The Storm Centre Part 23

"Jes' ter git shet o' de terror ob seein' it, honey!" replied Aunt Chaney. "I ain't no perfessor ob war, nohow, an' my eyes ain't practised ter sh.e.l.lin' an' big shootin'."

"Me, neither," said Adelaide.

"Nor me," whimpered Geraldine.

"De cannon-b.a.l.l.s ain't gwine kill us, dough. We gwine live a long time,"

Aunt Chaney optimistically protested. "I ain't s'prised none ef when de war is ober an' we tell 'bout dis fight, we gwine make out dat when de sh.e.l.lin' wuz at de wust, you three ladies an' me jus' stood up on de highest aidge ob de rampart ob de fort, an' 'structed de men how ter fire de cannon, an' p'inted out de sh.e.l.ls flyin' through de air wid dat ar actial little forefinger, an' kep' up de courage ob de troops."

"On which side, Aunt Chaney?" asked Adelaide, the reasonable.

"On bofe sides, honey," said Aunt Chaney, "'cordin' ter de politics ob dem we is talkin' to!"

A rat whisked over the floor, across the dim slant of light that fell from the candle on the head of the barrel. Uncle Ephraim, his elbows on his knees, his gray head slightly canted in a listening att.i.tude, smiled vaguely, pleased like a child himself with Aunt Chaney's sketch.

"Oh, Aunt Chaney!--_do_ you s'pose we'll tell it _that_ way?" cried Adelaide, meditating on the flattering contrast.

"Dat's de ve'y way de tales 'bout dis war is gwine be tole, honey, you mark my words," declared the prophetess.

The contrast of the imaginative future account with the troublous actuality of the present so delighted Adelaide that she spelled it off on her fingers to Lucille, both repairing to the side of the barrel where the candle was glimmering, in order to have the light on their twinkling fingers in the manual alphabet. The humors of the expectation, the incongruity of their martial efficiency, the boastful resources of the future, elicited bursts of delighted gigglings, and when the next sh.e.l.l exploded, neither took notice of the hurtling bomb shrieking over the house and bound for the river.

The rest of the populace were enjoying no such solace from any waggish interpretation of the future. The present, that single momentous day, was for them as much of time as they cared to contemplate. Doubtless the satisfaction was very general among the citizens, regardless of political prepossessions, when it became known that Captain Baynell with a detachment of horse artillery had gone out and taken up a position that had enabled him at last to silence the Confederate guns on the pinnacle, not, however, before the masked battery by the river was practically dismounted.

Now both infantry and cavalry were ordered out in an effort to intercept the venturesome Rebel artillerymen as they sought to descend from their steep pinnacle of rock. The dust on the turnpike, redly aflare in the sunset rays, betokened the progress of the march, and now and then it was hara.s.sed by sh.e.l.ls and grape from the swivel guns of the fort, for Roscoe's limited command had not been able to bring the heavier ordnance of the embrasures to bear upon the camps around the town.

The whole community was in a panic, for this might soon betide. But a gunboat came, as it chanced, up the river, took a position of advantage, and with great precision of aim soon sh.e.l.led the little force out of the main work. Their capture was momently expected, but they made good their retreat to their former position in the redoubt, with the intention unquestionably of escaping thence by the secret pa.s.sage which had afforded them access. In leaving, however, the powder magazine was blown up by accident or design, destroying the integrity of the whole fortification, and shattering nearly every pane of gla.s.s in the town, the force of the concussion indeed bringing the tower of the hospital hard by to the ground. That the raiders had perished was not doubted, till news came of a sharp skirmish which took place under cover of darkness at the mouth of a sort of grotto in Judge Roscoe's grove, and in the confusion, surprise, and obscurity all escaped save some half-dozen left dead upon the ground.

CHAPTER XV

With these important works wrecked and dismantled, with the destruction of great stores of ammunition and artillery which obviously placed the system of defence in an imperfect condition, with the difficulty of repair and supply which time and distance and insufficiency of transportation rendered insurmountable, with the elation of victory that so dashing an exploit, so thoroughly consummated, must communicate to the Confederate troops, an attack by them in force was daily expected.

The capture of Roanoke City was considered an event of the near future, antic.i.p.ated with joy or gloom, according to the several interests of the varied population, but in any case regarded as a foregone conclusion.

