Changing his direction, he made straight for the river, struck it above the fortification, and got behind the levee, thus securing both a covered way to hide his course, and an earthwork from behind which he could fight. He lost no time in peeping over the top of the mound, but pushed ahead at his best speed, supposing that no cavalry scouts would dare approach very near to a garrison supplied with artillery. He could see a sentry pacing the ramparts, the dark uniform showing clear against the grey sky beyond. He even thought that the man perceived him, and supposed that his dangers were over for the present. He was full of exhilaration, and glanced back at the events of the night with a sense of satisfaction, taking it all for granted with a resolute faith of satisfaction, that the Ravenels had escaped. Major Scott was dead; he was really quite sorry for that; but then two Texans had been killed, or at least disabled; the war was so much nearer its close. In a small way he felt much as a general does who has effected a masterly retreat, and inflicted severe loss upon the pursuing enemy.
Presently a break in the bank forced him to mount the levee. As he reached the top he stared in astonishment and some dismay at a man in b.u.t.ternut-colored clothing, mounted on a rough pony, with the double-barreled gun of Greene"s mosstroopers across his saddle-bow, who was posted on the road not forty feet distant. The b.u.t.ternut immediately said, in the pleasant way current in armies, "Halt, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!"
He fired, but missed, as Colburne skirted the break on a run, and sprang again behind the levee. The Captain then fired in return, with no other effect than to make the b.u.t.ternut gallop beyond revolver range. From this distance he called out, ironically, "I say, Yank, have you heard from Brashear City?"
Colburne made no reply, but continued his retreat unmolested. When the sentinel challenged, "Halt! who comes there?" he thought he had never heard a pleasanter welcome.
"Friend," he answered.
"Halt, friend! Corporal of the guard, number five," shouted the sentry.
The corporal appeared, recognized Colburne, and let him in through the gate in a palisade which connected one angle of the fort with the river.
The garrison was already under arms, and the men were lying down behind the low works, with their equipments on and their muskets by their sides. The first person from the plantation whom Colburne saw was Mauma Major.
"Where is Mrs. Carter, aunty?" he asked.
"They"s all here, bress the Lord! And now you"s come!" shouted the good fat creature, clapping her hands with delight. "Whar my ole man?"
"In heaven," said Colburne, with a solemn tenderness which carried instant conviction. The woman screamed, and went down upon her knees with an air and face of such anguish as might cast shame upon those philosophers as have a.s.serted that the negro is not a man.
"Oh! the Lord gave! The Lord gave!" she repeated, wildly.
Perhaps she had forgotten, perhaps she never knew, the remainder of the text; but its piteous sense of bereavement, and of more than human consolation, was evidently clear in some manner to her soul.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CAPTAIN COLBURNE COVERS THE RETREAT OF THE SOUTHERN LABOR ORGANIZATION.
Colburne soon discovered the Ravenels and their retainers bivouacked in an angle of the fortification. The Doctor actually embraced him in delight at his escape; and Mrs. Carter seized both his hands in hers, exclaiming, "Oh, I am so happy!"
She was full of gayety. She had had a splendid nap; had actually slept out of doors. Did he see that tent made out of a blanket? She had slept in that. She could bivouac as well as you, Captain Colburne; she was as good a soldier as you, Captain Colburne. She liked it, of all things in the world. She never would sleep in the house again till she was fif--sixty.
It was curious to note how she checked herself upon the point of mentioning fifty as the era of first decrepitude. Her father was over fifty, and therefore fifty could not be old age, notwithstanding her preconceived opinions on the subject.
"But oh, how obliged we are to you!" she added, changing suddenly to a serious view. "How kind and n.o.ble and brave you are! We owe you so much!--Isn"t it strange that I should be saying such things to you? I never thought that I should ever say anything of the kind to any man but my father and my husband. I am indeed grateful to you, and thankful that you have escaped."
