The Cavalier Part 20

x.x.xIV

THE CHARGE IN THE LANE

The instant Ferry wheeled at the flaming captain's side you could see he was unwelcome. I heard him tell what we knew of the foe and the ground; I saw him glance back at the blown condition of the speeding column and then say "You've got them anyhow, Captain; you'll get every man of them without a scratch, only if you will take your time."

But the Captain answered headily; "No, sir! I've tried that twice already; this time I'll cut them in two and be in their rear at one das.h.!.+ Bring in your company behind mine, if you choose."

Ferry drew back a few ranks but stayed with the column; Quinn had had the toil of the chase, he should have also the glory of the fight. So Ferry sent Gholson--whose horsemans.h.i.+p won a cheer from the pa.s.sing Louisianians as he cleared the roadside fence--across to Quinn, bidding the Lieutenant slacken speed and count himself a reserve. And then into the broad lane between grove and woods-pasture, with the charging yell, the Louisianians thundered. Ah! but my Creole gentleman was a sight, with his straight blade lifted in air and his face turned back on us aglow with the joy of battle! I was huzzaing back at him and we were pa.s.sing the front gate of the grove avenue, when down through it came from the house, with a tremor of echoes, the first shot; a shot and then a woman's scream, and his blazing eyes said to me, "He is there! That was Oliver!"

There was no time for speech. The shot was not a signal, yet on the instant and in our very teeth, on our right and our left, the cross-fire of the hidden and waiting foe flashed and pealed, and left and right, a life for a life, our carbines answered from the saddle. For a moment the odds against us were awful. In an instant the road was so full of fallen horses and dismounted men that the jaded column faltered in confusion. Our cunning enemy, seeing us charge in column, had swung the two extremes of their line forward and inward. So, crouching and firing upon us mounted, each half could fire toward the other with impunity, and what bullets missed their mark buzzed and whined about our ears and pecked the top rails of either fence like hail on a window. A wounded horse drove mine back upon his haunches and caused him to plant a hoof full on the breast of one of our Louisianians stretched dead on his back as though he had lain there for an hour. Another man, pale, dazed, unhurt, stood on the ground, unaware that he was under point-blank fire, holding by the bits his beautiful horse, that pawed the earth majestically and at every second or third breath blew from his flapping nostrils a cloud of scarlet spray. They blocked up half the road. As we swerved round them the horse of the company's first lieutenant slid forward and downward with knees and nose in the dust, hurling his rider into a lock of the fence, and the rider rose and rushed to the road again barely in time to catch a glittering form that dropped rein and sword and reeled backward from the saddle. It was his captain, shot through the breast. An instant later our tangled column parted to right and left, dashed into the locks of the two fences, sprang to the ground, and began to repay the enemy in the coin of their own issue. Only a dozen or so did otherwise, and it was my luck to be one of these. Espying Ned Ferry at the very front, in the road, standing in his stirrups and shouting back for followers to carry the charge on through, we spurred toward him and he turned and led. Then what was my next fortune but to see, astride of my stolen horse, the towering leader of the foe, Captain Jewett.

He came into the road a few rods ahead of us through a gap his men had earlier made opposite the big white gate. He answered our fierce halloo, as he crossed, by a pistol-shot at Ferry, but Ferry only glanced around at me and pointed after him with his sword. A number of blue-coats afoot followed him to the gap but at our onset scattered backward, st.u.r.dily returning our fire. Into the gap and into the enemy's left rear went Ferry and his hors.e.m.e.n, but I turned the other way and spurred through the woods-pasture gate after the Federal leader, he on my horse and I on his. Down the highway, on either side, stood his brave men's horses in the angles of the worm-fence, and two or three horse-holders took a shot at me as I sped in after the man who was bent on reaching the right of his divided force before Quinn should strike it, as I was bent on foiling him. Twice I fired at his shapely back, and twice, while he kept his speed among the tree-trunks, he looked back at me as coolly as at an odd pa.s.ser-by and sent me a ball from his revolver. A few more bounds carried him near enough to his force to shout his commands, but half a hundred cheers suddenly resounded in the depth of the woods-pasture, and Quinn and his men charged upon the foe's right and rear. I joined the shout and the shouters; in a moment the enemy were throwing down their arms, and I turned to regain the road to the pond. For I had marked Jewett burst through Quinn's line and with a score of shots ringing after him make one last brave dash--for escape. Others, pursuing him, bent northward, but my instinct was right, his last hope was for his horse-holders, and at a sharp angle of the by-road, where it reached the pond, exactly where Camille and I had stood not an hour before, I came abruptly upon Cricket--riderless. I seized his rein, and as I bent and snapped the halter of one horse on the snaffle of the other I saw the missing horseman. Leaping from the saddle I ran to him. He was lying on his face in the shallow water where General Austin and his staff had so gaily halted a short while before, and as I caught sight of him he rolled upon his back and tried to lift his bemired head.

x.x.xV

FALLEN HEROES

I dropped to my knee in the reddening pool and pa.s.sed my arm under his head.

