Every officer but Gazaway answered, "That"s my vote." The Louisiana Lieutenant fingered his revolver threatening, and swore by all that was holy or infernal that he would shoot the first man who talked of capitulating. Gazaway"s mouth had opened to gurgle a remonstrance, but at this threat he remained silent and gasping like a stranded fish.
"Well, Cap, you write an answer to the cuss, and the Major"ll sign it,"
said the Louisianian to Colburne, with a grin of humorous malignity. Our friend ran to the office of the Quartermaster, and returned in a minute with the following epistle:
"Sir: It is my duty to defend Fort Winthrop to the last extremity, and I shall do it."
The signature which the Major appended to this heroic doc.u.ment was so tremulous and illegible that the rebel general must have thought that the commandant was either very illiterate or else a very old gentleman afflicted with the palsy.
Thus did the unhappy Gazaway have greatness thrust upon him. He would have been indignant had he not been so terrified; he thought of court-martialing Colburne some day for insubordination, but said nothing of it at present; he was fully occupied with searching the fort for a place which promised shelter from sh.e.l.l and bullet. The rest of the day he spent chiefly on the river front, looking up and down the stream in vain for the friendly smoke of gunboats, and careful all the while to keep his head below the level of the ramparts. His trepidation was so apparent that the common soldiers discovered it, and amused themselves by slyly jerking bullets at him, in order to see him jump, fall down and clap his hand to the part hit by the harmless missile. He must have suspected the trick; but he did not threaten vengeance nor even try to discover the jokers: every feeble source of manliness in him had been dried up by his terrors. He gave no orders, exacted no obedience, and would have received none had he demanded it. Late in the afternoon, half a dozen veritable rebel b.a.l.l.s whistling over the fort sent him cowering into the room occupied by Mrs. Carter, where he appropriated a blanket and stretched himself at full length on the floor, fairly grovelling and flattening in search of safety. It was a case of cowardice which bordered upon mania or physical disease. He had just manliness enough to feel a little ashamed of himself, and mutter to Mrs. Carter that he was "too sick to stan" up." Even she, novel as she was to the situation, understood him, after a little study; and the sight of his degrading alarm, instead of striking her with a panic, roused her pride and her courage. With what an admiring contrast of feeling she looked at the brave Colburne and thought of her brave husband!
The last rays of the setting sun showed no sign of an enemy except the wide thin semicircle of rebel pickets, quiet but watchful, which stretched across the bayou from the river above to the river below. As night deepened, the vigilance of the garrison increased, and not only the sentinels but every soldier was behind the ramparts, each officer remaining in rear of his own company or platoon, ready to direct it and lead it at the first alarm. Colburne, who was tacitly recognized as commander-in-chief, made the rounds every hour. About midnight a murmur of joy ran from bastion to bastion as the news spread that two steamers were close at hand, coming up the river. Presently every one could see their engine-fires glowing like fireflies in the distant, and hear through the breathless night the sighing of the steam, the moaning of the machinery, and at last the swash of water against the bows. The low, black hulks, and short, delicate masts, distinctly visible on the gleaming groundwork of the river, and against the faintly lighted horizon, showed that they were gunboats; and the metallic rattle of their cables, as they came to anchor opposite the fort, proved that they had arrived to take part in the approaching struggle. Even Gazaway crawled out of his asylum to look at the cheering reinforcement, and a.s.sumed something of his native pomposity as he observed to Colburne, "Cap, they won"t dare to pitch into us, with them fellers alongside."
A bullet or two from the rebel sharpshooters posted on the southern side of the bayou sent him back to his house of refuge. He thought the a.s.sault was about to commence, and was entirely absorbed in hearkening for its opening clamor. When Mrs. Carter asked him what was going on, he made her no answer. He was listening with all his pores; his very hair stood on end to listen. Presently he stretched himself upon the floor in an instinctive effort to escape a spattering of musketry which broke through the sultry stillness of the night. A black speck had slid around the stern of one of the gunboats, and was making for the bank, saluted by quick spittings of fire from the levee above and below the junction of the bayou with the river. In reply, similar fiery spittings scintillated from the dark ma.s.s of the fort, and there was a rapid _whit-whit_ of invisible missiles. A cutter was coming ash.o.r.e; the rebel pickets were firing upon it; the garrison was firing upon the pickets; the pickets upon the garrison. The red flashes and irregular rattle lasted until the cutter had completed its return voyage. There was an understanding now between the little navy and the little army; the gunboats knew where to direct their cannonade so as best to support the garrison; and the soldiers were full of confidence, although they did not relax their vigilance. Doctor Ravenel and Mrs. Carter supposed in their civilian inexperience that all danger was over, and by two o"clock in the morning were fast asleep.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A DESPERATE ATTACK AND A SUCCESSFUL DEFENCE.