As she spoke, her eyes filled with tears. There was a singular changeableness about her of late; she shifted rapidly and without warning, almost without cause, from one emotion to another; she felt and expressed all emotions with more than usual fervor. She was sadder at times and gayer at times than circ.u.mstances seemed to justify. An ordinary observer, a man especially, would have been apt to consider some of her conduct odd, if not irrational. The truth is that she had been living a new life for the past two months, and that her being, physical and moral, had not yet been able to settle into a tranquil unity of function and feeling. Many women and a few men will understand me here. Colburne was too merely a young man to comprehend anything; but he could stand a little way off and worship. He thought, as she faced him with her cheeks flushed and her eyes the brighter for tears, that she was very near in guise and nature to an angel. It may be a paradox; it may be a dangerous fact to make public; but he certainly was loving another man"s wife with perfect innocence.
"What is the matter with Mauma Major?" asked the Doctor.
Colburne briefly related the martyrdom of Scott; and father and daughter hurried to console the weeping black woman.
Then the young soldier bethought himself that he ought to report his knowledge of the rebels to the commandant of the garrison. "You"ll find the cuss in there," said a devil-may-care lieutenant, pointing to a brick structure in the centre of the fort. Colburne entered, saw an officer sleeping on a pile of blankets, and to his astonishment recognized him as Major Gazaway. In slumber this remarkable poltroon looked respectably formidable. He was six feet in height and nearly two hundred pounds in weight, large-limbed, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, dark in complexion, aquiline in feature, masculine and even stern in expression. He had begun life as a prize fighter, but had failed in that career, not because he lacked strength or skill, but from want of pluck to stand the hammering. Nevertheless he was a tolerable hand at a rough-and-tumble fight, and still more efficient in election-day bullying and browbeating. For the last ten years he had kept a billiard saloon, had held various small public offices, and had been the Isaiah Rynders of his little city. On the stump he had a low kind of popular eloquence made up of coa.r.s.e denunciation, slanderous lying, bar-room slang, s.m.u.tty stories, and profanity. The Rebellion broke out; the Rebel cannon aimed at Fort Sumter knocked the breath out of the Democratic party; and Gazaway turned Republican, bringing over two hundred fighting voters, and changing the political complexion of his district.
Consequently he easily got a commission as captain in the three months"
campaign, and subsequently as major in the Tenth, much to the disgust of its commandant. He had expected and demanded a colonelcy; he thought that the Governor, in not granting it, had treated him with ingrat.i.tude and black injustice; he honestly believed this, and was naively sore and angry on the subject. It needed this trait of born impudence to render his character altogether contemptible; for had he been a conscious, humble coward, he would have merited a pity not altogether disunited from respect. From the day of receiving his commission Gazaway had not ceased to intrigue and bully for promotion in a long series of blotted and ill-spelled letters. How could a mere Major ever hope to go before the people successfully as a candidate for Congress? That distinction was the aim of Gazaway, as of many another more or less successful blackguard. It is true that these horrid battles occasionally shook his ambition and his confidence in his own merits. Under fire he was a meek man, much given to lying low, to praying fervently, to thinking that a whole skin was better than laurels. But in a few hours after the danger was past, his elastic vanity and selfishness rose to the occasion, and he was as pompous in air, as dogmatical in speech, as impudently greedy in his demands for advancement as ever. Such was one of Colburne"s superior officers; such was the dastard to whom the wounded hero reported for duty. Colburne, by the way, had never asked for promotion, believing, with the faith of chivalrous youth, that merit would be sure of undemanded recognition.
After several calls of "Major!" the slumberer came to his consciousness; he used it by rolling over on his side, and endeavoring to resume his dozings. He had not been able to sleep till late the night before on account of his terrors, and now he was reposing like an animal, anxious chiefly to be let alone.
"Major--excuse me--I have something of importance to report," insisted the Captain.
"Well; what is it?" snarled Gazaway. Then, catching sight of Colburne, "Oh! that you, Cap? Where _you_ from?"
"From a plantation five miles below, on the bayou. I was followed in closely by the rebel cavalry. Their pickets are less than half a mile from the fort."
