been more than half a joy--but a new, hot rage +against herself and the finical cheapness of her scheming, a rage that +stabbed her fair complacency with the revelation that she had a heart, +and a heart that could ache after another. The knife of that rage turned +in her breast every time she cried to the grandam, "We must go!" and +that rapacious torment simpered, "No funds," adding sidewise hints +toward Anna's jewels, still diligently manoeuvred for, but still +somewhere up-stairs in Callender House, sure to go with Anna should Anna +go while the manoeuvrers were away. + +A long lane to any one, was such waiting, lighted, for Anna, only by a +faint reflection of that luster of big generals' strategy and that +invincibility of the Southern heart which, to all New Orleans and even +to nations beyond seas, clad Dixie's every gain in light and hid her +gravest disasters in beguiling shadow. But suddenly one day the long +lane turned. The secret had just leaked out that the forts down the +river were furiously engaged with the enemy's mortar-boats a few miles +below them and that in the past forty-eight hours one huge bomb every +minute, three thousand in all, had dropped into those forts or burst +over them, yet the forts were "proving themselves impregnable." The lane +turned and there stood Charlie. + +There he stood, in the stairway door of the front room overlooking +Jackson Square. The grandmother and sister had been keenly debating the +news and what to do about it, the elder bird fierce to stay, the younger +bent on flight, and had just separated to different windows, when they +heard, turned and beheld him there, a stranger in tattered gray and +railway dirt, yet their own coxcomb boy from his curls to his ill-shod +feet. Flora had hardly caught her breath or believed her eyes before the +grandmother was on his neck patting and petting his cheeks and head and +plying questions in three languages: When, where, how, why, how, where +and when? + +Dimly he reflected their fond demonstrations. No gladness was in his +face. His speech, as hurried as theirs, answered no queries. He asked +loftily for air, soap, water and the privacy of his own room, and when +they had followed him there and seen him scour face, arms, neck, and +head, rub dry and resume his jacket and belt, he had grown only more +careworn and had not yet let his sister's eyes rest on his. + +He had but a few hours to spend in the city, he said; had brought +despatches and must carry others back by the next train. His story, he +insisted, was too long to tell before he had delivered certain battery +letters; one to Victorine, two to Constance Mandeville, and so on. Here +was one to Flora, from Captain Irby; perhaps the story was in it. At any +rate, its bearer must rush along now. He toppled his "grannie" into a +rocking-chair and started away. He "would be back as soon as ever he--" + +But Flora filled the doorway. He had to harden his glance to hers at +last. In her breast were acutest emotions widely at war, yet in her eyes +he saw only an unfeeling light, and it was the old woman behind him who +alone noted how painfully the girl's fingers were pinched upon Irby's +unopened letter. The boy's stare betrayed no less anger than suffering +and as Flora spoke he flushed. + +"Charlie," she melodiously began, but his outcry silenced her: + +"Now, by the eternal great God Almighty, Flora Valcour, if you dare to +ask me that--" He turned to the grandmother, dropped to his knees, +buried his face in her lap and sobbed. + +With genuine tenderness she stroked his locks. Yet while she did so she +lifted to the sister a face lighted up with a mirth of deliverance. To +nod, toss, and nod again, was poor show for her glee; she smirked and +writhed to the disdaining girl like a child at a mirror, and, though +sitting thus confined, gave all the effects of jigging over the floor. +Hilary out of the way! Kincaid eliminated, and the whole question free +of him, this inheritance question so small and mean to all but her and +Irby, but to him and her so large, so paramount! Silently, but plainly +to the girl, her mouth widely motioned, "Il est mort! grace"--one hand +stopped stroking long enough to make merrily the sign of cross--"grace +au ciel, il est mort!" + +No moment of equal bitterness had Flora Valcour ever known. To tell half +her distresses would lose us in their tangle, midmost in which was a +choking fury against the man whom unwillingly she loved, for escaping +her, even by a glorious death. One thought alone--that Anna, as truly as +if stricken blind, would sit in darkness the rest of her days--lightened +her torture, and with that thought she smiled a stony loathing on the +mincing grandam and the boy's unlifted head. Suddenly, purpose gleamed +from her. She could not break forth herself, but to escape suffocation +she must and would procure an outburst somewhere. Measuredly, but with +every nerve and tendon overstrung, she began to pace the room. + +"Don't cry, Charlie," she smoothly said in a voice as cold as the crawl +of a snake. The brother knew the tone, had known it from childhood, and +the girl, glancing back on him, was pleased to see him stiffen. A few +steps on she added pensively, "For a soldier to cry--and befo' ladies--a +ladies' man--of that batt'rie--tha's hardly fair--to the ladies, eh, +grandmama?" + +But the boy only pressed his forehead harder down and clutched the aged +knees under it till their owner put on, to the scintillant beauty, a +look of alarm and warning. The girl, musingly retracing her calculated +steps to where the kneeler seemed to clinch himself to his posture, +halted, stroked with her slippered toe a sole of his rude shoes and +spoke once more: "Do they oft-ten boohoo like that, grandma, those +artillerie?" + +The boy whirled up with the old woman clinging. A stream of oaths and +curses appallingly original poured from him, not as through the lips +alone but from his very eyes and nostrils. That the girl was first of +all a fool and damned was but a trivial part of the cry--of the +explosion of his whole year's mistaken or half-mistaken inferences and +smothered indignation. With equal flatness and blindness he accused her +of rejoicing in the death of Kincaid: the noblest captain (he ramped on) +that ever led a battery; kindest friend that ever ruled a camp; gayest, +hottest, daringest fighter of Shiloh's field; fiercest for man's purity +that ever loved the touch of women's fingers; sternest that ever wept on +the field of death with the dying in his arms; and the scornfullest of +promotion that ever was cheated of it at headquarters. + +All these extravagances he cursed out, too witless to see that this same +hero of his was the one human being, himself barely excepted, for whose +life his sister cared. He charged her of never having forgiven Hilary +for making Anna godmother of their flag, and of being in some dark +league against him--"hell only knew what"--along with that snail of a +cousin whom everybody but Kincaid himself and the silly old uncle knew +to be the fallen man's most venomous foe. Throughout the storm the +grandmother's fingers pattered soothing caresses, while Flora stood as +unruffled by his true surmises as by any, a look of cold interest in her +narrowed eyes, and her whole bodily and spiritual frame drinking relief +from his transport. Now, while he still raged, she tenderly smiled on +their trembling ancestress. + +"Really, _you_ know grandmama, sometimes me also I feel like that, when +to smazh the furniture 't would be a delightful--or to wring somebody +the neck, yes. But for us, and to-day, even to get a li'l' mad, how is +that a possibl'?" She turned again, archly, to the brother, but flashed +in alarm and sprang toward him. + +His arm stiffly held her off. With failing eyes bent on the whimpering +grandmother he sighed a disheartened oath and threshed into a chair +gasping-- + +"My wound--opened again." + + + + +XLVI + + +THE SCHOOL OF SUSPENSE + +Thus it fell to Flora to be letter-bearer and news-bearer in her +brother's stead. Yet he had first to be cared for by her and the +grandmother in a day long before "first aid" had become common +knowledge. The surgeon they had hailed in had taken liberal time to show +them how, night and morning, to unbandage, cleanse and rebind, and to +tell them (smiling into the lad's mutinous eyes) that the only other +imperative need was to keep him flat on his back for ten days. Those +same weeks of downpour which had given the Shiloh campaign two-thirds of +its horrors had so overfed the monstrous Mississippi that it was running +four miles an hour, overlapping its levees and heaving up through the +wharves all along the city's front, until down about the Convent and +Barracks and Camp Callender there were streets as miry as Corinth. And +because each and all of these hindrances were welcome to Flora as giving +leisure to read and reread Irby's long letter about his cousin and +uncle, and to plan what to say and do in order to reap all the fell +moment's advantages, the shadows were long in the Callender's grove when +she finally ascended their veranda steps. + +She had come round by way of Victorine's small, tight-fenced garden of +crape-myrtles, oleanders and pomegranates--where also the water was in +the streets, backwater from the overflowed swamp-forests between city +and lake--and had sent her to Charlie's bedside. Pleasant it would be +for us to turn back with the damsel and see her, with heart as open as +her arms, kiss the painted grandam, and at once proceed to make herself +practically invaluable; or to observe her every now and then dazzle her +adored patient with a tear-gem of joy or pity, or of gratitude that she +lived in a time when heroic things could happen right at home and to the +lowliest, even to her; sweet woes like this, that let down, for virtuous +love, the barriers of humdrum convention. But Flora draws us on, she and +Anna. As she touched the bell-knob Constance sprang out to welcome her, +though not to ask her in--till she could have a word with her alone, the +young wife explained. + +"I saw you coming," she said, drawing her out to the balustrade. "You +didn't get Anna's note of last night--too bad! I've just found out--her +maid forgot it! What do you reckon we've been doing all day long? +Packing! We're going we don't know where! Vicksburg, Jackson, Meridian, +Mobile, wherever Anna can best hunt Hilary from--and Charlie too, of +course." + +"Yes," said Flora, one way to the speaker and quite another way to +herself. + +"Yes, she wants to do it, and Doctor Sevier says it's the only thing for +her. Ah, Flora, how well _you_ can understand that!" + +"Indeed, yes," sighed the listener, both ways again. + +"We know how absolutely you believe the city's our best base, else we'd +have asked you to go with us." The ever genuine Constance felt a +mortifying speciousness in her words and so piled them on. "_We_ know +the city is best--unless it should fall, and it won't--oh, it won't, +God's not going to let so many prayers go unanswered, Flora! But we've +tossed reason aside and are going by instinct, the way I always feel +safest in, dear. Ah, poor Anna! Oh, Flora, she's so sweet about it!" + +"Yes? Ab-out what?" + +"You, dear, and whoever is suffering the same--" + +Flora softly winced and Constance blamed herself so to have pained +another sister's love. "And she's so quiet," added the speaker, "but, +oh, so pale--and so hard either to comfort or encourage, or even to +discourage. There's nothing you can say that she isn't already +heart-sick of saying herself, _to_ herself, and I beg you, dear, in your +longing to comfort her, please don't bring up a single maybe-this or +maybe-that; any hope, I mean, founded on a mere doubt." + +"Ah, but sometime' the doubt--it is the hope!" + +"Yes, sometimes; but not to her, any more. Oh, Flora, if it's just as +true of you, you won't be--begrudge my saying it of my sister--that no +saint ever went to her matyrdom better prepared than she is, right now, +for the very worst that can be told. There's only one thing to which she +never can and never will resign herself, and that is doubt. She can't +breathe its air, Flora. As she says herself, she isn't so built; she +hasn't that gift." + +The musing Flora nodded compassionately, but inwardly she said that, +gift or no gift, Anna should serve her time in Doubting Castle, with +her, Flora, for turnkey. Suddenly she put away her abstraction and with +a summarizing gesture and chastened twinkle spoke out: "In short, you +want to know for w'at am I come." + +"Flora!" + +"Ah, but, my dear, you are ri-ight. That is 'all correct,' as they say, +and one thing I'm come for--'t is--" She handed out Mandeville's two +letters. + +The wife caught them to her bosom, sprang to her tiptoes, beamed on the +packet a second time and read aloud, "Urbanity of Corporal Valcour!" She +heaved an ecstatic breath to speak on, but failed. Anna and Miranda had +joined them and Flora had risen from her seat on the balustrade, aware +at once that the role she had counted on was not to be hers, the role of +comforter to an undone rival. + +Pale indeed was the rival, pale as rivalry could wish. Yet instantly +Flora saw, with a fiery inward sting, how beautiful pallor may be. And +more she saw: with the chagrin then growing so common on every armed +front--the chagrin of finding one's foe entrenched--she saw how utterly +despair had failed to crush a gentle soul. Under cover of affliction's +night and storm Anna, this whole Anna Callender, had been reinforced, +had fortified and was a new problem. + +She greeted Flora with a welcoming beam, but before speaking she caught +her sister's arm and glanced herself, at the superscription. + +"Flora!" she softly cried, "oh, Flora Valcour! has your brother--your +Charlie!--come home alive and well?--What; no?--No, he has not?" + +The visitor was shaking her head: "No. Ah, no! home, yes, and al-I've; +but--" + +"Oh, Flora, Flora! alive and at home! home and alive!" While the words +came their speaker slowly folded her arms about the bearer of tidings, +and with a wholly unwonted strength pressed her again to the rail and +drew bosom to bosom, still exclaiming, "Alive! alive! Oh, whatever his +plight, be thankful, Flora, for so much! Alive enough to _come_ home!" + + + + +XLVII + + +FROM THE BURIAL SQUAD + +The pinioned girl tried to throw back her head and bring their eyes +together, but Anna, through some unconscious advantage, held it to her +shoulder, her own face looking out over the garden. + +"Ah, let me be glad for you, Flora, let me be glad for you! Oh, think of +it! You _have_ him! have him at home, to look upon, to touch, to call by +name! and to be looked upon by _him_ and touched and called by name! Oh, +God in heaven! God in heaven!" + +Miranda's fond protests were too timorous to check her, and Flora's +ceased in the delight of hearing that last wail confess the thought of +Hilary. Constance strove with tender energy for place and voice: "Nan, +dearie, Nan! But listen to Flora, Nan. See, Nan, I haven't opened +Steve's letter yet. Wounded and what, Flora, something worse? Ah, if +worse you couldn't have left him." + +"I know," sighed Anna, relaxing her arms to a caress and turning her +gaze to Flora. "I see. Your brother, our dear Charlie, has come back to +life, but wounded and alone. Alone. Hilary is still missing. Isn't that +it? That's all, isn't it?" + +Constance, in a sudden thought of what her letters might tell, began to +open one, though with her eyes at every alternate moment on Flora as +eagerly as Miranda's or Anna's. Flora stood hiddenly revelling in that +complexity of her own spirit which enabled her to pour upon her +questioner a look, even a real sentiment, of ravishing pity, while +nevertheless in the depths of her being she thrilled and burned and +danced and sang with joy for the very misery she thus compassionated. By +a designed motion she showed her grandmother's reticule on her arm. But +only Anna saw it; Constance, with her gaze in the letter, was drawing +Miranda aside while both bent their heads over a clause in it which had +got blurred, and looked at each other aghast as they made it out to +read, "'--from the burial squad.'" The grandmother's silken bag saved +them from Anna's notice. + +"Oh, Flora!" said Anna again, "is there really something worse?" +Abruptly, she spread a hand under the bag and with her eyes still in the +eyes of its possessor slid it gently from the yielding wrist. Dropping +her fingers into it she brought forth a tobacco-pouch, of her own +embroidering, and from it, while the reticule fell unheeded to the +floor, drew two or three small things which she laid on it in her +doubled hands and regarded with a smile. Vacantly the smile increased as +she raised it to Flora, then waned while she looked once more on the +relics, and grew again as she began to handle them. Her slow voice took +the tone of a child alone at play. + +"Why, that's _my_ photograph," she said. "And this--this is his +watch--watch and chain." She dangled them. A light frown came and went +between her smiles. + +With soft eagerness Flora called Constance, and the sister and Miranda +stood dumb. + +"See, Connie," the words went on, "see, 'Randa, this is my own +photograph, and this is his own watch and chain. I must go and put them +away--with my old gems." Constance would have followed her as she moved +but she waved a limp forbiddal, prattling on: "This doesn't mean he's +dead, you know. Oh, not at all! It means just the contrary! Why, I saw +him alive last night, in a dream, and I can't believe anything else, and +I won't! No, no, not yet!" At that word she made a misstep and as she +started sharply to recover it the things she carried fell breaking and +jingling at her feet. + +"Oh-h!" she sighed in childish surprise and feebly dropped to her knees. +Flora, closest by, sprang crouching to the rescue, but recoiled as the +kneeling girl leaned hoveringly over the mementos and with distended +eyes and an arm thrust forward cried aloud, "No! No! No-o!" + +At once, however, her voice was tender again. "Mustn't anybody touch +them but me, ever any more," she said, regathering the stuff, regained +her feet and moved on. Close after her wavering steps anxiously pressed +the others, yet not close enough. At the open door, smiling back in +rejection of their aid, she tripped, and before they could save her, +tumbled headlong within. From up-stairs, from downstairs came servants +running, and by the front door entered a stranger, a private soldier in +swamp boots and bespattered with the mire of the river road from his +spurs to his ragged hat. + +"No, bring her out," he said to a slave woman who bore Anna in her +arms, "out to the air!" But the burden slipped free and with a cleared +mind stood facing him. + +"Ladies," he exclaimed, his look wandering, his uncovered hair matted, +"if a half-starved soldier can have a morsel of food just to take in his +hands and ride on with--" and before he could finish servants had sprung +to supply him. + +"Are you from down the river?" asked Anna, quietly putting away her +sister's pleading touch and Flora's offer of support. + +"I am!" spouted the renegade, for renegade he was, "I'm from the very +thick of the massacre! from day turned into night, night into day, and +heaven and earth into--into--" + +"Hell," placidly prompted Flora. + +"Yes! nothing short of it! Our defenses become death-traps and +slaughter-pens--oh, how foully, foully has Richmond betrayed her sister +city!" + +Flora felt a new tumult of joy. "That Yankee fleet--it has pazz' those +fort'?" she cried. + +"My dear young lady! By this time there ain't no forts for it to pass! +When I left Fort St. Philip there wa'n't a spot over in Fort Jackson as +wide as my blanket where a bumbshell hadn't buried itself and blown up, +and every minute we were lookin' for the magazine to go! Those _awful_ +shells! they'd torn both levees, the forts were flooded, men who'd lost +their grit were weeping like children--" + +"Oh!" interrupted Constance, "why not leave the forts? We don't need +them now; those old wooden ships can never withstand our terrible +ironclads!" + +[Illustration: "No! not under this roof--nor in sight of _those +things_"] + +"Well, they're mighty soon going to try it! Last night, right in the +blaze of all our batteries, they cut the huge chain we had stretched +across the river--" + +"Ah, but when they see--oh, they'll never dare face even the +_Manassas_--the 'little turtle,' ha-ha!--much less the great +_Louisiana!_" + +"Alas! madam, the _Louisiana_ ain't ready for 'em. There she lies tied +to the levee, with engines that can't turn a wheel, a mere floating +battery, while our gunboats--" Eagerly the speaker broke off to receive +upon one hand and arm the bounty of the larder and with a pomp of +gratitude to extend his other hand to Anna; but she sadly shook her head +and showed on her palms Hilary's shattered tokens: + +"These poor things belong to one, sir, who, like you, is among the +missing. But, oh, thank God! _he_ is missing at the front, _in_ the +front." + +The abashed craven turned his hand to Flora, but with a gentle +promptness Anna stepped between: "No, Flora dear, see; he hasn't a red +scratch on him. Oh, sir, go--eat! If hunger stifles courage, eat! But +eat as you ride, and ride like mad back to duty and honor! No! not under +this roof--nor in sight of _these things_--can any man be a ladies' man, +who is missing _from_ the front, at the rear." + +He wheeled and vanished. Anna turned: "Connie, what do your letters +say?" + +The sister's eyes told enough. The inquirer gazed a moment, then +murmured to herself, "I--don't--believe it--yet," grew very white, +swayed, and sank with a long sigh into out-thrown arms. + + + + +XLVIII + + +FARRAGUT + +The cathedral clock struck ten of the night. Yonder its dial shone, just +across that quarter of Jackson Square nearest the Valcours' windows, +getting no response this time except the watchman's three taps of his +iron-shod club on corner curbstones. + +An hour earlier its toll had been answered from near and far, up and +down the long, low-roofed, curving and recurving city--"seven, eight, +nine"--"eight, nine"--the law's warning to all slaves to be indoors or +go to jail. Not Flora nor Anna nor Victorine nor Doctor Sevier nor Dick +Smith's lone mother nor any one else among all those thousands of +masters, mistresses and man-and maid-servants, or these thousands of +home-guards at home under their mosquito-bars, with uniforms on bedside +chairs and with muskets and cartridge-belts close by--not one of all +these was aware, I say, that however else this awful war might pay its +cost, it was the knell of slavery they heard, and which they, +themselves, in effect, were sounding. + +Lacking wilder excitement Madame sat by a lamp knitting a nubia. +Victorine had flown home at sundown. Charlie lay sleeping as a soldier +lad can. His sister had not yet returned from Callender House, but had +been fully accounted for some time before by messenger. Now the knitter +heard horses and wheels. Why should they come at a walk? It was like +stealth. They halted under the balcony. She slipped out and peered down. +Yes, there was Flora. Constance was with her. Also two trim fellows +whom she rightly guessed to be Camp Callender lads, and a piece of +luggage--was it not?--which, as they lifted it down, revealed a size and +weight hard even for those siege-gunners to handle with care. Unseen, +silently, they came in and up with it, led by Flora. (Camp Callender was +now only a small hither end of the "Chalmette Batteries," which on both +sides of the river mounted a whole score of big black guns. No wonder +the Callenders were leaving.) + +Presently here were the merry burden-bearers behind their radiant guide, +whispered ah's and oh's and wary laughter abounding. + +"'Such a getting up-stairs I never did see!'" + +A thousand thanks to the boys as they set down their load; their thanks +back for seats declined; no time even to stand; a moment, only, for new +vows of secrecy. "Oui!--Ah, non!--Assurement!" (They were Creoles.) +"Yes, mum 't is the word! And such a so-quiet getting down-stair'!"--to +Mrs. Mandeville again--and trundling away! + +When the church clock gently mentioned the half-hour the newly gleeful +grandam and hiddenly tortured girl had been long enough together and +alone for the elder to have nothing more to ask as to this chest of +plate which the Callenders had fondly accepted Flora's offer to keep for +them while they should be away. Not for weeks and weeks had the old lady +felt such ease of mind on the money--and bread--question. Now the two +set about to get the booty well hid before Charlie should awake. This +required the box to be emptied, set in place and reladen, during which +process Flora spoke only when stung. + +"Ah!" thinly piped she of the mosquito voice, "what a fine day tha's +been, to-day!" but won no reply. Soon she cheerily whined again: + +"All day nothing but good luck, and at the end--this!" (the treasure +chest). + +But Flora kept silence. + +"So, now," said the aged one, "they will not make such a differenze, +those old jewel'." + +"I will get them yet," murmured the girl. + +"You think? Me, I think no, you will never." + +No response. + +The tease pricked once more: "Ah! all that day I am thinking of that +Irbee. I am glad for Irbee. He is 'the man that waits,' that Irbee!" + +The silent one winced; fiercely a piece of the shining ware was lifted +high, but it sank again. The painted elder cringed. There may have been +genuine peril, but the one hot sport in her fag end of a life was to +play with this beautiful fire. She held the girl's eye with a look of +frightened admiration, murmuring, "You are a _merveilleuse!_" + +"Possible?" + +"Yes, to feel that way and same time to be ab'e to smile like that!" + +"Ah? how is that I'm feeling?" + +"You are filling that all this, and all those jewel' of Anna, and the +life of me, and of that boy in yond', you would give them all, juz' to +be ab'e to bil-ieve that foolishness of Anna--that he's yet al-live, +that Kin--" + +The piece of plate half rose again, but--in part because the fair +threatener could not help enjoying the subtlety of the case--the smile +persisted as she rejoined, "Ah! when juz' for the fun, all I can get the +chance, I'm making her to bil-ieve that way!" + +"Yes," laughed the old woman, "but why? Only biccause that way you, you +cannot bil-ieve." + +The lithe maiden arose to resume their task, the heavy silver still in +her hand. The next moment the kneeling grandam crouched and the +glittering metal swept around just high enough to miss her head. A +tinkle of mirth came from its wielder as she moved on with it, sighing, +"Ah! ho! what a pity--that so seldom the aged commit suicide." + +"Yes," came the soft retort, "but for yo' young grandmama tha'z not yet +the time, she is still a so indispensib'." + +"Very true, ma chere," sang Flora, "and in heaven you would be so +uzeless." + +Out in the hazy, dark, heavily becalmed night the clock tolled eleven. +Eleven--one--three--and all the hours, halves and quarters between and +beyond, it tolled; and Flora, near, and Anna, far, sometimes each by her +own open window, heard and counted. A thin old moon was dimly rising +down the river when each began to think she caught another and very +different sound that seemed to arrive faint from a long journey out of +the southeast, if really from anywhere, and to pulse in dim persistency +as soft as breathing, but as constant. Likely enough it was only the +rumble of a remote storm and might have seemed to come out of the north +or west had their windows looked that way, for still the tempestuous +rains were frequent and everywhere, and it was easy and common for man +to mistake God's thunderings for his own. + +Yet, whether those two wakeful maidens truly heard or merely fancied, in +fact just then some seventy miles straight away under that gaunt old +moon, there was rising to heaven the most terrific uproar this delta +land had ever heard since man first moved upon its shores and waters. +Six to the minute bellowed and soared Porter's awful bombs and arched +and howled and fell and scattered death and conflagration. While they +roared, three hundred and forty great guns beside, on river and land, +flashed and crashed, the breezeless night by turns went groping-black +and clear-as-day red with smoke and flame of vomiting funnels, of +burning boats and fire-rafts, of belching cannon, of screaming grape and +canister and of exploding magazines. And through the middle of it all, +in single file--their topmasts, yards, and cordage showing above the +murk as pale and dumb as skeletons at every flare of the havoc, a white +light twinkling at each masthead, a red light at the peak and the stars +and stripes there with it--Farragut and his wooden ships came by the +forts. + +"Boys, our cake's all dough!" said a commander in one of the forts. + +When day returned and Anna and Flora slept, the murmur they had heard +may after all have been only God's thunder and really not from the +southeast; but just down there under the landscape's flat rim both +forts, though with colors still gallantly flying, were smoking ruins, +all Dixie's brave gunboats and rams lay along the river's two shores, +sunken or burned, and the whole victorious Northern fleet, save one boat +rammed and gone to the bottom, was on its cautious, unpiloted way, +snail-slow but fate-sure, up the tawny four-mile current and round the +gentle green bends of the Mississippi with New Orleans for its goal and +prey. + + + + +XLIX + + +A CITY IN TERROR + +Before the smart-stepping lamplighters were half done turning off the +street lights, before the noisy market-houses all over the town, from +Camp Callender to Carrollton, with their basket-bearing thousands of +jesting and dickering customers, had quenched their gaslights and +candles to dicker and jest by day, or the devotees of early mass had +emerged from the churches, Rumor was on the run. With a sort of muffled +speed and whisper she came and went, crossed her course and reaffirmed +herself, returned to her starting-point and stole forth again, bearing +ever the same horrid burden, brief, persistent, unexaggerated: The Foe! +The Foe! In five great ships and twice as many lesser ones--counted at +Quarantine Station just before the wires were cut--the Foe was hardly +twenty leagues away, while