My Lady of the North Part 39

I knew little of detail; faces were blurred, unrecognizable; all I seemed to note clearly was that solid, brutal, heartless, blaspheming line of desperate men sweeping toward us with a relentless fury our puny bullets could not check. Reckless ferocity was in that mad rush; they pressed on more like demons than human beings. I saw men fall; I saw the living stumble over the dead. I heard cries of agony, shouts, curses, but there was no pause. I could mark their faces now, cruel, angry, revengeful; the hands that grasped the veranda railings; the leaping bodies; the rifle-b.u.t.ts uplifted to batter down our frail defences.

As trapped tigers we fought, hurling them back from the windows, slas.h.i.+ng, clubbing, striking with fist and steel. Two lay dead across the sill before me, cloven to the very chin, but their bleeding bodies were hurled remorselessly aside, while others clambered forward, mad from l.u.s.t of blood, crazed with liquor. With clubbed guns we cleared it again and again, battering mercilessly at every head that fronted us.

Then a great giant of a fellow--dead or alive I know not--was hurled headlong through the opening, an inert, limp weight, that bore the two soldiers beside me to the floor beneath his body. With wide sweep of my gun I struck him, shattering the stock into fragments, and swung back to meet the others, the hot barrel falling to right and left like a flail. They were through and on me! Wild as any sea-rover of the north I fought, crazed with blood, unconscious of injury, animated solely by desire to strike and slay! Back I had to go; back--I trod on dead bodies, on wounded shrieking in pain, yet no man who came within sweep of that iron bar lived. I loved to hear the thud of it, and I fronted those glaring eyes, my blood afire, my arms like steel. Through the red mist I beheld Caton for an instant as twenty brutal hands uplifted, and then hurled him into the ruck beneath their feet. Whether I fought alone I knew not, cared not. Then some one pressed next to me, facing as I did, wielding a sword like a madman. We had our backs against the piano, our shoulders touched; before us that mob swayed, checked for the moment, held fast by sudden overpowering dread. I glanced aside. My companion was Brennan, hatless, his deep-set eyes aflame, his coat torn off, his s.h.i.+rt ripped open to the waist, his bare breast red with blood.

"No shootin', d.a.m.n ye!" shouted a voice, hoa.r.s.ely. "No shootin'; I want that Reb alive!"

Through the swirling smoke I recognized the malicious face of Red Lowrie as he pushed his way to the front. To me it was like a personal challenge to combat.

"Rush them!" I muttered into Brennan's ear. "Hurl them back a bit, and then dodge under into the next room."

I never waited to ascertain if he heard me. With one fierce spring I struck their stunned line, and my iron bar swept a clear s.p.a.ce as it crashed remorselessly into them. The next instant Lowrie and I were seemingly alone and fronting each other. A wild cat enraged by pain looks as he did when he leaped to meet me. Hate, deadly, relentless, glared in his eyes, and with a yell of exultation he swung up his long rifle and struck savagely at my head with the stock. I caught it partially on my barrel, breaking its full force, and even as it descended upon my shoulder, jabbed the muzzle hard into his leering face. With a snarl of pain he dropped his gun and grappled with me, but as his fingers closed about my throat, something swirled down through the maze, and the maddened brute staggered back, his arms uplifted, his red beard cloven in twain.

"Now for it, Wayne!" shouted Brennan. "Back with you!"

With a dive I went under the piano. I heard the sliding doors shut behind us, and almost with the sound was again upon my feet.

"To the stairs!" I panted. "Brennan, take the women to the stairs; those fellows are not in the hallway yet, and we can hold them there a while."

In our terrible need for haste, and amid the thick, swirling smoke filling that inner room almost to suffocation, I grasped the woman chancing to be nearest me, without knowing at the moment who she was.

Already the rifle-b.u.t.ts were splintering the light wood behind us into staves, and I hastily dragged my dazed companion forward. The others were in advance, and we groped our way like blind persons out into the hall. By rare good fortune it was yet unoccupied, and as we took the few hurried steps toward the foot of the stairs I found my arm was encircling Celia Minor. The depth of despair within her dark eyes, and the speechless anguish of her white face, swept for an instant the fierce rage of battle from my brain.

"Do not fail us now, Miss Minor," I urged kindly, "we may yet hold out until help comes."

"Oh, it is not that!" she cried pitifully. "But Arthur; where is Arthur?"

"G.o.d knows," I was compelled to answer. "I saw him fronting the first rush when it struck us. I think he went down, yet he may not be seriously hurt."

She burst into tears, but I had no time to comfort her, for at that moment the mob, discovering our direction of escape, jammed both doorways and surged forth howling into the hall.

"Up!" I cried, forcing her forward. "Up with you; quick!"

I paused a scant second to pluck a sabre from beside a dead soldier on the floor, and then with a spring up the intervening steps, faced about at Brennan's side on the first landing.

"We ought to leave our mark on those incarnate devils here," he said grimly, wiping his red blade on the carpet.

"Unless they reach the second story from without, and take us in the rear," I answered, "we ought to hold back the whole cowardly crew, so long as they refuse to fire."

It was a scene to abide long with a man--a horrible nightmare, never to be forgotten. Above us, protected somewhat by the abrupt curve of the wide staircase, crouched the women. Two were sobbing, their heads buried in their hands, but Maria and Mrs. Brennan sat white of face and dry-eyed. I caught one quick glance at the fair face I loved,--my sweet lady of the North,--thinking, indeed, it might prove the last on earth, and knew her eyes were upon me. Then, stronger of heart than ever for the coming struggle, I fronted that scene below.

