The Storm Centre Part 20

"Halt!" he cried. "Halt! Miss Fisher is the winner--as she always is!

Halt! Lieutenant Seymour!" Then in a lower voice when he could be heard to speak, "We shall have the horses badly blown," he said with an admonitory cadence, which reminded Seymour that a military man's whole duty does not consist in scampering after a harum-scarum girl in a race with two wild young horses.

Seeing that she was not followed, Miss Fisher reined in after several wild plunges from Madcap, who felt that he had not had his run half out, and snorted with much surprise in his full bright eyes as, turning in the road, he saw the two mounted officers far behind, stationary and waiting. The victor should never be unduly elated, but Madcap expressed his glee of triumph chiefly in his heels, curvetting and prancing, presently kicking up so uncontrollably, the excitement of the contest, the joy of racing, still surging in his veins and tense in his muscles, that the officers might well have feared some disaster to the girl. They at once put their steeds in motion to go to her a.s.sistance, but Madcap, with outstretched head, viewing their start, suddenly made a bounding _volte-face_ in the road, and with the bit between his teeth set out at a pace that discounted his former efforts and carried him out of sight in a few minutes.

Miss Fisher, with all the courage of the red-headed Fisher family, albeit she had become pale and breathless, settled herself firmly in the saddle, held the reins in close, now and then essaying a sharp jerk, first with the right then quickly with the left hand--and it was as much as she could do to keep the saddle at these moments--to displace the grasp of his teeth on the bit. For a time these manoeuvres failed, but at last the road became rougher, brambles appeared in its midst, the intention of repair had evidently ceased, and running at full tilt was no longer any great fun. The horse voluntarily slowed his pace, and the sudden jerk right and left s.n.a.t.c.hed the bit from his teeth. He might still have pranced and curvetted, for the spirit of speed was not satiated, but his foot slipped on the uneven gullied ground, he stumbled, and being a town horse and seeing nowhere any promise of a good road, he resigned himself to the guidance of his rider, thinking perhaps she knew more of the country than he.

While she breathed him for a time, she looked about her along the curves of the road, seeing nothing of her companions, and realizing that she was quite alone. This gave her a sentiment of uneasiness for a moment; then she reflected that her friends were doubtless riding forward to overtake her. She drew up the reins, intending to turn, and, retracing her way, to meet them.

The place was all unfamiliar. So swift had been her transit that she had not had a moment's contemplation of the surroundings. She stood at the summit of a gentle slope and could look off toward stretches of forest, here and there interspersed with considerable acreage of cleared ground, evidently formerly farm land, now abandoned in the stress of war and the presence of contending armies. The correctness of this conclusion was confirmed by the sight of two gaunt chimneys at no great distance, between which lay a ma.s.s of charred timbers,--once the dwelling, now burned to the ground. The scene was an epitome of desolation, despite the sunshine, which indeed here was but a lonely splendor; despite the brilliance of the trumpet vine, tangled in remnants of the fence, in many a bush, and swaying in long lengths, its scarlet bugles flaring, from the boughs of overshadowing trees; despite the appeal of the elder blossoms of creamy, lacelike delicacy, catching her eye in the thickets, which were so lush, so green, so favored by the rich earth and the prodigal season. She was sensible of a clutch of dread on that merry spirit of hers before she heard a sound--a significant sound that stilled the pulsations of her heart and sent her blood cold. It was the unmistakable sinister sibilance of a sh.e.l.l. She saw the tiny white puff rise up above the forest, skim through the air, drop among the thickets, and then she heard the detonation of an explosion. Before she could draw her breath there came a sudden volley of musketry at a distance,--she knew that for the demonstration of regular soldiers, firing at the word,--then ensued another, and again only a patter of dropping shots.

She wondered that her companions did not overtake her--she must find them--she must rejoin them,--when suddenly an object started up from the side of the road, the sight of which palsied her every muscle. A man it was who had lain in the bushes on the hillside, a man so covered with blood that he had lost every semblance of humanity. The blood still came in a steady stream from his mouth, impelled in jets, as if it were under the impulse of a pump, and he held his hand to his stomach, whence too there came blood, dripping down from his fingers. In sickened, aghast dismay she watched his approach, and as he pa.s.sed she found her voice and called to him to stop,--might she not help him stanch his wounds?