While it was still darkness Lillie was awakened from her sleep by an all-pervading, startling, savage uproar. Through the hot night came tramplings and yellings of a rebel brigade; roaring of twenty-four-pounders and whirring of grape from the bastions of the fort; roaring of hundred-pounders and flight of shrieking, cracking, flashing sh.e.l.ls from the gunboats; incessant spattering and fiery spitting of musketry, with whistling and humming of bullets; and, constant through all, the demoniac yell advancing like the howl of an infernal tide. Bedlam, pandemonium, all the maniacs of earth and all the fiends of h.e.l.l, seemed to have combined in riot amidst the crashings of storm and volcano. The clamor came with the suddenness and continued with more than the rage of a tornado. Lillie had never imagined anything so unearthly and horrible. She called loudly for her father, and was positively astonished to hear his voice close at her side, so strangely did the familiar tones sound in that brutal uproar.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It must be the a.s.sault," he replied, astonished into telling the alarming truth. "I will step out and take a look."
"You shall not," she exclaimed, clutching him. "What if you should be hit!"
"My dear, don"t be childish," remonstrated the Doctor. "It is my duty to attend to the wounded. I am the only surgeon in the fort. Just consider the ingrat.i.tude of neglecting these brave fellows who are fighting for our safety."
"Will you promise not to get hurt?"
"Certainly, my dear."
"Will you come back every five minutes and let me see you?"
"Yes, my dear. I"ll keep you informed of everything that happens."
She thought a few moments, and gradually loosened her hold on him. Her curiosity, her anxiety to know how this terrible drama went on, helped her to be brave and to spare him. As soon as her fingers had unclosed from his sleeve he crept to where his rifle stood and softly, seized it; and in so doing he stepped on the rec.u.mbent Gazaway, who groaned, whereupon the Doctor politely apologized. As he stepped out of the building he distinguished Colburne"s voice on the river front, shouting, "This way, men!" In that direction ran the Doctor, holding his rifle in both hands, at something like the position of a charge bayonet, with his thumb on the trigger so as to be ready for immediate conflict. Suddenly bang! went the piece at an angle of forty-five degrees, sending its ball clean across the Mississippi, and causing a veteran sergeant near him to inquire "what the h.e.l.l he was about."
"Really, that explosion was quite extraordinary," said the surprised Doctor. "I had not the least intention of firing. Would you, sir, have the goodness to load it for me?"
But the sergeant was in a hurry, and ran on without answering. The Doctor began to finger his cartridge-box in a wild way, intending to get out a cartridge if he could, when a faint voice near him said, "I"ll load your gun for you, sir."
"_Would_ you be so kind?" replied the Doctor, delighted. "I am so dreadfully inexperienced in these operations! I am quite sorry to trouble you."
The sick man--one of the invalids whom Gazaway had brought from New Orleans--loaded the piece, capped it, and added some brief instructions in the mysteries of half-c.o.c.k and full-c.o.c.k.
"Really you are very good. I am quite obliged," said the Doctor, and hurried on to the river front, guided by the voice of Colburne. At the rampart he tried to shoot one of our men who was coming up wounded from the palisade, and would probably have succeeded, but that the lock of his gun would not work. Colburne stopped him in this well-intentioned but mistaken labor, saying, "Those are our people." Then, "Your gun is at half-c.o.c.k.--There.--Now keep your finger off the trigger until you see a rebel."
Then shouting, "Forward, men!" he ran down to the palisade followed by twenty or thirty, of whom one was the Doctor.
The a.s.sailing brigade, debouching from the woods half a mile away from the front, had advanced in a wide front across the flat, losing scarcely any men by the fire of the artillery, although many, shaken by the horrible screeching of the hundred-pound sh.e.l.ls, threw themselves on the ground in the darkness or sought the frail shelter of the scattered dwellings. Thus diminished in numbers and broken up by night and obstacles and the differing speed of running men, the brigade reached the fort, not an organization, but a confused swarm, flowing along the edge of the ditch to right and left in search of an entrance. There was a constant spattering of flashes, as individuals returned the steady fire of the garrison; and the sharp clean whistle of round bullets and buckshot mingled in the thick warm air with the hoa.r.s.e whiz of Minies.
Now and then an angry shout or wailing scream indicated that some one had been hit and mangled. The exhortations and oaths of the rebel officers could be distinctly heard, as they endeavored to restore order, to drive up stragglers, and to urge the ma.s.s forward. A few jumped or fell into the ditch and floundered there, unable to climb up the smooth facings of brickwork. Two or three hundred collected around the palisade which connected the northern front with the river, some lying down and waiting, and others firing at the woodwork or the neighboring ramparts, while a few determined ones tried to burst open the gate by main strength.