barely that many guns of ours crouched +between his eight times twenty and our hundred thousand women and +children. + +Yet, for a brief spell, so deep are the ruts of habit, the city kept to +its daily routine, limp and unmeaning though much of it had come to be. +The milkman, of course, held to his furious round in his comical +two-wheeled cart, whirling up to alley gates, shouting and ringing his +big hand-bell. In all his tracks followed the hooded bread-cart, with +its light-weight loaves for worthless money and with only the staggering +news for lagnappe. Families ate breakfast, one hour and another, +wherever there was food. Day cabmen and draymen trotted off to their +curbstones; women turned to the dish-pan, the dust-pan, the beds, the +broom; porters, clerks and merchants--the war-mill's wasteful refuse and +residuum, some as good as the gray army's best, some poor enough--went +to their idle counters, desks and sidewalks; the children to the public +schools, the beggar to the church doorstep, physicians to their sick, +the barkeeper to his mirrors and mint, and the pot-fisher to his catfish +lines in the swollen, sweeping, empty harbor. + +But besides the momentum of habit there was the official pledge to the +people--Mayor Monroe's and Commanding-General Lovell's--that if they +would but keep up this tread-mill gait, the moment the city was really +in danger the wires of the new fire-alarm should strike the tidings from +all her steeples. So the school teachers read Scripture and prayers and +the children sang the "Bonnie Blue Flag," while outside the omnibuses +trundled, the one-mule street-cars tinkled and jogged and the bells hung +mute. + +Nevertheless a change was coming. Invisibly it worked in the general +mind as that mind gradually took in the meanings of the case; but +visibly it showed as, from some outpost down the river, General Lovell, +(a sight to behold for the mud on him), came spurring at full speed by +Callender House, up through the Creole Quarter and across wide Canal +Street to the St. Charles. Now even more visibly it betrayed itself, +where all through the heart of the town began aides, couriers and +frowning adjutants to gallop from one significant point to another. +Before long not a cab anywhere waited at its stand. Every one held an +officer or two, if only an un-uniformed bank-officer or captain of +police, and rattled up or down this street and that, taking corners at +breakneck risks. That later the drays began to move was not so +noticeable, for a dray was but a dray and they went off empty except for +their drivers and sometimes a soldier with a musket and did not return. +Moreover, as they went there began to be seen from the middle of almost +any cross-street, in the sky out over the river front, here one, there +another, yonder a third and fourth, upheaval of dense, unusual smoke, +first on the hither side of the harbor, then on the far side, yet no +fire-engines, hand or steam, rushed that way, nor any alarm sounded. + +From the Valcours' balcony Madame, gasping for good air after she and +Flora had dressed Charlie's wound, was startled to see one of those +black columns soar aloft. But it was across the river, and she had +barely turned within to mention it, when up the stair and in upon the +three rushed Victorine, all tears, saying it was from the great dry-dock +at Slaughter-House Point, which our own authorities had set afire. + +The enfeebled Charlie half started from his rocking-chair laughing +angrily. "Incredible!" he cried, but sat mute as the girl's swift tongue +told the half-dozen other dreadful things she had just beheld on either +side the water. The sister and grandmother sprang into the balcony and +stood astounded. Out of the narrow streets beneath them--Chartres, +Conde, St. Peter, St. Ann, Cathedral Alley--scores and scores of rapidly +walking men and women and scampering boys and girls streamed round and +through the old Square by every practicable way and out upon the levee. + +"Incredib'!" retorted meanwhile the pouting daughter of Maxime, pressing +into the balcony after Flora. "Hah! and look yondah another incredib'!" +She pointed riverward across the Square. + +"Charlie, you must not!" cried Flora, returning half into the room. + +"Bah!" retorted the staggering boy, pushed out among them and with +profane mutterings stood agaze. + +Out across the Square and the ever-multiplying flow of people through +and about it, and over the roof of the French Market close beyond, the +rigging of a moored ship stood pencilled on the sky. It had long been a +daily exasperation to his grandmother's vision, being (unknown to +Charlie or Victorine), the solitary winnings of Flora's privateering +venture, early sold, you will remember, but, by default of a buyer, +still in some share unnegotiably hers and--in her own and the +grandmother's hungry faith--sure to command triple its present value the +moment the fall of the city should open the port. Suddenly the old lady +wheeled upon Flora with a frantic look, but was checked by the +granddaughter's gleaming eyes and one inaudible, visible word: "Hush!" + +The gazing boy saw only the ship. "Oh, great Lord!" he loathingly +drawled, "is it Damned Fools' Day again?" Her web of cordage began to +grow dim in a rising smoke, and presently a gold beading of fire ran up +and along every rope and spar and clung quivering. Soon the masts +commenced, it seemed, to steal nearer to each other, and the vessel +swung out from her berth and started down the wide, swift river, a mass +of flames. + +"Oh, Mother of God," cried Victorine with a new gush of tears! "'ave +mercy upon uz women!" and in the midst of her appeal the promised alarum +began to toll--here, yonder, and far away--here, yonder, and far +away--and did not stop until right in the middle of the morning it had +struck twelve. + +"Good-by! poor betrayed New Orleans!" exclaimed Charlie, turning back +into the room. "Good-by, sweetheart, I'm off! Good-by, grannie--Flo'!" + +The three followed in with cries of amazement, distress, indignation, +command, reproach, entreaty, all alike vain. As if the long-roll of his +own brigade were roaring to him, he strode about the apartment preparing +to fly. + +His sister tried to lay preventing hands on him, saying, "Your life! +your life! you are throwing it away!" + +"Well, what am I in Kincaid's Battery for?" he retorted, with a sweep of +his arm that sent her staggering. He caught the younger girl by the +shoulders: "Jularkie, if you want to go, too, with or without grannie +and Flo', by Jove, come along! I'll take care of you!" + +The girl's eyes melted with yearning, but the response was Flora's: +"Simpleton! When you haven' the sense enough to take care of yourself!" + +"Ah, shame!" ventured the sweetheart. "He's the lover of his blidding +country, going ag-ain to fighd for her--and uz--whiles he +can!--to-day!--al-lone!--now!" Her fingers clutched his wrists, that +still held her shoulders, and all her veins surged in the rapture of his +grasp. + +But Charlie stared at his sister. It could not enter his mind that her +desires were with the foe, yet his voice went deep in scorn: "And have +you too turned coward?" + +The taunt stung. Its victim flashed, but in the next breath her smile +was clemency itself as she drew Victorine from him and shot her neat +reply, well knowing he would never guess the motives behind it--the bow +whence flew the shaft: the revenge she owed the cause that had burned +their home; her malice against Anna; the agony of losing him they now +called dead and buried; the new, acute loathing that issued from that +agony upon the dismal Irby; her baffled hunger for the jewels; her plans +for the chest of plate; hopes vanishing in smoke with yonder burning +ship; thought of Greenleaf's probable return with the blue army, of the +riddles that return might make, and of the ruin, the burning and sinking +riot and ruin, these things were making in her own soul as if it, too, +were a city lost. + +"Charlie," she said, "you 'ave yo' fight. Me, I 'ave mine. Here is +grandma. Ask her--if my fight--of every day--for you and her--and not +yet finish'--would not eat the last red speck of courage out of yo' +blood." + +She turned to Victorine: "Oh, he's brave! He 'as all that courage to go, +in that condition! Well, we three women, we 'ave the courage to let him +go and ourselve' to stay. But--Charlie! take with you the Callender'! +Yes! You, you can protec' them, same time they can take care of you. +Stop!--Grandma!--yo' bonnet and gaiter'! All three, Victorine, we will +help them, all four, get away!" + +On the road to Callender House, while Charlie and Victorine palavered +together--"I cannot quite make out," minced the French-speaking +grandmother to Flora, "the real reason why you are doing this." + +"'T is with me the same!" eagerly responded the beauty, in the English +she preferred. "I thing maybe 't is juz inspiration. What you thing?" + +"I? I am afraid it is only your great love for Anna--making you a trifle +blind." + +The eyes of each rested in the other's after the manner we know and the +thought passed between them, that if further news was yet to come of the +lost artillerist, any soul-reviving news, it would almost certainly come +first to New Orleans and from the men in blue. + +"No," chanted the granddaughter, "I can't tell what is making me do that +unlezz my guardian angel!" + + + + +L + + +ANNA AMAZES HERSELF + +Once more the Carrollton Gardens. + +Again the afternoon hour, the white shell-paved court, its two playing +fountains, the roses, lilies, jasmines and violets, their perfume +spicing all the air, and the oriole and mocking-bird enrapturing it with +their songs, although it was that same dire twenty-fourth of April of +which we have been telling. Townward across the wide plain the distant +smoke of suicidal conflagration studded the whole great double crescent +of the harbor. Again the slim railway, its frequent small trains from +the city clanging round the flowery miles of its half-circle, again the +highway on either side the track, and again on the highway, just +reaching the gardens, whose dashing coach and span, but the Callenders'? + +Dashing was the look of it, not its speed. Sedately it came. Behind it +followed a team of four giant mules, a joy to any quartermaster's +vision, drawing a plantation wagon filled with luggage. On the old +coachman's box sat beside him a slave maid, and in the carriage the +three Callenders and Charlie. Anna and Miranda were on the rear seat and +for the wounded boy's better ease his six-shooter lay in Anna's lap. A +brave animation in the ladies was only the more prettily set off by a +pinkness of earlier dejection about their eyes. Abreast the gate they +halted to ask an armed sentry whether the open way up the river coast +was through the gardens or-- + +He said there was no longer any open way without a pass from General +Lovell, and when they affably commended the precaution and showed a pass +he handed it to an officer, a heated, bustling, road-soiled young +Creole, who had ridden up at the head of a mounted detail. This youth, +as he read it, shrugged. "Under those present condition'," he said, with +a wide gesture toward the remote miles of blazing harbor, "he could not +honor a pazz two weeks ole. They would 'ave to rit-urn and get it +renew'." + +"Oh! how? How hope to do so in all yonder chaos? And how! oh, how! +could an army--in full retreat--leaving women and wounded soldiers to +the mercy of a ravening foe--compel them to remain in the city it was +itself evacuating?" A sweet and melodious dignity was in all the +questions, but eyes shone, brows arched, lips hung apart and +bonnet-feathers and hat-feathers, capes and flounces, seemed to ruffle +wider, with consternation and hurt esteem. + +The officer could not explain a single how. He could do no more than +stubbornly regret that the questioners must even return by train, the +dread exigencies of the hour compelling him to impress these horses for +one of his guns and those mules for his battery-wagon. + +Anna's three companions would have sprung to their feet but in some way +her extended hand stayed them. A year earlier Charlie would have made +sad mistakes here, but now he knew the private soldier's helplessness +before the gold bars of commission, and his rage was white and dumb, as, +with bursting eyes, he watched the officer pencil a blank. + +"Don't write that, sir," said a clear voice, and the writer, glancing +up, saw Anna standing among the seated three. Her face was drawn with +distress and as pale as Charlie's, but Charlie's revolver was in her +hand, close to her shoulder, pointed straight upward at full cock, and +the hand was steady. "Those mules first," she spoke on, "and then we, +sir, are going to turn round and go home. Whatever our country needs of +us we will give, not sell; but we will not, in her name, be robbed on +the highway, sir, and I will put a ball through the head of the first +horse or mule you lay a hand on. Isaac, turn your team." + +Unhindered, the teamster, and then the coachman, turned and drove. Back +toward, and by and by, into the vast woe-stricken town they returned in +the scented airs and athwart the long shadows of that same declining sun +which fourteen years before--or was it actually but fourteen +months?--had first gilded the splendid maneuverings of Kincaid's +Battery. The tragi-comic rencounter just ended had left the three ladies +limp, gay, and tremulous, with Anna aghast at herself and really +wondering between spells of shame and fits of laughter what had happened +to her reason. + +With his pistol buckled on again, Charlie had only a wordy wrath for the +vanished officer, and grim worship of Anna, while Constance and Miranda, +behind a veil of mirthful recapitulations, tenderly rejoiced in the +relief of mind and heart which the moment had brought to her who had +made it amazing. And now the conditions around them in streets, homes, +and marts awoke sympathies in all the four, which further eased their +own distresses. + +The universal delirium of fright and horror had passed. Through all the +city's fevered length and breadth, in the belief that the victorious +ships, repairing the lacerations of battle as they came, were coming so +slowly that they could not arrive for a day or two, and that they were +bringing no land forces with them, thousands had become rationally, +desperately busy for flight. Everywhere hacks, private carriages, cabs, +wagons, light and heavy, and carts, frail or strong, carts for bread or +meat, for bricks or milk, were bearing fugitives--old men, young +mothers, grandmothers, maidens and children--with their trunks, bales, +bundles, slaves and provisions--toward the Jackson Railroad to board +the first non-military train they could squeeze into, and toward the New +and Old Basins to sleep on schooner decks under the open stars in the +all-night din of building deckhouses. Many of them were familiar +acquaintances and chirruped good-by to the Callenders. Passes? No +trouble whatever! Charlie need only do this and that and so and so, and +there you were! + +But Charlie was by this time so nervously spent and in such pain that +the first thing must be to get him into bed again--at Callender House, +since nothing could induce him to let sister, sweetheart or grandmother +know he had not got away. To hurt his pride the more, in every direction +military squads with bayonets fixed were smartly fussing from one small +domicile to another, hustling out the laggards and marching them to +encampments on the public squares. Other squads--of the Foreign Legion, +appointed to remain behind in "armed neutrality"--patroled the sidewalks +strenuously, preserving order with a high hand. Down this street drums +roared, fifes squealed and here passed yet another stately regiment on +toward and now into and down, Calliope Street, silent as the rabble it +marched through, to take train for Camp Moore in the Mississippi hills. + +"Good Lord!" gasped Charlie, "if that isn't the Confederate Guards! Oh, +what good under heaven can those old chaps do at the front?"--the very +thing the old chaps were asking themselves. + + + + +LI + + +THE CALLENDER HORSES ENLIST + +Mere mind should ever be a most reverent servant to the soul. But in +fact, and particularly in hours stately with momentous things, what a +sacrilegious trick it has of nagging its holy mistress with triflet +light as air--small as gnats yet as pertinacious. + +To this effect, though written with a daintier pen, were certain lines +but a few hours old, that twenty-fourth of April, in a diary which +through many months had received many entries since the one that has +already told us of its writer paired at Doctor Sevier's dinner-party +with a guest now missing, and of her hearing, in the starlight with that +guest, the newsboys' cry that his and her own city's own Beauregard had +opened fire on Fort Sumter and begun this war--which now behold! + +Of this droll impishness of the mind, even in this carriage to-day, with +these animated companions, and in all this tribulation, ruin, and +flight, here was a harrying instance: that every minute or two, whatever +the soul's outer preoccupation or inner anguish, there would, would, +would return, return and return the doggerel words and swaggering old +tune of that song abhorred by the gruff General, but which had first +awakened the love of so many hundreds of brave men for its brave, gay +singer now counted forever lost: + + "Ole mahs' love' wine, ole mis' love' silk--" + +Generally she could stop it there, but at times it contrived to steal +unobserved through the second line and then no power could keep it from +marching on to the citadel, the end of the refrain. Base, antic awakener +of her heart's dumb cry of infinite loss! For every time the tormenting +inanity won its way, that other note, that unvoiced agony, hurled itself +against the bars of its throbbing prison. + + "Ole mahs' love' wine, ole mis' love'--" + +"Oh, Hilary, my Hilary!" + +From the Creole Quarter both carriage and wagon turned to the water +front. Charlie's warning that even more trying scenes would be found +there was in vain. Anna insisted, the fevered youth's own evident wish +was to see the worst, and Constance and Miranda, dutifully mirthful, +reminded him that through Anna they also had now tasted blood. As the +equipage came out upon the Levee and paused to choose a way, the sisters +sprang up and gazed abroad, sustaining each other by their twined arms. + +To right, to left, near and far--only not just here where the Coast +steamboats landed--the panorama was appalling. All day Anna had hungered +for some incident or spectacle whose majesty or terror would suffice to +distract her from her own desolation; but here it was made plain to her +that a distress before which hand and speech are helpless only drives +the soul in upon its own supreme devotion and woe. One wide look over +those far flat expanses of smoke and flame answered the wonder of many +hours, as to where all the drays and floats of the town had gone and +what they could be doing. Along the entire sinuous riverside the whole +great blockaded seaport's choked-in stores of tobacco and cotton, +thousands of hogsheads, ten thousands of bales--lest they enrich the +enemy--were being hauled to the wharves and landings and were just now +beginning to receive the torch, the wharves also burning, and boats and +ships on either side of the river being fired and turned adrift. + +Yet all the more because of the scene, a scene that quelled even the +haunting strain of song, that other note, that wail which, the long day +through, had writhed unreleased in her bosom, rose, silent still, yet +only the stronger and more importunate-- + +"Oh, Hilary, my soldier, my flag's, my country's defender, come back to +me--here!--now!--my yet living hero, my Hilary Kincaid!" + +Reluctantly, she let Constance draw her down, and presently, in a voice +rich with loyal pride, as the carriage moved on, bade Charlie and +Miranda observe that only things made contraband by the Richmond +Congress were burning, while all the Coast Landing's wealth of Louisiana +foodstuffs, in barrels and hogsheads, bags and tierces, lay unharmed. +Yet not long could their course hold that way, and--it was Anna who +first proposed retreat. The very havoc was fascinating and the +courage of Constance and Miranda, though stripped of its mirth, +remained undaunted; but the eye-torture of the cotton smoke was enough +alone to drive them back to the inner streets. + +[Illustration: "Ole mahs' love' wine, ole--"] + +Here the direction of their caravan, away from all avenues of escape, +no less than their fair faces, drew the notice of every one, while to +the four themselves every busy vehicle--where none was idle,--every +sound remote or near, every dog in search of his master, and every +man--how few the men had become!--every man, woman or child, alone or +companioned, overladen or empty-handed, hurrying out of gates or into +doors, standing to stare or pressing intently or distractedly on, +calling, jesting, scolding or weeping--and how many wept!--bore a new, +strange interest of fellowship. So Callender House came again to view, +oh, how freshly, dearly, appealingly beautiful! As the Callender train +drew into its gate and grove, the carriage was surrounded, before it +could reach the veranda steps, by a full dozen of household slaves, male +and female, grown, half-grown, clad and half-clad, some grinning, some +tittering, all overjoyed, yet some in tears. There had been no such +gathering at the departure. To spare the feelings of the mistresses the +dominating "mammy" of the kitchen had forbidden it. But now that they +were back, Glory! Hallelujah! + +"And had it really," the three home-returning fair ones asked, "seemed +so desolate and deadly perilous just for want of them? What!--had seemed +so even to stalwart Tom?--and Scipio?--and Habakkuk? And were Hettie and +Dilsie actually so in terror of the Yankees?" + +"Oh, if we'd known that we'd never have started!" exclaimed Constance, +with tears, which she stoutly quenched, while from all around came sighs +and moans of love and gratitude. + +And were the three verily back to stay? + +Ah! that was the question. While Charlie, well attended, went on up and +in they paused on the wide stair and in mingled distress and drollery +asked each other, "_Are_ we back to stay, or not?" + +A new stir among the domestics turned their eyes down into the garden. +Beyond the lingering vehicles a lieutenant from Camp Callender rode up +the drive. Two or three private soldiers hung back at the gate. + +"It's horses and mules again, Nan," gravely remarked Constance, and the +three, facing toward him, with Miranda foremost, held soft debate. +Whether the decision they reached was to submit or resist, the wide ears +of the servants could not be sure, but by the time the soldier was +dismounting the ladies had summoned the nerve to jest. + +"Be a man, Miranda!" murmured Constance. + +"But not the kind I was!" prompted Anna. + +"No," said her sister, "for this one coming is already scared to death." + +"So's Miranda," breathed Anna as he came up the steps uncovering and +plainly uncomfortable. A pang lanced through her as she caught herself +senselessly recalling the flag presentation. And then-- + +[Illustration: Music] + +"--oh! _oh!_" + +"Mrs. Callender?" asked the stranger. + +"Yes, sir," said that lady. + +"My business"--he glanced back in nervous protest as the drivers +beneath gathered their reins--"will you kindly detain--?" + +"If you wish, sir," she replied, visibly trembling. "Isaac--" + +From the rear of the group came the voice of Anna: "Miranda, dear, I +wouldn't stop them." The men regathered the lines. She moved half a step +down and stayed herself on her sister's shoulder. Miranda wrinkled back +at her in an ecstasy of relief: + +"Oh, Anna, do speak for all of us!" + +The teams started away. A distress came into the soldier's face, but +Anna met it with a sober smile: "Don't be troubled, sir, you shall have +them. Drive round into the basement, Ben, and unload." The drivers went. +"You shall have them, sir, on your simple word of honor as--" + +"Of course you will be reimbursed. I pledge--" + +"No, sir," tearfully put in Constance, "we've given our men, we can't +sell our beasts." + +"They are not ours to sell," said Anna. + +"Why, Nan!" + +"They belong to Kincaid's Battery," said Anna, and Constance, Miranda, +and the servants smiled a proud approval. Even the officer flushed with +a fine ardor: + +"You have with you a member of that command?" + +"We have." + +"Then, on my honor as a Southern soldier, if he will stay by them and us +as far as Camp Moore, to Kincaid's Battery they shall go. But, ladies--" + +"Yes," knowingly spoke Miranda. "Hettie, Scipio, Dilsie, you-all can go +'long back to your work now." She wrinkled confidentially to the +officer. + +"Yes," he replied, "we shall certainly engage the enemy's ships +to-morrow, and you ladies must--" + +"Must not desert our home, sir," said Anna. + +"Nor our faithful servants," added the other two. + +"Ah, ladies, but if we should have to make this house a field hospital, +with all the dreadful--" + +"Oh, that settles it," cried the three, "we stay!" + + + + +LII + + +HERE THEY COME! + +What a night! Yet the great city slept. Like its soldiers at their +bivouac fires it lay and slumbered beside its burning harbor. Sleep was +duty. + +Callender House kept no vigil. Lighted by the far devastation, its roof +shone gray, its cornice white, its tree-tops green above the darkness of +grove and garden. From its upper windows you might have seen the +townward bends of the river gleam red, yellow, and bronze, or the +luminous smoke of destruction (slantingly over its flood and farther +shore) roll, thin out, and vanish in a moonless sky. But from those +windows no one looked forth. After the long, strenuous, open-air day, +sleep, even to Anna, had come swiftly. + +Waking late and springing to her elbow she presently knew that every one +else was up and about. Her maid came and she hastened to dress. Were the +hostile ships in sight? Not yet. Was the city still undestroyed? Yes, +though the cotton brought out to the harbor-side was now fifteen +thousand bales and with its blazing made a show as if all the town were +afire. She was furiously hungry; was not breakfast ready? Yes, Constance +and Miranda--"done had breakfuss and gone oveh to de cottage fo' to fix +it up fo' de surgeon ... No, 'm, not dis house; he done change' his +mine." Carriage horses--mules? "Yass, 'm, done gone. Mahs' Chahlie gone +wid 'm. He gone to be boss o' de big gun what show' f'om dese windehs." +Oh, but that was an awful risk, wounded as he was! "Yass, 'm, but he +make his promise to Miss Flo'a he won't tech de gun hisseff." What! Miss +Flora--? "Oh, she be'n, but she gone ag'in. Law'! she a brave un! It +e'en a'most make me brave, dess to see de high sperits she in!" The +narrator departed. + +How incredible was the hour. Looking out on the soft gray sky and river +and down into the camp, that still kept such quiet show of routine, or +passing down the broad hall stair, through the library and into the +flowery breakfast room, how keenly real everything that met the eye, how +unreal whatever was beyond sight. How vividly actual this lovely home in +the sweet ease and kind grace of its lines and adornments. How hard to +move with reference to things unseen, when heart and mind and all power +of realizing unseen things were far away in the ravaged fields, mangled +roads and haunted woods and ravines between Corinth and Shiloh. + +But out in the garden, so fair and odorous as one glided through it to +the Mandeville cottage, things boldly in view made sight itself hard to +believe. Was that bespattered gray horseman no phantom, who came +galloping up the river road and called to a servant at the gate that the +enemy's fleet was in sight from English Turn? Was that truly New +Orleans, back yonder, wrapped in smoke, like fallen Carthage or +Jerusalem? Or here! this black-and-crimson thing drifting round the bend +in mid-current and without a sign of life aboard or about it, was this +not a toy or sham, but one more veritable ship in veritable flames? And +beyond and following it, helpless as a drift-log, was that lifeless +white-and-crimson thing a burning passenger steamer--and that behind it +another? Here in the cottage, plainly these were Constance and Miranda, +and, on second view, verily here were a surgeon and his attendants. But +were these startling preparations neither child's play nor dream? + +Child's play persistently seemed, at any rate, the small bit of yellow +stuff produced as a hospital flag. Oh, surely! would not a much larger +be far safer? It would. Well, at the house there was some yellow +curtaining packed in one of the boxes, Isaac could tell which-- + +"I think I know right where it is!" said Anna, and hurried away to find +and send it. The others, widow and wife, would stay where they were and +Anna would take command at the big house, where the domestics would soon +need to be emboldened, cheered, calmed, controlled. Time flies when +opening boxes that have been stoutly nailed and hooped over the nails. +When the goods proved not to be in the one where Anna "knew" they were +she remembered better, of course, and in the second they were found. +Just as the stuff had been drawn forth and was being hurried away by +the hand of Dilsie, a sergeant and private from the camp, one with a +field glass, the other with a signal flag, came asking leave to use them +from the belvedere on the roof. Anna led them up to it. + +How suddenly authentic became everything, up here. Flat as a map lay +river, city, and plain. Almost under them and amusingly clear in detail, +they looked down into Camp Callender and the Chalmette fortifications. +When they wigwagged, "Nothing in sight," to what seemed a very real toy +soldier with a very real toy flag, on a green toy mound in the midst of +the work (the magazine), he wigwagged in reply, and across the river a +mere speck of real humanity did the same from a barely definable +parapet. + +With her maid beside her Anna lingered a bit. She loved to be as near +any of the dear South's defenders as modesty would allow, but these two +had once been in Kincaid's Battery, her Hilary's own boys. As lookouts +they were not yet skilled. In this familiar scene she knew things by the +eye alone, which the sergeant, unused even to his glass, could hardly be +sure of through it. + +Her maid looked up and around. "Gwine to rain ag'in," she murmured, and +the mistress assented with her gaze in the southeast. In this humid air +and level country a waterside row of live-oaks hardly four miles off +seemed at the world's edge and hid all the river beyond it. + +"There's where the tips of masts always show first," she ventured to the +sergeant. "We can't expect any but the one kind now, can we?" + +"'Fraid not, moving up-stream." + +"Then yonder they come. See? two or three tiny, +needle-like--h-m-m!