Hearing footfalls, he turned.

"Oh, it's you, Decherd, is it? I'm right glad you're going home to- morrow morning, and not to-night. We need men who can shoot. I will give you something for every black head you can make a hole in to- night. What would you like? Say about two dollars?" Decherd gulped and reddened, and made such shamefaced defense as he could. There was an ugly look of ill temper on his face, but he found Calvin Blount a hard man to approach with any masculine asperities.

"The next time," said Blount to him, quietly, "if I were you, Mr.

Decherd, and I heard the Blount pack going out, I don't believe I would ride along." He was away before Decherd could frame reply. At that instant Eddring appeared on the gallery calling out to him.

"Listen, listen to it," cried Eddring, "don't you hear it? That's their drum; it's coming closer."

The little party of white men faced toward the sound.

"Here, Bill," cried Blount. "Call the ladies here to me at once." He turned to them, as presently they appeared, questioning him.

"Never mind," he said, "there's going to be a little trouble, but we can handle it. It's out of the difficulty with that Sands n.i.g.g.e.r that I was telling you about, Mrs. Ellison. Now, here, you and Miss Lady take these two pistols, and go into Miss Lady's room. No matter what happens, you stay there until you are called. If any one tries to get into the room, wait until he gets almost in, then shoot, and shoot straight. Don't be scared, and keep quiet; well take care of you, these gentlemen and myself. I must tell you that it was my friend Mr.

Eddring here who brought the news and warned us. You ought to thank him, but not now; get on into that room."

The women took the weapons, and Eddring noticed that of the two Mrs.

Ellison seemed the more frightened. The younger one was pale, but her eye did not flicker or falter. She looked straight at each man, at Bowles and Buckner, both impa.s.sive, at Calvin Blount, now beginning to flush under his fighting choler; yes, and at last at him, John Eddring, pale and serious, but steady as the door-jamb against which he leaned.

"It was fortunate for us, sir, that you came," she said in a voice that did not tremble as much as did his in stammering a reply. So she pa.s.sed on within, and the eyes of those silent men followed her.

"Now then, Bill," cried Calvin Blount, sharply, "get the hands into line so we can count them. Here, into the kitchen there, all you people, every one of you. If I see a head out of the window this night it will get a hole put through it. Do you hear? Get under cover and stay there. Ring that bell, Bill, louder, louder! Keep it going!

We'll show these people what we think, and what we'll do."

So, high over the droning sounds of sleeping evening-tide, there arose the challenge of the white man's bell, calling out to the savage drum its answer and its defiance.

CHAPTER VIII

THE VOLCANO

At length the sound of bell and drum alike ceased. The great house went grim and silent. The sound of the flying night-jars died away, and the chorus of crickets and katydids began as the dusk settled down. Inside the kitchen, a detached building in which the plantation forces were now practically confined, there arose occasional sounds of half-hysterical laughter, s.n.a.t.c.hes of excited talk, now and then the quavering of a hymn. In the kennel yards a hound, prescient, raised his voice, and was joined by another, until the whole pack, stirred by some tense feeling in the air, lifted up in tremulous unison a far-reaching wail.

After a time even the mingled calling of the pack droned away, and silence came once more, a silence hard to endure, since now each occupant of the Big House knew that the a.s.sailants must be close about. Each man had a window a.s.signed to his care, and so all settled for the task ahead. An hour pa.s.sed that seemed a score of hours.

Then, over toward the railroad track, there came a confused sound of m.u.f.fled footfalls in ragged unison, and presently a sort of chant, broken now and then by shoutings. Suddenly there boomed out once more, full and unmistakable, the voice of the great drum of Africa.

The beating was now rapid and sonorous, and the sound of the drum was accompanied by a savage volume of cries. A ma.s.s of shadow appeared at the end of the lane, soon lapping over into the yard in front of the Big House.

There arose near at hand answering calls, containing a scarcely concealed note of encouragement. At a window in the kitchen there appeared a head and arm thrust out. Eddring saw it and pointed. "Why don't you shoot, man?" said the slow voice of Bowles at his elbow.

"I can't; it's murder!" said Eddring, drawing away. Yet even as he did so he saw the long brown barrel of the squirrel rifle rise level and hang motionless. There came a sharp, thin, inadequate report, and at the kitchen window the shoulders of the unfortunate flung upward and fell hanging. Eddring felt sick with horror, but Bowles lowered his rifle calmly, as if this were but target practice. Not a hand in the kitchen dared pull back into the room the body of the dead negro.

