Before the Dawn Part 39

"Eh?" cried Harley.

His military instinct leaped up. Silence where noise has been is ominous.

"Helen," he said, "go to the window, will you?"

"No. I'll go," said Mrs. Markham, and she ran to the window, where she uttered a cry of surprise.

"Why, there is nothing here!" she exclaimed. "There are no tents, no guns, no soldiers! Everything is gone! What does it mean?"

The answer was ready.

From afar in the forest, low down under the horizon's rim, came the sullen note of a great gun--a dull, sinister sound that seemed to roll across the Wilderness and hang over the log house and those within it.

Harley threw himself on the bed with a groan of grief and rage.

"Oh, G.o.d," he cried, "that I should be tied here on such a day!"

Helen ran to the window but saw nothing--only the waving gra.s.s, the somber forest and the blue skies and golden suns.h.i.+ne above. The echo of the cannon shot died and again there was silence, but only for a moment.

The sinister note swelled up again from the point under the horizon's rim far off there to the left, and it was followed by another, and more and more, until they blended into one deep and sullen roar.

Unconsciously Constance Markham, the cynical, the worldly and the self-possessed, seized Helen Harley's hand in hers.

"The battle!" she cried. "It is the battle!"

"Yes," said Helen; "I knew that it was coming."

"Ah, our poor soldiers!"

"I pity those of both sides."

"And so do I. I did not mean it that way."

The servant was cowering in a corner of the room. Harley sprang to his feet and stood, staggering.

"I must be at the window!" he said.

Helen darted to his support.

"But your wounds," she said. "You must think of them!"

"I tell you I shall stay at the window!" he exclaimed with energy. "If I cannot fight, I must see!"

She knew the tone that would endure no denial, and they helped him to the window, where they propped him in a chair with his eyes to the eastern forest. The glow of battle came upon his face and rested there.

"Listen!" he cried. "Don't you hear that music? It's the big guns, not less than twenty. You cannot hear the rifles from here. Ah if I were only there!"

The three looked continually toward the east, where a somber black line was beginning to form against the red-and-gold glow of the sunrise.

Louder and louder sounded the cannon. More guns were coming into action, and the deep, blended and violent note seemed to roll up against the house until every log, solid as it was, trembled with the concussion.

Afar over the forest the veil of smoke began to grow wider and thicker and to blot out the red-and-gold glory of the sunrise.

Harley bent his head. He was listening--not for the thunder of the great guns, but for the other sounds that he knew went with it--the crash of the rifles, the buzz and hiss of the bullets flying in clouds through the air, the gallop of charging hors.e.m.e.n, the crash of falling trees cut through by cannon shot, and the shouts and cries. But he heard only the thunder of the great guns now, so steady, so persistent and so penetrating that he felt the floor tremble beneath him.

He searched the forest with eyes trained for the work, but saw no human being--only the waving gra.s.s, the somber woods, and a scared lizard rattling the bark of a tree as he fled up it.

In the east the dull, heavy cloud of smoke was growing, spreading along the rim of the horizon, climbing the concave arch and blotting out all the glory of the sunrise. The heavy roar was like the sullen, steady grumbling of distant thunder, and the fertile fancy of Harley, though his eyes saw not, painted all the scene that was going on within the solemn shades of the Wilderness--the charge, the defense, the s.h.i.+vered regiments and brigades; the tread of horses, cannon shattered by cannon, the long stream of wounded to the rear, and the dead, forgotten amid the rocks and bushes. He had beheld many such scenes and he had been a part of them. But who was winning now? If he could only lift that veil of the forest!

Every emotion showed on the face of Harley. Vain, egotistic, and often selfish, he was a true soldier; his was the military inspiration, and he longed to be there in the field, riding at the head of his hors.e.m.e.n as he had ridden so often, and to victory. He thought of Wood, a cavalry leader greater than himself, doing a double part, and for a moment his heart was filled with envy. Then he flushed with rage because of the wounds that tied him there like a baby. What a position for him, Vincent Harley, the brilliant horseman and leader! He even looked with wrath upon his sister and Mrs. Markham, two women whom he admired so much. Their place was not here, nor was his place here with them. He was eaten with doubt and anxiety. Who was losing, who was winning out there beyond the veil of the forest where the pall of smoke rose? He struck the window-sill angrily with his fist.

"I hate this silence and desolation here around us," he exclaimed, "with all that noise and battle off there where we cannot see! It chills me!"

But the two women said nothing, still sitting with their hands in each other's and unconscious of it; forgetting now in this meeting of the two hundred thousand the petty personal feelings that had divided them.