--just over that farth'--?" + +He lowered the glass and saw better without it. + +The maid burst out: "Oh, Lawd, _I_ does! Oh, good Gawd A'mighty!" She +sprang to descend, but with a show of wonder Anna spoke and she halted. + +"If you want to leave me," continued the mistress, "you need only ask." + +"Law, Miss Nannie! Me leave you? I--" + +"If you do--now--to-day--for one minute, I'll never take you back. I'll +have Hettie or Dilsie." + +"Missie,"--tears shone--"d' ain't nothin' in Gawd's worl' kin eveh make +me a runaway niggeh f'om you! But ef you tell me now fo' to go fetch +ev'y dahky we owns up to you--" + +"Yes! on the upper front veranda! Go, do it!" + +"Yass, 'm! 'caze ef us kin keep 'em anywahs it'll be in de bes' place +fo' to see de mos' sights!" She vanished and Anna turned to the +soldiers. Their flagging had paused while they watched the far-away +top-gallants grow in height and numbers. Down in the works the long-roll +was sounding and from every direction men were answering it at a run. +Across the river came bugle notes. Sighingly the sergeant lowered his +glass: + +"Lordy, it's the whole kit and b'ilin'! Wag, John. When they swing up +round this end of the trees I'll count 'em. Here they come! One, ... +two, ... why, what small--oh, see this big fellow! Look at the width of +those yards! And look at all their hulls, painted the color of the +river! And see that pink flutter--look!" he said to Anna, "do you get +it? high up among the black ropes? that pink--" + +"Yes," said Anna solemnly, "I see it--" + +"That's the old--" + +"Yes. Must we fire on that? and fire first?" + +"We'd better!" laughed the soldier, "if we fire at all. Those chaps have +got their answer ready and there won't be much to say after it." The +three hurried down, the men to camp, Anna to the upper front veranda. +There, save two or three with Constance and Miranda, came all the +servants, shepherded by Isaac and Ben with vigilant eyes and smothered +vows to "kill de fuss he aw she niggeh dat try to skedaddle"; came and +stood to gaze with her over and between the grove trees. Down in the +fortification every man seemed to have sprung to his post. On its outer +crest, with his adjutant, stood the gilded commander peering through his +glass. + +"Missie," sighed Anna's maid, "see Mahs' Chahlie dah? stan'in' on de +woodworks o' dat big gun?" + +"Yes," said Anna carelessly, but mutely praying that some one would make +him get down. Her brain teemed with speculations: Where, how occupied +and in what state of things, what frame of mind, was Victorine, were +Flora and Madame? Here at Steve's cottage with what details were 'Randa +and Connie busy? But except when she smiled round on the slaves, her +gaze, like theirs, abode on the river and the shore defenses, from whose +high staffs floated brightly the Confederate flag. How many a time in +this last fearful year had her own Hilary, her somewhere still living, +laughing, loving Hilary, stood like yon commander, about to deal havoc +from, and to draw it upon, Kincaid's Battery. Who would say that even +now he might not be so standing, with her in every throb of his +invincible heart? + +Something out in the view disturbed the servants. + +"Oh, Lawd 'a' massy!" moaned a woman. + +"Trus' Him, Aun' Jinnie!" prompted Anna's maid. "Y' always is trus' +Him!" + +"Whoeveh don't trus' Him, I'll bus' him!" confidentially growled Isaac +to those around him. + +"We all of us must and will!" said Anna elatedly, though with shameful +inward sinkings and with no sustaining word from any of the flock, while +out under the far gray sky, emerging from a slight angle of the shore +well down the water's long reach the battle line began to issue, each +ship in its turn debouching into full relief from main-truck to +water-line. + + + + +LIII + + +SHIPS, SHELLS, AND LETTERS + +Strange! how little sense of calamity came with them--at first. So +graceful they were. So fitted--like waterfowl--to every mood of air and +tide; their wings all furled, their neat bodies breasting the angry +flood by the quiet power of their own steam and silent submerged wheels. +So like to the numberless crafts which in kinder days, under friendly +tow, had come up this same green and tawny reach and passed on to the +queenly city, laden with gifts, on the peaceful embassies of the world. + +But, ah! how swiftly, threateningly they grew: the smaller, two-masted +fore-and-afts, each seemingly unarmed but for one monster gun pivoted +amidships, and the towering, wide-armed three-masters, the low and the +tall consorting like dog and hunter. Now, as they came on, a nice eye +could make out, down on their hulls, light patches of new repair where +our sunken fleet had so lately shot and rammed them, and, hanging over +the middle of each ship's side in a broad, dark square to protect her +vitals, a mass of anchor chains. Their boarding-netting, too, one saw, +drawn high round all their sides, and now more guns--and more!--and +more! the huger frowning over the bulwarks, the lesser in unbroken rows, +scowling each from its own port-hole, while every masthead revealed +itself a little fort bristling with arms and men. Yes, and there, high +in the clouds of rigging, no longer a vague pink flutter now, but +brightly red-white-and-blue and smilingly angry--what a strange +home-coming for it! ah, what a strange home-coming after a scant +year-and-a-half of banishment!--the flag of the Union, rippling from +every peak. + +"Ain' dey neveh gwine shoot?" asked a negro lad. + +"Not till they're out of line with us," said Anna so confidently as to +draw a skeptical grunt from his mother, and for better heart let a tune +float silently in and out on her breath: + + "I loves to be a beau to de ladies. + I loves to shake a toe wid de ladies--" + +She felt her maid's touch. Charlie was aiming his great gun, and on +either side of her Isaac and Ben were repeating their injunctions. She +spoke out: + +"If they all shoot true we're safe enough now." + +"An' ef de ships don't," put in Isaac, "dey'll mighty soon--" + +The prophecy was lost. All the shore guns blazed and crashed. The white +smoke belched and spread. Broken window-panes jingled. Wails and moans +from the slave women were silenced by imperious outcries from Isaac and +Ben. There followed a mid-air scream and roar as of fifty railway trains +passing each other on fifty bridges, and the next instant a storm of the +enemy's shells burst over and in the batteries. But the house stood fast +and half a dozen misquotations of David and Paul were spouted from the +braver ones of Anna's flock. In a moment a veil of smoke hid ships and +shore, yet fearfully true persisted the enemy's aim. To home-guards, +rightly hopeless of their case and never before in action, every hostile +shot was like a volcano's eruption, and their own fire rapidly fell off. +But on the veranda, amid a weeping, prattling, squealing and gesturing +of women and children, Anna could not distinguish the bursting of the +foe's shells from the answering thunder of Confederate guns, and when in +a bare ten minutes unarmed soldiers began to come out of the smoke and +to hurry through the grove, while riders of harnessed horses and +mules--harnessed to nothing--lashed up the levee road at full run, and +Isaac and Ben proudly cried that one was Mahs' Chahlie and that the +animals were theirs of Callender House, she still asked over the +balustrade how the fight had gone. + +For reply despairing hands pointed her back toward the river, and +there, as she and her groaning servants gazed, the great black masts and +yards, with headway resumed and every ensign floating, loomed silently +forth and began to pass the veranda. Down in the intervening garden, +brightly self-contained among the pale stragglers there, appeared the +one-armed reporter, with a younger brother in the weather-worn gray and +red of Kincaid's Battery. They waved a pocket-soiled letter and asked +how to get in and up to her; but before she could do more than toss them +a key there came, not from the ships but from close overhead under a +blackening sky, one last, hideous roar and ear-splitting howl. The +beautiful treasure-laden home heaved, quivered, lurched and settled +again, the women shrieked and crouched or fell prone with covered heads, +and a huge shell, sent by some pain-crazed fugitive from a gun across +the river, and which had entered at the roof, exploded in the basement +with a harrowing peal and filled every corner of the dwelling with +blinding smoke and stifling dust. + +Constance and Miranda met Anna groping and staggering out of the chaos. +Unharmed, herself, and no one badly hurt? Ah, hear the sudden wail of +that battery boy as he finds his one-armed brother! Anna kneels with him +over the writhing form while women fly for the surgeon, and men, at her +cry, hasten to improvise a litter. No idle song haunts her now, yet a +clamoring whisper times itself with every pulsation of her bosom: "The +letter? the letter?" + +Pity kept it from her lips, even from her weeping eyes; yet somehow the +fallen boy heard, but when he tried to answer she hushed him. "Oh, never +mind that," she said, wiping away the sweat of his agony, "it isn't +important at all." + +"Dropped it," he gasped, and had dropped it where the shell had buried +it forever. + +Each for the other's sake the lads rejected the hospital, with its risk +of capture. The younger had the stricken one hurried off toward the +railway and a refugee mother in the hills, Constance tenderly protesting +until the surgeon murmured the truth: + +"It'll be all one to him by to-morrow." + +As the rearmost ship was passing the house Anna, her comeliness +restored, half rose from her bed, where Miranda stood trying to keep +her. From all the far side of the house remotely sounded the smart tramp +and shuffle of servants clearing away wreckage, and the din of their +makeshift repairs. She was "all right again," she said as she sat, but +the abstraction of her eyes and the harkening droop of her head showed +that inwardly she still saw and heard the death-struck boy. + +Suddenly she stood. "Dear, brave Connie!" she exclaimed, "we must go +help her, 'Randa." And as they went she added, pausing at the head of a +stair, "Ah, dear! if we, poor sinners all, could in our dull minds only +multiply the awful numbers of war's victims by the woes that gather +round any one of them, don't you think, 'Randa--?" + +Yes, Miranda agreed, certainly if man--yes, and woman--had that gift +wars would soon be no more. + +On a high roof above their apartment stood our Valcour ladies. About +them babbling feminine groups looked down upon the harbor landings black +with male vagabonds and witlings smashing the precious food freight (so +sacred yesterday), while women and girls scooped the spoils from mire +and gutter into buckets, aprons or baskets, and ran home with it through +Jackson Square and scurried back again with grain-sacks and +pillow-slips, and while the cotton burned on and the ships, so broadly +dark aloft, so pale in their war paint below and so alive with silent, +motionless men, came through the smoking havoc. + +"No uze to hope," cooed the grandmother to Flora, whose gaze clung to +the tree-veiled top of Callender House. "It riffuse' to burn. 'Tis not a +so inflammab' like that rope and tar." The rope and tar meant their own +burnt ship. + +"Ah, well," was the light reply, "all shall be for the bes'! Those who +watch the game close and play it with courage--" + +"And cheat with prudenze--?" + +"Yes! to them God is good. How well you know that! And Anna, too, she's +learning it--or she shall--dear Anna! Same time me, I am well content." + +"Oh, you are joyful! But not because God is good, neither juz' biccause +those Yankee' they arrive. Ah, that muz' bring some splandid news, that +lett'r of Irbee, what you riscieve to-day and think I don't know it. 'T +is maybe ab-out Kincaid's Batt'rie, eh?" At Flora's touch the speaker +flinched back from the roof's edge, the maiden aiding the recoil. + +"Don't stand so near, like that," she said. "It temp' me to shove you +over." + +They looked once more to the fleet. Slowly it came on. Near its line's +center the flag-ship hovered just opposite Canal Street. The rear was +far down by the Mint. Up in the van the leading vessel was halting +abreast St. Mary's Market, a few hundred yards behind which, under black +clouds and on an east wind, the lone-star flag of seceded Louisiana +floated in helpless defiance from the city hall. All at once heaven's +own thunders pealed. From a warning sprinkle the women near about fled +down a roofed hatchway. One led Madame. But on such a scene Flora craved +a better curtain-fall and she lingered alone. + +It came. As if all its millions of big drops raced for one prize the +deluge fell on city, harbor, and fleet and on the woe-smitten land from +horizon to horizon, while in the same moment the line of battle dropped +anchor in mid-stream. With a swirling mist wetting her fair head she +waved in dainty welcome Irby's letter and then pressed it to her lips; +not for his sake--hah!--but for his rueful word, that once more his +loathed cousin, Anna's Hilary! was riding at the head of Kincaid's +Battery. + + + + +LIV + + +SAME APRIL DAY TWICE + +Black was that Friday for the daughters of Dixie. Farragut demanded +surrender, Lovell declined. The mayor, the council, the Committee of +Public Safety declined. + +On Saturday the two sides parleyed while Lovell withdrew his forces. On +Sunday the Foreign Legion preserved order of a sort highly displeasing +to "a plain sailor," as Farragut, on the Hartford, called himself, and +to all the plain sailors of his fleet--who by that time may have been +hard to please. On Monday the "plain sailor" bade the mayor, who had +once been a plain stevedore, remove the city's women and children within +forty-eight hours. But on Tuesday, in wiser mood, he sent his own +blue-jackets, cutlasses, muskets and hand-dragged howitzers, lowered the +red-and-yellow-striped flag of one star and on mint and custom-house ran +up the stars and stripes. Constance and Miranda, from their distant +roof, saw the emblem soar to the breeze, and persuaded Anna to an act +which cost her as many hours as it need have taken minutes--the +destruction of the diary. That was on the twenty-ninth of April. + +Let us not get dates confused. "On the twenty-ninth of April," says +Grant, "the troops were at Hard Times (Arkansas), and the fleet (another +fleet), under Admiral Porter, made an attack upon Grand Gulf +(Mississippi), while I reconnoitered." But that twenty-ninth was a year +later, when New Orleans for three hundred and sixty-five separate +soul-torturing days had been sitting in the twilight of her captivity, +often writhing and raving in it, starved to madness for news of Lee's +and Stonewall's victories and of her boys, her ragged, gaunt, superb, +bleeding, dying, on-pressing boys, and getting only such dubious crumbs +of rumor as could be smuggled in, or such tainted bad news as her +captors delighted to offer her through the bars of a confiscated press. +No? did the treatment she was getting merely--as Irby, with much truth, +on that twenty-ninth remarked in a group about a headquarters camp-fire +near Grand Gulf--did it merely seem so bad to poor New Orleans? + +Oh, but!--as the dingy, lean-faced Hilary cried, springing from the +ground where he lay and jerking his pipe from his teeth--was it not +enough for a world's pity that to her it seemed so? How it seemed to the +Callenders in particular was a point no one dared raise where he was. To +them had come conditions so peculiarly distressing and isolating that +they were not sharers of the common lot around them, but of one +strangely, incalculably worse. Rarely and only in guarded tones were +they spoken of now in Kincaid's Battery, lately arrived here, covered +with the glory of their part in Bragg's autumn and winter campaign +through Tennessee and Kentucky, and with Perryville, Murfreesboro' and +Stone River added to the long list on their standard. Lately arrived, +yes; but bringing with them as well as meeting here a word apparently so +authentic and certainly so crushing, (as to those sweet Callenders), +that no one ever let himself hint toward it in the hearing even of +Charlie Valcour, much less of their battle-scarred, prison-wasted, +march-worn, grief-torn, yet still bright-eyed, brave-stepping, +brave-riding Major. Major of Kincaid's Battalion he was now, whose whole +twelve brass pieces had that morning helped the big iron batteries fight +Porter's gunboats. + +"Finding Grand Gulf too strong," says Grant, "I moved the army below, +running the batteries there as we had done at Vicksburg. Learning here +that there was a good road from Bruinsburg up to Port Gibson" (both in +Mississippi), "I determined to cross--" + +How pleasantly familiar were those names in New Orleans. Alike +commercially and socially they meant parterres, walks, bowers in her +great back-garden. From the homes of the rich planters around the towns +and landings so entitled, and from others all up and down the river from +Natchez to Vicksburg and the Bends, hailed many a Carondelet Street +nabob and came yearly those towering steamboat-loads--those floating +cliffs--of cotton-bales that filled presses, ships and bank-boxes and +bought her imports--plows, shoes, bagging, spices, silks and wines: came +also their dashing sons and daughters, to share and heighten the +splendors of her carnivals and lure away her beaux and belles to summer +outings and their logical results. In all the region there was hardly a +family with which some half-dozen of the battery were not acquainted, or +even related. + + "Home again, home again from a foreign shore," + +sang the whole eighty-odd, every ladies' man of them, around out-of-tune +pianos with girls whose brothers were all away in Georgia and Virginia, +some forever at rest, some about to fight Chancellorsville. Such a +chorus was singing that night within ear-shot of the headquarters group +when Ned Ferry, once of the battery, but transferred to Harper's +cavalry, rode up and was led by Hilary to the commanding general to say +that Grant had crossed the river. Piano and song hushed as the bugles +rang, and by daybreak all camps had vanished and the gray columns were +hurrying, horse, foot, and wheels, down every southerly road to crush +the invader. + +At the head of one rode General Brodnax. Hearing Hilary among his staff +he sent for him and began to speak of Mandeville, long gone to Richmond +on some official matter and daily expected back; and then he mentioned +"this fellow Grant," saying he had known him in Mexico. "And now," he +concluded, "he's the toughest old he one they've got." + +On the face of either kinsman there came a fine smile that really made +them look alike. "We'll try our jaw-teeth on him to-morrow," laughed the +nephew. + +"Hilary, you weren't one of those singers last evening, were you?" + +"Why, no, uncle, for once you'll be pleased--" + +"Not by a dam-site!" The smile was gone. "You know, my boy, that in such +a time as this if a leader--and above all such a capering, high-kicking +colt as you--begins to mope and droop like a cab-horse in the rain, his +men will soon not be worth a--what?... Oh, blast the others, when _you_ +do so you're moping, and whether your men can stand it or not, I +can't!--what?... Well, then, for God's sake don't! For there's another +point, Hilary: as long as you were every night a 'ladies' man' and every +day a laugher at death you could take those boys through hell-fire at +any call; but if they once get the notion--which you came mighty near +giving them yesterday--that you hold their lives cheap merely because +you're tired of your own, they'll soon make you wish you'd never set +eyes on a certain friend of ours, worse than you or they or I have ever +wished it yet." + +"I've never wished it yet, uncle. I can't. I've never believed one +breath of all we've heard. It's not true. It can't be, simply because +it can't be." + +"Then why do you behave as if it were?" "I won't, uncle. Honor bright! +You watch me." And next day, in front of Port Gibson, through all the +patter, smoke, and crash, through all the charging, cheering and +volleying, while the ever-thinning, shortening gray lines were being +crowded back from rise to rise--back, back through field, grove, hedge, +worm-fence and farmyard, clear back to Grindstone Ford, Bayou Pierre, +and with the cavalry, Harper's, cut off and driven up eastward through +the town--the enraged old brigadier watched and saw. He saw far, saw +close, with blasphemous exultation, how Hilary and his guns, called +here, sent there, flashed, thundered, galloped, blazed, howled and held +on with furious valor and bleeding tenacity yet always with a +quick-sightedness which just avoided folly and ruin, and at length stood +rock fast, honor bright, at North Fork and held it till, except the +cavalry, the last gray column was over and the bridges safely burning. + +That night Ned Ferry--of the cavalry withdrawn to the eastward uplands +to protect that great source of supplies and its New Orleans and Jackson +Railroad--was made a lieutenant, and a certain brave Charlotte, whom +later he loved and won, bringing New Orleans letters to camp, brought +also such news of the foe that before dawn, led by her, Ferry's Scouts +rode their first ride. All day they rode, while the main armies lay with +North Fork between them, the grays entrenching, the blues rebridging. +When at sundown she and Ned Ferry parted, and at night he bivouacked his +men for a brief rest in a black solitude from which the camp-fires of +both hosts were in full sight and the enemy's bridge-building easily +heard, he sought, uncompanioned, Kincaid's Battery and found Hilary +Kincaid. War is what Sherman called it, who two or three days later, at +Grand Gulf (evacuated), crossed into this very strife. Yet peace +(so-called) and riches rarely bind men in such loving pairs as do cruel +toil, deadly perils, common griefs, exile from woman and daily +experience of one another's sweetness, valor, and strength, and it was +for such things that this pair, loving so many besides, particularly +loved each other. + +With glad eyes Kincaid rose from a log. + +"Major," began the handsome scout, dapper from kepi to spurs in contrast +to the worn visage and dress of his senior, but Hilary was already +speaking. + +"My gentle Ned!" he cried. "_Lieutenant_--Ferry!" + +Amid kind greetings from Captain Bartleson and others the eyes of the +two--Hilary's so mettlesome, Ferry's so placid--exchanged meanings, and +the pair went and sat alone on the trail of a gun; on Roaring Betsy's +knee, as it were. There Hilary heard of the strange fair guide and of +news told by her which brought him to his feet with a cry of joy that +drew the glad eyes of half the battery. + +"The little mother saint of your flag, boys!" he explained to a knot of +them later, "the little godmother of your guns!" The Callenders were out +of New Orleans, banished as "registered enemies." + + + + +LV + + +IN DARKEST DIXIE AND OUT + +Unhappy Callender House! Whether "oppressors" or "oppressed" had +earliest or oftenest in that first year of the captivity lifted against +it the accusing finger it would be hard to tell. + +When the Ship Island transports bore their blue thousands up the river, +and the streets roared a new drum-thunder, before the dark columns had +settled down in the cotton-yards, public squares, Carrollton suburb and +Jackson Barracks, Callender House--you may guess by whose +indirection--had come to the notice of a once criminal lawyer, now the +plumed and emblazoned general-in-chief, to whom, said his victims +(possibly biased), no offense or offender was too small for his +hectoring or chastisement. + +The women in that house, that nest of sedition, he had been told, at +second-hand, had in the very dawn of secession completely armed the +famous "Kincaid's Battery" which had early made it hot for him about +Yorktown. Later in that house they had raised a large war-fund--still +somewhere hidden. The day the fleet came up they had sent their +carriage-horses to Beauregard, helped signal the Chalmette +fortifications, locked ten slaves in the dwelling under shell fire and +threatened death to any who should stir to escape. So for these twelve +months, with only Isaac, Ben, and their wives as protectors and the +splendid freedom to lock themselves in, they had suffered the duress of +a guard camped in the grove, their every townward step openly watched +and their front door draped with the stars and stripes, under which no +feminine acquaintance could be enticed except the dear, faithful +Valcours. + +But where were old friends and battery sisters? All estranged. Could not +the Callenders go to them and explain? Explain! A certain man of not +one-fifth their public significance or "secesh" record, being lightly +asked on the street if he had not yet "taken the oath" and as lightly +explaining that he "wasn't going to," had, fame said, for that alone, +been sent to Ship Island--where Anna "already belonged," as the +commanding general told the three gentle refusers of the oath, while in +black letters on the whited wall above his judgment seat in the +custom-house they read, "No distinction made here between he and she +adders." + +But could not the Valcours, those strangely immune, yet unquestioned +true-lovers of poor Dixie, whose marvelous tact won priceless favors for +so many distressed Dixie-ites, have explained for the Callenders? Flora +had explained!--to both sides, in opposite ways, eagerly, tenderly, over +and over, with moist eyes, yet ever with a cunning lameness that kept +convincement misled and without foothold. Had the Callenders dwelt +up-town the truth might have won out; but where they were, as they were, +they might as well have been in unspeakable Boston. And so by her own +sweet excusings she kept alive against them beliefs or phantoms of +beliefs, which would not have lived a day in saner times. + +Calumny had taken two forms: the monstrous black smoke of a vulgar +version and the superior divinings of the socially elect; a fine, hidden +flame fed from the smoke. According to the vulgate the three ladies, +incensed at a perfectly lawful effort to use their horses for the +Confederate evacuation and actually defying it with cocked revolver, had +openly abjured Dixie, renounced all purpose to fly to it and, denying +shelter to their own wounded, had with signal flags themselves guided +the conquering fleet past the town's inmost defenses until compelled to +desist by a Confederate shell in their roof. Unable to face an odium so +well earned they had clung to their hiding, glad of the blue camp in +their grove, living fatly on the bazaar's proceeds, and having high +times with such noted staff-officers as Major Greenleaf, their kindness +to whom in the days of his modest lieutenancy and first flight and of +his later parole and exchange, was not so hard now to see through. + +Greenleaf had come back with General Banks when Banks had succeeded +Butler. Oppressed with military cares, he had barely time to be, without +scrutiny, a full believer in the Valcours' loyalty to the Union. Had +they not avowed it to him when to breathe it was peril, on that early +day when Irby's command became Kincaid's Battery, and in his days of +Parish Prison and bazaar? How well those words fitly spoken had turned +out! "Like apples of gold," sang Flora to the timorous grandmother, "in +wrappers of greenbacks." + +All the more a believer was he because while other faithfuls were making +their loyalty earn big money off the government this genteel pair +reminding him, that they might yet have to risk themselves inside the +gray lines again to extricate Charlie, had kept their loyalty as +gracefully hidden as of old except from a general or two. Preoccupied +Greenleaf, amiable generals, not to see that a loyalist in New Orleans +stood socially at absolute zero, whereas to stand at the social +ebullition point was more to the Valcours than fifty Unions, a hundred +Dixies and heaven beside. It was that fact, more than any other, save +one, which lent intrepidity to Flora's perpetual, ever quickening dance +on the tight-rope of intrigue; a performance in which her bonny face had +begun to betray her discovery that she could neither slow down nor dance +backward. However, every face had come to betray some cruel strain; +Constance's, Anna's, even Victorine's almond eyes and Miranda's baby +wrinkles. Yes, the Valcours, too, had, nevertheless, their monetary +gains, but these were quiet and exclusively from their ever dear, +however guilty, "rebel" friends, who could not help making presents to +Madame when brave Flora, spurning all rewards but their love, got for +them, by some spell they could not work, Federal indulgences; got them +through those one or two generals, who--odd coincidence!