9 WESTERNS: The Law of the Land, The Way of a Man, Heart's Desire, The Covered Wagon, 54-40 or Fight, The Man Next Door, The Magnificent Adventure, The Sagebrusher and more. Emerson Hough
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great curiosity.
"Well, there's trouble enough on hand right now. We need every white man we can get. Bowles, take your wife inside to get something to eat, and you, Ben, go back and get your women-folks; and don't forget your Winchester."
The bell spoke on. The plantation paths now began to blacken with slowly moving figures, but within the Big House there was no confusion. Colonel Blount paced slowly up and down the gallery. 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 nigger 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 impassive, 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 passed 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, snatches 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 assailants must be close about. Each man had a window assigned to his care, and so all settled for the task ahead. An hour passed that seemed a score of hours. Then, over toward the railroad track, there came a confused sound of muffled 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 mass 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 assault, 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 mass in front broke and scattered, and drew together again and came on. The assailants 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 space 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 glass and cries of fear came from the room where the women had been left. The men hurried thither, and as they gained