On a second call from Major Harper, when handed a doc.u.ment to open and read, he went through it carefully twice, and then dropping it on the coverlet asked--"and Quinn?"

"Oh, Quinn's turn will come."

"Ah! Major, that is not fair to Quinn!" said Ferry. Yet when he took up the paper again he gazed on it with a happy gravity; it made him a captain. "By the by," he said, "that Yankee horse that d.i.c.k Smith captured at Sessions's; I'd like to buy that horse from you, Major." They made the sale. "And there's that captured ambulance still here, Major, with its team eating their heads off."

"Yes, I'm going to take that away with me to-day."

This meant that Charlotte's negro man and his daughter, her maid, had come with her spring-wagon, and Harry and I would have liked the Major better if he had smiled at this point, as he did not. Yet he was most lovable; sent so kind a message up to Charlotte that Harry and I wondered; and received back from her a reply so gracious that--since we could not wonder--we worshipped. In the evening of that day Ferry and Charlotte were transferred, she into the room behind her, and he upstairs into the one out of which she was taken. That night a slave and his wife, belonging to the place, ran away to the enemy. If they should tell the Yankees Ned Ferry was here--! "By Jo'!" said Harry Helm, "I'm glad I didn't cut my throat; I told that darkey, yesterday, Ned's name was...o...b..ien!"

Toward the close of that day came tidings of the brigade's splendid work at a steamboat-landing on the Mississippi River, how they had stolen in by night between two great bodies of the enemy, burned a vast store of military supplies, and then brilliantly cut their way out; yet we were told to be ready to withdraw into Mississippi again as soon as our newly made captain could safely be moved. Pooh! what of that? Lee was on his way into Pennsylvania; the war was nearly over, sang the Harper girls, and we were the winners! They cheerily saw Helm and me, next morning, ride southward in search of further good news. At a cross-roads I proposed that we separate, and meet there again near the end of the day. He turned west; I went an hour's ride farther south and then turned west myself.

When we met again I knew that he--while he did not know that I--had been to Gilmer's plantation. We wanted to see if the Federals had left a grave there. They had left three, and a young girl who had been one of the dancers told me she had seen Oliver's body carried off by two blue troopers who growled and cursed because they had been sent back to bury it. Neither Harry nor I mentioned the subject when we met at the cross-roads again, for we came on our horses' necks at a stretched out run; the Federals were rolling up from the south battalion after battalion, hoping to find Major Harper's store of supplies feebly guarded and even up with us for that steamboat-landing raid. Presently as we hurried northward we began to hear, off ahead of us on our left, the faint hot give-and-take of two skirmish lines. We came into the homestead grove at a constrained trot and found the ladies out on the veranda in liveliest suspense between scepticism and alarm.

"Yes, they're fighting, now, on the edge of town," we said, "but our boys will keep them there." Our host and hostess moaned their unbelief. "However," added Harry, "I'll go tell the old man to hitch up the little mules and--"

"You dawn't need," said Cecile, "'tis done!" and Camille confirmed her word, while the planter and his wife returned to the kitchen yard, where the servants were loading the smokehouse meat into a wagon to hide it in the woods; Miss Harper and Estelle went into the house, summoned by Charlotte's maid. On Ferry's chamber floor sounded three measured thumps of his scabbarded sword.

"d.i.c.k, you answer that," exclaimed Harry, reining in half wheeled; "but keep him on his back, if you have to hold him down!" He spurred away to learn whether we had better stay or fly. I threw my rein to Camille and flew up the hall stairs.

Ferry lay in bed with three pillows behind him and his sheathed sword across his lap. "Good-evening, Richard," he said, "you are returned just in time; will you please hand me my two pistol' from yonder?--thank you." He laid one beside each thigh. "Now please turn the head of my bed a little bit, to face the door--thank you; and now, good-bye. You hear those footstep' there in the room behind? she is dressing to go; the other ladies they are helping her. Richard, I place them in your charge; have them all ready to get into her wagon at a moment's notice, with you on your horse--and you better take that Jewett horse, too; he came to-day."

I hesitated, but a single flash of authority from his eye was enough and I had pa.s.sed half-way to the door, when, through the window over the front veranda, I saw a small body of hors.e.m.e.n trotting up through the grove. The dusk of the room hid me, but there was no mistaking them. "Too late, Captain," I said, "they've got us."

"How many do you see?"

"About sixteen. Our two horses will be Yankees again to-morrow."

"Ah! not certainly. Where is your carbine?"