--always knew +the "rebel" city's latest "rebel" news and often made stern use of it. + +Full believer likewise, and true sorrower, was Greenleaf, in Hilary's +death, having its seeming proof from Constance and Miranda as well as +from Flora. For in all that twelvemonth the Callenders had got no glad +tidings, even from Mandeville. Battle, march and devastation, march, +battle and devastation had made letters as scarce as good dreams, in +brightest Dixie. But darkest Dixie was New Orleans. There no three +"damned secesh" might stop on a corner in broadest sunlight and pass the +time of day. There the "rebel" printing-presses stood cold in dust and +rust. There churches were shut and bayonet-guarded because their +ministers would not read the prayers ordered by the "oppressor," and +there, for being on the street after nine at night, ladies of society, +diners-out, had been taken to the lock-up and the police-court. In New +Orleans all news but bad news was contraband to any "he or she adder," +but four-fold contraband to the Callenders, the fairest member of whose +trio, every time a blue-and-gold cavalier forced her conversation, stung +him to silence with some word as mild as a Cordelia's. And yet,(you +demur,) in the course of a whole year, by some kind luck, surely the +blessed truth--Ah, the damsel on the tight-rope took care against that! +It was part of her dance to drop from that perch as daintily as a +bee-martin way-laying a hive, devour each home-coming word as he devours +bees, and flit back and twitter and flutter as a part of all nature's +harmony, though in chills of dismay at her peril and yet burning to go +to Hilary, from whom this task alone forever held her away. + +So throughout that year Anna had been to Greenleaf the veiled widow of +his lost friend, not often or long, and never blithely met; loved more +ardently than ever, more reverently; his devotion holding itself in a +fancied concealment transparent to all; he defending and befriending +her, yet only as he could without her knowledge, and incurring-a certain +stigma from his associates and superiors, if not an actual distrust. A +whole history of itself would be the daily, nightly, monthly war of +passions between him, her, Flora, and those around them, but time flies. + +One day Greenleaf, returning from a week-long circuit of outposts, found +awaiting him a letter bearing Northern imprints of mailing and +forwarding, from Hilary Kincaid, written long before in prison and +telling another whole history, of a kind so common in war that we have +already gone by it; a story of being left for dead in the long stupor of +a brain hurt; of a hairbreadth escape from living burial; of weeks in +hospital unidentified, all sense of identity lost; and of a daring feat +of surgery, with swift mental, not so swift bodily, recovery. Inside the +letter was one to Anna. But Anna was gone. Two days earlier, without +warning, the Callenders--as much to Flora's affright as to their +relief, and "as much for Fred's good as for anything," said his obdurate +general when Flora in feigned pity pleaded for their stay--had been +deported into the Confederacy. + +"Let me carry it to her," cried Flora to Greenleaf, rapturously clasping +the letter and smiling heroically. "We can overtague them, me and my +gran'mama! And then, thanks be to God! my brother we can bring him back! +Maybe also--ah! maybee! I can obtain yo' generals some uzeful news!" + +After some delay the pair were allowed to go. At the nearest gray +outpost, in a sudden shower of the first true news for a week--the +Mississippi crossed, Grant victorious at Port Gibson and joined by +Sherman at Grand Gulf--Flora learned, to her further joy, that the +Callenders, misled by report that Brodnax's brigade was at Mobile, had +gone eastward, as straight away from Brodnax and the battery as +Gulf-shore roads could take them, across a hundred-mile stretch of +townless pine-barrens with neither railway nor telegraph. + +Northward, therefore, with Madame on her arm, sprang Flora, +staggeringly, by the decrepit Jackson Railroad, along the quiet eastern +bound of a region out of which, at every halt, came gloomy mention of +Tallahala River and the Big Black; of Big Sandy, Five Mile and Fourteen +Mile creeks; of Logan, Sherman and Grant; of Bowen, Gregg, Brodnax and +Harper, and of daily battle rolling northward barely three hours' canter +away. So they reached Jackson, capital of the state and base of General +Joe Johnston's army. They found it in high ferment and full of +stragglers from a battle lost that day at Raymond scarcely twenty miles +down the Port Gibson road, and on the day following chanced upon +Mandeville returning at last from Richmond. With him they turned west, +again by rail, and about sundown, at Big Black Bridge, ten miles east of +Vicksburg, found themselves clasping hands in open air with General +Brodnax, Irby and Kincaid, close before the torn brigade and the wasted, +cheering battery. Angels dropped down they seemed, tenderly begging off +from all talk of the Callenders, who, Flora distressfully said, had been +"grozzly exaggerated," while, nevertheless, she declared herself, with +starting tears, utterly unable to explain why on earth they had gone to +Mobile--"unlezz the bazaar." No doubt, however, they would soon +telegraph by way of Jackson. But next day, while she, as mistress of a +field hospital, was winning adoration on every side, Jackson, only +thirty miles off but with every wire cut, fell, clad in the flames of +its military factories, mills, foundries and supplies and of its +eastern, Pearl River, bridge. + + + + +LVI + + +BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES + +Telegraph! They had been telegraphing for days, but their telegrams have +not yet been delivered. + +On the evening when the camps of Johnston and Grant with burning Jackson +between them put out half the stars a covered carriage, under the +unsolicited escort of three or four gray-jacketed cavalrymen and driven +by an infantry lad seeking his command after an illness at home, crossed +Pearl River in a scow at Ratcliff's ferry just above the day's +battlefield. + +"When things are this bad," said the boy to the person seated beside him +and to two others at their back, his allusion being to their +self-appointed guard, "any man you find straggling to the _front_ is the +kind a lady can trust." + +This equipage had come a three hours' drive, from the pretty town of +Brandon, nearest point to which a railway train from the East would +venture, and a glimpse into the vehicle would have shown you, behind +Constance and beside Miranda, Anna, pale, ill, yet meeting every inquiry +with a smiling request to push on. They were attempting a circuit of +both armies to reach a third, Pemberton's, on the Big Black and in and +around Vicksburg. + +Thus incited they drove on in the starlight over the gentle hills of +Madison county and did not accept repose until they had put Grant ten +miles behind and crossed to the south side of the Vicksburg and Jackson +Railroad at Clinton village with only twenty miles more between them and +Big Black Bridge. The springs of Anna's illness were more in spirit than +body. Else she need not have lain sleepless that night at Clinton's many +cross-roads, still confronting a dilemma she had encountered in Mobile. + +In Mobile the exiles had learned the true whereabouts of the brigade, +and of a battery then called Bartleson's as often as Kincaid's by a +public which had half forgotten the seemingly well-established fact of +Hilary's death. Therein was no new shock. The new shock had come when, +as the three waited for telegrams, they stood before a vast ironclad +still on the ways but offering splendid protection from Farragut's +wooden terrors if only it could be completed, yet on which work had +ceased for lack of funds though a greater part of the needed amount, +already put up, lay idle solely because it could not be dragged up to a +total that would justify its outlay. + +"How much does it fall short?" asked Anna with a heart at full stop, and +the pounding shock came when the shortage proved less than the missing +proceeds of the bazaar. For there heaved up the problem, whether to pass +on in the blind hope of finding her heart's own, or to turn instead and +seek the two detectives and the salvation of a city. This was the +dilemma which in the last few days had torn half the life out of her +and, more gravely than she knew, was threatening the remnant. + +Constance and Miranda yearned, yet did not dare, to urge the latter +choice. They talked it over covertly on the back seat of the carriage, +Anna sitting bravely in front with the young "web-foot," as their wheels +next day plodded dustily westward out of Clinton. Hilary would never be +found, of course; and _if_ found how would he explain why he, coming +through whatever vicissitudes, he the ever ready, resourceful and +daring, he the men's and ladies' man in one, whom to look upon drew into +his service whoever looked, had for twelve months failed to get so much +as one spoken or written word to Anna Callender; to their heart-broken +Nan, the daily sight of whose sufferings had sharpened their wits and +strung their hearts to blame whoever, on any theory, could be blamed. +Undoubtedly he might have some dazzling explanation ready, but that +explanation they two must first get of him before she should know that +her dead was risen. + +Our travellers were minus their outriders now. At dawn the squad, +leaving tender apologies in the night's stopping-place, had left the +ladies also, not foreseeing that demoralized servants would keep them +there with torturing delays long into the forenoon. When at length the +three followed they found highways in ruin, hoof-deep in dust and no +longer safe from blue scouts, while their infantry boy proved as +innocent of road wisdom as they, and on lonely by-ways led them astray +for hours. We may picture their bodily and mental distress to hear, at a +plantation house whose hospitality they craved when the day was near its +end, that they were still but nine miles from Clinton with eleven yet +between them and Big Black Bridge. + +Yet they could have wept for thanks as readily as for chagrin or +fatigue, so kindly were they taken in, so stirring was the next word of +news. + +"Why, you po' city child'en!" laughed two sweet unprotected women. "Let +these girls bresh you off. You sho'ly got the hafe o' Hinds County on +you ... Pemberton's men? Law, no; they _wuz_ on Big Black but they right +out here, now, on Champion's Hill, in sight f'om our gin-house ... Brodnax' +bri'--now, how funny! We jess heard o' them about a' hour +ago, f'om a bran' new critter company name' Ferry's Scouts. Why, Ferry's +f'om yo' city! Wish you could 'a' seen him--oh, all of 'em, they was +that slick! But, oh, slick aw shabby, when our men ah fine they ah fine, +now, ain't they! There was a man ridin' with him--dressed diff'ent--he +_wuz_ the batteredest-lookin', gayest, grandest--he might 'a' been a +gen'al! when in fact he was only a majo', an' it was him we heard say +that Brodnax was some'uz on the south side o' the railroad and couldn't +come up befo' night ... What, us? no, we on the nawth side. You didn't +notice when you recrossed the track back yondeh? Well, you _must_ 'a' +been ti-ud!" + +Anna dropped a fervid word to Miranda that set their hostesses agape. +"Now, good Lawd, child, ain't you in hahdship and dangeh enough? Not one +o' you ain't goin' one step fu'ther this day. Do you want to git shot? +Grant's men are a-marchin' into Bolton's Depot right now. Why, honey, +you might as well go huntin' a needle in a haystack as to go lookin' fo' +Brodnax's brigade to-night. Gen'al Pemberton himself--why, he'd jest +send you to his rear, and that's Vicksburg, where they a-bein' shelled +by the boats day and night, and the women and child'en a-livin' in +caves. You don't want to go there?" + +"We don't know," drolly replied Anna. + +"Well, you stay hyuh. That's what that majo' told us. Says 'e, 'Ladies, +we got to fight a battle here to-morrow, but yo'-all's quickest way out +of it'll be to stay right hyuh. There'll be no place like home +to-morrow, not even this place,' says 'e, with a sort o' twinkle that +made us laugh without seein' anything to laugh at!" + + + + +LVII + + +GATES OF HELL AND GLORY + +The next sun rose fair over the green, rolling, open land, rich in +half-grown crops of cotton and corn between fence-rows of persimmon and +sassafras. Before it was high the eager Callenders were out on a main +road. Their Mobile boy had left them and given the reins to an old man, +a disabled and paroled soldier bound homeward into Vicksburg. Delays +plagued them on every turn. At a cross-road they were compelled to wait +for a large body of infantry, followed by its ordnance wagons, to sweep +across their path with the long, swift stride of men who had marched for +two years and which changed to a double-quick as they went over a +hill-top. Or next they had to draw wildly aside into the zigzags of a +worm-fence for a column of galloping cavalry and shroud their heads from +its stifling dust while their driver hung to his mules' heads by the +bits. More than once they caught from some gentle rise a backward +glimpse of long thin lines puffing and crackling at each other; oftener +and more and more they heard the far resound of artillery, the +shuffling, clattering flight of shell, and their final peal as they +reported back to the guns that had sent them; and once, when the ladies +asked if a certain human note, rarefied by distance, was not the +hurrahing of boys on a school-ground, the old man said no, it was "the +Yanks charging." But never, moving or standing from aides or couriers +spurring to front or flank, or from hobbling wounded men or unhurt +stragglers footing to the rear, could they gather a word as to Brodnax's +brigade or Kincaid's Battery. + +"Kincaid's Battery hell! You get those ladies out o' this as fast as +them mules can skedaddle." + +By and by ambulances and then open wagons began to jolt and tilt past +them full of ragged, grimy, bloody men wailing and groaning, no one +heeding the entreaties of the three ladies to be taken in as nurses. +Near a cross-road before them they saw on a fair farmhouse the yellow +flag, and a vehicle or two at its door, yet no load of wounded turned +that way. Out of it, instead, excited men were hurrying, some lamely, +feebly, afoot, others at better speed on rude litters, but all rearward +across the plowed land. Two women stepped out into a light trap and +vanished behind a lane hedge before Constance could call the attention +of her companions. + +"Why, Nan, if we didn't _know_ she was in New Orleans I'd stand the +world down that that was Flora!" + +There was no time for debate. All at once, in plain sight, right at +hand, along a mask of young willows in the near left angle of the two +roads, from a double line of gray infantry whose sudden apparition had +startled Anna and Miranda, rang a long volley. From a fringe of woods on +the far opposite border the foe's artillery pealed, and while the +Callenders' mules went into agonies of fright the Federal shells began +to stream and scream across the space and to burst before and over the +gray line lying flat in the furrows and darting back fire and death. +With their quaking equipage hugging the farther side of the way the +veiled ladies leaned out to see, but drew in as a six-mule wagon coming +from the front at wild speed jounced and tottered by them. It had nearly +passed when with just a touch of hubs it tossed them clear off the road, +smashing one of their wheels for good and all. Some one sprang and held +their terrified mules and they alighted on a roadside bank counting +themselves already captured. + +"Look out, everybody," cried a voice, "here come our own guns, six of +'em, like hell to split!" and in a moment the way was cleared. + +A minute before this, down the cross-road, southward a quarter of a mile +or so, barely out of sight behind fence-rows, the half of a battalion of +artillery had halted in column, awaiting orders. With two or three +lesser officers a general, galloping by it from behind, had drawn up on +a slight rise at the southwest corner of the fire-swept field, taken one +glance across it and said, "Hilary, can your ladies' men waltz into +action in the face of those guns?" + +"They can dance the figure, General." + +"Take them in." + +Bartleson, watching, had mounted drivers and cannoneers before Kincaid +could spur near enough to call, "Column, forward!" and turn again +toward the General and the uproar beyond. The column had barely +stretched out when, looking back on it as he quickened pace, Hilary's +cry was, "Battery, trot, march!" So the six guns had come by the +general: first Hilary, sword out, pistols in belt; then his adjutant; +then bugler and guidon, and then Bartleson and the boys; horses striding +out--ah, there were the Callenders' own span!--whips cracking, +carriages thumping and rumbling, guns powder-blackened and brown, their +wheels, trails, and limbers chipped and bitten, and their own bronze +pock-pitted by the flying iron and lead of other fights, and the heroes +in saddle and on chests--with faces as war-worn as the wood and metal +and brute life under them--cheering as they passed. Six clouds of dust +in one was all the limping straggler had seen when he called his glad +warning, for a tall hedge lined half the cross-road up which the +whirlwind came; but a hundred yards or so short of the main way the +whole battery, still shunning the field because of spongy ground, swept +into full view at a furious gallop. Yet only as a single mass was it +observed, and despite all its thunder of wheels was seen only, not +heard. Around the Callenders was a blindfold of dust and vehicles, of +shouting and smoke, and out in the field the roar of musketry and +howling and bursting of shell. Even Flora, in her ambulance close beyond +both roads, watching for the return of a galloping messenger and seeing +Hilary swing round into the highway, low bent over his charger at full +run, knew him only as he vanished down it hidden by the tempest of +hoofs, wheels, and bronze that whirled after him. + +At Anna's side among the rearing, trembling teams a mounted officer, a +surgeon, Flora's messenger, was commanding and imploring her to follow +Constance and Miranda into the wagon which had wrecked their conveyance. +And so, alas! all but trampling her down, yet unseeing and unseen though +with her in every leap of his heart, he who despite her own prayers was +more to her than a country's cause or a city's deliverance flashed by, +while in the dust and thunder of the human avalanche that followed she +stood asking whose battery was this and with drowned voice crying, as +she stared spell-bound, "Oh, God! is it only Bartleson's? Oh, God of +mercy! where is Hilary Kincaid?" A storm of shell burst directly +overhead. Men and beasts in the whirling battery, and men and beasts +close about her wailed, groaned, fell. Anna was tossed into the wagon, +the plunging guns, dragging their stricken horses, swept out across the +field, the riot of teams, many with traces cut, whipped madly away, and +still, thrown about furiously in the flying wagon, she gazed from her +knees and mutely prayed, but saw no Hilary because while she looked for +a rider his horse lay fallen. + +Never again came there to that band of New Orleans boys such an hour of +glory as this at Champion's Hill. For two years more, by the waning +light of a doomed cause, they fought on, won fame and honor; but for +blazing splendor--of daring, skill, fortitude, loss and achievement +which this purblind world still sees plainest in fraternal +slaughter--that was the mightiest hour, the mightiest ten minutes, ever +spent, from 'Sixty-one to 'Sixty-five, by Kincaid's Battery. + +Right into the face of death's hurricane sprang the ladies' man, swept +the ladies' men. "Battery, trot, walk. Forward into battery! Action +front!" It was at that word that Kincaid's horse went down; but while +the pieces trotted round and unlimbered and the Federal guns vomited +their fire point-blank and blue skirmishers crackled and the gray line +crackled back, and while lead and iron whined and whistled, and chips, +sand and splinters flew, and a dozen boys dropped, the steady voice of +Bartleson gave directions to each piece by number, for "solid shot," or +"case" or "double canister." Only one great blast the foe's artillery +got in while their opponents loaded, and then, with roar and smoke as if +the earth had burst, Kincaid's Battery answered like the sweep of a +scythe. Ah, what a harvest! Instantly the guns were wrapped in their own +white cloud, but, as at Shiloh, they were pointed again, again and again +by the ruts of their recoil, Kincaid and Bartleson each pointing one as +its nine men dwindled to five and to four, and in ten minutes nothing +more was to be done but let the gray line through with fixed bayonets +while Charlie, using one of Hilary's worn-out quips, stood on Roaring +Betsy's trunnion-plates and cursed out to the shattered foe, "Bricks, +lime and sand always on hand!--,--,--!" + +Yet this was but a small part of the day's fight, and Champion's Hill +was a lost battle. Next day the carnage was on Baker's Creek and at Big +Black Bridge, and on the next Vicksburg was invested. + + + + +LVIII + + +ARACHNE + +Behold, "Vicksburg and the Bends." + +In one of those damp June-hot caves galleried into the sheer yellow-clay +sides of her deep-sunken streets, desolate streets where Porter's great +soaring, howling, burrowing "lamp-posts" blew up like steamboats and +flew forty ways in search of women and children, dwelt the Callenders. +Out among Pemberton's trenches and redans, where the woods were dense on +the crowns and faces of the landside bluffs, and the undergrowth was +thick in the dark ravines, the minie-ball forever buzzed and pattered, +and every now and then dabbed mortally into some head or breast. There +ever closer and closer the blue boys dug and crept while they and the +gray tossed back and forth the hellish hand-grenade, the heavenly +hard-tack and tobacco, gay jokes and lighted bombs. There, mining and +countermining, they blew one another to atoms, or under shrieking shells +that tore limbs from the trees and made missiles of them hurled +themselves to the assault and were hurled back. There, in a ruined villa +whose shrubberies Kincaid named "Carrollton Gardens," quartered old +Brodnax, dining on the fare we promised him from the first, and there +the nephew sang an ancient song from which, to please his listeners, he +had dropped "old Ireland" and made it run: + + "O, my heart's in New Orleans wherever I go--" + +meaning, for himself, that wherever roamed a certain maiden whose +whereabouts in Dixie he could only conjecture, there was the New Orleans +of his heart. + +One day in the last week of the siege a young mother in the Callenders' +cave darted out into the sunshine to rescue her straying babe and was +killed by a lump of iron. Bombardments rarely pause for slips like that, +yet the Callenders ventured to her burial in a graveyard not far from +"Carrollton Gardens." As sympathy yet takes chances with contagions it +took them then with shells. + +Flora Valcour daily took both risks--with contagions in a field hospital +hard by the cemetery, and with shells and stray balls when she fled at +moments from the stinking wards to find good air and to commune with her +heart's desires and designs. There was one hazard beside which foul air +and stray shots were negligible, a siege within this siege. To be +insured against the mere mathematical risk that those designs, thus far +so fortunate, might by any least mishap, in the snap of a finger, come +to naught she would have taken chances with the hugest shell Grant or +Porter could send. For six weeks Anna and Hilary--Anna not knowing if he +was alive, he thinking her fifty leagues away--had been right here, +hardly an hour's walk asunder. With what tempest of heart did the +severed pair rise at each dawn, lie down each night; but Flora suffered +no less. Let either of the two get but one glimpse, hear but one word, +of the other, and--better a shell, slay whom it might. + +On her granddaughter's brow Madame Valcour saw the murk of the storm. +"The lightning must strike some time, you are thinking, eh?" she +simpered. + +"No, not necessarily--thanks to your aid!" + +Thanks far more to Flora's subtlety and diligence. It refreshed Madame +to see how well the fair strategist kept her purposes hid. Not even Irby +called them--those he discerned--hers. In any case, at any time, any +possessive but my or mine, or my or mine on any lip but his, angered +him. Wise Flora, whenever she alluded to their holding of the plighted +ones apart, named the scheme his till that cloyed, and then "ours" in a +way that made it more richly his, even when--clearly to Madame, dimly +to him, exasperatingly to both--her wiles for its success--woven around +his cousin--became purely feminine blandishments for purely feminine +ends. In her own mind she accorded Irby only the same partnership of +aims which she contemptuously shared with the grandam, who, like Irby, +still harped on assets, on that estate over in Louisiana which every one +else, save his uncle, had all but forgotten. The plantation and its +slaves were still Irby's objective, and though Flora was no less so, any +chance that for jealousy of her and Hilary he might throw Anna into +Hilary's arms, was offset by his evident conviction that the estate +would in that moment be lost to him and that no estate meant no Flora. +Madame kept that before him and he thanked and loathed her accordingly. + +Flora's subtlety and diligence, yes, indeed. By skill in phrases and +silences, by truth misshapen, by flatteries daintily fitted, artfully +distributed, never overdone; by a certain slow, basal co-operation from +Irby (his getting Mandeville sent out by Pemberton with secret +despatches to Johnston, for example), by a deft touch now and then from +Madame, by this fine pertinacity of luck, and by a sweet new charity of +speech and her kindness of ministration on every side, the pretty +schemer had everybody blundering into her hand, even to the extent of +keeping the three Callenders convinced that Kincaid's Battery had been +cut off at Big Black Bridge and had gone, after all, to Mobile. No +wonder she inwardly trembled. + +And there was yet another reason: since coming into Vicksburg, all +unaware yet why Anna so inordinately prized the old dagger, she had told +her where it still lay hid in Callender House. To a battery lad who had +been there on the night of the weapon's disappearance and who had died +in her arms at Champion's Hill, she had imputed a confession that, +having found the moving panel, a soldier boy's pure wantonness had +prompted him to the act which, in fact, only she had committed. So she +had set Anna's whole soul upon getting back to New Orleans to regain the +trinket-treasure and somehow get out with it to Mobile, imperiled +Mobile, where now, if on earth anywhere, her hope was to find Hilary +Kincaid. + +Does it not tax all patience, that no better intuition of heart, no +frenzy of true love in either Hilary or Anna--suffering the frenzies +they did--should have taught them to rend the poor web that held them +separate almost within the sound of each other's cry? No, not when we +consider other sounds, surrounding conditions: miles and miles of +riflemen and gunners in so constant a whirlwind of destruction and +anguish that men like Maxime Lafontaine and Sam Gibbs went into open +hysterics at their guns, and even while sleeping on their arms, under +humming bullets and crashing shells and over mines ready to be sprung, +sobbed and shivered like babes, aware in their slumbers that they might +"die before they waked." In the town unearthly bowlings and volcanic +thunders, close overhead, cried havoc in every street, at every cave +door. There Anna, in low daily fevers, with her "heart in New Orleans," +had to be "kept quiet" by Miranda and Constance, the latter as widowed +as Anna, wondering whether "Steve was alive or not." + +This is a history of hearts. Yet, time flying as it does, the wild +fightings even in those hearts, the famishing, down-breaking sieges in +them, must largely be left untold--Hilary's, Anna's, Flora's, all. +Kincaid was in greater temptation than he knew. Many a battery boy, +sick, sound or wounded--Charlie for one--saw it more plainly than he. +Anna, supposed to be far away and away by choice, was still under the +whole command's impeachment, while Flora, amid conditions that gave +every week the passional value of a peacetime year, was here at hand, an +ever-ministering angel to them and to their hero; yet they never +included him and Flora in one thought together but to banish it, though +with tender reverence. Behind a labored disguise of inattention they +jealously watched lest the faintest blight or languor should mar, in +him, the perfect bloom of that invincible faith to, and faith in, the +faithless Anna, which alone could satisfy their worship of him. Care for +these watchers brought the two much together, and in every private +moment they talked of the third one; Flora still fine in the role of +Anna's devotee and Hilary's "pilot," rich in long-thought-out +fabrications, but giving forth only what was wrung from her and parting +with each word as if it cost her a pang. Starving and sickening, +fighting and falling, the haggard boys watched; yet so faultless was the +maiden's art that when in a fury of affright at the risks of time she +one day forced their commander to see her heart's starvation for him the +battery saw nothing, and even to him she yet appeared faultless in +modesty and utterly, marvelously, splendidly ignorant of what she had +done. + +"Guide right!" he mused alone. "At last, H.K., your nickname's got a +meaning worth living up to!" + +While he mused, Flora, enraged both for him and against him, and with +the rage burning in her eye and on her brow, stood before her seated +grandmother, mutely giving gaze for gaze until the elder knew. + +The old woman resumed her needle. "And all you have for it," was the +first word, "is his pity, eh?" + +"Wait!" murmured the girl. "I will win yet, if I have to lose--" + +"Yes?" skeptically simpered the grandam, "--have to lose yourself to do +it?" + +The two gazed again until the maiden quietly nodded and her senior +sprang half up: + +"No, no! ah, no-no-no! There's a crime awaiting you, but not that! Oh, +no, you are no such fool!" + +"No?" The girl came near, bent low and with dancing eyes said, "I'll be +fool enough to lead him on till his sense of honor--" + +"Sense of--oh, ho, ho!" + +"Sense of his honor and _mine_--will make him my prisoner. Or else--!" +The speaker's eyes burned. Her bosom rose and fell. + +"Yes," said the seated one--to her needle--"or else his sense that +Charlie--My God! don't pinch my ear off!" + +"Happy thought," laughed Flora, letting go, "but a very poor guess." + + + + +LIX + + +IN A LABYRINTH + +For ladies' funerals, we say, mortars and siege-guns, as a rule, do not +pause. But here at Vicksburg there was an hour near the end of each day +when the foe, for some mercy to themselves, ceased to bombard, and in +one of