And now there came a sudden rush of feet; a medley of deep-throated callings came almost from the gallery edge. The a.s.sault, savage, useless, almost hopeless, had begun. Eddring remembered always that it seemed to him that this young gentleman, Henry Decherd, was a trifle pale; that Bowles was at least a dozen feet tall; that Colonel Calvin Blount was quite turned to stone; and that he himself was not there personally, but merely witnessing some fierce and fearful nightmare in which others were concerned. Once he heard Mrs. Ellison call repeatedly to Delphine, and was dimly conscious that there was no answer. Once, too, he saw, standing at the door, the tall figure of the young girl, Miss Lady--the white girl, the prototype of civilization; woman, sweet, to be shielded, to be cared for, to be protected--yea, though it were with a man's heart-blood. And after this spectacle John Eddring looked about him no more, but cherished his rifle and used it.

About him were vague and confused sounds of a conflict of which he saw little save that directly in front of his own window. He was conscious of a second insignificant rifle-crack at his right, and heard other shots from Blount's window at the left. His own work he did methodically, feeling that his duty was plain to him. He was a rifleman. His firing was not aimless, but exact, careful, pitilessly unagitated.

The black ma.s.s in front broke and scattered, and drew together again and came on. The a.s.sailants reached every portion of the front yard, hiding behind buildings, trees, anything they could find. At the rear of the house, among the barns, there arose the yelping of dogs cut down at the kennels, and screams rang out where the maddened blacks, no longer human, were stabbing horses and cattle and leaving them half dead. Then there arose a sudden flicker of flame. Some voice cried out that they had fired the cotton-gin. From other buildings closer at hand there also arose flames. From the kitchen came cries and lamentations. Here and there over the ground, plain in the moonlight, or huddled blackly in the shadows, there lay long blurs where the rifles had done their work. Yet from a point not far from the corner of the gallery there came continual firing.

"That's from behind that board-pile out there," cried Blount, stepping back from his window. "We've got to get them out." Eddring, not pausing for speech, plunged out of the window, rushed across the gallery and over the narrow s.p.a.ce to the shelter whence was coming this close firing. His weapon spoke once and was lowered. Then he fled back as swiftly as he had gone.

"Get back in here, you fool!" cried Blount, pulling him in at the window as he returned. "How many were there?"

"Two," said Eddring, breathless. "One was a woman."

"Woman!" cried Blount; "what woman?"

There was no time to ponder as to this, for now shouts sounded behind them. The crashing of gla.s.s and cries of fear came from the room where the women had been left. The men hurried thither, and as they gained the door, a black face appeared at the broken pane. Once more Eddring felt hesitation at what seemed simple murder, yet still his rifle was rising when he felt a sudden dizziness a.s.sail him. A long arm pushed him away. He saw the brown barrel of the squirrel rifle rising into line once more. The black at the window fell back, shot through the forehead. Sarah Ann handed Jim Bowles another bullet. "I always did love you, ol' man," said Sarah Ann, as he blew the smoke from the long barrel of his rifle before reloading.

Eddring saw and heard thus much, but presently he sank half- unconscious, not knowing the puzzle of the shot which had struck him here so far toward the interior of the house. After a time the horror of it all drew to its climax and pa.s.sed on. Buckner, the storekeeper, slipped down to the railroad station and set going an imperative clicking on the wire. Two hours later there came a special train, whose appearance put an end to the conflict. Dawn found the engine fuming at the station-house, and dawn saw the Big House still standing, charred a little at one corner, near which lay the body of the unfortunate who had sought to apply the brand. Eddring, still faint and dizzy, but not seriously hurt, sat at a little table opposite Colonel Blount, who, himself gray and gaunt, had paused for a time in his uneasy walk about the premises. A mocking-bird on the trellis without the door trilled its song high and sweet, as though the coming sunshine could reveal nothing of that which had been there.

CHAPTER IX

ON ITS MAJESTY'S SERVICE

John Eddring, one morning, a month, or so after the Big House battle, sat in the offices devoted to the use of the division claim agent of the Y. Y. lines, whose headquarters were situated in a squat building around which went on the scattered industries of the city known as the industrial capital of a certain region of the South.

Beyond these dingy confines might have been seen other structures yet more squat and dreary, from which issued the lines of iron rails which led out into the South, rails which even here paralleled the sh.o.r.es of the great river, as though dependent upon it for maintenance and guidance. The mighty flood, unmindful, swept toward the South, its tawny mane far out in midstream wrinkled by the breath of an up-stream air.

