An Original Belle Part 59

The rioters soon became appalled at their punishment. Like a dark blue wave, with b.l.o.o.d.y clubs forming a crimson crest, that unfaltering rank of men steadily advanced and ingulfed them. All within reach went down. Those of the police who were wounded still fought on, or, if disabled, the ranks closed up, and there was no cessation in the fatal hail of blows. The rioters in front would have given way, had not the thousands in their rear pressed them forward to their fate.

The judicious Carpenter had provided for this feature of the strife, for now his detachments were smiting both flanks of the human monster with the same terrific vengeance dealt upon its head.

The undisciplined herd fought desperately for a time, then gave way to panic and the wild effort to escape. Long since a policeman had seized the national flag, and bore it triumphantly with his left hand while he fought with his right. The confusion and uproar were beyond description. The rioters were yelling their conflicting views as to what ought to be done, while others were shouting to those in their rear to cease crowding forward. The pressure down Broadway now came from a desire to escape the police. In brief, a large section of the mob was hemmed in, and it surged backwards and forwards and up against the stores, while hundreds, availing themselves of the side-streets, ran for their lives. In a very short time what had been a compact, threatening ma.s.s was flying in fragments, as if disrupted by dynamite, but the pursuing clubs of Carpenter's men never ceased their levelling blows while a rioter's head was in reach. Far northward the direful tidings of defeat spread through the ragged hosts as yet unharmed, and they melted away, to come together again and again during the lurid days and nights which followed.

The Gettysburg of the conflict had been fought and won. Unspeakable outrages and heavy battles were yet to come; but this decisive victory gave the authorities advantage which they never lost, and time to organize more effective resistance with the aid of the military. The police saved the city.

Broadway looked like a battle-field, prostrate forms strewing its crimsoned pavement throughout the area of the conflict. The majority were left where they fell, and were carried off by their friends.

As the melee was drawing to a close, Mr. Vosburgh saw Merwyn chasing a man who apparently had had much influence with his a.s.sociates, and had been among the last to yield. After a brief pursuit the young fellow stopped and fired. The man struggled on a few steps, then fell. Merwyn, panting, sat down on the curbstone, and here Mr.

Vosburgh joined him with radiant face, exclaiming, as he wrung the young man's hand: "I've seen it all,--seen how you smote them hip and thigh. Never has my blood been so stirred. The city is saved.

When a mob is thus dealt with it soon gives up. Come, you have done more than your part. Go with me, and as soon as I have sent a despatch about this glorious victory, we'll have supper and a little rest."

"Impossible, Mr. Vosburgh. The inspector has heard that the mob is sacking the mayor's house, and we have orders to march there at once. I'll get my wind in a moment."

"But you are not under obligations, in view of all you have done."

"I'm going to see this fight out. If the force were ordered back to headquarters I'd go with you."

"But you will come soon?"

"Yes; when the fighting is over for the night I'll bring the latest news. There, the men are falling in for their march up Broadway, and I must go."

"Well, I congratulate you. No soldier ever won greener laurels in so short a time. What's more, you were cool enough to be one of the most effective of the force. I saw you picking off the leaders.

Good-by;" and he hastened away, while Merwyn followed Carpenter and the captured flag to a new scene of battle.

CHAPTER XLVI.

"I HAVE SEEN THAT YOU DETEST ME."

After her father had left her on that eventful afternoon, Marian felt as if alone in a beleaguered fortress. The familiar streets in which she had trundled her hoop as a child, and until to-day walked without fear, were now filled with nameless terrors. She who had been so bent on going out in the morning would now as readily stroll in a tiger-infested jungle as to venture from her door. When men like her father used such language and took such precautions as she had anxiously noted, she knew that dangers were manifold and great, that she was in the midst of the most ruthless phase of war.

But her first excitement had pa.s.sed, and it had brought her such lessons that now her chief thought was to retrieve herself. The one who had dwelt in her mind as so weak and unmanly as to be a constant cause of irritation had shown himself to be her superior, and might even equal the friends with whom she had been scornfully contrasting him. That she should have spoken to him and treated him as she had done produced boundless self-reproach, while her egregious error in estimating his character was humiliating in the last degree.

"Fool! fool!" she said, aloud, "where was your woman's intuition?"

Marian had much warm blood in her veins and fire in her spirit, and on provocation could become deeply incensed at others, as we have seen; but so devoid of petty vanity was she that she could be almost equally angry at herself. She did not share her father's confidence that Merwyn would relent under a few smiles, for she knew how deeply she had wounded and wronged him, and she believed that he possessed a will as steadfast as fate. The desire to test her father's theory, the hope to atone for her wrong judgment, grew so strong and absorbing as to make the awful fact of the riot secondary in her thoughts.