these respites that procession ventured forth in which rode the +fevered Anna: a farm wagon, a battered family coach, a carryall or two. + +Yet in the midst of the graveyard rites there broke out on the unseen +lines near by, northward, an uproar of attack, and one or two shells +burst in plain view, frightening the teams. The company leaped into the +vehicles any way they could and started townward over a miserable road +with the contest resounding on their right. As they jostled along the +edge of a wood that lay between them and the firing some mishap to the +front team caused all to alight, whereupon a shell, faultily timed, came +tearing through the tree-tops and exploded in the remains of a fence +close beyond them. Amid thunder, smoke, and brute and human terror the +remounting groups whirled away and had entirely left the scene before +that was asked which none could tell: Where was Anna? + +Anna herself did not know, could not inquire of her own mind. With a +consciousness wholly disembodied she was mainly aware of a great pain +that seemed to fill all the region and atmosphere, an atmosphere charged +with mysterious dim green light and full of great boomings amid a +crackle of smaller ones; of shouts and cheers and of a placid quaking of +myriad leaves; all of which things might be things or only divers +manifestations of her undefinable self. + +By and by through the pain came a dream of some one like her living in a +certain heaven of comfort and beauty, peace, joy, and love named +"Callender House"; but the pain persisted and the dream passed into a +horrible daytime darkness that brought a sense of vast changes near and +far; a sense of many having gone from that house, and of many having +most forbiddenly come to it; a sense of herself spending years and +years, and passing from world to world, in quest of one Hilary, Hilary +Kincaid, whom all others believed to be dead or false, or both, but who +would and should and must be found, and when found would be alive and +hale and true; a sense of having, with companions, been all at once +frightfully close to a rending of the sky, and of having tripped as she +fled, of having fallen and lain in a thunderous storm of invisible hail, +and of having after a time risen again and staggered on, an incalculable +distance, among countless growing things, fleeing down-hill, too weak to +turn up-hill, till suddenly the whole world seemed to strike hard +against something that sent it reeling backward. + +And now her senses began feebly to regather within truer limits and to +tell her she was lying on the rooty ground of a thicket. Dimly she +thought to be up and gone once more, but could get no farther than the +thought although behind her closed lids glimmered a memory of deadly +combat. Its din had passed, but there still sounded, just beyond this +covert, fierce commands of new preparation, and hurried movements in +response--a sending and bringing, dismissing, and summoning of men and +things to rear or front, left or right, in a fury of supply and demand. + +Ah, what! water? in her face? Her eyes opened wildly. A man was kneeling +beside her. He held a canteen; an armed officer in the foe's blue. With +lips parting to cry out she strove to rise and fly, but his silent +beseechings showed him too badly hurt below the knees to offer aid or +hindrance, and as she gained her feet she let him plead with stifled +eagerness for her succor from risks of a captivity which, in starving +Vicksburg and in such plight, would be death. + +He was a stranger and an enemy, whose hurried speech was stealthy and +whose eyes went spying here and there, but so might it be just then +somewhere with him for whom she yet clung to life. For that one's sake, +and more than half in dream, she gave the sufferer her support, and with +a brow knit in anguish, but with the fire of battle still in his wasting +blood, he rose, fitfully explaining the conditions of the place and +hour. To cover a withdrawal of artillery from an outer to an inner work +a gray line had unexpectedly charged, and as it fell back with its guns, +hotly pressed, a part of the fight had swung down into and half across +this ravine, for which another struggle was furiously preparing on both +sides, but which, for him, in the interval, was an open way of +deliverance if she would be his crutch. + +In equal bewilderment of thought and of outer sense, pleadingly assured +that she would at once be sent back under flag of truce, with compassion +deepening to compulsion and with a vague inkling that, failing the white +flag, this might be heaven's leading back to Callender House and the +jewel treasure, to Mobile and to Hilary, she gave her aid. Beyond the +thicket the way continued tangled, rough and dim. Twice and again the +stricken man paused for breath and ease from torture, though the sounds +of array, now on two sides, threatened at every step to become the cry +of onset. Presently he stopped once more, heaved, swayed and, despite +her clutch, sank heavily to the ground. + +"Water!" he gasped, but before she could touch the canteen to his lips +he had fainted. She sprinkled his face, but he did not stir. She gazed, +striving for clear thought, and then sprang up and called. What word? +Ah, what in all speech should she call but a name, the name of him whose +warrant of marriage lay at that moment in her bosom, the name of him who +before God and the world had sworn her his mated, life-long protection? + +"Hilary!" she wailed, and as the echoes of the green wood died, +"Hilary!" again. On one side there was more light in the verdure than +elsewhere and that way she called. That way she moved stumblingly and +near the edge of a small clear space cried once more, "Hilary!... +Hilary!" + + + + +LX + + +HILARY'S GHOST + +Faintly the bearer of that name heard the call; heard it rise from a +quarter fearfully nearer the foe's line than to his; caught it with his +trained ear as, just beyond sight of Irby, Miranda, and others, he stood +in amazed converse with Flora Valcour. Fortune, smiling on Flora yet, +had brought first to her the terrified funeral group and so had enabled +her to bear to Hilary the news of the strange estrayal, skilfully +blended with that revelation of Anna's Vicksburg sojourn which she, +Flora, had kept from him so cleverly and so long. + +With mingled rapture and distress, with a heart standing as still as his +feet, as still as his lifted head and shining eyes, he listened and +heard again. Swiftly, though not with the speed he would have chosen, he +sprang toward the call; sped softly through the brush, softly and +without voice, lest he draw the enemy's fire; softly and mutely, with +futile backward wavings and frowning and imploring whispers to Flora as +in a dishevelled glow that doubled her beauty she glided after him. + +Strangely, amid a swarm of keen perceptions that plagued him like a +cloud of arrows as he ran, that beauty smote his conscience; her beauty +and the worship and protection it deserved from all manhood and most of +all from him, whose unhappy, unwitting fortune it was to have ensnared +her young heart and brought it to the desperation of an unnatural +self-revealment; her uncoveted beauty, uncourted love, unwelcome +presence, and hideous peril! Was he not to all these in simplest honor +peculiarly accountable? They lanced him through with arraignment as, +still waving her beseechingly, commandingly back, with weapons undrawn +the more swiftly to part the way before him, his frenzy for Anna drew +him on, as full of introspection as a drowning man, thinking a year's +thoughts at every step. Oh, mad joy in pitiful employment! Here while +the millions of a continent waged heroic war for great wrongs and +rights, here on the fighting-line of a beleaguered and starving city, +here when at any instant the peal of his own guns might sound a fresh +onset, behold him in a lover's part, loving "not honor more," setting +the seal upon his painful alias, filching time out of the jaws of death +to pursue one maiden while clung to by another. Oh, Anna! Anna +Callender! my life for my country, but this moment for thy life and +thee! God stay the onslaught this one moment! + +As he reached the edge of that narrow opening from whose farther side +Anna had called he halted, glanced furtively about, and harkened +forward, backward, through leafy distances grown ominously still. Oh, +why did the call not come again? Hardly in a burning house could time be +half so priceless. Not a breath could promise that in the next the +lightnings, thunders, and long human yell of assault would not rend the +air. Flora's soft tread ceased at his side. + +"Stay back!" he fiercely breathed, and pointed just ahead: "The enemy's +skirmishers!" + +"Come away!" she piteously whispered, trembling with terror. For, by a +glimpse as brief as the catch of her breath, yonder a mere rod or so +within the farther foliage, down a vista hardly wider than a man's +shoulders, an armed man's blue shoulders she had seen, under his black +hat and peering countenance. Joy filled the depth of her heart in the +belief that a thin line of such black hats had already put Anna behind +them, yet she quaked in terror, terror of death, of instant, shot-torn +death that might leave Hilary Kincaid alive. + +With smiting pity he saw her affright. "Go back!" he once more gasped: +"In God's name, go back!" while recklessly he stepped forward out of +cover. But in splendid desperation, with all her soul's battle in her +eyes--horror, love, defiance, and rending chagrin striving and smiting, +she sprang after him into the open, and clutched and twined his arms. +The blue skirmish-line, without hearing, saw him; saw, and withheld +their fire, fiercely glad that tactics and mercy should for once agree. +And Anna saw. + +"Come with me back!" whispered Flora, dragging on him with bending +knees. "She's lost! She's gone back to those Yankee, and to Fred +Greenleaf! And you"--the whisper rose to a murmur whose pathos grew with +her Creole accent--"you, another step and you are a deserter! Yes! to +your country--to Kincaid' Batt'ree--to me-me-me!" The soft torrent of +speech grew audible beyond them: "Oh, my God! Hilary Kincaid, +listen-to-me-listen! You 'ave no right; no ri-ight to leave me! _Ah, you +shall not!_ No right--ri-ight to leave yo' Flora--sinze she's tol' you +--sinze she's tol' you--w'at she's tol' you!" + +In this long history of a moment the blue skirmishers had not yet +found Anna, but it was their advance, their soft stir at her back as +they came upon their fallen leader, that had hushed her cries. At the +rift in the wood she had leaned on a huge oak and as body and mind again +failed had sunk to its base in leafy hiding. Vaguely thence she +presently perceived, lit from behind her by sunset beams, the farther +edge of the green opening, and on that border, while she feebly looked, +came suddenly a ghost! + +[Illustration: "You 'ave no ri-ight to leave me! _Ah, you shall not!_"] + +Ah, Heaven! the ghost of Hilary Kincaid! It looked about for her! It +listened for her call! By the tree's rough bark she drew up half her +height, clung and, with reeling brain, gazed. How tall! how gaunt! how +dingy gray! How unlike her whilom "ladies' man," whom, doubtless truly, +they now called dead and buried. But what--what--was troubling the poor +ghost? What did it so wildly avoid? what wave away with such loving, +tender pain? Flora Valcour! Oh, see, see! Ah, death in life! what does +she see? As by the glare of a bursting midnight shell all the empty +gossip of two years justified--made real--in one flash of staring view. +With a long moan the beholder cast her arms aloft and sank in a heap, +not knowing that the act had caught Hilary's eye, but willingly aware +that her voice had perished in a roar of artillery from the farther +brink of the ravine, in a crackle and fall of tree-tops, and in the +"rebel yell" and charge. + +Next morning, in a fog, the blue holders of a new line of rifle-pits +close under the top of a bluff talked up to the grays in a trench on its +crest. Gross was the banter, but at mention of "ladies" it purified. + +"Johnnie!" cried "Yank," "who is she, the one we've got?" and when told +to ask her, said she was too ill to ask. By and by to "Johnnie's" +inquiries the blues replied: + +"He? the giant? Hurt? No-o, not half bad enough, when we count what he +cost us. If we'd known he was only stunned we"--and so on, not very +interestingly, while back in the rear of the gray line tearful Constance +praised, to her face, the haggard Flora and, in his absence, the wounded +Irby, Flora's splendid rescuer in the evening onslaught. + +"A lifetime debt," Miranda thought Flora owed him, and Flora's +meditative yes, as she lifted her eyes to her grandmother's, +was--peculiar. + +A few days later Anna, waking in the bliss of a restored mind, and +feeling beneath her a tremor of paddlewheels, gazed on the nurse at her +side. + +"Am I a--prisoner?" she asked. + +The woman bent kindly without reply. + +"Anyhow," said Anna, with a one-sided smile, "they can't call me a spy." +Her words quickened: "I'm a rebel, but I'm no spy. I was lost. And he's +no spy. He was in uniform. Is he--on this boat?" + +Yes, she was told, he was, with a few others like him, taken too soon +for the general parole of the surrender. Parole? she pondered. +Surrender? What surrender? "Where are we going?" she softly inquired; +"not to New Orleans?" + +The nurse nodded brightly. + +"But how can we get--by?" + +"By Vicksburg? We're already by there." + +"Has Vicks--?... Has Vicksburg--fallen?" + +The confirming nod was tender. Anna turned away. Presently--"But not +Mobile? Mobile hasn't--?" + +"No, not yet. But it must, don't you think?" + +"No!" cried Anna. "It must not! Oh, it must not! I--if I--Oh, if I--" + +The nurse soothed her smilingly: "My poor child," she said, "_you_ can't +save Mobile." + + + + +LXI + + +THE FLAG-OF-TRUCE BOAT + +September was in its first week. The news of Vicksburg--and Port +Hudson--ah, yes, and Gettysburg!--was sixty days old. + +From Southern Mississippi and East Louisiana all the grays who marched +under the slanting bayonet or beside the cannon's wheel were gone. Left +were only the "citizen" with his family and slaves, the post +quartermaster and commissary, the conscript-officer, the trading Jew, +the tax-in-kind collector, the hiding deserter, the jayhawker, a few +wounded boys on furlough, and Harper's cavalry. Throughout the Delta and +widely about its grief-broken, discrowned, beggared, shame-crazed, +brow-beaten Crescent City the giddying heat quaked visibly over the high +corn, cotton, and cane, up and down the broken levees and ruined +highways, empty by-ways, and grass-grown railways, on charred bridges, +felled groves, and long burnt fence lines. The deep, moss-draped, +vine-tangled swamps were dry. + +So quivered the same heat in the city's empty thoroughfares. Flowers +rioted in the unkept gardens. The cicada's frying note fried hotter +than ever. Dazzling thunder-heads towered in the upper blue and stood +like snow mountains of a vaster world. The very snake coiled in the +shade. The spiced air gathered no freshness from the furious, infrequent +showers, the pavements burned the feet, and the blue "Yank" (whom there +no one dared call so by word or look), so stoutly clad, so uncouthly +misfitted, slept at noon face downward in the high grass under the trees +of the public squares preempted by his tents, or with piece loaded and +bayonet fixed slowly paced to and fro in the scant shade of some +confiscated office-building, from whose upper windows gray captives +looked down, one of them being "the ladies' man." + +Not known of his keepers by that name, though as the famous Major +Kincaid of Kincaid's Battery (the latter at Mobile with new guns), all +July and August he had been of those who looked down from such windows; +looked down often and long, yet never descried one rippling fold of one +gossamer flounce of a single specimen of those far-compassionated +"ladies of New Orleans," one of whom, all that same time, was Anna +Callender. No proved spy, she, no incarcerated prisoner, yet the most +gravely warned, though gentlest, suspect in all the recalcitrant city. + +Neither in those sixty days had Anna seen him. The blue sentries let no +one pass in sight of that sort of windows. "Permit?" She had not sought +it, Some one in gold lace called her "blamed lucky" to enjoy the +ordinary permissions accorded Tom, Dick, and Harry. Indeed Tom, Dick, +and Harry were freer than she. By reason of hints caught from her in +wanderings of her mind on the boat, in dreams of a great service to be +done for Dixie, the one spot where she most yearned to go and to be was +forbidden her, and not yet had she been allowed to rest her hungry eyes +on Callender House. Worse than idle, therefore, perilous for both of +them and for any dream of great service, would it have been even to name +the name of Hilary Kincaid. + +What torture the double ban, the two interlocked privations! Yonder a +city, little sister of New Orleans, still mutely hoping to be saved, +here Hilary alive again, though Anna still unwitting whether she should +love and live or doubt and die. Yet what would they say when they should +meet? How could either explain? Surely, we think, love would have found +a way; but while beyond each other's sight and hearing, no way could +Hilary, at least, descry. + +To him it seemed impossible to speak to her--even to Fred Greenleaf had +Fred been there!--without betraying another maiden, one who had sealed +his lips forever by confessing a heart which had as much--had more right +to love than he to live. True, Anna, above all, had right to live, to +love, to know; but in simplest honor to commonest manhood, in simplest +manhood's honor to all womankind, to Flora, to Anna herself, this +knowledge should come from any other human tongue rather than from his. +From Anna he needed no explanation. That most mysteriously she should +twice have defaulted as keeper of sacred treasure; that she stood long +accused, by those who would most gladly have scouted the charge, of +leanings to another suitor, a suitor in the blue, and of sympathies, +nay, services, treasonous to the ragged standards of the gray; that he +had himself found her in the enemy's lines, carried there by her own +steps, and accepting captivity without a murmur, ah, what were such +light-as-air trials of true love's faith while she was still Anna +Callender, that Anna from whom one breath saying, "I am true," would +outweigh all a world could show or surmise in accusation? + +And Anna: What could she say after what she had seen? Could she tell +him--with Flora, as it were, still in his arms--could she explain that +she had been seeking him to cast herself there? Or if she stood mute +until he should speak, what could he say to count one heart-throb +against what she had seen? Oh, before God! before God! it was not +_jealousy_ that could make her dumb or deaf to either of them. She +confessed its pangs. Yes! yes! against both of them, when she remembered +certain things or forgot this and that, it raged in her heart, tingled +in the farthest reach of her starved and fever-dried veins. Yet to God +himself, to whom alone she told it, to God himself she protested on her +knees it did not, should not, could not rule her. What right had she to +give it room? Had she not discerned from the beginning that those two +were each other's by natural destiny? Was it not well, was it not +God-sent to all three, that in due time, before too late, he and +she--that other, resplendent she--should be tried upon each other alone +--together? Always hitherto she, Anna, had in some way, some degree, +intervened, by some chance been thrust and held between them; but at +length nature, destiny, had all but prevailed, when once more +she--stubbornly astray from that far mission of a city's rescue so +plainly hers--had crashed in between to the shame and woe of all, to the +gain of no cause, no soul, no sweet influence in all love's universe. +Now, meeting Hilary, what might she do or say? + +One thing! Bid him, on exchange or escape--if Heaven should grant the +latter--find again Flora, and in her companionship, at last unhindered, +choose! Yes, that would be justice and wisdom, mercy and true love, all +in one. But could she do it, say it? She sprang up in bed to answer, +"No-o-o!" no, she was no bloodless fool, she was a woman! Oh, God of +mercy and true love, no! For reasons invincible, no! but most of all for +one reason, one doubt, vile jealousy's cure and despair's antidote, slow +to take form but growing as her strength revived, clear at last and +all-sufficing; a doubt infinitely easier, simpler, kinder, and more +blessed than to doubt true love. Nay, no doubt, but a belief! the +rational, life-restoring belief, that in that awful hour of twilight +between the hosts, of twilight and delirium, what she had seemed to see +she had but seemed to see. Not all, ah, no, not all! Hilary alive again +and grappling with death to come at her call had been real, proved real; +the rest a spectre of her fevered brain! Meeting him now--and, oh, to +meet him now!--there should be no questionings or explainings, but while +he poured forth a love unsullied and unshaken she, scarce harkening, +would with battle haste tell him, her life's commander, the one thing of +value, outvaluing all mere lovers' love: The fact that behind a +chimney-panel of Callender House, in its old trivial disguise, lay yet +that long-lost fund pledged to Mobile's defense--by themselves as +lovers, by poor war-wasted Kincaid's Battery, and by all its scattered +sisters; the fund which must, as nearly on the instant as his and her +daring could contrive, be recovered and borne thither for the unlocking +of larger, fate-compelling resources of deliverance. + +One day Victorine came to Anna with ecstasy in her almond eyes and much +news on her lips. "To bigin small," she said, Flora and her grandmother +had "arrive' back ag-ain" at dawn that morning! Oddly, while Anna forced +a smile, her visitor's eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. So they +sat, Anna's smile fading out while her soul's troubles inwardly burned +afresh, Victorine's look growing into clearer English than her Creole +tongue could have spoken. "I trust her no more," it said. "Long have I +doubted her, and should have told you sooner but for--Charlie; but now, +dead in love as you know me still to be, you have my conviction. That is +all for the present. There is better news." + +The ecstasy gleamed again and she gave her second item. These weeks she +had been seeking, for herself and a guardian aunt, a passport into the +Confederacy and lo! here it lay in her pretty hand. + +"Deztitution!" she joyfully confessed to be the plea on which it had been +procured--by Doctor Sevier through Colonel--guess!--"Grinleaf!--juz' +riturn'" from service in the field. + +And how were the destitute pair to go? + +Ah! did Anna "rim-emb'r" a despatch-boat of unrivalled speed whose +engines Hilary Kin--? + +Yes, ah, yes! + +On which she and others had once--? + +Yes, yes! + +And which had been captured when the city fell? That boat was now lying +off Callender House! Did Anna _not_ know that her shattered home, so +long merely the headquarters of a blue brigade, had lately become of +large, though very quiet, importance as a rendezvous of big generals who +by starlight paced its overgrown garden alleys debating and planning +something of great moment? Doctor Sevier had found that out and had +charged Victorine to tell it with all secrecy to the biggest general in +Mobile the instant she should reach there. For she was to go by that +despatch-boat. + +"Aw-dinner-illy," she said, a flag-of-truce craft might be any old tub +and would go the short way, from behind the city and across the lakes, +not all round by the river and the Chandeleur Islands. But this +time--that very morning--a score or so of Confederate prisoners +(officers, for exchange) had been put aboard that boat, bound for +Mobile. Plainly the whole affair was but a mask for reconnaissance, the +boat, swiftest in all the Gulf, to report back at top speed by way of +the lakes. But!--the aunt would not go at all! Never having been a mile +from her door, she was begging off in a palsy of fright, and here was +the niece with a deep plot--ample source of her ecstasy--a plot for +Anna, duly disguised, to go in the aunt's place, back to freedom, Dixie, +and the arms of Constance and Miranda. + +Anna trembled. She could lovingly call the fond schemer, over and over, +a brave, rash, generous little heroine and lay caresses on her twice and +again, but to know whether this was Heaven's leading was beyond her. +She paced the room. She clasped her brow. A full half of her own great +purpose (great to her at least) seemed all at once as good as achieved, +yet it was but the second half, as useless without the first as half a +bridge on the far side of the flood. "I cannot go!" she moaned. For the +first half was Hilary, and he--she saw it without asking--was on this +cartel of exchange. + +Gently she came and took her rescuer's hands: "Dear child! If--if while +there was yet time--I had only got a certain word to--_him_--you know? +But, ah, me! I keep it idle yet; a secret, Victorine, a secret worth our +three lives! oh, three times three hundred lives! Even now--" + +"Give it me, Anna! Give it! Give it me, that sick-rate! I'll take it +him!" + +Anna shook her head: "Ah, if you could--in time! Or even--even without +him, letting him go, if just you and I--Come!" They walked to and fro in +embrace: "Dear, our front drawing-room, so ruined, you know, by that +shell, last year--" + +"Ah, the front? no! The behine, yes, with those two hole' of the shell +and with thad _beegue_ hole in the floor where it cadge fiah." + +"Victorine, I could go--with you--in that boat, if only I could be for +one minute in that old empty front room alone." + +Victorine halted and sadly tossed a hand: "Ah! h-amptee, yes, both the +front and the back--till yes-the-day! This morning, the front, no! Juz' +sinze laz' week they 'ave brick' up bitwin them cloze by that burned +hole, to make of the front an office, and now the front 't is o'cupy!" + +"Oh, not as an office, I hope?" + +"Worse! The worse that can be! They 'ave stop' five prisoner' from the +boat and put them yondeh. Since an hour Col-on-el Grinleaf he tol' me +that--and she's ad the bottom, that Flora! Bicause--" The speaker +gazed. Anna was all joy. + +"Because what?" demanded Anna, "because Hil--?" + +"Yaas! bicause he's one of them! Ringgleadeh! I dunno, me, what is that, +but tha'z what he's accuse'--ringg-leadingg!" + +Still the oblivious Anna was glad. "It is Flora's doing," she gratefully +cried. "She's done it! done it for us and our cause!" + +"Ah-h! not if she know herseff!" + +Anna laughed the discussion down: "Come, dear, come! the whole thing +opens to me clear and wide!" + +Not so clear or wide as she thought. True, the suffering Flora was doing +this, in desperate haste; but not for Anna, if she knew herself. Yet +when Anna, in equal haste, made a certain minute, lengthy writing and, +assisted by that unshaken devotee, her maid, and by Victorine, baked +five small cakes most laughably alike (with the writing in ore) and laid +them beside some plainer food in a pretty basket, the way still seemed +wide enough for patriotism. + +Now if some one would but grant Victorine leave to bestow this basket! +As she left Anna she gave her pledge to seek this favor of any one else +rather than of Greenleaf; which pledge she promptly broke, with a +success that fully reassured her cheerful conscience. + + + + +LXII + + +FAREWELL, JANE! + +"Happiest man in New Orleans!" + +So called himself, to Colonel Greenleaf, the large, dingy-gray, +lively-eyed Major Kincaid, at the sentinelled door of the room where he +and his four wan fellows, snatched back from liberty on the eve of +release, were prisoners in plain view of the vessel on which they were +to have gone free. + +With kind dignity Greenleaf predicted their undoubted return to the +craft next morning. Strange was the difference between this scene and +the one in which, eighteen months before, these two had last been +together in this room. The sentry there knew the story and enjoyed it. +In fact, most of the blue occupants of the despoiled place had a +romantic feeling, however restrained, for each actor in that earlier +episode. Yet there was resentment, too, against Greenleaf's clemencies. + +"Wants?" said the bedless captive to his old chum, "no, thank you, not a +want!" implying, with his eyes, that the cloud overhanging Greenleaf for +favors shown to--hmm!