Daily the Northern trains, heavily laden, bore away pa.s.sengers who had no wish to become citizens of the Southern Confederacy. Perishable effects, stocks of goods of the order that a battle would endanger or destroy, were shipped to calmer regions. Reinforcements came by every train, by every boat, till all the resources of the country were strained to maintain them, and still the Southerners had not advanced to the opportunity. It was one of those occasions of the Civil War when the hand that took was not strong enough to hold. The Confederate force near the town was inadequately supplied to enable it to do more than seize the advantage, which must needs be relinquished. Its slim resources admitted of no permanent occupation of the town, and the empty glory of the capture of Roanoke City would have been offset by the disastrous necessity of the evacuation of the post. Gradually the Federal lines were extended until they lay almost as before the raid on the works. The Confederate ranks had been depleted to furnish reinforcements to a more practicable point. They were falling back, and now and again sudden sallies brought in prisoners from such a distance as told the story.

The town was once more secure, work was begun on the dismantled fortifications, and daily the question of how so hazardous an enterprise could have been devised and executed revived in interest. The commanding general had not the loss of the town itself to account for, as at one time was probable, but for the destruction of a great store of ammunition, as well as the loss of life, of guns, of the works themselves, representing many thousands of dollars and the labor of regiments. All, however, seemed hardly commensurate with the disaster he would sustain in point of reputation. That such a dashing, destructive exploit could be planned and consummated under his own ceaselessly vigilant eyes appeared little short of the miraculous, and for his own justification he looked needfully into its inception.

It was discovered that there was a natural subterranean pa.s.sage from the grove of Judge Roscoe's place to a cellar, a portion of which had const.i.tuted the powder magazine on the Devrett hill, and that this had been exploded by means of a slow match through the grotto, previously prepared, enabling the raiders to effect their escape. It was further ascertained that Julius Roscoe, who had led the enterprise, had been in hiding for some time at his father's home, and had been seen as he issued thence covered with blood, evidently fresh from some personal altercation with a Federal officer, for weeks a guest in the house.

Although bruised and bleeding, this officer could offer no account of his wounds save a fall, impossible to have produced them; he had raised no alarm, and had given no report of the presence of an enemy, whose intrusion had wrought such damage and disaster to the Union cause.

One detail led to another, each discovery unveiled cognate mysteries, the disclosure of trifles brought forward circ.u.mstances of importance.

The claim of the sentinel posted at Judge Roscoe's portico that he had fired the first shot which raised the alarm, evoked the fact that an earlier sentry had told Captain Baynell that he had heard marching feet--a moving column in the cadenced step, he described it now--near, very near, that murky night, and that Captain Baynell had waived it away with the suggestion of "a corporal of the guard with the relief"--at that hour!--when the next relief would not be due till nearly midnight,--and had gone back into the parlor, where Mrs. Gwynn had begun to sing, "Her bright smile haunts me still."

This account reminded several of his camp-fellows that, having been in town on leave, they had met that dark night on the turnpike a force marching in column, and naturally thinking this only the removal of Federal troops from some point to another, here, so far within the lines, they had quietly stood aside and watched the shadowy progress.

Nothing amiss had occurred to their minds. The men had all their officers duly in position, and they were marching silently and with great regularity. But by reference to the various written reports, it was easily ascertained that there was no shifting of troops that day, no a.s.signment of a company to any duty which would have taken them out at that hour, no detail reporting for service. Still following in the footsteps of this column, something more was learned from a young negro, who had been out to fish that night, which was the delight of the plantation darkey at this season of the year, and had cast his lines from under the bluff near Judge Roscoe's place; the night being foggy, he had not noticed, till they were very near, the approach of three or four large open boats, filled with soldiers, to judge by the rifles, who were rowing very fast and hard against the current and keeping close in to the sh.o.r.e. When they landed and beached the boats they were very quiet, fell into order, and marched off without a word, except the necessary curt commands. It had never occurred to him to give the alarm.

He had taken none. They had rowed so close in to sh.o.r.e, he thought, to avoid such a collision as had happened in the mists earlier in the night, when a large barge was run down by a gunboat and sunk. Doubtless if they had pa.s.sed the picket boats, the misty invisibility of all the surface of the water protected them, but for the most part the patrol of the river pickets was further down-stream. As they had come, so they had gone, and the matter remained a nine days' wonder. The commanding general almost choked when he thought of it.

"This is going to be a serious matter for Baynell," said Colonel Ashley, one day. He had called at Judge Roscoe's partly because he did not wish to break off with abrupt rudeness an acquaintance which he had persisted in forming, and partly because he was not willing in the circ.u.mstances that had arisen to seem to shun the house.