Louder swelled the tumult. It seemed to Helen, oblivious to all else, that she heard amid the thunder of the cannon other and varying notes.

There was a faint but shrill incessant sound like the hum of millions of bees flying swiftly, and another, a regular but heavier noise, was surely the tread of charging hors.e.m.e.n. The battle was rolling a step nearer to them, and she began to see, low down under the pall of smoke, flashes of fire like swift strokes of lightning. Then it rolled another step nearer and its tumult beat heavily and cruelly on the drums of her ears. Yet the deathly stillness in the scrub oaks around the house continued. They waved as peacefully as ever in the gentle wind from the west. It was still a battle heard but not seen.

She would have left the window to cower in the corner with the coloured woman who served them, but this struggle, of which she could see only the covering veil, held her appalled. It was misty, intangible, unlike anything of which she had read or heard, and yet she knew it to be real.

They were in conflict, the North and the South, there in the forest, and she sat as one in a seat in a theatre who looked toward a curtained stage.

When she put her free hand once on the window-sill she felt beneath her fingers the faint, steady trembling of the wood as the vast, insistent volume of sound beat upon it. The cloud of smoke now spread in a huge, somber curve across all the east, and the swift flashes of fire were piercing through it faster and faster. The volume of sound grew more and more varied, embracing many notes.

"It comes our way," murmured Harley, to himself rather than to the women.

Helen felt a quiver run through the hand of Mrs. Markham and she looked at her face. The elder woman was pale, but she was not afraid. She, too, would not leave the window, held by the same spell.

"Surely it is a good omen!" murmured Harley; "the field of Chancellorsville, where we struck Hooker down, is in this same Wilderness."

"But we lost there our right arm--Jackson," said Mrs. Markham.

"True, alas!" said Harley.

The aspect of the day that had begun so bright and clear was changing.

The great pall of smoke in the east gave its character to all the sky.

From the west clouds were rolling up to meet it. The air was growing close, sultry and hot. The wind ceased to blow. The gra.s.s and the new leaves hung motionless. All around them the forest was still heavy and somber. The coloured woman in the corner began to cry softly, but from her chest. They could hear her low note under the roar of the guns, but no one rebuked her.

"It comes nearer and nearer," murmured Harley.

There was relief, even pleasure in his tone. He had forgotten his sister and the woman to whom his eyes so often turned. That which concerned him most in life was pa.s.sing behind the veil of trees and bushes, and its sound filled his ears. He had no thought of anything else. It was widening its sweep, coming nearer to the house where he was tied so wretchedly by wounds; and he would see it--see who was winning--his own South he fiercely hoped.

The thoughts of brother and sister at that moment were alike. All the spirit and fire of the old South flushed in every vein of both. They were of an old aristocracy, with but two ambitions, the military and the political, and while they prayed for complete success in the end, they wanted another great triumph on the field of battle. Gettysburg, that insuperable bar, was behind them, casting its gloomy memory over the year between; but this might take its place, atoning for it, wiping it out. But there was doubt and fear in the heart of each; this was a new general that the North had, of a different kind from the old--one who did not turn back at a defeat, but came on again and hammered and hammered. They repeated to themselves softly the name "Grant." It had to them a short, harsh, abrupt sound, and it did not grow pleasant with repet.i.tion.

An odour, the mingled reek of smoke, burnt gunpowder, trampled dust and sweating men, reached them and was offensive to their nostrils. Helen coughed and then wiped her face with her handkerchief. She was surprised to find her cheeks damp and cold. Her lips felt harsh and dry as they touched each other.

The trembling of the house increased, and the dishes from the breakfast which they had left on the table kept up an incessant soft, jarring sound. The battle was still spreading; at first a bent bow, then a semi-circle, the horns of the crescent were now extending as if they meant to meet about the house, and yet they saw not a man, not a horse, not a gun; only afar off the swelling canopy of smoke, and the flashes of light through it, and nearer by the gra.s.s and the leaves, now hanging dull and lifeless.

Harley groaned again and smote the unoffending window-sill with his hand.

"Why am I here--why am I here," he repeated, "when the greatest battle of all the world is being fought?"

The clouds of smoke from the cannon and the clouds from the heated and heavy air continued to gather in both heavens and were now meeting at the zenith. The skies were dark, obscure and somber. Most trying of all was the continuous, heavy jarring sound made by the thunder of the guns. It got upon the nerves, it smote the brain cruelly, and once Helen clasped her hands over her ears to shut it out, but she could not; the sullen mutter was still there, no less ominous because its note was lower.