--certain others was already dark enough, "We've +_parlor_ furniture galore," he laughed, pointing out a number of +discolored and broken articles that had been beautiful. One was the +screen behind which the crouching Flora had heard him tell the ruin of +her Mobile home and had sworn revenge on this home and on its fairest +inmate. + +During the evening the prisoners grew a bit noisy, in song; yet even +when their ditties were helped out by a rhythmic clatter of boot-heels +and chair-legs the too indulgent Greenleaf did not stop them. The voices +were good and the lines amusing not merely to the guards here and there +but to most of their epauleted superiors who, with lights out for +coolness, sat in tilted chairs on a far corner of the front veranda to +catch the river breeze. One lay was so antique as to be as good as new: + + "Our duck swallowed a snail, + And her eyes stood out with wonder. + Our duck swallowed a snail, + And her eyes stood out with wonder + Till the horns grew out of her tail, tail, tail, + Tail, Tail, + Tail, Tail, + Tail, Tail, + And tore it All asunder. + Farewell, Jane! + + "Our old horse fell into the well + Around behind the stable. + Our old horse fell into the well + Around behind the stable. + He couldn't fall all the way but he fell, + Fell, + Fell, + Fell, + Fell, + Fell, + Fell, + As far as he was able. + Farewell, Jane!" + +It is here we may safest be brief. The literature of prison escapes is +already full enough. Working in the soft mortar of so new a wall and +worked by one with a foundryman's knowledge of bricklaying, the murdered +Italian's stout old knife made effective speed as it kept neat time with +the racket maintained for it. When the happiest man in New Orleans +warily put head and shoulders through the low gap he had opened, +withdrew them again and reported to his fellows, the droll excess of +their good fortune moved the five to livelier song, and as one by one +the other four heads went in to view the glad sight the five gave a yet +more tragic stanza from the farewell to Jane. The source of their +delight was not the great ragged hole just over the intruding heads, in +the ceiling's lath and plaster, nor was it a whole corner torn off the +grand-piano by the somersaulting shell as it leaped from the rent above +to the cleaner one it had left at the baseboard in the room's farther +end. It was that third hole, burned in the floor; for there it opened, +shoulder wide, almost under their startled faces, free to the basement's +floor and actually with the rough ladder yet standing in it which had +been used in putting out the fire. That such luck could last a night was +too much to hope. + +Yet it lasted. The songs were hushed. The room whence they had come was +without an audible stir. Sleep stole through all the house, through the +small camp of the guard in the darkened grove, the farther tents of the +brigade, the anchored ships, the wide city, the starlit landscape. Out +in that rear garden-path where Madame Valcour had once been taken to see +the head-high wealth of roses two generals, who had been there through +all the singing, still paced to and fro and talked, like old Brodnax at +Carrollton in that brighter time, "not nearly as much alone as they +seemed." One by one five men in gray, each, for all his crouching and +gliding, as true and gallant a gentleman as either of those commanders, +stole from the house's basement and slipped in and out among the roses. +Along a back fence a guard walked up and down. Two by two, when his back +was turned, went four of the gliding men, as still as bats, over the +fence into a city of ten thousand welcome hiding-places. The fifth, +their "ringg-leadeh," for whom they must wait concealed until he should +rejoin them, lingered in the roses; hovered so close to the path that he +might have touched its occupants as they moved back and forth; +almost--to quote his uncle-- + + "Sat in the roses and heard the birds sing"-- + +heard blue birds, in soft notes not twittered, muttered as by owls, +revealing things priceless for Mobile to know. + +Bragg's gray army, he heard, was in far Chattanooga facing Rosecrans, +and all the slim remnants of Johnston's were hurrying to its +reinforcement. Mobile was merely garrisoned. Little was there save +artillery. Here in New Orleans lay thousands of veterans flushed with +their up-river victories, whose best and quickest aid to Rosecrans would +be so to move as to turn Bragg's reinforcements back southward. A +cavalry dash across the pine-barrens of East Louisiana to cut the +railroad along the Mississippi-Alabama line, a quick joint movement of +land and naval forces by way of the lakes, sound, and gulf, and Mobile +would fall. These things and others, smaller yet more startling, the +listener learned of, not as pastime talk, but as a vivid scheme already +laid, a mine ready to be sprung if its secret could be kept three days +longer; and now he hurried after his four compatriots, his own brain +teeming with a counter-plot to convey this secret through the dried-up +swamps to the nearest Confederate telegraph station while Anna should +bear it (and the recovered treasure) by boat to Mobile, two messengers +being so many times surer than one. + +Early next morning Madame Valcour, entering an outer room from an inner +one, found Flora writing a note. The girl kept on, conscious that her +irksome critic was taking keen note of a subtle, cruel decay of her +beauty, a spiritual corrosion that, without other fault to the eye, had +at last reached the surface in a faint hardening of lines and staleness +of bloom. Now she rose, went out, dispatched her note and returned. Her +manner, as the two sat down to bread and coffee, was bright though +tense. + +"From Greenleaf?" inquired her senior, "and to the same?" + +The girl shook her fair head and named one of his fellow-officers at +Callender House: "No, Colonel Greenleaf is much too busy. Hilary Kincaid +has--" + +"Esca-aped?" cried the aged one, flashed hotly, laughed, flashed again +and smiled. "That Victorine kitten--with her cakes! And you--and +Greenleaf--hah! you three cats paws--of one little--Anna!" + +Flora jauntily wagged a hand, then suddenly rose and pointed with a big +bread knife: "Go, dress! We'll save the kitten--if only for Charlie! Go! +_she must leave town at once_. Go! But, ah, grannie dear,"--she turned +to a window--"for Anna, spite of all we can do, I am af-raid--Ship +Island! Poor _Anna!_" At the name her beautiful arm, in one swift +motion, soared, swung, drove the bright steel deep into the window-frame +and left it quivering. + +"Really," said a courteous staff-officer as he and Doctor Sevier +alighted at the garden stair of Callender House and helped Anna and her +maid from a public carriage, "only two or three of us will know +you're"--His smile was awkward. The pale doctor set his jaw. Anna +musingly supplied the term: + +"A prisoner." She looked fondly over the house's hard-used front as they +mounted the steps. "If they'd keep me here, Doctor," she said at the +top, "I'd be almost happy. But"--she faced the aide-de-camp--"they +won't, you know. By this time to-morrow I shall be"--she waved +playfully--"far away." + +"Mainland, or island?" grimly asked the Doctor. + +She did not know. "But I know, now, how a rabbit feels with the hounds +after her. Honestly," she said again to the officer, "I wish I might +have her cunning." And the soldier murmured, "Amen." + + + + +LXIII + + +THE IRON-CLAD OATH + +Under Anna's passive air lay a vivid alertness to every fact in range of +eye or ear. + +Any least thing now might tip the scale for life or death, and while at +the head of the veranda steps she spoke of happiness her distressed +thought was of Hilary's madcap audacity, how near at hand he might be +even then, under what fearful risk of recognition and capture. She was +keenly glad to hear two men complain that the guard about the house and +grounds was to-day a new one awkward to the task. Of less weight now it +seemed that out on the river the despatch-boat had shifted her berth +down-stream and with steam up lay where the first few wheel turns would +put her out of sight. Indoors, where there was much official activity, +it relieved her to see that neither Hilary's absence nor her coming +counted large in the common regard. The brace of big generals were in +the library across the hall, busy on some affair much larger than this +of "ourn." + +The word was the old coachman Israel's. What a tender joy it was to find +him in the wretched drawing-room trying to make it decent for her and +dropping his tears as openly as the maid. With what a grace, yet how +boldly, he shut the door between them and blue authority. While the girl +arranged on a table, for Anna's use, a basket of needlework brought with +them he honestly confessed his Union loyalty, yet hurriedly, under his +breath, bade Anna not despair, and avowed a devotion to the safety and +comfort of "ole mahs's and mis's sweet baby" as then and forever his +higher law. He was still autocrat of the basement, dropsied with the +favor of colonels and generals, deferential to "folks," but a +past-master in taking liberties with things. As he talked he so +corrected the maid's arrangement of the screen that the ugly hole in the +wall was shut from the view of visitors, though left in range of Anna's +work-table, and as Anna rose at a tap on the door, with the gentle +ceremony of the old home he let in Doctor Sevier and Colonel Greenleaf +and shut himself out. + +"Anna," began the Doctor, "There's very little belief here that you're +involved in this thing." + +"Why, then," archly said Anna, "who is?" + +"Ah, that's the riddle. But they say if you'll just take the oath of +allegiance--" + +Anna started so abruptly as to imperil her table. Her color came and her +voice dropped to its lowest note as she said between long breaths: +"No!--no!--no!" + +But the Doctor spoke on: + +"They believe that if you take it you'll keep it, and they say that the +moment you take it you may go free, here or anywhere--to Mobile if you +wish." + +Again Anna flinched: "Mobile!" she murmured, and then lifting her eyes +to Greenleaf's, repeated, "No! No, not for my life. Better Ship Island." + +Greenleaf reddened. "Anna," put in the Doctor, but she lifted a hand:-- + +"They've never offered it to you, Doctor? H-oh! They'd as soon think of +asking one of our generals. They'd _almost_ as soon"--the corners of her +lips hinted a smile--"ask Hilary Kincaid." + +"I've never advised any one against it, Anna." + +"Well, I do!--every God-fearing Southern man and woman. A woman is all I +am and I may be short-sighted, narrow, and foolish, but--Oh, Colonel +Greenleaf, you shouldn't have let Doctor Sevier take this burden for +you. It's hard enough--" + +The Doctor intervened: "Anna, dear, this old friend of yours"--laying a +finger on Greenleaf--"is in a tight place. Both you and Hilary--" + +"Yes, I know, and I know it's not fair to him. Lieutenant--Colonel, I +mean, pardon me!--you sha'n't be under odium for my sake or his. As far +as I stand accused I must stand alone. The one who must go free is that +mere child Victorine, on her pass, to-day, this morning. When I hear the +parting gun of that boat down yonder I want to know by it that Victorine +is safely on her way to Mobile, as she would be had she not been my +messenger yesterday." + +"She carried nothing but a message?" + +"Nothing but a piece of writing--mine! Colonel, I tell you faithfully, +whatever Major Kincaid broke prison with was not brought here yesterday +by any one and was never in Victorine's hands." + +"Nor in yours, either?" kindly asked Greenleaf. + +Anna caught her breath and went redder than ever. Doctor Sevier stirred +to speak, but Anna's maid gave her a soft thrust, pointed behind the +screen, and covered a bashful smile with her apron. Anna's blush became +one of mirth. Her eyes went now to the Doctor and again to the broken +wall. + +"Israel!" she laughed, "why do you enter--?" + +"On'y fitten' way, missie. House so full o' comin' and goin', and me +havin' dis cullud man wid me." + +Out on the basement ladder, at the ragged gap of Israel's "on'y fittin' +way," was visible, to prove his word, another man's head, white-turbaned +like his own, and two dark limy hands passing in a pail of mortar. +Welcome distraction. True, Greenleaf's luckless question still stood +unanswered, but just then an orderly summoned him to the busy generals +and spoke aside to Doctor Sevier. + +"Miss Valcour," explained the Doctor to Anna. + +"Oh, Doctor," she pleaded, "I want to see her! Beg them, won't you, to +let her in?" + + + + +LXIV + + +"NOW, MR. BRICK-MASON,--" + +Amid the much coming and going that troubled Israel--tramp of spurred +boots, clank of sabres, seeking, meeting and parting of couriers and +aides--Madame Valcour, outwardly placid, inwardly terrified, found +opportunity to warn her granddaughter, softly, that unless she, the +granddaughter, could get that look of done-for agony out of her eyes, +the sooner and farther they fled this whole issue, this fearful +entanglement, the better for them. + +But brave Flora, knowing the look was no longer in the eyes alone but +had for days eaten into her visage as age had for decades into the +grandam's, made no vain effort to paint it out with smiles but accepted +and wore it in show of a desperate solicitude for Anna. Yet this, too, +was futile, and before Doctor Sevier had exchanged five words with her +she saw that to him the make-up was palpable and would be so to +Greenleaf. Poor Flora! She had wrestled her victims to the edge of a +precipice, yet it was she who at this moment, this dazzling September +morning, seemed doomed to go first over the brink. Had not both Hilary +and Anna met again this Greenleaf and through him found answer for all +their burning questions? She could not doubt her web of deceptions had +been torn to shreds, cast to the winds. Not one of the three could she +now hope to confront successfully, much less any two of them together. +To name no earlier reason--having reached town just as Kincaid was being +sent out of it, she had got him detained on a charge so frivolous that +how to sustain it now before Greenleaf and his generals she was tortured +to contrive. + +Yet something must be done. The fugitive must be retaken and retained, +the rival deported, and, oh, Hilary Kincaid! as she recalled her last +moment with you on that firing-line behind Vicksburg, shame and rage +outgrew despair, and her heart beat hot in a passion of chagrin and then +hotter, heart and brain, in a frenzy of ownership, as if by spending +herself she had bought you, soul and body, and if only for +self-vindication would have you from all the universe. + +"The last wager and the last card," she smilingly remarked to her +kinswoman, "they sometimes win out," and as the smile passed added, "I +wish I had that bread-knife." + +To Doctor Sevier her cry was, "Oh, yes, yes! Dear Anna! Poor Anna! Yes, +before I have to see any one else, even Colonel Greenleave! Ah, please, +Doctor, beg him he'll do me that prizelezz favor, and that for the good +God's sake he'll keep uz, poor Anna and me, not long waiting!" + +Yet long were the Valcours kept. It was the common fate those days. But +Flora felt no title to the common fate, and while the bustle of the +place went on about them she hiddenly suffered and, mainly for the +torment it would give her avaricious companion, told a new reason for +the look in her eyes. Only a few nights before she had started wildly +out of sleep to find that she had _dreamed_ the cause of Anna's +irreconcilable distress for the loss of the old dagger. The dream was +true on its face, a belated perception awakened by bitterness of soul, +and Madame, as she sat dumbly marvelling at its tardiness, chafed the +more against each minute's present delay, seeing that now to know if +Kincaid, or if Anna, held the treasure was her liveliest hankering. + +Meantime the captive Anna was less debarred than they. As Greenleaf and +the Doctor, withdrawing, shut her door, and until their steps died away, +she had stood by her table, her wide thought burning to know the +whereabouts, doings, and plight of him, once more missing, with whom a +scant year-and-a-half earlier--if any war-time can be called scant--she +had stood on that very spot and sworn the vows of marriage: to know his +hazards now, right now! with man; police, informer, patrol, picket, +scout; and with nature; the deadly reptiles, insects, and maladies of +thicketed swamp and sun-beaten, tide-swept marsh; and how far he had got +on the splendid mission which her note, with its words of love and faith +and of patriotic abnegation, had laid upon him. + +Now eagerly she took her first quick survey of the room she knew so +well. Her preoccupied maid was childishly questioning the busy Israel as +he and the man out on the basement ladder removed bricks from the edges +of the ragged opening between them. + +"Can't build solid ef you don't staht solid," she heard the old +coachman say. She glided to the chimney-breast, searching it swiftly +with her eyes and now with her hands. Soilure and scars had kept the +secret of the hidden niche all these months, and neither stain, scar, +nor any sign left by Hilary or Flora betrayed it now. Surely _this_ was +the very panel Flora had named. Yet dumbly, rigidly it denied the truth, +for Hilary, having reaped its spoil, had, to baffle his jailors, +cunningly made it fast. And time was flying! Tremblingly the searcher +glanced again to the door, to the screen, to the veranda windows--though +these Israel had rudely curtained--and then tried another square, keenly +harkening the while to all sounds and especially to the old negro's +incessant speech: + +"Now, Mr. Brick-mason, ef you'll climb in hyuh I'll step out whah you is +and fetch a bucket o' warteh. Gal, move one side a step, will you?" + +While several feet stirred lightly Anna persisted in her trembling +quest--not to find the treasure, dear Heaven, but only to find it gone. +Would that little be denied? So ardent was the mute question that she +seemed to have spoken it aloud, and in alarm looked once more at the +windows, the door, the screen--the screen! A silence had settled there +and as her eye fell on it the stooping mason came from behind it, +glancing as furtively as she at windows and door and then exaltedly to +her. She stiffened for outcry and flight, but in the same instant he +straightened up and she knew him; knew him as right here she had known +him once before in that same disguise, which the sad fortunes of their +cause had prevented his further use of till now. He started forward, +but with beseeching signs and whispers, blind to everything between them +but love and faith, she ran to him. He caught her to his heart and drew +her behind the screen under the enraptured eyes of her paralyzed maid. +For one long breath of ecstasy the rest of the universe was nothing. But +then-- + +"The treasure?" she gasped. "The dagger?" + +He showed the weapon in its precious scabbard and sought to lay it in +her hands, but--"Oh, why! why!" she demanded, though with a gaze that +ravished his,--. "Why are you not on your way--?" + +"Am!" he softly laughed. "Here, leave me the dirk, but take the sheath. +Everything's there that we put there long ago, beloved, and also a +cypher report of what I heard last night in the garden--never mind +what!--_take it_, you will save Mobile! Now both of you slip through +this hole and down the ladder and quietly skedaddle--quick--come!" + +"But the guards?" + +"Just brass it out and walk by them. Victorine's waiting out behind with +all her aunt's things at a house that old Israel will tell you +of--listen!" From just outside the basement, near the cisterns, a single +line of song rose drowsily and ceased: + + "Heap mo' dan worteh-million juice--" + +"That's he. It means come on. Go!" He gathered a brick and trowel and +rang them together as if at work. The song answered: + + "Aw 'possum pie aw roasted goose--" + +The trowel rang on. Without command from her mistress the maid was +crouching into the hole. In the noise Anna was trying to press an +anxious query upon Hilary, but he dropped brick and tool and snatched +her again into his embrace. + + "Aw soppin's o' de gravy pan--" + +called the song. The maid was through! + +"But you, Hilary, my life?" gasped Anna as he forced her to the opening. + +"The swamp for me!" he said, again sounding the trowel. "I take +this"--the trowel--"and walk out through the hall. Go, my soul's +treasure, go!" + +Anna, with that art of the day which remains a wonder yet, gathered her +crinoline about her feet and twisted through and out upon the ladder. +Hilary seized a vanishing hand, kissed it madly, and would have loosed +it, but it clung till his limy knuckles went out and down and her lips +sealed on them the distant song's fourth line as just then it came: + + "De ladies loves de ladies' man!" + +As mistress and maid passed in sight of the dark singer he hurried to +them, wearing the bucket of water on his turban as lightly as a hat. "Is +you got to go so soon?" he asked, and walked beside them. Swiftly, under +his voice, he directed them to Victorine and then spoke out again in +hearing of two or three blue troopers. "You mus' come ag'in, whensomeveh +you like." + +They drew near a guard: "Dese is ole folks o' mine, Mr. Gyuard, ef you +please, suh, dess a-lookin' at de ole home, suh." + +"We were admitted by Colonel Greenleaf," said Anna, with a soft +brightness that meant more than the soldier guessed, and he let them +out, feeling as sweet, himself, as he tried to look sour. + +"Well, good-by, Miss Nannie," said the old man, "I mus' recapitulate +back to de house; dey needs me pow'ful all de time. Good luck to you! +Gawd bless you!... Dass ow ba-aby, Mr. Gyuard--Oh, Lawd, Lawd, de days +I's held dat chile out on one o' dese ole han's!" He had Flora's feeling +for stage effects. + +Toiling or resting, the Southern slaves were singers. With the pail on +his head and with every wearer of shoulder-straps busy giving or obeying +some order, it was as normal as cock-crowing that he should raise yet +another line of his song and that from the house the diligent bricklayer +should reply. + +Sang the water-carrier: + + "I's natch-i-ully gallant wid de ladies,--" + +and along with the trowel's tinkle came softly back, + + "I uz bawn wid a talent fo' de ladies." + +For a signal the indoor singer need not have gone beyond that line, but +the spirit that always grew merry as the peril grew, the spirit which +had made Kincaid's Battery the fearfulest its enemies ever faced, +insisted: + + "You fine it on de map o' de contrac' plan, + I's boun' to be a ladies' man!" + + + + +LXV + + +FLORA'S LAST THROW + +Normal as cock-crowing seemed the antiphony to the common ear, which +scarcely noticed the rareness of the indoor voice. But Greenleaf's was +not the common ear, nor was Flora Valcour's. + +To her that closing strain made the torture of inaction finally +unbearable. Had Anna heard? Leaving Madame she moved to a hall door of +the room where they sat. Was Anna's blood surging like her own? It could +not! Under what a tempest of conjectures she looked down and across the +great hall to the closed and sentinelled door of that front drawing-room +so rife with poignant recollections. There, she thought, was Anna. From +within it, more faintly now, came those sounds of a mason at work which +had seemed to ring with the song. But the song had ceased. About the +hall highly gilded officers conferred alertly in pairs or threes, more +or less in the way of younger ones who smartly crossed from room to +room. Here came Greenleaf! Seeking her? No, he would have passed +unaware, but her lips ventured his name. + +Never had she seen such a look in his face as that with which he +confronted her. Grief, consternation, discovery and wrath were all as +one save that only the discovery and wrath meant her. She saw how for +two days and nights he had been putting this and that and this and that +and this and that together until he had guessed her out. Sternly in his +eyes she perceived contumely withholding itself, yet even while she felt +the done-for cry heave through her bosom, and the floor fail like a +sinking deck, she clung to her stage part, babbled impromptu lines. + +"Doctor Sevier--?" she began-- + +"He had to go." + +Again she read the soldier's eyes. God! he was comparing her changed +countenance--a fool could see he was!--with Anna's! both smitten with +affliction, but the abiding peace of truth in one, the abiding war of +falsehood in the other. So would Kincaid do if he were here! But the +stage waited: "Ah, Colonel, Anna! poor Anna!" Might not the +compassion-wilted supplicant see the dear, dear prisoner? She rallied +all her war-worn fairness with all her feminine art, and to her +amazement, with a gleam of purpose yet without the softening of a +lineament, he said yes, waved permission across to the guard and left +her. + +She passed the guard and knocked. Quietly in the room clinked the +brick-mason's work. He strongly hummed his tune. Now he spoke, as if to +his helper, who seemed to be leaving him. Again she knocked, and bent +her ear. The mason sang aloud: + + "Some day dis worl' come to an en', + I don't know how, I don't know when--" + +She turned the door-knob and murmured, "Anna!" + +The bricklaying clinked, tapped and scraped on. The workman hummed again +his last two lines. + +"Who is it?" asked a feigned voice which she knew so instantly to be +Kincaid's that every beat of her heart jarred her frame. + +"'Tis I, Anna, dear. 'Tis Flora." She was mindful of the sentry, but +all his attention was in the busy hall. + +There came a touch on the inner door-knob. "Go away!" murmured the manly +voice, no longer disguised. "In God's name! for your own sake as well as +hers, go instantly!" + +"No," melodiously replied Flora, in full voice for the sentry's ear, but +with resolute pressure on the door, "no, not at all.... No, I muz' not, +cannot." + +"Then wait one moment till you hear me at work!" + +She waited. Presently the trowel sounded again and its wielder, in a +lowered tone, sang with it: + + "Dat neveh trouble Dandy Dan + Whilst de ladies loves de ladies' man." + +At the first note she entered with some idle speech, closed the door, +darted her glance around, saw no one, heard only the work and the song +and sprang to the chimney-breast. She tried the panel--it would not +yield! Yet there, as if the mason's powerful hands had within that +minute reopened and reclosed it, were the wet marks of his fingers. A +flash of her instinct for concealment bade her wipe them off and she had +barely done so when he stepped from the screen, fresh from Israel's +water-bucket, drying his face on his hands, his hands on his face and +un-turbaned locks, prison-worn from top to toe, but in Dixie's full gray +and luminous with the unsmiling joy of danger. + +"It's not there," he loudly whispered, showing the bare dagger. "Here it +is. She has the rest, scabbard and all." + +Flora clasped her hands as in ecstasy: "And is free? surely free?" + +"Almost! Surely when that despatch-boat fires!" In a few rapid words +Hilary told the scheme of Anna's flight, at the same time setting the +screen aside so as to show the hole in the wall nearly closed, humming +his tune and ringing the trowel on the brickwork. + +Flora made new show of rapture. Nor was it all mere show. Anna escaping, +the treasure would escape with her, and Flora be thrown into the dungeon +of penury. Yet let them both go, both rival and treasure! Love's ransom! +All speed to them since they left her Hilary Kincaid and left him at her +mercy. But the plight was complex and suddenly her exultation changed to +affright. "My God! Hilary Kincaid," she panted, "you 'ave save' her to +deztroy yo'seff! You are--" + +Proudly, gaily he shook his head: "No! No! against her will I've sent +her, to save--" He hushed. He had begun to say a city, Flora's city. +Once more a captive, he would gladly send by Flora also, could she +contrive to carry it, the priceless knowledge which Anna, after all, +might fail to convey. But something--it may have been that same outdone +and done-for look which Greenleaf had just noted--silenced him, and the +maiden resumed where she had broken off: + +"My God, Hilary Kincaid, you are in denger to be hanged a spy! Thiz +minute you 'ave hide yo' dizguise in that panel!" + +"You would come in," said Hilary, with a playful wave of the trowel, and +turned to his work, singing: + + "When I hands in my checks--" + +Flora ran and clung tenderly to his arm, but with a distressed smile he +clasped her wrists in one hand and gently forced her back again while +she asked in burning undertone, "And you 'ave run that h-awful risk for +me? for me? But, why? why? why?" + +"Oh!" he laughingly said, and at the wall once more waved the ringing +trowel, "instinct, I reckon; ordinary manhood--to womanhood. If you had +recognized me in that rig--" + +"And I would! In any rigue thiz heart would reco'nize you!" + +"Then you would have had to betray me or else go, yourself, to Ship +Island" + +"H-o-oh! I would have gone!" + +"That's what I feared," said Hilary, though while he spoke she fiercely +felt that she certainly would have betrayed him; not for horror of Ship +Island but because now, _after this_, no Anna Callender nor all the +world conspired should have him from her alive. + +He lifted his tool for silence, and fresh anger wrung her soul to see +joy mount in his eyes as from somewhere below the old coachman sang: + + "When I hands in my checks, O, my ladies!" + +Yet she showed elation: "That means Anna and Victorine they have pazz' +to the boat?" + +With merry nods and airy wavings of affirmation he sang back, rang back: + + "Mighty little I espec's, O, my ladies! + But whaheveh--" + +Suddenly he darkened imperiously and motioned Flora away. "Now! now's +your time! go! now! this instant go!" he exclaimed, and sang on: + + "--I is sent--" + +"Ah!" she cried, "they'll h-ask me about her!" + +"I don't believe it!" cried he, and sang again: + + "--dey mus' un-deh-stan'--" + +"Yes," she insisted, "--muz' undehstan', and they will surely h-ask me!" + +"Well, let them ask their heads off! Go! at once! before you're further +implicated!" + +"And leave you to--?" + +"Oh, doggon _me_. The moment that boat's gun sounds--if only you're out +o' the way--I'll make a try. Go! for Heaven's sake, go!" + +Instead, with an agony of fondness, she glided to him. Distress held him +as fast and mute as at the flag presentation. But when she would have +knelt he caught her elbows and held her up by force. + +"No," he moaned, "you shan't do that." + +She crimsoned and dropped her face between their contending arms while +for pure anguish he impetuously added, "Maybe in God's eyes a woman has +this right, I'm not big enough to know; but as _I'm made_ it can't be +done. I'm a man, no more, no less!" + +Her eyes flashed into his: "You are Hilary Kincaid. I will stan'!" + +"No,"--he loosed his hold,--"I'm _only_ Hilary Kincaid and you'll go--in +mercy to both of us--in simple good faith to every one we love--Oh, +leave me!" He swung his head in torture: "I'd sooner be shot for a spy +or a coward than be the imbecile this makes me." Then all at once he was +fierce: "Go!" + +Almost below her breath she instantly replied, "I will not!" She stood +at her full, beautiful height. "Together we go or together stay. +List-en!