To get through the hours she felt that she must keep incessantly busy. She first went to her own room, packed valuables and jewels in a convenient form to carry if there should be cause for a hasty exit, then concealed them. Going to her mother's and father's room, she acted in view of the same possible necessity, all the while carrying on the distinct process of thought in regard to Merwyn, dwelling on their past relations, but above all questioning his course when they should meet again.

Suddenly she reproached herself with forgetfulness of Mammy Borden.

True, not much time had pa.s.sed; but the poor creature, after what she had heard, should be rea.s.sured frequently. She went to the attic room, but it was empty. On inspection it became evident that the colored woman had made up her little bundle and departed. Calling as she went down through the house, Marian reached the bas.e.m.e.nt and saw that its door had been unfastened.

"She has gone to join her son," said the girl, as she hastily rebolted and barred the door. "Oh what awful imprudence! Perhaps she also wished to relieve us of the danger of her presence. Well, I am now alone in very truth. I could now give Mr. Merwyn a very different reception. He and papa will be here soon perhaps. Oh, I wish I knew how to make coffee, but I can't even kindle a fire in the range. I have proved myself to-day a fine subject for a soldier.

My role is to listen, in elegant costume, to heroic deeds, and to become almost hysterical in the first hour of battle. O 'Missy S'wanee,' I make a sorry figure beside you, facing actual war and cheering on your friends!"

Thus she pa.s.sed the time in varied and bitter soliloquy while putting the kitchen and closets in order, and in awkward attempts to remove the debris of the last fire from the range. The gas gave light for her efforts, for the closed shutters darkened the apartment.

She was startled by a tap at the door.

"Well?" she faltered, after a moment's hesitation.

"'Gettysburg and Little Round Top,'" was the response.

"Mr. Vosburgh is out, and left word that you should linger near till he returned and then come again."

"I cannot do that. It would not be safe for either him or me. He does not realize. Can you be trusted?"

"I am his daughter."

"Say, then, terrible work up town. The orphan asylum sacked and burned. Many private residences also. The mob having its own way.

A crowd is coming, and I must not be seen here. Will be back to-night if possible;" and the unseen communicator of dismal intelligence went westward with hasty steps.

Marian trembled as she heard the confused, noisy tread of many feet.

Hastening to the second story, she peeped through the blinds, and shuddered as she saw a fragment of the mob which had been defeated on Broadway, returning to their haunts on the west side. Baffled and infuriated, they made the street echo with their obscene words and curses. Her heart almost stood still as they approached her door, and with white, compressed lips she grasped her revolver; but the rioters pa.s.sed on like a flock of unclean birds, and the street became quiet again.

She was now so anxious about her father that she maintained her position of observation. The coming storm lowering in the west oppressed her with its terrible symbolism. Already the street was darkening, while from other parts of the city came strange sounds.

"Oh, if papa should never come back,--if the mob should have its own way everywhere! To think of staying here alone to-night! Would HE come again after my treatment this morning?"

She was aroused from her deep and painful revery by a knocking on the bas.e.m.e.nt door. Hastening down she was overjoyed to hear her father's voice, and when he entered she clung to him, and kissed him with such energy that his heavy beard came off, and his disguising wig was all awry.

"O papa!" she cried, "I'm so glad you are back safe! A body of rioters pa.s.sed through the street, and the thought of your falling into such hands sickened me with fear;" and then she breathlessly told him of all that had occurred, and of Mammy Borden's disappearance.

He rea.s.sured her gently, yet strongly, and her quick ear caught the ring of truth in his words.

"I, too, have much to tell you," he said, "and much to do; so we must talk as we work. First help me to unpack and put away these provisions. This evening I must get a stout German woman that I know of to help you. You must not be left alone again, and I have another plan in mind for our safety. I think the worst is over, but it is best not to entertain a sense of false security for a moment in these times. The mob has been thoroughly whipped on Broadway.

I'll tell you all about it after we have had a good cup of coffee and a little supper. Now that there is a respite I find I'm almost faint myself from reaction and fatigue."

"Have you seen--do you think Mr. Merwyn will be here again?"

"I've seen him, and so have others, to their sorrow. 'Coward,'

indeed!" He threw back his head and laughed. "I only wish I had a regiment of such cowards, and I could abolish the mob in twenty-four hours. But I'll tell you the whole story after supper is ready, and will show how quickly a soldier can get up a meal in an emergency.

You must go into training as a commissary at once."

Her father seemed so genuinely hopeful and elated that Marian caught his spirit and gave every faculty to the task of aiding him. Now that he was with her, all fears and forebodings pa.s.sed; the nearer roll of the thunder was unheeded except as it called out the remark, "It will be too bad if Mr. Merwyn is out in the storm."

Again her father laughed, as he said, "All the thunder gusts that have raged over the city are nothing to the storm which Merwyn has just faced."

"O papa, you make me half wild with curiosity and impatience. Must I wait until the coffee boils?"