"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Gazaway, sitting up and throwing off his musquito-net. "What do you think? They ain"t going to attack the fort, be they?" Then calling his homespun pomposity to his aid, he added, with a show of bravado, "I can"t see it. They know better. We can knock spots out of "em."
"Of course we can," coincided the Captain. "I don"t believe they have any siege artillery; and if we can"t beat off an a.s.sault we ought to be cat-o"-nine-tailed."
"Cap, I vow I wish I had your health," said the Major, gazing shamelessly at Colburne"s thin and pale face. "You can stand anything. I used to think I could, but this cussed climate fetches _me_. I swear I hain"t been myself since I come to Louisianny."
It is true that the Major had not been in field service what he once honestly thought he was. He had supposed himself to be a brave man; he was never disenchanted of this belief except while on the battle-field; and after he had run away he always said and tried to believe that it was because he was sick.
"I was took sick with my old trouble," he continued; "same as I had at New Orleans, you know--the very day that we attacked Port Hudson."
By the way, he had not had it at New Orleans; he had had it at Georgia Landing and Camp Beasland; but Colburne did not correct him.
"By George! what a day that was!" he exclaimed, referring to the a.s.sault of the 27th of May. "I"ll bet more"n a hundred shots come within five feet of me. If I could a kep" up with the regiment, I"d a done it. But I couldn"t. I had to go straight to the hospital. I tell you I suffered there. I couldn"t get no kind of attention, there was so many wounded there. After a few days I set out for the regiment, and found it in a holler where the rebel bullets was skipping about like parched peas in a skillet. But I was too sick to stand it. I had to put back to the hospital. Finally the Doctor he sent me to New Orleans. Well, I was just gettin" a little flesh on my bones when General Emory ordered every man that could walk to be put to duty. Nothing would do but I must take command of this fort. I got here yesterday morning, and the boat went back in the afternoon, and here we be in a h.e.l.l of a muss. I brought twenty such invalids along--men no more fit for duty than I be. I swear it"s a shame."
Colburne did not utter the disgust and contempt which he felt; he turned away in silence, intending to look up dressings for his arm, which had become dry and feverish. The Major called him back.
"I say, Cap, if the enemy are in force, what are we to do?"
"Why, we shall fight, of course."
"But we ha"n"t got men enough to stand an a.s.sault."
"How many?"
"One little comp"ny Louisianny men, two comp"nies nine months" men, and a few invalids."
"That"s enough. Have you any spare arms?"
"I d"no. I reckon so," said the Major, in a peevish tone. "I reckon you"d better hunt up the Quartermaster, if there is one. I s"pose he has "em."
"A friend of mine has brought fifteen able-bodied negroes into the fort.
I want guns for them."
"n.i.g.g.e.rs!" sneered the Major. "What good be they?"
Losing all patience, Colburne disrespectfully turned his back without answering, and left the room.
"I say, Cap, if we let them n.i.g.g.e.rs fight we"ll be all ma.s.sacred," were the last words that he heard from Gazaway.
Having got his arm bound anew with wet dressings, he sought out the Quartermaster, and proceeded to accouter the Ravenel negroes, meanwhile chewing a breakfast of hard crackers. Then, meeting the Lieutenant who had directed him to Gazaway"s quarters, and who proved to be the commandant of the Louisiana company, they made a tour of the ramparts together, doing their volunteer best to take in the military features of the flat surrounding landscape, and to decide upon the line of approach which the rebels would probably select in case of an a.s.sault. There was no cover except two or three wooden houses of such slight texture that they would afford no protection against sh.e.l.l or grape. The levee on the opposite side of the bayou might shelter sharpshooters, but not a column. They trained a twenty-four-pounder iron gun in that direction, and pointed the rest of the artillery so as to sweep the plain between the fort and a wood half a mile distant. The ditch was deep and wide, and well filled with water, but there was no abattis or other obstruction outside of it. The weakest front was toward the Mississippi, on which side the rampart was a mere bank not five feet in height, scarcely dominating the slope of twenty-five or thirty yards which stretched between it and the water.