"Just outside this door. They know you're here, Captain, they're surrounding the house." As I reached toward the door I heard his sword crawl out, the doork.n.o.b clicked without my touching it, the door swung and closed again, and Charlotte Oliver was with us. The light of the western window shone full upon her; she was in the same dress, hat and all, in which I had seen her the night we rode together alone. Though wasted and pale, she betrayed a flush on either cheek and a smile that mated with the sweet earnest of her eyes. She tendered me my carbine, patted my hand caressingly, and glided onward to Ferry's bedside. With my back to them and my ear to the door I hearkened outward. In the front doorway below sounded the jingling tread of cavalry-boots and a clank of sabres.

LIV

THE FIGHT IN THE DOORWAY

Charlotte's whisper came to me: "Richard!" Standing by Ferry's pillow she spoke for him. "If they start upstairs come and stand like me, on the other side."

I nodded and slyly opened the door enough to pa.s.s half-way out. Some man was parleying with Miss Harper. "Now, madam, you know you haven't locked up your parlor to maintain an abstract right; you've locked it up because you've got the man in there that I've come for."

"Whom have you come for, sir?"

"Lieutenant O'Brien, of the rebel army. Shall I order this man to kick that door in? Answer quickly."

"Sir, there is no Lieutenant O'Brien in there, nor elsewhere in this house; there never has been."

"Stand aside, madam."

"Stop, sir! I command you! There is no Lieutenant of any name on this place!"

"Oh, yes there is; he goes by various names, but one of them is Ned Ferry. Sergeant, we'll kick together; now!"--Bang!

I leaned back into the room to say "It's all right! Oh, but that sweet woman's a 'c.o.o.n! Let them batter!" As I thrust my head out again Miss Harper was exclaiming "Oh, sirs, don't do that!"--Bang!--"For the honor of your calling and your flag--" Bang!

"There's no Lieutenant in there." Bang!

"Corporal, go find an axe or something."

"Oh, you need not, sirs, I'll unlock the door."

"Well, be quick about it, and then stand clear; we don't want any woman hurt." The key rattled at the keyhole and then dropped to the floor. "You did that by intention! Give me that key!" He tried the lock. "We've jammed it, corporal, but another good kick will fetch it; now!"--Bang!--crash!--open flew the door.

"Well, I will be d.a.m.ned!" said the officer.

"Sir," said Miss Harper, "you give me no occasion to doubt it." She followed the men upstairs. "Estelle, go back to your sister and cousin; and if you, my dear,"--to our hostess--"will kindly go also, and stay with them--"

I closed the door. It had no key, but there was a small catch to the k.n.o.b and I turned it on while the men were looking into the adjacent rooms. When they reached ours Miss Harper was again at their front. Inside, the three of us silently noted our strategic advantages: we were in the darkest part of the room, the bed's covering was a dull red, Ferry had on his shirt of black silk, the white pillows were hidden at his back, Charlotte and I were darkly clad, the light from our west window would be in our a.s.sailants' faces as they entered, and they would be silhouetted against a similar light from the hall's front. We noiselessly c.o.c.ked our weapons and Charlotte and I each sank to one knee. "The door is very thin," murmured Ferry, "we can fire before they enter; they will get, anyhow, our smoke, and if they fire as they rush in we can aim under their flash."

It was only then that I observed that Charlotte was armed. But the fact made her seem only the more a true woman, since I knew that only for her honor or his life would she ever take deadly aim. Her weapon was the slender revolver she had carried ever since the day which had made her Charlotte Oliver, the thing without which she never could have reached this hour of blissful extremity.

"In here there is a lady, ill," we heard Miss Harper say.

"Is she alone?"

Ferry prompted in a whisper, the three of us cried "Yes!" and he added "Pa.s.s one side from the door, Miss Harper, we are going to shoot through it."

"h.e.l.lo, in there! Lieutenant Ferry, of Ferry's scouts,"--

"Captain Ferry," retorted Miss Harper, and I echoed the amendment.

"d.a.m.n the difference; I give you one half-minute, Captain Ferry, to say you surrender! If you weren't wounded I wouldn't give you that. Corporal, go get a log out of that fireplace downstairs."

"Oh, shame!" wailed Miss Harper, half-way down the hall.

"Captain," called Ferry, "I give you one quarter-minute to get away from that door." He whispered to Charlotte, pointing to a panel of it higher than any one's head.

"Oh, sirs," we again heard Miss Harper cry, "withhold! Captain Ferry, they have called in four more men!" We heard the four downstairs coming at a run. "Oh, sir--"

"Go away, madam!" bellowed the officer as his men thundered into the upper hall. "Now, Captain Ferry, there are six of us here and three under each of your windows. Do you--?"

"Oh, sir, the lady! the sick lady!"

"That's his look-out, madam. If the sick lady isn't Charlotte Oli'--"

"And if she is?" called Ferry, depressing Charlotte's weapon to an aim barely breast high.