The Doctor put the whole length of his barrel through one of the narrow port holes of the palisade and immediately became aware that some on the outside had seized it and was pulling downwards. "Let go of my gun!" he shouted instinctively, without considering the unreasonable nature of the request. "Let go yourself, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!" returned the outsider, not a whit more rational. The Doctor pulled trigger with a sense of just indignation, and drew in his gun, the barrel bent at a right angle and bursted. Whether he had injured the rebel or only startled him into letting go his hold, he never knew and did not then pause to consider. He felt his ruined weapon all over with his hands, tried in vain to draw the ramrod, and, after bringing all his philosophical ac.u.men to bear on the subject, gave up the idea of reloading. Casting about for a new armament, he observed behind him a man lying in one of the many little gullies which seemed to slope between the fort and the river, his eyes wide open and fixed upon the palisade, and his right hand loosely holding a rifle. The Doctor concluded that he was sick, or tired, or seeking shelter from the bullets.
"Would you be good enough to lend me your gun for a few moments?" he inquired.
The man made no reply; he was perfectly dead. The Doctor being short-sighted and without his spectacles, and not accustomed, as yet, to appreciating the effects of musketry, did not suspect this until he bent over him, and saw that his woolen shirt was soaked with blood. He picked up the rifle, guessed that it was loaded, stumbled back to the palisade, insinuated the mere muzzle into a port-hole, and fired, with splintering effect on the woodwork. The explosion was followed by a howl of anguish from the exterior, which gave him a mighty throb, partly of horror and partly of loyal satisfaction. "After all, it is only a species of surgical operation," he thought, and proceeded to reload, according to the best of his speed and knowledge. Suddenly he staggered under a violent impulse, precisely as if a strong man had jerked him by the coat-collar, and putting his hand to the spot, he found that a bullet (nearly spent in penetrating the palisades) had punched its way through the cloth. This was the nearest approach to a wound that he received during the engagement.
Meantime things were going badly with the a.s.sailants. Disorganized by the night, cut up by the musketry, demoralized by the incessant screaming and bursting of the one-hundred-pound sh.e.l.ls, unable to force the palisade or cross the ditch, they rapidly lost heart, threw themselves on the earth, took refuge behind the levees, dropped away in squads through the covering gloom, and were, in short, repulsed. In the course of thirty minutes, all that yelling swarm had disappeared, except the thickly scattered dead and wounded, and a few well-covered stragglers, who continued to fire as sharpshooters.
"We have whipped them!" shouted Colburne. "Hurrah for the old flag!"
The garrison caught the impulse of enthusiasm, and raised yell on yell of triumph. Even the wounded ceased to feel their anguish for a moment, and uttered a feeble shout or exclamation of gladness. The Doctor bethought himself of his daughter, and hurried back to the brick building to inform her of the victory. She threw herself into his arms with a shriek of delight, and almost in the same breath reproached him sharply for leaving her so long.
"My dear, it can"t be more than five minutes," said the Doctor, fully believing what he said, so rapidly does time pa.s.s in the excitement of successful battle.
"Is it really over?" she asked.
"Quite so. They are rushing for the woods like pelted frogs for a puddle. They are going in all directions, as though they were bound for Cowes and a market. I don"t believe they will ever get together again.
We have gained a magnificent victory. It is the grandest moment of my life."
"Is Captain Colburne unhurt?" was Lillie"s next question.
"Perfectly. We haven"t lost a man--except one," he added, bethinking himself of the poor fellow whose gun he had borrowed.
"Oh!" she sighed, with a long inspiration of relief, for the life of her brave defender had become precious in her eyes.
The Doctor had absent-mindedly brought his rifle into the room, and was much troubled with it, not caring to shock Lillie with the fact that he had been personally engaged. He held it behind his back with one hand, after the manner of a naughty boy who has been nearly detected in breaking windows, and who still has a brickbat in his fist which he dares not show, and cannot find a chance to hide. He was slyly setting it against the wall when she discovered it.
"What!" she exclaimed. "Have you been fighting, too? You dear, darling, wicked papa!"
She kissed him violently, and then laughed hysterically.
"I thought you were up to some mischief all the while," she added. "You were gone a dreadful time, and I screaming and looking out for you.
Papa, you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"I have reason to be. I am the most disgraceful ignoramus. I don"t know how to load my gun. I think I must have put the bullet in wrong end first. The ramrod won"t go down."
"Well, put it away now. You don"t want it any more. You must take care of the wounded."
"Wounded!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Are there any wounded?"
"Oh dear! several of them. I forgot to tell you. They are to bring them in here. I am going to our trunks to get some linen."