--no-no, not for _that_." (Meaning the gun.) In open anger she +crimsoned again: "'Twill shoot, all right, and Anna, _she'll_ go. Yes, +she will _leave_ you. She can do that. And you, you can sen' her away!" + +He broke in with a laugh of superior knowledge and began to draw back, +but she caught his jacket in both hands, still pouring forth,--"She +_has_ leave you--to me! me to you! My God! Hilary Kincaid, could she do +that if she love' you? She don't! She knows not how--and neither you! +But you, ah, you shall learn. She, she never can!" Through his jacket +her knuckles felt the bare knife. Her heart leapt. + +"Let go," he growled, backing away and vainly disengaging now one of her +hands and now the other. "My trowel's too silent." + +But she clung and dragged, speaking on wildly: "You know, Hilary, you +know? _You love me_. Oh, no-no-no, don' look like that, I'm not crazee." +Her deft hands had got the knife, but she tossed it into the +work-basket: "Ah, Hilary Kincaid, oft-en we love where we thing we do +not, and oft-en thing we love where we do not--" + +He would not hear: "Oh, Flora Valcour! You smother me in my own +loathing--oh, God send that gun!" The four hands still strove. + +"Hilary, list-en me yet a moment. See me. Flora Valcour. Could Flora +Valcour do like this--_ag-ains' the whole nature of a woman_--if she--?" + +"Stop! stop! you shall not--" + +"If she di'n' know, di'n' feel, di'n' see, thad you are loving her?" + +"Yet God knows I've never given cause, except as--" + +"A ladies' man?" prompted the girl and laughed. + +The blood surged to his brow. A wilder agony was on hers as he held her +from him, rigid; "Enough!" he cried; "We're caged and doomed. Yet you +still have this one moment to save us, _all of us_, from life-long shame +and sorrow." + +She shook her head. + +"Yes, yes," he cried. "You can. I cannot. I'm helpless now and forever. +What man or woman, if I could ever be so vile as to tell it, could +believe the truth of this from me? In God's name, then, go!" He tenderly +thrust her off: "Go, live to honor, happiness and true love, and let +me--" + +"Ezcape, perchanze, to Anna?" + +"Yes, if I--" He ceased in fresh surprise. Not because she toyed with +the dagger lying on Anna's needlework, for she seemed not to know she +did it; but because of a strange brightness of assent as she nodded +twice and again. + +"I will go," she said. Behind the brightness was the done-for look, +plainer than ever, and with it yet another, a look of keen purpose, +which the grandam would have understood. He saw her take the dirk, so +grasping it as to hide it behind wrist and sleeve; but he said only, +beseechingly, "Go!" + +"Stay," said another voice, and at the small opening still left in the +wall, lo! the face of Greenleaf and the upper line of his blue and gilt +shoulders. His gaze was on Flora. She could do nothing but gaze again. +"I know, now," he continued, "your whole two-years' business. Stay just +as you are till I can come round and in. Every guard is doubled and has +special orders." + +She dropped into a seat, staring like one demented, now at door and +windows, now from one man to the other, now to the floor, while Kincaid +sternly said, "Colonel Greenleaf, the reverence due from any soldier to +any lady--" and Greenleaf interrupted-- + +"The lady may be sure of." + +"And about this, Fred, you'll be--dumb?" + +"Save only to one, Hilary." + +"Where is she, Fred?" + +"On that boat, fancying herself disguised. Having you, we're only too +glad not to have her." + +The retaken prisoner shone with elation: "And those fellows of last +night?--got them back?" + +Greenleaf darkened, and shook his head. + +"Hurrah," quietly remarked the smiling Hilary. + +"Wait a moment," said the blue commander, and vanished. + + + + +LXVI + + +"WHEN I HANDS IN MY CHECKS" + +Kincaid glanced joyfully to Flora, but her horrified gaze held him +speechless. + +"Now," she softly asked, "who is the helplezz--the cage'--the doom'? You +'ave kill' me." + +"I'll save you! There's good fighting yet, if--" + +"H-oh! already, egcep' inside me, I'm dead." + +"Not by half! There's time for a last shot and I've seen it win!" He +caught up the trowel, turned to his work and began to sing once more: + + "When I hands in my checks, O, my ladies, + Mighty little I espec's, O, my ladies--" + +[Illustration: She dropped into a seat, staring like one demented.] + +He ceased and listened. Certainly, somewhere, some one had moaned. +Sounds throughout the house were growing, as if final orders had set +many in motion at once. For some cause unrelated to him or to Anna, to +Flora or the silent boat, bugles and drums were assembling the encamped +brigade. Suddenly, not knowing why, he flashed round. Flora was within +half a step of him with her right arm upthrown. He seized it, but vain +was the sparring skill that had won at the willow pond. Her brow was on +his breast, the knife was in her left hand, she struck with thrice her +natural power, an evil chance favored her, and, hot as lightning, deep, +deep, the steel plunged in. He gulped a great breath, his eyes flamed, +but no cry came from him or her. With his big right hand crushing her +slim fingers as they clung to the hilt, he dragged the weapon forth and +hurled her off. + +Before he could find speech she had regained her balance and amazed him +yet again with a smile. The next instant she had lifted the dagger +against herself, but he sprang and snatched it, exclaiming as he drew +back:-- + +"No, you sha'n't do that, either." + +She strove after it. He held her off by an arm, but already his strength +was failing. "My God!" he groaned, "it's you, Flora Valcour, who've +killed me. Oh, how did--how did you--was it accid'--wasn't it accident? +Fly!" He flung her loose. "For your life, fly! Oh, that gun! Oh, God +send it! Fly! Oh, Anna, Anna Callender! Oh, your city, Flora Valcour, +your own city! Fly, poor child! I'll keep up the sham for you!" + +Starting now here, now there, Flora wavered as he reeled to the broken +wall and seized the trowel. The knife dropped to the floor but he set +foot on it, brandished the tool and began to sing: + + "When I hands in my checks, O, my ladies--" + +A cry for help rang from Flora. She darted for the door but was met by +Greenleaf. "Stay!" he repeated, and tone, hand, eye told her she was a +prisoner. He halted aghast at the crimson on her hands and brow, on +Hilary's, on Hilary's lips and on the floor, and himself called, "Help +here! a surgeon! help!" while Kincaid faced him gaily, still singing: + + "Mighty little I espec's, O, my ladies--" + +Stooping to re-exchange the tool for the weapon, the singer went limp, +swayed, and as Greenleaf sprang to him, toppled over, lengthened out and +relaxed on the arm of his foe and friend. Wild-eyed, Flora swept to her +knees beside him, her face and form all horror and affright, crying in a +voice fervid and genuine as only truth can make it in the common run of +us, "He di'n' mean! Oh, he di'n' mean! 'Twas all accident! He di'n' +mean!" + +"Yes, Fred," said Hilary. "She--she--mere accident, old man. Keep it +mum." He turned a suffering brow to Flora: "You'll explain for +me--when"--he gathered his strength--"when the--boat's gone." + +The room had filled with officers asking "who, how, what?" "Did it +himself, to cheat the gallows," Madame heard one answer another as by +some fortune she was let in. She found Greenleaf chief in a group busy +over the fallen man, who lay in Flora's arms, deadly pale, yet with a +strong man's will in every lineament. + +"Listen, Fred," he was gasping. "It'll sound. It's got to! Oh, it will! +One minute, Doctor, please. My love and a city--Fred, can't some one +look and see if--?" + +From a lifted window curtain the young aide who had brought Anna to the +house said, "Boat's off." + +"Thank God!" panted Hilary. "Oh, Fred, Fred, my girl and _all_! Just a +minute, Doctor,--_there_!" + +A soft, heavy boom had rolled over the land. The pain-racked listener +flamed for joy and half left the arms that held him: "Oh, Fred, wasn't +that heaven's own music?" He tried to finish his song: + + "But whaheveh I is sent, dey mus' undehstan'--" + +and swooned. + + + + +LXVII + + +MOBILE + +About a green spot crowning one of the low fortified hills on a northern +edge of Mobile sat Bartleson, Mandeville, Irby, Villeneuve and two or +three lieutenants, on ammunition-boxes, fire-logs and the sod, giving +their whole minds to the retention of Anna and Miranda Callender, who +sat on camp-stools. The absent Constance was down in the town, just then +bestowing favors not possible for any one else to offer so acceptably +to a certain duplicate and very self-centered Steve aged eighty +days--sh-sh-sh! + +The camp group's soft discourse was on the character of one whom this +earliest afternoon in August they had followed behind muffled drums to +his final rest. Beginning at Carrollton Gardens, they said, then in the +flowery precincts of Callender House, later in that death-swept garden +on Vicksburg's inland bluffs, and now in this one, of Flora's, a garden +yet, peaceful and fragrant, though no part of its burnt house save the +chimneys had stood in air these three years and a half, the old hero-- + +"Yes," chimed Miranda to whoever was saying it-- + +The old hero, despite the swarm of mortal perils and woes he and his +brigade and its battery had come through in that period, had with a +pleasing frequency--to use the worn-out line just this time more-- + + "Sat in the roses and heard the birds' song." + +The old soldier, they all agreed, had had a feeling for roses and song, +which had gilded the edges and angles of his austere spirit and betrayed +a tenderness too deep hid for casual discovery, yet so vital a part of +him that but for its lacerations--with every new public disaster--he +never need have sunk under these year-old Vicksburg wounds which had +dragged him down at last. + +Miranda retold the splendid antic he had cut in St. Charles Street the +day Virginia seceded. Steve recounted how the aged warrior had regained +strength from Chickamauga's triumph and lost it again after Chattanooga. +Two or three recalled how he had suffered when Banks' Red River +Expedition desolated his fair estate and "forever lured away" his +half-a-thousand "deluded people." He must have succumbed then, they +said, had not the whole "invasion" come to grief and been driven back +into New Orleans. New Orleans! younger sister of little Mobile, yet +toward which Mobile now looked in a daily torture of apprehension. And +then Hilary's beloved Bartleson put in what Anna sat wishing some one +would say. + +"With what a passion of disowned anxiety," he remarked, "had the +General, to the last, watched every step, slip and turn in what Steve +had once called 'the multifurieuse carreer' of Hilary Kincaid." + +So turned the talk upon the long-time absentee, and instances were cited +of those outbreaks of utter nonsense which were wont to come from him in +awful moments: gibes with which no one reporting them to the uncle could +ever make the "old man" smile. The youngest lieutenant (a gun-corporal +that day the Battery left New Orleans) told how once amid a fearful +havoc, when his piece was so short of men that Kincaid was himself down +on the ground sighting and firing it, and an aide-de-camp galloped up +asking hotly, "Who's in command here!" the powder-blackened Hilary had +risen his tallest and replied,-- + +"I!... b, e, x, bex, Ibex!" + +A gentle speculation followed as to which of all Hilary's utterances had +taken finest effect on the boys, and it was agreed that most potent for +good was the brief talk away back at Camp Callender, in which he had +told them that, being artillery, they must know how to wait unmurmuring +through months of "rotting idleness" from one deadly "tea-party" to +another. For a year, now, they had done that, and done it the better +because he had all that same time been forced to do likewise in New +Orleans, a prisoner in hospital, long at death's door, and only now +getting well. + +Anna remained silent. While there was praise of him what more could she +want for sweet calm? + +"True," said somebody, "in these forty-odd months between March, +'Sixty-one, and August, 'Sixty-four, all hands had got their fill of +war; laurels gained were softer to rest on than laurels unsprouted, and +it ought to be as easy as rolling off a log for him to lie on his +prison-hospital cot in 'rotting idleness,' lulled in the proud assurance +that he had saved Mobile, or at least postponed for a year--" + +"Hilary?" frowningly asked Adolphe. + +"Yes," with a firm quietness said Anna. + +Villeneuve gallantly amended that somebody else owned an undivided half +in the glory of that salvation and would own more as soon as the Union +fleet (daily growing in numbers) should try to enter the bay: a hint at +Anna, of course, and at the great ram _Tennessee_, which the Confederate +admiral, Buchanan, had made his flag-ship, and whose completion, while +nothing else was ready but three small wooden gunboats, was due--they +had made even Anna believe--to the safe delivery of the Bazaar fund. + +So then she, forced to talk, presently found herself explaining how such +full news of Hilary had so often come in these awful months; to wit, by +the long, kind letters of a Federal nurse--and Federal officer's +wife--but for whose special devotion the captive must have perished, +and who, Anna revealed, was the schoolmistress banished North in +'Sixty-one. What she kept untold was that, by favor of Greenleaf, Hilary +had been enabled to auction off the poor remains of his home belongings +and thus to restore the returned exile her gold. The speaker let her +eyes wander to an approaching orderly, and a lieutenant took the chance +to mention that early drill near Carrollton, which the General had +viewed from the Callenders' equipage. Their two horses, surviving the +shells and famine of Vicksburg, had been among the mere half-dozen of +good beasts retained at the surrender by some ruse, and-- + +The orderly brought Bartleson a document and Mandeville a newspaper-- + +And it was touching, to-day, the lieutenant persisted, to see that once +so beautiful span, handsome yet, leading in the team of six that drew +the draped caisson which-- + +"Ah, yes!" assented all. + +Mandeville hurried to read out the news from Virginia, which could still +reach them through besieged Atlanta. It was of the Petersburg mine and +its slaughter, and thrilled every one. Yet Anna watched Bartleson open +his yellow official envelope. + +"Marching orders?" asked Miranda, and while his affirming smile startled +every one, Steve, for some reason in the newspaper itself, put it up. + +"Are the enemy's ships--?" began Anna-- + +"We're ordered down the bay," replied Bartleson. + +"Then so are we," she dryly responded, at which all laughed, though the +two women had spent much time of late on a small boat which daily made +the round of the bay's defenses. In a dingy borrowed rig they hastened +away toward their lodgings. + +As they drove, Anna pressed Miranda's hand and murmured, "Oh, for Hilary +Kincaid!" + +"Ah, dear! not to be in this--'tea-party'?" + +"Yes! Yes! His boys were in so many without him, from Shiloh to Port +Gibson, and now, with all their first guns lost forever--theirs and +ours--lost _for_ them, not by them--and after all this year of +idleness, and the whole battery hanging to his name as it does--oh, +'Randy, it would do more to cure his hurts than ten hospitals, there or +here." + +"But the new risks, Nan, as he takes them!" + +"He'll take them wherever he is. I can't rest a moment for fear he's +trying once more to escape." + +(In fact, that is what, unknown to her, he had just been doing.) + +"But, 'Randa?" + +"Yes, dear?" + +"Whether he's here or there, Kincaid's Battery, his other self, will be +in whatever goes on, and so, of course, will the _Tennessee_." + +"Yes," said Miranda, at their door. + +"Yes, and it's not just all our bazaar money that's in her, nor all our +toil--" + +"Nor all your sufferings," interrupted Miranda, as Constance wonderingly +let them in. + +"Oh, nor yours! nor Connie's! nor all--his; nor our whole past of the +last two interminable years; but this whole poor terrified city's fate, +and, for all we know, the war's final issue! And so I--Here, Con," +(handing a newspaper), "from Steve, husband." + +(Behind the speaker Miranda, to Constance, made eager hand and lip +motions not to open it there.) + +"And so, 'Ran, I wish we could go ashore to-morrow, as far down the bay +as we can make our usefulness an excuse, and stay!--day and +night!--till--!" She waved both hands. + +Constance stared: "Why, Nan Callender!" + +"Now, Con, hush. You and Steve Second are non-combatants! Oh, 'Randa, +let's do it! For if those ships--some of them the same we knew so well +and so terribly at home--if they come I--whatever happens--I want to see +it!" + + + + +LXVIII + + +BY THE DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT + +Luck loves to go in mask. It turned out quite as well, after all, that +for two days, by kind conspiracy of Constance and Miranda, the boat trip +was delayed. In that time no fleet came. + +Here at the head of her lovely bay tremblingly waited Mobile, never +before so empty of men, so full of women and children. Southward, from +two to four leagues apart, ran the sun-beaten, breezy margins of +snow-white sand-hills evergreen with weird starveling pines, dotted with +pretty summer homes and light steamer-piers. Here on the Eastern Shore +were the hotels: "Howard's," "Short's," "Montrose," "Battle's Wharf" and +Point Clear, where summer society had been wont to resort all the way +from beloved New Orleans. Here, from Point Clear, the bay, broadening +south-westward, doubled its width, and here, by and by, this eastern +shore-line suddenly became its southern by returning straight westward +in a long slim stretch of dazzling green-and-white dunes, and shut its +waters from the Gulf of Mexico except for a short "pass" of a few +hundred yards width and for some three miles of shoal water between the +pass and Dauphin Island; and there on that wild sea-wall's end--Mobile +Point--a dozen leagues due south from the town--sat Fort Morgan, keeping +this gate, the port's main ship-channel. Here, north-west from Morgan, +beyond this main entrance and the league of impassable shoals, Fort +Gaines guarded Pelican Channel, while a mile further townward Fort +Powell held Grant's Pass into and out of Mississippi Sound, and here +along the west side, out from Mobile, down the magnolia-shaded Bay Shell +Road and the bark road below it, Kincaid's Battery and the last thousand +"reserves" the town's fighting blood could drip--whole platoons of them +mere boys--had marched, these two days, to Forts Powell and Gaines. + +All this the Callenders took in with the mind's eye as they bent over a +candle-lighted map, while aware by telegraph that behind Gaines, +westward on Dauphin Island, blue troops from New Orleans had landed and +were then night-marching upon the fort in a black rainstorm. Furthest +down yonder, under Morgan's hundred and fifteen great guns, as Anna +pointed out, in a hidden east-and-west double row athwart the main +channel, leaving room only for blockade-runners, were the torpedoes, +nearly seventy of them. And, lastly, just under Morgan's north side, +close on the channel's eastern edge, rode, with her three small +gunboats, the _Tennessee_, ugly to look at but worse to meet, +waiting, watching, as up here in Fort Powell, smiling at the scurviness +of their assignment, watched and waited Kincaid's Battery. + +Upstairs the new Steve gently wailed. + +"Let me!" cried Anna, and ran. + +Constance drew out Mandeville's newspaper. Miranda smiled despairingly. + +"I wish, now," sighed the sister, "we'd shown it when we got it. I've +had enough of keeping things from Nan Callender. Of course, even among +our heroes in prison, there still may be a 'Harry Renard'; but it's far +more likely that someone's telegraphed or printed 'Hilary Kinkaid' that +way; for there _was_ a Herry Renard, Steve says, a captain, in Harper's +calvary, who months ago quietly died in one of our _own +hospitals_--at Lauderdale. Now, at headquarters, Steve says, they're +all agreed that the name isn't a mite more suggestive than the pure +daring of the deed, and that if they had to guess who did it they'd +every one guess Hilary Kincaid." + +She spread the story out on her knee: Exchange of prisoners having +virtually ceased, a number of captive Confederate officers had been +started up the Mississippi from New Orleans, _under_ a heavy _but +unwary_ guard, on a "tin-clad" steamer, to wear out the rest of the war +in a Northern prison. Forbidden to gather even in pairs, they had yet +moved freely about, often passing each other closely enough to exchange +piecemeal counsels unnoticed, and all at once, at a tap of the boat's +bell had sprung, man for man, upon their keepers and instantly were +masters of them, of them, of their arms stacked on the boiler-deck and +of the steamboat, which they had promptly run ashore on the East +Louisiana side and burned. So ran the tale, and so broke off. Ought Anna +to be told it, or not? + +"No," said the sister. "After all, why should we put her again through +all those sufferings that so nearly killed her after Shiloh?" + +"If he would only--" + +"Telegraph? How do we know he hasn't?" + +Next morning the two unencumbered Callenders went down the bay. But they +found no need to leave the boat. A series of mishaps delayed her, the +tide hindered, rain fell, and at length she was told to wait for orders +and so lay all night at anchor just off Fort Gaines, but out of the +prospective line of fire from the foe newly entrenched behind it. The +rain ceased and, as one of Hilary's songs ran-- + + "The stars shed forth their light serene." + +The ladies had the captain's room, under the pilot-house. Once Anna +woke, and from the small windows that opened to every quarter except up +the bay townward looked forth across the still waters and low shores. +Right at hand loomed Fort Gaines. A league away north-west rose small +Fort Powell, just enough from the water to show dimly its unfinished +parapets. In her heart's vision she saw within it her own Kincaid's +Battery, his and hers. South-eastward, an opposite league away, she +could make out Fort Morgan, but not the Tennessee. The cool, briny air +hung still, the wide waters barely lifted and fell. She returned and +slept again until some one ran along the narrow deck under her reclosed +windows, and a male voice said-- + +"The Yankee fleet! It's coming in!" + +Miranda was dressing. Out on the small deck voices were quietly audible +and the clink of a ratchet told that the boat was weighing anchor. She +rang three-bells. The captain's small clock showed half-past five. Now +the swiftly dressed pair opened their windows. The rising sun made a +golden path across the tranquil bay and lighted up the three forts and +the starry battlecross softly stirring over each. Dauphin Island and +Mobile Point were moss-green and pearly white. The long, low, velvety +pulsations of the bay were blue, lilac, pink, green, bronze. But angry +smoke poured from the funnels of the Tennessee and her three dwarf +consorts, they four also showing the battle-flag, and some seven miles +away, out in the Gulf, just beyond the gleaming eastern point of Sand +Island, was one other sign of unrest. + +"You see they're under way?" asked Anna. + +Yes, Miranda saw, and sighed with the questioner. For there, once +more--low crouched, war-painted and gliding like the red savages so many +of them were named for, the tall ones stripped of all their upper spars, +but with the pink spot of wrath flickering at every masthead--came the +ships of Farragut. + +The two women could not count them, so straight on were they headed, but +a man near the window said there were seven large and seven less, lashed +small to large in pairs. Yet other counting they did, for now out of +Sand Island Channel, just west of the ships, came a shorter line--one, +two, three, four strange barely discernible things, submerged like +crocodiles, a hump on each of the first two, two humps on each of the +others, crossed the fleet's course and led the van on the sunward side +to bring themselves first and nearest to Morgan, its water-battery, and +the _Tennessee_. + +Anna sighed while to Miranda the man overflowed with information. Ah, +ah! in Hampton Roads the _Virginia_ had barely coped with one of those +horrors, of one hump, two guns; while here came four, whose humps were +six and their giant rifles twelve. + +"Twenty-two guns in our whole flotilla," the man was saying to Miranda, +"and they've got nearly two hundred." The anchor was up. Gently the +boat's engines held her against the flood-tide. The man had turned to +add some word, when from the land side of Gaines a single columbiad +roared and a huge shell screamed off into the investing entrenchments. +Then some lighter guns, thirty-twos, twenty-fours, cracked and rang, and +the foe replied. His shells burst over and in the fort, and a cloud of +white and brown smoke rolled eastward, veiling both this scene and the +remoter, seaward, silent, but far more momentous one of Fort Morgan, the +fleet, and the _Tennessee_. + +The boat crept southward into the cloud, where only Gaines was dimly +visible, flashing and howling landward. Irby was in that flashing. Steve +was back yonder in Powell with Kincaid's Battery. Through Steve, present +at the reading of a will made at Vicksburg the day after Hilary's +capture there, Irby had just notified Anna, for Hilary, that their uncle +had left everything to him, Adolphe. She hoped it was true, but for once +in her life had doubts without discomfort. How idly the mind can drift +in fateful moments. The bell tapped for six. As it did so the two +watchers descried through a rift in the smoke the Tennessee signaling +her grim litter, and the four crawling forward to meet the ships. Again +the smoke closed in, but the small boat stole through it and hovered at +its edge while the minutes passed and the foe came on. How plain to be +seen was each pair, how familiar some of those taller shapes! + +"The _Brooklyn_, 'Randa, right in front. And there again is the +admiral's flag, on the _Hartford_. And there, with her topmasts down, is +the _Richmond_--oh, 'Ran', it's the same bad dream once more!" + +Not quite. There were ships new to them, great and less, whose savage +names, told by the man near the window, chilled the blood with reminder +of old wars and massacres: the _Winnebago, Chickasaw, Octorora, Ossipee, +Metacomet, Seminale_. "Look!" said the man, pointing, "the _Tecumseh_--" + + + + +LXIX + + +SOUTHERN CROSS AND NORTHERN STAR + +A red streak and white sun-lit puff sprang from the leading monitor's +turret, and the jarring boom of a vast gun came over the water, wholly +unlike the ringing peals of Gaines's lighter armament. Now its opposite +cranny puffed and thundered. The man smiled an instant. "Spitting on her +hands," he said, but then murmured to himself, "Lord! look at that +wind!" + +"Is it bad?" asked Anna. + +"It'll blow every bit of smoke into our men's eyes," he sighed. + +The two white puffs melted into the perfect blue of sea and sky +unanswered. Fort Gaines and its besiegers even ceased to fire. Their +fate was not in their own guns. More and more weird waxed the grisly +dumbness of five-sided Morgan and the spectral silence of the oncoming +league-long fleet. The light wind freshened. By the bell's six taps it +was seven o'clock. The boat drifting in on the tide made Fort Gaines +seem to move seaward. Miranda looked back to Fort Powell and then out to +sea again. + +"The worst," said Anna, reading her thought, "will be down there with +the _Tennessee_." + +Miranda answered low: "Suppose, Nan, that, after all, he should--?" + +Anna turned sharply: "Get here? I expect it! Oh, you may gaze! I don't +forget how often I've flouted Con's intuitions. But I've got one now, a +big one!" + +"That he's coming?" + +"Been coming these two days--pure presentiment!" + +"Nan, whether he is or not, if you'll tell us what Colonel Greenleaf +wrote you I'll tell you--" + +For a second Anna stared, Miranda wrinkling; but then, with her eyes on +the fleet, she shook her head: "You're mighty good, 'Randa, you and Con, +never to have asked me in all these months; but neither he nor Hilary +nor I will ever tell that. I wish none of us knew it. For one thing, we +don't, any of us, know clearly enough what really happened. Dear Fred +Greenleaf!