"Thank you," he said, and repeated the word as I wet my handkerchief and wiped the mire from his face; "thank you;--no, no,"--I was opening his s.h.i.+rt--"that's useless; get me where you can turn me over; you've hit me in the back, my lad."

"I?--I hit you? Oh, Captain Jewett, thank G.o.d, I didn't hit you at all!"

"What's the difference, boy; you didn't aim to miss, did you? I didn't. It's not my only hurt; I think I broke something inside when I fell from the sad'--ah! that's your bugle, isn't it? It's my last fight--oh, the devil! my good boy, don't begin to cry again; war's war; give me some water.... Thank you! And now, if you don't want me to bleed to death get me out of this slop, and--yes,--easy!--that's it--easy--oh, G.o.d! oh, let me down, boy, let me down, you're killing me! Oh!--" he fainted away.

With his unconscious head still on my arm I faced toward the hundred after-sounds of the fray and hallooed for help. To my surprise it promptly came. Three blundering boys we were who lifted him into the saddle and bore him to the house reeling and moaning astride of Cricket, the poor beast half dead with hard going. The sinking sun was as red as October when we issued into the highroad and moved up it to the grove gate through the b.l.o.o.d.y wreckage of the fray. The Louisianians were camping in the woods-pasture, Ferry's scouts in the grove, and the captive Federals were in the road between, shut in by heavy guards. At our appearance they crowded around us, greeting their undone commander with proud words of sympathy and love, and he thanked them as proudly and lovingly, though he could scarcely speak, more than to ask every moment for water. A number of our Sessions house group crowded out to meet us at the veranda steps; Camille; Harry Helm with his right hand bandaged; Cecile, attended by two or three Sessions children; and behind all Miss Harper exclaiming "Ah, my boy, you're a welcome sight--Oh! is that Captain Jewett!"

Two or three bystanders helped us bear him upstairs, where, turning from the bedside, I pressed Camille with eager questions.

"Lieutenant Ferry? he's unhurt--and so is Mr. Gholson! Mr. Gholson's gone to Franklin for doctors; Lieutenant Ferry sent him; he's been sending everybody everywhere faster than anybody else could think of anything!"

I asked where Ferry was now. Her eyes refilled--they were red from earlier distresses--and she motioned across the hall: "The captain of the Louisianians, you know, has sent for him!"

"Yes," I said, "the Captain's. .h.i.t hard. I saw him when he was struck."

"Oh, d.i.c.k! then you were at the very front!"

"Did you think I was at the rear?"

She looked down. "I couldn't help hoping it."

"Then you were thinking of me."

"I prayed for you."

Such news seemed but ill-gotten gains, to come before I had gathered courage to inquire after Charlotte Oliver. "Wh'--where is--where are the others?"

"They're all about the house, tending the wounded; Mrs. Sessions is with the Squire, of course,--dear, brave old gentleman! we thought he was killed, but Charlotte found the ball had glanced."

I asked if it was Oliver who shot him, and she nodded. "It was down at the front door; the Squire said he'd shoot him if he shot Charlotte, and Charlotte declared she'd shoot him if he shot the Squire, and all at once he shot at her and struck him."

"Who was it that screamed; was it she?"

My informant's head drooped low and she murmured, "It was I."

"Then you were at the front."

"Did you think I was at the rear?"

I fear I answered evasively. I added that I must go to Lieutenant Ferry, and started toward the door, but she touched my arm. "Oh, d.i.c.k, you should have heard him praise you to her!--and when he said you had chased Captain Jewett and was missing, she cried; but now I'll tell her you're here." She started away but returned. "Oh, d.i.c.k, isn't it wonderful how we're always victorious! why don't those poor Yankees give up the struggle? they must see that G.o.d is on our side!"

As she left me, Ned Ferry came out with a sad face, but smiled gladly on me and caught me fondly by the arm. On hearing my brief report he saddened more than ever, and when I said I had promised Jewett he should hand his sword to none but him, "Oh!"--he smiled tenderly--"I don't want to refuse it; go in and hang it at the head of his bed as he would do in his own tent; I'll wait here."

I pointed to the door he had softly closed behind him: "How is it in there?"

"Ah, Richard, in there the war is all over."

"Dead?"

"So called."

x.x.xVI

"SAYS QUINN, S'E"

Lieutenant Helm came out as I went in, and I paused an instant to ask him in fierce suspicion if he had bandaged his hand himself. "No," he whispered, "Miss Camille." It was a lie, but I did not learn that until months after. "Come downstairs as soon as you can," he added, "there's a hot supper down there; first come first served." We parted.

I found Miss Harper fanning the wounded giant and bathing his brows, and my smiles were ample explanation of my act as I hung the sword up. Then I brought in my leader. "Captain Jewett," he said after a nearly silent exchange of greetings, "I wish we had you uninjured."

"Ah, no, Lieutenant, this is bad enough. Lieutenant, there is one matter--"

"Yes, Captain, what is that?"

"The villain who set those fires--you know who he is, I hope."

"Yes, Captain, I know."

"He didn't begin that until after he left me. I had some private reasons for not killing him when I might have done it."

"Yes, Captain, I know that, too."