His staring eyes gazed vacantly forward with no recognition of the meaning of her words, and he walked deliriously on, every step sending the blood forward, draining the vital currents to exhaustion. Now she dared not turn, she could not pa.s.s that hideous apparition. She shuddered and trembled and rode irresolutely forward, just to be moving--hardly with a realized intention. Suddenly the road curved, and the scene of the conflict was before her.

The woods were dense on three sides of a wide stretch of fields that were springing green with new verdure; a portion had even been ploughed and bedded up for cotton; here and there lay strange objects in curious att.i.tudes, which she did not at once recognize as slain men. Among them were scattered carbines, horses already dead, and more than one in scrambling agonies of dying. In the farthest vista field-guns were evidently getting in battery, ready to sweep from the earth a little force of dismounted cavalrymen who had come to close quarters with infantry and who were fighting on foot with carbines. The mini b.a.l.l.s now and then sang sharply in the air, and in the excitement she did not realize the danger. Suddenly a puff of smoke rose from the battery, the sh.e.l.l winging its way high above the infantry line and at last falling among the dismounted cavalrymen, who, perceiving the situation to be hopeless, wavered, sought to rally, and at last broke and ran to the horse-holders hidden in the thickets. Thither the sh.e.l.ls pursued them, bursting all along the plain, and as Mildred Fisher gazed she saw three men on the field, powerless to reach the shelter. One was wounded,--an officer, evidently,--and the other two were seeking to support him to his horse hard by. At this moment a fragment of sh.e.l.l killed the animal before their eyes.

"Ride out! Ride out!" cried Millie Fisher to a horse-holder that she observed close by in the woods. He was mounted himself, and he held the bridles of three horses. He looked half bewildered, pale, disabled. A sh.e.l.l burst prematurely, out of range and wide of aim, high in the air above their heads.

"I can't," he said; "I'm hit!"

"Give _me_ the line, then!" she cried.

He was past reasoning, beyond surprise, stunned by the clamors and succ.u.mbing to wounds.

The next moment, the three great horses in a leash, Madcap led his wildest chase across that stricken plain, now shying aside as some wounded man lifted a ghastly face almost beneath his hoofs, or pitifully sought to crawl away like a maimed and dying beast. The thunder of the frenzied gallop shook the ground; the group of men, for whom the rescue was designed, turned a startled and amazed gaze as the horses came on abreast, snorting and neighing and with tossing manes and wild eyes, rushing like the steeds of Automedon.

"The gallant little game-c.o.c.k!" exclaimed Jim Fisher, eying the supposed horse-holder from beside the smoking guns of his battery in the distance. "Now, I'm glad to spare him if never another man goes clear!"

For the Confederate cavalry were starting out in pursuit, and to let the squadrons pa.s.s without danger the cannonade was discontinued. The bugle's mandate, "Cease firing!" rose lilting into the air, and there was sudden silence among the guns. As Captain Fisher disengaged the strap of his field-gla.s.s seeking to adjust it, he noted that there was something continually flying out at the side of the young soldier's saddle. One glance through the magnifying lenses at the floating folds of the riding-habit and the radiant face crowned by the purple plume--and Jim Fisher almost fell under the wheel of the limber as it was run up to the gun-carriage. "My G.o.d, Watt!" he exclaimed to his first lieutenant who was also his brother, "that--that--cavalryman is--is Sister Millie!"

When she was at last with them, for in tumultuous agitation they had rushed forward to meet her, beckoning and shouting, and their kisses had smeared the gunpowder from their grim countenances to her lovely roseate cheeks, they began to experience the reactionary effects of their fright and scolded her with great rancor, declaring repeatedly they felt much disposed, even yet, to slap her. All of which had no effect at all on Millie Fisher. They tried sthetic methods of reducing her to see her deed from their standpoint.

"I thought you were a patriotic girl, Sister," one of them urged. "And see, now--you have helped three Yankees to escape!"