Through the rising haze of smoke I looked down into angry faces, unkempt beards, and brandished weapons. The baffled rascals poured out upon us from both doors, crowding into the narrow s.p.a.ce, cursing, threatening, thirsting for revenge. Yet they were seemingly leaderless, and the boldest among them paused at the foot of the stairs. They had already felt our arms, had tested our steel, and knew well that grim death awaited their advance.

But they could not pause there long--the ever increasing rush of those behind pressed the earlier arrivals steadily forward. Grim necessity furnished a courage naturally lacking, and suddenly, giving vent to a fierce shout, they were hurled upward, seeking to crush us at whatever sacrifice, by sheer force of numbers. We met them with the point, in the good old Roman way, thrusting home remorselessly, fighting with silent contempt for them which must have been maddening. I even heard Brennan laugh, as he pierced a huge ruffian through the shoulder and hurled him backward; but at that moment I saw Craig knock aside a levelled gun and press his way to the front of the seething ma.s.s to a.s.sume control. His face was inflamed, his eyes bloodshot; drink had changed him into a very demon.

"d.a.m.n ye, Red told you not to fire!" he yelled. "Come on, you dogs! You could eat 'em up if ye wasn't sich blamed cowards. There's only two, and we'll hang them yet."

He leaped straight up the broad steps, his long cavalry sabre in hand, while a dozen of the boldest followed him. Brennan swung his sword high over head, grasping it with both hands for a death-blow, even as I thrust directly at the fellow's throat. The uplifted blade struck the chain of the hanging lamp, snapped at the hilt, and losing his balance the Major plunged headlong into the ruck beneath. The downward fall of his body swept the stairs.

As I stood there, panting and breathless, a woman rushed downward.

Believing she would throw herself into that tangled ma.s.s below, I instantly caught her to me.

"Don't," I cried anxiously. "You cannot help him. For G.o.d's sake go back where you were."

"It is not that," she exclaimed, her voice thrilling with excitement.

"Oh, Captain Wayne, do you not hear the bugles?"

As by magic those hateful faces vanished, disappearing by means of every opening leading out from the hall, and when the cheering blue- coats surged in through the broken door, I was yet standing there, apparently alone but for the dead, leaning weak and breathless against the wall, my arm about Edith Brennan.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

A BELLIGERENT GERMAN

A young officer, whose red face was rendered extremely conspicuous by the blue of his uniform, led the rush of his soldiers as they came tumbling gallantly into the hall.

"Up there, men!" he cried, catching instant sight of me, and pointing.

"Get that Johnny with the girl."

As they sprang eagerly forward over the dead bodies littering the floor at the foot of the stairs, Brennan scrambled unsteadily to his feet, and halted them with imperious gesture.

"Leave him alone!" he commanded. "That is the commander of the Confederate detachment who came to our aid. The guerillas have fled down the hallway, and are most of them outside by now. Wayne," he turned and glanced up at us, his face instantly darkening at the tableau, "kindly a.s.sist the ladies to descend; we must get them out of this shambles."

He lifted them one by one and with ceremonious politeness across the ghastly pile of dead and wounded men.

"Escort them to the library," he suggested, as I hesitated. "That room will probably be found clear."

I was somewhat surprised that Brennan should not have come personally to the aid of his wife, but as he ignored her presence utterly, I at once offered her my arm, and silently led the way to the room designated, the others following as best they might. The apartment was unoccupied, exhibiting no signs of the late struggle, and I found comfortable resting places for all. Miss Minor was yet sobbing softly, her face hidden upon her mother's shoulder, and I felt constrained to speak with her.

"I shall go at once" I said kindly, "to ascertain all I can regarding Lieutenant Caton, and will bring you word."

She thanked me with a glance of her dark eyes clouded with tears, but as I turned hastily away to execute this errand, Mrs. Brennan laid restraining hand upon my arm.

"Captain Wayne," she said with much seriousness, "you are very unselfish, but you must not go until your own wounds have been attended to; they may be far more serious than you apprehend."

"My wounds?" I almost laughed at the gravity of her face, for although exhausted, I was unconscious of any injury. "They must be trivial indeed, for I was not even aware I had any."

"But you have!" she insisted, her eyes full upon me. "Your hair is fairly clotted with blood, while your shoulder is torn and bruised until it is horrible to look upon."

As I gazed at her, surprised by the anxiety she so openly displayed, I chanced to behold myself reflected within a large mirror directly across the room. One glance was sufficient to convince me her words were fully justified. My remains of uniform literally clung to me in rags, my bare shoulder looked a contused ma.s.s of battered flesh, my hair was matted, and my face blackened by powder stains and streaked with blood.

"I certainly do appear disreputable enough," I admitted; "but I can a.s.sure you it is nothing sufficiently serious to require immediate attention. Indeed a little water is probably all I need. Besides, why should I care--was it not all received for your sake?"

I spoke the p.r.o.noun so strongly she could not well ignore my obvious meaning, nor did she endeavor to escape the inference. Her face, yet white from the strain of the past few hours, became rosy in an instant, and her eyes fell.

"I know," she answered softly. "Perhaps that may be why I am so exceedingly anxious your injuries should be attended to."