Beyond the nearest bend there arose, above the cover of the gray forest, the dense smoke of a steamer, and near at hand there came now and again the coughing roar of the whistles of yet other river boats.

Slow smoke issued also from steamers tied up at the levee, where, under low wooden canopies, lay piles and rows of brown-cased cotton bales, continually increased in number by other bales brought up in long drays, each drawn by a single mule. Above the hot wharves rose the slope of close stone riprapping, fence against Father Messasebe, who now and then, in spirit of sport or of forgetfulness, reached out for his immemorial tribute of the soil. The sun was reflected from this wall down on the depot building and the wharf floor beyond.

Across the water came the strumming of a banjo, and the low note of singing also arose from the rooms where workmen shuffled about with truck and hook, shifting the cotton bales. An inspector, almost the only white man at the wharf, moved slowly from bale to bale, ripping the covers with his knife and probing with his cotton auger into the middle of each bale to test its quality. Mules dozed about with lopping ears. Nowhere was there haste; neither here nor on the street; nor in the railway offices beyond, where sat John Eddring, agent of the personal injury department of this southern railway.

The room was not attractive, with its few chairs, its rows of letter files, its desks and copying presses. The table at which Eddring sat was worn and lacking in polish. Upon the wall hung a map showing the divers lines of the Y. V. railroad; a chart depicting the street crossings in the city of New Orleans; an engineer's elevation of a bridge somewhere on the line. Severely professional were these surroundings; as was indeed the central figure in the room, who now sat at his desk opening the morning mail. He looked up presently as there came a knock at the door, and soon was on his feet, hat in hand; for the first caller of the day proved to be a lady. Apparently she was an acquaintance of the claim agent, who addressed her by name.

"Come in, Mrs. Wilson," he said pleasantly.

Mrs. Wilson, just arrived from a small town down the railroad, had brought with her her sister, her mother and four children, not to mention a neighbor who had come along to do a little shopping.

Eddring employed himself in getting a sufficient number of chairs for this little body of visitors. Inquiries as to the health of himself and his family ensued, reciprocated politely by Eddring, who asked after Mrs. Wilson's kith and kin and the leading citizens of her town. These preliminaries were long, but the claim agent was apparently well acquainted with them and regarded them as necessary.

"Well, now, Mr. Eddring," said Mrs. Wilson, "I've come in heah this mawnin' to see you about ouah hawse. You know ouah Molly hawse got kilt down at the depot two weeks ago by the railroad kyahs. I declare, I felt so bad I sat down and cried; I couldn't get supper that day. We was so much attached to Molly--why, Mr. Eddring, you don't know how bad we-all did feel about that hawse. It don't seem right to us nohow."

"No, things do go wrong sometimes, Mrs. Wilson," said Eddring, soothingly. "Now, I know that horse. Mr. Wilson drove me behind her the other day when I was down at your town. Good horse. A little old and a trifle lame, if I remember right." He smiled pleasantly.

"Lame! Why, Molly never was lame a day in her whole life. She never did have no lameness at all, unless it was a sort of hitch now and then like, but you couldn't call it right lame. Now, Mr. Wilson didn't come up. I tol' him you was a mighty nice man and you wouldn't let a lady get the worst of a business deal. I thought we could talk it over and you would do about what was right. Now, two hundred dollars--"

"Two hundred dollars! Why, my dear madam, you know I can get you another horse--"

"Get us another hawse like Molly! I'd like to know where you can get a hawse that's been in ouah family twenty years for any two hundred dollars! Why, Mr. Eddring, I always thought you was a fair-minded gentleman."

"Don't call me that, don't call me a gentleman," said Eddring, "and don't you call _me_ fair-minded! But now, just look here. We didn't ask that Molly horse to get on our track. We didn't want to kill her, now, did we? All we wanted was to steam up there to the platform, and put off some groceries and let off a few pa.s.sengers. We didn't want to kill _anybody's_ horse. Now, I know Molly has been in your family a long time; a good horse, I don't deny it. We couldn't make it right with you if we paid you a _thousand_ dollars; so just let's forget it and try to be friends. Let me give you a check for forty dollars."

"Forty dollars!"

"Now, then, Mrs. Wilson, this is not to be for Molly, it's just trying to be friendly. I want to feel free to come down and sit at your table and look you all in the face."