Judge Roscoe was not at home, but Mrs. Gwynn was in the parlor. Ashley had asked her to sing. There was something "delightfully dreary," as he described it, in the searching, romantic, melancholy cadences of her sweet contralto voice. He had not intended to open his heart, but somehow the mood induced by her singing, the quiet of the dim, secluded, cool drawing-rooms, with the old-fashioned, high, stucco ceiling, and the shadowy green gloom of the trees without, prevailed with him, and he spoke upon impulse.

"What matter?" she asked. She had wheeled half around on the piano-stool, and sat, her slim figure in its white dress, delicate and erect, one white arm, visible through the thin fabric, outstretched to the keyboard, the hand toying with resolving chords.

He had been standing beside the piano as she sang, but now, with the air of inviting serious discussion, he seated himself in one of the stiff arm-chairs of the carved rosewood "parlor set" of that day, and replied gravely:----

"His a.s.sociation with Julius Roscoe."

Her eyes widened with genuine amazement.

"It seems," proceeded Ashley, slowly, "that a dozen or two of the soldiers, who claimed to have seen a Confederate officer on the balcony here, recognized him as Julius Roscoe, when he reappeared in command of the forces that captured the redoubt. And the surgeon has always insisted that Baynell's hurt was a blow, not a fall. There is a good deal of smothered talk in various quarters."

He stroked his mustache contemplatively, looked vaguely about the room, and sighed in a certain disconsolateness.

"I don't understand," said Mrs. Gwynn, sharply, fixing intent eyes upon him. "How can Captain Baynell be called in question?"

"Oh, the general theory--however well or ill grounded--is that young Roscoe was here on a reconnoitring expedition of some sort, or perhaps merely on a visit to his kindred, and that Baynell winked at his presence on account of friendship with the family, instead of arresting him, as he should have done. It's an immense pity. Baynell is a fine officer."

Mrs. Gwynn had turned pale with excitement.

"But _none of us_ knew that Julius Roscoe was in the house!" she exclaimed. She hesitated a moment as the words pa.s.sed her lips. Judge Roscoe's reticence on the subject might imply some knowledge of the harbored Rebel.

Ashley was suddenly tense with energy.

"Don't imagine for one moment, my dear madam, that I have any desire to extract information from you. It is no concern of mine how he came or went. I only mention the subject because it is very much on my mind and heart. And I don't see any satisfactory end to it. I have a great respect for Baynell as a man, and especially as an artillerist, and somehow in these campaigns I have contrived to get fond of the fellow!--though he is about as stiff, and unresponsive, and prejudiced, and priggish a bundle of animal fibre as ever called himself human."

"Why, he doesn't give me that idea," exclaimed Leonora, her eyes widening. "He seems unguarded, and impulsive, and ardent."

Colonel Ashley was very considerably her senior and far too experienced to be ingenuous himself. He made no comment on the conviction her words created within him. He only looked at her in silence, receiving her remark with courteous attention. Then he resumed:----

"Of course in a civil war there are always some instances of undue leniency,--the pressure of circ.u.mstances induces it,--but rarely indeed such as this; it amounts to aiding and abetting the enemy, however unpremeditated. Young Roscoe could not have secured the means or information for his destructive raid had not Baynell permitted him to be housed here. Doubtless, however, Baynell thought it a mere visit of the boy to his father's family."

"But Captain Baynell never dreamed that Julius Roscoe was in the house!"

she exclaimed.

"That's just what he says he _did_--dreamed that he saw him! I can rely on you not to repeat my words. But I have had no confidential talk with him."

"I am sure--I _know_--they were never together for a moment."

"The surgeon says that Roscoe's knuckles cut to the bone," commented Ashley, with a significant smile. But the triumphs of stultifying Mrs.

Gwynn in conversation were all inadequate to restore his usual serene satisfaction, and once more he looked restlessly about the rooms and sighed.

"What do you think Captain Baynell was guilty of? Permitting an enemy to remain within the lines, _perdu_, unsuspected, to gather information, and make off with it--conniving at the concealment, and a.s.sisting the escape of an enemy? And _you_ call yourself his friend!"

Leonora's cheeks were flushed. Her voice rang with a tense vibration.

She fixed her interlocutor with a challenging eye.

"Oh--I don't _know_ what he intended," replied Ashley, almost irritably.