"I _am_ patriotic--more patriotic than anybody," she a.s.severated. "But I forgot they were Yankees--they were just three men in great danger!"

"But _you_ were in great danger, Sister, I--I--might have shot you!"

"Didn't you feel funny when you found out who 'twas?" she queried with a giggle of great zest.

"I felt mighty funny," said Jim Fisher, grimly. "I suppose few men have ever felt so funny!"

Few men have ever looked less funny than he as he reflected on the episode. He recovered his equanimity only gradually, but especially after he had been able to make arrangements to convey intelligence to his mother within the Federal lines as to his sister's safety. This was rendered possible by a flag of truce sent out almost immediately by Colonel Monette, who with Lieutenant Seymour was in the greatest anxiety as to her fate, feeling a sense of responsibility in the matter. She insisted on adding a line addressed to the younger officer, bidding him sing daily with his hand on his heart:--

"'Would I were with thee!'--_In the Confederate lines!_"

if he expected her to conserve any faith in his constancy.

That evening Jim Fisher almost regained his wonted cheerfulness. The other four brothers had gathered together to welcome the unexpected guest, and as they sat around a great wood fire in an old deserted farm-house, a primitive structure built of logs, with Millie and the youngest, favorite brother, Walter, in the centre, it seemed so joyful a reunion that he was almost tempted to forgive the manner in which it had come about.

Jim Fisher's body-servant, Csar, cooked a supper for them, in a room across an open pa.s.sage, consisting of corn-bread, bean-coffee, bacon, and a chicken, which last came as a miracle, as he mysteriously expressed it, upon inquiry--"as de mussy ob Providence!" Csar was a brisk young darkey, with a capacity for a sullen and lowering change, and with a great distaste for ridicule, induced by much suffering as the b.u.t.t of the practical jokes of his young masters, for among so many Fisher boys one or another must needs be always disposed for mirth.

"You needn't ax me so p'inted 'bout dat chicken's pedigree, Ma.r.s.e Watt,"

Csar was beguiled into retorting acrimoniously. "Naw, sah. I dunno. I dunno whedder hit's Dominicky or Shanghai. An' _ye_ have no call to know whedder hit's foreign or native! _I_ tell you hit's fried--an' dat's all I'm _gwine_ ter tell you!--fried ter a turn! An' if you bed enny religion, you'd say grace, an' give Miss Millie a piece while it's hot.

Naw, sah! naw, Ma.r.s.e Watt! I _ain't_ no robber! Ma.r.s.e Jim--you hear what Ma.r.s.e Watt done call me! Naw, sah! I don't expec' ter see Satan!--not _dis week_, nohow."

Csar was glad to gather up the fragments and make off to the kitchen opposite, where he sat before the fire and crunched the last bone of the precious fowl, and grinned over the adroit methods of its capture on this great occasion, for such a luxury could hardly be bought at any price, in Confederate money or any other currency.

After supper was despatched something of a levee was held; so many of Miss Millie Fisher's old friends--officers in the military force--called to renew the acquaintance of happier times. And as she recognized the more intimate old playfellows or neighbors, with a gush of delighted little screams and a musical acclaim of their Christian names, sometimes an old half-forgotten nickname, other guests, later acquaintances, were envious and wistful, and sought to stem the tide of reminiscence, the "Don't you remembers" and "Oh-h-h, wasn't it funny?" and to impress the values of the present, despite the lures of the past.

She was delightfully gracious and gay with them all, and perhaps she had never seemed more lovely than the flicker of the firelight revealed her, for there were no other means of illumination. She stood to receive in the centre of the floor, radiant in her dark purple riding-habit and hat, the military figures, all in full uniform, cl.u.s.tering about her, some resting on their swords, some half leaning on a comrade's shoulder, while jest and repartee went around, the laughter now and again making the rafters ring. It was with reluctance that they gradually tore themselves away in obedience to a realization that after so long a separation the family might desire to spend the evening alone, for three of the brothers must needs repair to their own command at some distance at break of day, and it might be long before they could all be together once more.

