Special Messenger. Robert W. ChambersЧитать онлайн книгу.
boy.
“The river rushing over the shallows—perhaps a train on the trestle at Oxley Court House—” She listened, resting her rounded chin on her hands. “It is thunder, I think. Go to bed now for a while——”
“Hark!” said the boy, laying his small hand on hers.
“It is thunder,” she said again. “How white the dawn is growing. Listen to the birds—is it not sweet?”
“Celia,” whispered the boy, “that is not thunder. It is too hushed, too steady—it hums and hums and hums. Where was that battery galloping? I am going to dress.”
She looked at him, turned to the east and stared at the coming day. The air of dawn was full of sounds, ominous, sustained vibrations.
She rose, went back to her room, and lighted a dip. Then, shading the pallid smoky flame with her hand, she opened a door and peered into the next bedroom. “Grandfather!” she whispered, smiling, seeing that he was already awake. And as she leaned over him, searching the dim and wrinkled eyes, she read something in their unwonted luster that struck her silent. It was only when she heard her brother’s step on the stairs that she roused herself, bent, and kissed the aged head lying there inert among the pillows.
“It is cannon,” she breathed softly—“you know that sound, don’t you, grandfather? Does it make you happy? Why are you smiling? Look at me—I understand; you want something. Shall I open the curtains? And raise the window? Ah, you wish to hear. Hark! Horsemen are passing at a gallop. What is it you wish—to see them? But they are gone, dear. If any of our soldiers come, you shall see them. That makes you happy?—that is what you desire?—to see one of our own soldiers? If they pass, I shall go out and bring one here to you—truly, I will.” She paused, marveling at the strange light that glimmered across the ravaged visage. Then she blew out the dip and stole into the hall.
“Billy!” she called, hearing him fumbling at the front door.
“Oh, Celia! The cavalry trumpets! Do you hear? I’m going out. Perhaps he may pass the house.”
“Wait for me,” she said; “I am not dressed. Run to the cabin and wake Moses, dear!”
She heard him open the door; the deadened thunder of the cannonade filled the house for an instant, shut out by the closing door, only to swell again to an immense unbroken volume of solemn harmony. The bird-music had ceased; distant hilltops grew brighter.
Down in the village lights faded from window and cabin; a cavalryman, signaling from the church tower, whirled his flaming torch aside and picked up a signal flag. Suddenly the crash of a rifled cannon saluted the rising sun; a shell soared skyward through the misty glory, towered, curved, and fell, exploding among the cavalrymen, completely ruining the breakfasts of chief-trumpeter O’Halloran and kettle-drummer Pillsbury.
For a moment a geyser of ashes, coffee, and bacon rained among the men.
“Hell!” said Pillsbury, furiously wiping his face with his dripping sleeve and spitting out ashes.
“Young kettle-drums, he don’t love his vittles,” observed a trooper, picking up the cap that had been jerked from his head by a whirring fragment.
“Rich feedin’ is the sp’ilin’ o’ this here hoss band,” added the farrier, stanching the flow of blood from his scalp; “quit quar’lin’ with your rations, kettle-drums!”
“Y’orter swaller them cinders,” insisted another; “they don’t cost nothin’!”
The band, accustomed to chaffing, prepared to retire to the ambulance, where heretofore their fate had always left them among luggage, surgeons, and scared camp niggers during an engagement.
The Rhode Island battery, placed just north of the church, had opened; the cavalry in the meadow could see them—see the whirl of smoke, the cannoneers moving with quick precision amidst obscurity—the flash, the recoil as gun after gun jumped back, buried in smoke.
It lasted only a few minutes; no more shells came whistling down among the cavalry; and presently the battery grew silent, and the steaming hill, belted with vapor, cleared slowly in the breezy sunshine.
The cavalry had mounted and leisurely filed off to the shelter of a grassy hollow; the band, dismounted, were drawn up to be told off in squads as stretcher-bearers; the bandmaster was sauntering past, buried in meditation, his sabre trailing a furrow through the dust, when a clatter of hoofs broke out along the village street, and a general officer, followed by a plunging knot of horsemen, tore up and drew bridle.
The colonel of the cavalry regiment, followed by the chief trumpeter, trotted out to meet them, saluting sharply; there was a quick exchange of words; the general officer waved his hand toward the south, wheeled his horse, hesitated, and pointed at the band.
“How many sabres?” he asked.
“Twenty-seven,” replied the colonel—“no carbines.”
“Better have them play you in—if you go,” said the officer.
The colonel saluted and backed his horse as the cavalcade swept past him; then he beckoned to the bandmaster.
“Here’s your chance,” he said. “Orders are to charge anything that appears on that road. You’ll play us in this time. Mount your men.”
Ten minutes later the regiment, band ahead, marched out of Sandy River and climbed the hill, halting in the road that passed the great white mansion. As the outposts moved forward they encountered a small boy on a pony, who swung his cap at them gayly as he rode. Squads, dismounted, engaged in tearing away the rail fences bordering the highway, looked around, shouting a cheery answer to his excited greeting; the colonel on a ridge to the east lowered his field glasses to watch him; the bandmaster saw him coming and smiled as the boy drew bridle beside him, saluting.
“If you’re not going to fight, why are you here?” asked the boy breathlessly.
“It really looks,” said the bandmaster, “as though we might fight, after all.”
“You, too?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then—could you come into the house—just a moment? My sister asked me to find you.”
A bright blush crept over the bandmaster’s sun-tanned cheeks.
“With pleasure,” he said, dismounting, and leading his horse through the gateway and across the shrubbery to the trees.
“Celia! Celia!” called the boy, running up the veranda steps. “He is here! Please hurry, because he’s going to have a battle!”
She came slowly, pale and lovely in her black gown, and held out her hand.
“There is a battle going on all around us, isn’t there?” she asked. “That is what all this dreadful uproar means?”
“Yes,” he said; “there is trouble on the other side of those hills.”
“Do you think there will be fighting here?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
She motioned him to a veranda chair, then seated herself. “What shall we do?” she asked calmly. “I am not alarmed—but my grandfather is bedridden, and my brother is a child. Is it safe to stay?”
The bandmaster looked at her helplessly.
“I don’t know,” he repeated—“I don’t know what to say. Nobody seems to understand what is happening; we in the regiment are never told anything; we know nothing except what passes under our eyes.” He broke off suddenly; the situation, her loneliness, the impending danger, appalled him.
“May I ask a little favor?” she said, rising. “Would you mind coming in a moment to see my grandfather?”
He