--if he _does_ wear the blue, and _is_ right now over there +behind Fort Gaines!" + +She stood a moment pondering a fact not in the Union soldier's letter at +all; that only through his masterful, self-sacrificing intercession in +military court had Hilary escaped the death of a spy. But then her +thought came back to Miranda's request: "I can't tell you, for I can't +tell Con. Flora's her cousin, through Steve, and if she ever marries +Captain Irby she'll be Hilary's cousin, and--" + +There, suddenly and once for all, the theme was dropped. Some man's +quick word broke in. Fort Morgan had veiled itself in the smoke of its +own broadside. Now came its thunder and the answering flame and roar of +the _Brooklyn's_ bow-chaser. The battle had begun. The ship, still half +a mile from its mark, was coming on as straight as her gun could blaze, +her redskin ally at her side, and all the others, large and less, +bounding after by twos. And now in lurid flash and steady roar the +lightning and thunder darted and rolled from Morgan, its water-battery, +and the Mobile squadron, and from the bow guns of the _Brooklyn_ and +_Hartford_. + +How marvelously fire, din and smoke shriveled up the time, which the +captain's small clock so mincingly ticked off. A cabin-boy brought a +fragrant tray of breakfast, but the grateful ladies could only laugh at +it. There was no moment to observe even the few pretty sail-boats which +the fearful import and majesty of the strife lured down about them on +the light side-wind. + +"Has the _Tennessee_ not fired yet?" anxiously asked Anna, but no one +was sure. Across the breeze, that kept the near side of the picture +uncurtained, she perfectly saw the _Tecumseh_ close abreast of the +flashing, smoke-shrouded fort, the _Brooklyn_ to windward abreast of +both, and the Hartford at the Brooklyn's heels with her signal +fluttering to all behind, "Close order." + +"Why don't the ships--?" Anna had it on her lips to cry, when the whole +sunward side of the _Brooklyn,_ and then of the _Hartford,_ vomited +fire, iron and blinding, strangling smoke into the water-battery and the +fort, where the light air held it. God's mercy! you could see the +cheering of the fleet's crews, which the ear could barely gather out of +the far uproar, and just as it floated to the gazers they beheld the +_Tecumseh_ turn square toward them and head straight across the double +line of torpedoes for the _Tennessee._ + +We never catch all of "whatever happens," and neither Callender saw the +brave men in gray who for one moment of horror fled from their own guns +in water-battery and fort; but all at once they beheld the _Tecumseh_ +heave, stagger, and lurch like a drunkard, men spring from her turret +into the sea, the _Brooklyn_ falter, slacken fire and draw back, the +Hartford and the whole huddled fleet come to a stand, and the rallied +fort cheer and belch havoc into the ships while the _Tecumseh_ sunk her +head, lifted her screw into air and vanished beneath the wave. They saw +Mobile Point a semicircle of darting fire, and the _Brooklyn_ "athwart +the _Hartford's_ hawse"; but they did not see, atom-small, perched high +in the rigging of the flag-ship and demanding from the decks below, "why +this?" and "why that?" a certain "plain sailor" well known to New +Orleans and the wide world; did not see the torpedoes lying in watery +ambush for him, nor hear the dread tale of them called to him from the +_Brooklyn_ while his ship passed astern of her, nor him command "full +speed ahead" as he retorted, "Damn the torpedoes!" + +They saw his ship and her small consort sweep undestroyed over the +dead-line, the _Brooklyn_ follow with hers, the Mobile gunboats rake +the four with a fire they could not return, and behind them Fort Morgan +and the other ships rend and shatter each other, shroud the air with +smoke and thresh the waters white with shot and shell, shrapnel, +canister and grape. And then they saw their own _Tennessee_ ignore the +monitors and charge the _Hartford_. But they beheld, too, the +_Hartford's_ better speed avoid the fearful blow and press on up the +channel and the bay, though torn and bleeding from her foe's broadside, +while her own futilely glanced or rebounded from his impenetrable mail. + +Wisely, rightly their boat turned and slowly drew away toward Fort +Powell and Cedar Point. Yet as from her after deck they saw the same +exploit, at the same murderous cost, repeated by the _Brooklyn_ and +another and another great ship and their consorts, while not a torpedo +did its work, they tearfully called the hour "glorious" and "victorious" +for the _Tennessee_ and her weak squadron, that still fought on. So it +seemed to them even when more dimly, as distance and confusion grew and +rain-clouds gathered, they saw a wooden ship ram the _Tennessee_, but +glance off, and the slow _Tennessee_ drop astern, allow a sixth tall +ship and small consort to pass, but turn in the wake of the seventh and +all but disembowel her with the fire of her great bow gun. + +Ah, Anna! Even so, the shattered, steam-scalded thing came on and the +last of the fleet was in. Yonder, a mere league eastward, it moved up +the bay. Yet proudly hope throbbed on while still Mobile, behind other +defenses, lay thirty miles away, while her gunboats still raked the +ships, while on Powell, Gaines and Morgan still floated the Southern +cross, and while, down in the pass, still unharmed, paused only for +breath the _Tennessee_. + +"Prisoners! they are all our prisoners!" tearfully exulted the fond +Callenders. But on the word they saw the scene dissolve into a new one. +Through a squall of wind and rain, out from the line of ships, four of +their consorts glided away eastward, flashing and howling, in chase of +the overmatched gunboats, that flashed and howled in retort as they +fled. On the west a Federal flotilla in Mississippi Sound, steaming up +athwart Grant's Pass, opened on Fort Powell and awoke its thunders. Ah, +ah! Kincaid's Battery at last! Red, white and red they sent buffet for +buffet, and Anna's heart was longing anew for their tall hero and hers, +when a voice hard by said, "She's coming back, sir, the _Tennessee_." + +Out in the bay the fleet, about to anchor, turned and awaited the new +onset. By the time it was at hand the Mobile gunboats, one burning, one +fled, one captured, counted for nothing, yet on crept the _Tennessee_, +still singling out the _Hartford_, and here the two Callenders, their +boat hovering as near Powell and Gaines as it dared, looked on the +titanic melee that fell round her. Like hounds and hunters on a bear +robbed of her whelps, seventeen to one, they set upon her so thickly +that their trouble was not to destroy one another. Near the beginning +one cut her own flag-ship almost to the water-line. The first that smote +the quarry--at ten knots speed--glanced and her broadside rolled +harmless into the bay, while two guns of her monster adversary let +daylight through and through the wooden ship. From the turret of a +close-creeping monitor came the four-hundred-and-forty-pound bolt of +her fifteen-inch gun, crushing the lone foe terribly yet not quite +piercing through. Another wooden ship charged, hit squarely a tearing +blow, yet slid off, lay for a moment touching sides with the ironclad, +while they lacerated each other like lion and tiger, and then dropped +away. The hunted _Hartford_ gave a staggering thrust and futile +broadside. + +So for an hour went the fight; ships charging, the _Tennessee_ crawling +ever after her one picked antagonist, the monitors' awful guns forever +pounding her iron back and sides. But at length her mail began to yield, +her best guns went silent, her smokestack was down, her steering-chains +were gone, Buchanan lay heavily wounded. Of Farragut's twenty-seven +hundred men more than a seventh had fallen, victims mainly of the bear +and her cubs, yet there she weltered, helpless. From her grim disjointed +casemate her valorous captain let down the Southern cross, the white +flag rose, and instantly, everywhere, God's thunder and man's alike +ceased, and the merciful heavens smiled white and blue again. But their +smile was on the flag of the Union, and mutely standing in each other's +embrace, with hearts as nearly right as they could know, Anna and +Miranda gazed on the victorious stars-and-stripes and wept. + +What caused Anna to start and glance behind she did not know; but doing +so she stared an instant breathless and then, as she clutched Miranda +for support, moaned to the tall, wasted, sadly smiling, crutched figure +that moved closer-- + +"Oh, Hilary! Are you Hilary Kincaid?" + + + + +LXX + + +GAINS AND LOSSES + +They kissed. + +It looks strange written and printed, but she did not see how to hold +off when he made it so tenderly manful a matter of course after his +frank hand-shake with Miranda, and when there seemed so little time for +words. + +An ambulance drawn by the Callenders' horses had brought him and two or +three others down the West Side. A sail-boat had conveyed them from the +nearest beach. Here it was, now, in tow beside the steamboat as she +gathered headway toward Fort Powell. He was not so weak or broken but he +could point rapidly about with his crutches, the old light of command in +his eyes, while with recognized authority he spoke to the boat's master +and these companions. + +He said things freely. There was not much down here to be secret about. +Mobile had not fallen. She would yet be fought for on land, furiously. +But the day was lost; as, incidentally, might be, at any moment, if not +shrewdly handled, this lonesome little boat. + +Her captain moved to the pilot-house. Miranda and the junior officers +left Hilary with Anna. "Did you say 'the day,'" she softly asked, "or +'the bay'?" + +"Both," he murmured, and with his two crutches in one hand directed her +eyes: to the fleet anchored midway off Morgan, Gaines, and Powell; to +the half-dozen gunboats on Mississippi Sound; to others still out in the +Gulf, behind Morgan, off Mobile Point; to the blue land force entrenched +behind Gaines, and to the dunes east of Morgan, where similar besiegers +would undoubtedly soon be landed. + +"Yes ... Yes," she said to his few explanations. It was all so sadly +clear. + +"A grand fort yet," he musingly called Morgan, "but it ought to be left +and blown to fare-you-well to-night before it's surroun--I wish my +cousin were there instead of in Gaines. 'Dolphe fights well, but he +knows when not to fight and that we've come, now, to where every man +we've got, and every gun, counts bigger than to knock out any two of the +enemy's. You know Fred's over yonder, don't you? and that Kincaid's +Battery, without their field-pieces, are just here in Powell behind her +heavy guns?... Yes, Victorine said you did; I saw her this morning, with +Constance." He paused, and then spoke lower: + +"Beloved?" + +She smiled up to him. + +"Our love's not through all the fire, yet," he said, but her smile only +showed more glow. + +"My soul's-mate, war-mate soldier-girl," he murmured on. + +"Well?" + +"If you stand true in what's before us now, before just you and me, now +and for weeks to come, I want your word for it right here that your +standing true shall not be for the sake of any vow you've ever made to +me, or for me, or with me, in the past, the blessed, blessed past. You +promise?" + +"I promise," she breathed. "What is it?" + +"A thing that takes more courage than I've got." + +"Then how will you do it?" she lightly asked. + +"By borrowing all yours. May I?" + +"You may. Is it to save--our battery?" + +"Our battery, yes, against their will, with others, if I can persuade +the fort's commander. At low tide to-night when the shoals can be forded +to Cedar Point, I shall be"--his words grew hurried--the steamer was +touching the fort's pier--the sail-boat, which was to take Anna and +Miranda to where the ambulance and their own horses awaited them had +cast off her painter--"I shall be the last man out of Powell and shall +blow it up. Come, it may be we sha'n't meet again until I've"--he +smiled--"been court-martialed and degraded. If I am, we--" + +"If you are," she murmured, "you may take me to the nearest church--or +the biggest--that day." + +"No, no!" he called as she moved away, and again, with a darkening brow, +"no, no!" + +But, "Yes, yes," she brightly insisted as she rejoined Miranda. "Yes!" + +For the horses' sake the ladies went that afternoon only to "Frascati," +lower limit of the Shell Road, where, in a small hour of the night Anna +heard the sudden boom and long rumble that told the end of Fort Powell +and salvation of its garrison. + +That Gaines held out a few days, Morgan a few weeks, are heroic facts of +history, which, with a much too academic shrug, it calls "magnifique, +mais--!" Their splendid armament and all their priceless men fell into +their besiegers' hands. Irby, haughtily declining the strictly formal +courtesies of Fred Greenleaf, went to prison in New Orleans. What a New +Orleans! The mailed clutch on her throat (to speak as she felt) had +grown less ferocious, but everywhere the Unionist civilian--the once +brow-beaten and still loathed "Northern sympathizer," with grudges to +pay and losses to recoup and re-recoup--was in petty authority. +Confiscation was swallowing up not industrial and commercial properties +merely, but private homes; espionage peeped round every street corner +and into every back window, and "A. Ward's" ante-bellum jest, that "a +white man was as good as a nigger as long as he behaved himself," was a +jest no more. Miss Flora Valcour, that ever faithful and daring +Southerner, was believed by all the city's socially best to be +living--barely living--under "the infamous Greenleaf's" year-long threat +of Ship Island for having helped Anna Callender to escape to Mobile. +Hence her haunted look and pathetic loss of bloom. Now, however, with +him away and with General Canby ruling in place of Banks, she and her +dear fragile old grandmother could breathe a little. + +They breathed much. We need not repeat that the younger was a gifted +borrower. She did other things equally well; resumed a sagacious +activity, a two-sided tact, and got Irby paroled. On the anniversary of +the day Hilary had played brick-mason a city paper (Unionist) joyfully +proclaimed the long-delayed confiscation of Kincaid's Foundry and of +Callender House, and announced that "the infamous Kincaid" himself had +been stripped of his commission by a "rebel" court-martial. Irby +promptly brought the sheet to the Valcours' lodgings, but Flora was out. +When she came in, before she could lay off her pretty hat:-- + +"You've heard it!" cried the excited grandam. "But why so dead-alive? +Once more the luck is yours! Play your knave! play Irby! He's just been +here! He will return! He will propose this evening if you allow him! Let +him do it! Let him! Mobile may fall any day! If you dilly-dally till +those accursed Callenders get back, asking, for instance, for their--ha, +ha!--their totally evaporated chest of plate--gr-r-r! Take him! He has +just shown me his uncle's will--as he calls it: a staring forgery, but +you, h-you won't mind _that_, and the 'ladies' man'--ah, the 'ladies' +man,' once you are his cousin, he'll never let on. Take Irby! he is, as +you say, a nincompoop"--she had dropped into English--"and seldom +sober, _mais_ take him! 't is the las' call of the auctioneer, yo' +fav-oreet auctioneer--with the pointed ears and the forked black tail." + +Flora replied from a mirror with her back turned: "I'll thing ab-out it. +And maybee--yes! Ezpecially if you would do uz that one favor, lazd +thing when you are going to bed the night we are married. Yez, if you +would--ahem!--juz' blow yo' gas without turning it?" + +That evening, when the accepted Irby, more nearly happy than ever before +in his life, said good-night to his love they did not kiss. At the first +stir of proffer Flora drew back with a shudder that reddened his brow. +But when he demanded, "Why not?" her radiant shake of the head was +purely bewitching as she replied, "No, I haven' fall' that low yet." + +When after a day or so he pressed for immediate marriage and was coyly +referred to Madame, the old lady affectionately--though +reluctantly--consented. With a condition: If the North should win the +war his inheritance would be "confiz-_cate_'" and there would be nothing +to begin life on but the poor child's burned down home behind Mobile, +unless, for mutual protection, nothing else,--except "one dollar and +other valuable considerations,"--he should preconvey the Brodnax estate +to the poor child, who, at least, had never been "foun' out" to have +done anything to subject property of hers to confiscation. + +This transfer Irby, with silent reservations, quietly executed, and the +day, hour and place, the cathedral, were named. A keen social flutter +ensued and presently the wedding came off--stop! That is not all. +Instantly upon the close of the ceremony the bride had to be more lifted +than led to her carriage and so to her room and couch, whence she sent +loving messages to the bridegroom that she would surely be well enough +to see him next day. But he had no such fortune, and here claims record +a fact even more wonderful than Anna's presentiment as to Hilary that +morning in Mobile Bay. The day after his wedding Irby found his parole +revoked and himself, with others, back in prison and invited to take the +oath and go free--stand up in the war-worn gray and forswear it--or stay +where they were to the war's end. Every man of them took it--when the +war was over; but until then? not one. Not even the bridegroom robbed of +his bride. Every week or so she came and saw him, among his fellows, and +bade him hold out! stand fast! It roused their great admiration, but not +their wonder. The wonder was in a fact of which they knew nothing: That +the night before her marriage Flora had specifically, minutely +prophesied this whole matter to her grandmother, whose only response was +that same marveling note of nearly four years earlier-- + +"You are a genius!" + + + + +LXXI + + +SOLDIERS OF PEACE + +In March, 'Sixty-five, the Confederacy lay dying. While yet in Virginia +and the Carolinas, at Mobile and elsewhere her armies daily, nightly +strove on, bled on, a stricken quiet and great languor had come over +her, a quiet with which the quiet ending of this tale is only in +reverent keeping. + +On Mobile's eastern side Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely, her last +defenses, were fighting forty thousand besiegers. Kincaid's Battery was +there, and there was heavy artillery, of course, but this time the +"ladies' men"--still so called--had field-guns, though but three. They +could barely man that number. One was a unit of the original six lost +"for them, not by them," at Vicksburg, and lately recovered. + +Would there were time for its story! The boys had been sent up the state +to reinforce Forrest. Having one evening silenced an opposing battery, +and stealing over in the night and bringing off its best gun, they had +slept about "her" till dawn, but then had laughed, hurrahed, danced, and +wept round her and fallen upon her black neck and kissed her big lips on +finding her no other than their own old "Roaring Betsy." She might have +had a gentler welcome had not her lads just learned that while they +slept _the_ "ladies' man" had arrived from Mobile with a bit of news +glorious alike for him and them. + +The same word reached New Orleans about the same date. Flora, returning +from a call on Irby, brought it to her grandmother. In the middle of +their sitting-room, with the worst done-for look yet, standing behind a +frail chair whose back she gripped with both hands, she meditatively +said-- + +"All privieuse statement' ab-out that court-martial on the 'vacuation of +Ford Powell are prim-ature. It has, with highez' approval, _acquit_' +every one concern' in it." She raised the light chair to the limit of +her reach and brought it down on another with a force that shivered +both. Madame rushed for a door, but--"Stay!" amiably said the maiden. +"Pick up the pieces--for me--eh? I'll have to pick up the pieces of you +some day--soon--I hope--mm?" + +She took a book to a window seat, adding as she went, "Victorine. You've +not heard ab-out that, neither? She's biccome an orphan. Hmm! Also--the +little beggar!--she's--married. Yes. To Charles Valcour. My God! I wish +I was a man." + +[Illustration: Music "Um, hmm, hmm, hmm, Mm, hmm, hmm, hmm--"] + +"_Leave the room!_" + +But these were closed incidents when those befell which two or three +final pages linger to recount. The siege of Spanish Fort was the war's +last great battle. From March twenty-sixth to April the eighth it was +deadly, implacable; the defense hot, defiant, audacious. On the night of +the eighth the fort's few hundred cannoneers spiked their heavy guns +and, taking their light ones along, left it. They had fought fully +aware that Richmond was already lost, and on the next day, a Sabbath, +as Kincaid's Battery trundled through the town while forty thousand +women and children--with the Callenders and little Steve--wept, its boys +knew their own going meant Mobile had fallen, though they knew not that +in that very hour the obscure name of Appomattox was being made forever +great in history. + +"I reached Meridian," writes their general, "refitted the ...field +batteries and made ready to march across (country) and join General +Joseph E. Johnston in Carolina. The tidings of Lee's surrender soon +came.... But ...the little army of Mobile remained steadfastly together, +and in perfect order and discipline awaited the final issue of events." + +It was while they so waited that Kincaid's Battery learned of the +destruction, by fire, of Callender House, but took comfort in agreeing +that now, at last, come or fail what might, the three sweetest women +that ever lived would live up-town. + +One lovely May morning a Federal despatch-boat--yes, the one we +know--sped down Mobile Bay with many gray-uniformed men aboard, mostly +of the ranks and unaccoutred, but some of them officers still belted for +their unsurrendered swords. Many lads showed the red artillery trim and +wore jauntily on their battered caps K.B. separated by crossed cannon. +"Roaring Betsy" had howled her last forever. Her sergeant, Valcour, was +there, with his small fond bride, both equally unruffled by any +misgiving that they would not pull through this still inviting world +happily. + +Mandeville was present, his gilt braid a trifle more gilt than any one +else's. Constance and little Steve--who later became president of the +Cotton Exchange--were with him. Also Miranda. Out forward yonder on the +upper deck, beside tall Hilary Kincaid, stood Anna. Greenleaf eyed them +from the pilot-house, where he had retired to withhold the awkward +reminder inseparable from his blue livery. In Hilary's fingers was a +writing which he and Anna had just read together. In reference to it he +was saying that while the South had fallen to the bottom depths of +poverty the North had been growing rich, and that New Orleans, for +instance, was chock full of Yankees--oh, yes, I'm afraid that's what he +called them--Yankees, with greenbacks in every pocket, eager to set up +any gray soldier who knew how to make, be or do anything mutually +profitable. Moved by Fred Greenleaf, who could furnish funds but +preferred, himself, never to be anything but a soldier, the enterprising +husband of the once deported but now ever so happily married +schoolmistress who-- + +"Yes, I know," said Anna-- + +Well, for a trifle, at its confiscation sale, this man had bought +Kincaid's Foundry, which now stood waiting for Hilary to manage, control +and in the end recover to his exclusive ownership on the way to larger +things. What gave the subject an intense tenderness of unsordid interest +was that it meant for the pair--what so many thousands of paroled heroes +and the women they loved and who loved them were hourly finding out +--that they were not such beggars, after all, but they might even there +and then name their wedding day, which then and there they named. + +"Let Adolphe and Flora keep the old estate and be as happy on it, and +in it, as Heaven will let them; they've got each other to be happy with. +The world still wants cotton, and if they'll stand for the old South's +cotton we'll stand for a new South and iron; iron and a new South, Nan, +my Nannie; a new and better South and even a new and better New Orl--see +where we are! Right yonder the _Tennessee_--" + +"Yes," interrupted Anna, "let's put that behind us--henceforth, as the +boat is doing now." + +The steamer turned westward into Grant's Pass. To southward lay Morgan +and Gaines, floating the ensign of a saved Union. Close here on the +right lay the ruins of Fort Powell. From the lower deck the boys, +pressing to the starboard guards to see, singly or in pairs smiled up to +Hilary's smile. Among them was Sam Gibbs, secretly bearing home the +battery's colors wrapped round him next his scarred and cross-scarred +body. And so, farewell Mobile. Hour by hour through the beautiful blue +day, island after island, darkling green or glistering white, rose into +view, drifted by between the steamer and the blue Gulf and sunk into the +deep; Petit Bois, Horn Island, Ship Island, Cat Island. Now past Round +Island, up Lake Borgne and through the Rigolets they swept into +Pontchartrain, and near the day's close saw the tide-low, sombre but +blessed shore beyond which a scant half-hour's railway ride lay the city +they called home. + +Across the waters westward, where the lake's margin, black-rimmed with +cypresses, lapsed into a watery horizon, and the sun was going down in +melancholy splendor, ran unseen that northbound railway by which four +years earlier they had set off for the war with ranks full and stately, +with music in the air and with thousands waving them on. Now not a note, +not a drum-tap, not a boast nor a jest illumined their return. In the +last quarter-hour aboard, when every one was on the lower deck about the +forward gangway, Hilary and Anna, having chanced to step up upon a coil +of rope, found it easier, in the unconscious press, to stay there than +to move on, and in keeping with his long habit as a leader he fell into +a lively talk with those nearest him,--Sam and Charlie close in front, +Bartleson and Mandeville just at his back,--to lighten the general +heaviness. At every word his listeners multiplied, and presently, in a +quiet but insistent tone, came calls for a "speech" and the "ladies' +man." + +"No," he gaily replied, "oh, no, boys!" But his words went on and became +something much like what they craved. As he ceased came the silent, +ungreeted landing. Promptly followed the dingy train's short run up the +shore of the New Canal, and then its stop athwart St. Charles Street, +under no roof, amid no throng, without one huzza or cry of welcome, and +the prompt dispersal of the outwardly burdenless wanderers, in small +knots afoot, up-town, down-town, many of them trying to say over again +those last words from the chief hero of their four years' trial by fire. +The effort was but effort, no full text has come down; but their drift +seems to have been that, though disarmed, unliveried, and disbanded, +they could remain true soldiers: That the perfect soldier loves peace, +loathes war: That no man can be such who cannot, whether alone or among +thousands of his fellows, strive, suffer and wait with magnanimous +patience, stake life and fortune, and, in extremity, fight like a +whirlwind, for the victories of peace: That every setting sun will rise +again _if it is a true sun:_ That good-night was not good-by: and that, +as for their old nickname, no one can ever be a whole true ladies' man +whose _aim_ is not at some title far above and beyond it--which last he +said not of himself, but in behalf and by request of the mother of the +guns they had gone out with and of the furled but unsullied banner they +had brought home. + +THE END. + + + + +OTHER BOOKS BY MR. CABLE + + * * * * * + +THE CAVALIER + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY + +12mo, $1.50 + +"The scene of the American War of North and South is different ground +from the old Creole life that Mr. Cable has painted so deliciously, but +the touch of the true artist is equally manifest in the careful +selection of material, and in the due subordination of the events of +that terrible struggle to the progress of a love-story that is +altogether delightful."--_The London Literary World._ + +"In all the stories of war there have been few descriptions of its +dangers and destruction, its contrasted demoralizing and inspiring +influences equal to these."--_San Francisco Argonaut._ + + * * * * * + +BYLOW HILL + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY F.C. YOHN + +12mo, $1.25 + +"I know of no one fitter to stand in the place next Hawthorne's."--_The +Atlantic Monthly._ + +"An atmosphere that only a great artist can produce."--_Literature +(London)._ + + * * * * * + +JOHN MARCH SOUTHERNER + +12mo, $1.50 + +"The most careful and thorough going study of the reconstruction period +in the South which has yet been offered in the world of fiction."--_The +Outlook._ + +"In many respects Mr. Cable's finest work."--_Boston Advertiser._ + + + + +OTHER BOOKS BY MR. CABLE + + * * * * * + +THE GRANDISSIMES + +A STORY OF CREOLE LIFE + +12mo, $1.50 + +"Such a book goes far towards establishing an epoch in fiction, and it +places it beyond a doubt that we have in Mr. Cable a novelist of +positive originality, and of the very first quality."--_The Boston +Journal._ + +The Grandissimes. _With 12 full-page illustrations and 8 head and +tail pieces by Albert Herter, all reproduced in photogravure, and with +an original cover design by the same artist._ + +8vo, $2.50 + + * * * * * + +OLD CREOLE DAYS + +12mo. $1.50 + +Cameo Edition with an etching by Percy Moran, $1.25 + +"These charming stories attract attention and commendation by their +quaint delicacy of style, their faithful delineation of Creole +character, and a marked originality."--_The New Orleans Picayune._ + +Old Creole Days. _With 8 full-page illustrations and 14 head and +tail pieces by Albert Herter, all reproduced in photogravure, and with +an original cover design by the same artist._ + +8vo, $2.50 + + * * * * * + +STRONG HEARTS + +12mo, $1.25 + +"There is so much delicacy, such a fine touch, that one is wholly +captivated by the handiwork until it is realized how much this is part +and parcel of this picture." + +--_Brooklyn Eagle._ + + + + +OTHER BOOKS BY MR. CABLE + + * * * * * + +BONAVENTURE + +A PROSE PASTORAL OF ACADIAN LOUISIANA + +12mo, $1.50 + +"A noble, tender, beautiful tale."--Mrs. L.C. Moulton in _Boston +Herald._ + +"Mr. Cable has never produced anything so delightful and so artistic as +'_Bonaventure._' The charm of the pastoral life of these unlearned, +unsuspicious people in rude homes far away from the stir of modern life +is as novel as it is indescribable"--_North American Review._ + + * * * * * + +DR. SEVIER + +12mo, $1.50 + +"The story contains a most attractive blending of vivid descriptions of +local scenery, with admirable delineations of personal character."--_The +Congregationalist._ + + * * * * * + +STRANGE TRUE STORIES OF LOUISIANA + +Illustrated. 12mo, $2.00 + +"What a field of romance, of color, of incident, of delicate feeling, +and unique social conditions these stories show!"--_Hartford Courant._ + +"They are tales whose interest and variety seem inexhaustible.--Mr. +Cable has done lasting service to literature in giving us this +remarkable and delightful collection. In themselves they are memorably +charming."--_Boston Transcript._ + + + + +OTHER BOOKS BY MR. CABLE + + * * * * * + +MADAME DELPHINE + +16mo, 75 cents + +"This is one of the gems of a collection of exquisite stories of the old +Creole days in Louisiana."--_Boston Advertiser._ + +Ivory series edition, 16mo, 75c. + + * * * * * + +THE CREOLES OF LOUISIANA + +ILLUSTRATED FROM DRAWINGS BY PENNEL + +Square 12mo, $2.50 + +"As a history of the Louisiana Creoles, it occupies a field in which it +will not find a competitor. Mr. Cable has given us an exceedingly +attractive piece of work."--_The Nation._ + + * * * * * + +THE SILENT SOUTH + +Together with the Freedman's Case in Equity and the Convict Lease +System. _Revised and Enlarged Edition._ With portrait. + +12mo, $1.00 + +"Whatever other literature on these themes may arise Mr. Cable's book +must be a permanent influence impossible for writers on either side to +ignore."--_The Critic._ + + * * * * * + +THE NEGRO QUESTION + +12mo, 75c + +"Mr. Cable has the Puritan conscience, the agitator's courage, and the +Anglo-Saxon's fearless adhesion to what he deems right."--_The +Churchman._ + + * * * * * + +THE CABLE STORY BOOK + +Selections for School Reading. Edited by MARY E. BURT and LUCY L. CABLE. +[_The Scribner Series of School Reading_]. 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