So at last, the visitors gone, the door barred, the night wearing on, the Fishers gathered round the replenished fire, for the air was chill and the warmth was as welcome as the light. The deserted house was entirely bare of furniture, and as the force was a "flying column,"

flung forward without the impediments of baggage trains or tents, there was not even a camp-stool available. Millie and Watt sat side by side on a billet of wood, their arms around each other's waists to preserve the equilibrium, and the rest of the brothers half reclined on the saddles on the floor. And every face was smiling, and every head was red. Again and again a shout of laughter went up, as she detailed the news of the town,--and some very queer things, indeed, she told,--and Watt, the lieutenant, responded with the news of the battery and the camp.

Perhaps he felt that his prestige as a wit was threatened, for once he said, "I'd give a hundred dollars, Sister, to be a.s.sured that all you are telling is the truth."

"I wouldn't give a bra.s.s thimble to be a.s.sured that all _you_ are telling is the truth, for I know 'tisn't!" retorted Millie.

"Oh, I meant in Confederate money!" He lowered the face value of his bid.

They kept late hours that night; but at last, when the fire was burning low and great ma.s.ses of coals had acc.u.mulated, they swung a military cloak hammock-wise across a corner of a little inner room, hardly more than a cupboard, and this Millie Fisher in her new rle as a campaigner found a comfortable bed enough. The restricted apartment had no window, and no door save the one opening into the larger room; and this she set ajar, making Walter place a great solid shot against it lest it close, declaring that if that catastrophe should supervene, she should die of solitary fright. The five Fisher brothers were well within call and sight, as they cl.u.s.tered around the embers, talking for a time in low voices of what had chanced in the interval of their separation. For only Jim and Watt were together in the same company. They commented on the relative cost and value of their _chaussure_, as they stretched out their long, booted legs, with their feet on the hearth, and compared the wearing qualities of the soles and upper leather. They looked kindly into each other's faces and laughed as they made a point, and between the two younger brothers, Watt and Lucien, there was a disposition to horse-play, manifested in unexpected tweaks, that each was glad to receive as a compliment, so did separation and the sense of an imminent and ever environing danger soften and make tender their fraternal sentiment. But first one, then another, flung his cloak around him and, pillowing his head on his saddle, lay down to rest, the two younger brothers the last of all.

And now--silence. The dull red light of the embers gloomed on the daubed and c.h.i.n.ked walls of the old log house, with its rude puncheon floor.

The five prostrate, cloaked figures upon it were still, asleep. Here and there from amongst the arms, placed ready to seize at a moment's notice, came a keen steely gleam. Mildred could hear the sentry's tread outside up and down before the door. Once, far away, she noted the measured tramp of marching feet, then a challenge, and anon, "Stand! Grand Rounds! Advance, Sergeant, with the countersign!" and presently the march was resumed in the distance. And again--silence! Only the wind astir in the forest, only the rustle of the lush foliage. All--how different from her dainty bedroom where she had spent last night, the downy couch, the silken coverlet, the velvet carpet, the lace curtains, the tremulous flicker of the wind in the flower-stand on the balcony!

"Hugh!" she said suddenly.

Every red head on the floor had lifted at the sound, and every hand had clutched a weapon.

"What's the matter, Sister?"

"I--I--believe there must be a flying squirrel or--or--something in the wall. Don't they build in old walls? I've seen that in some book."

Jim and Hugh arose and investigated the wall of the inner room by means of a torch of light-wood.

"Why, Sister, it is as solid as a rock!" Jim a.s.severated. "There's no flying squirrel here."

He extinguished the flaming torch in the ashes banked in the chimney-place in the larger room, and again the two brothers laid themselves down to rest, with their feet on the hearth.

Once more the silence of the night, the vague crumbling of the ash, the measured sound of the sentry's tread. There was no echo of the pa.s.sing of time--but how leaden-footed! How slowly fared the night! How motionless lay those cloaked figures, each with his head on his saddle!

"Watt," her voice came plaintively out of the gloom. "I'm scared!"

This time, though all stirred, they did not rise.

"Pshaw! Scared of what?"

She did not answer. Only after a time she queried irrelevantly, "Can mice climb?"