Janice Meredith Part 94

LXII WITHIN THE LINES

One there was in Yorktown whose suffering was to the eye as great as he who had watched from the outside. A sudden change came over Clowes with the realisation of their danger. He turned white on the confirmation of the arrival of the French fleet; and when the news spread through the town that a deserter had arrived from the American camp with word of Was.h.i.+ngton's approach, he fell on the street in a fit, out of which he came only when he had been cupped, and sixty ounces of blood taken from him. Not once after that did he seek out Janice, or even come to the custom-house for food or sleep, but pale, and talking much to himself he wandered restlessly about the town, or still more commonly stood for hours on the highest point of land which opened a view of the bay, gazing anxiously eastward for the promised English fleet.

Janice was too occupied, however, with her mother even to note this exemption. The exposure and fatigue of the long, hot march to Yorktown had proved too great a tax upon Mrs. Meredith's strength, and almost with their arrival she took to her bed and slowly developed a low tidal fever, not dangerous in its character, but unyielding to the doctor's ministrations.

It was on the day that the videttes fell back on the town, bringing word that the allies were advancing, that the girl noticed so marked a change in her mother that she sent for the army surgeon, and that she had done wisely was shown by his gravity after a very cursory examination.

"Miss Meredith," he said, "this nursing is like to be of longer duration than at first seemed probable, and will over-tax your strength. 'T is best, therefore, that you let us move Mrs. Meredith into the army hospital, where she can be properly tended, and you saved from the strain."

"I could not but stay with her, doctor," answered Janice; "but if you think it best for her that she be moved, I can as well attend her there."

The surgeon bit his lip, then told her, "I'll try to secure you permission, if your father think it best." He went downstairs, and finding the squire said: "Mr. Meredith, I have very ill news for you. It has been kept from the army, but there has been for some days an outbreak of small-pox among the negroes, and now your wife is attacked by it."

"Don't say it, man!" implored the squire.

"'T is, alas! but too true. It is necessary that she be at once removed on board the hospital s.h.i.+p, and I shall return as quickly as possible with my a.s.sistants and move her. The more promptly you call your daughter from her bedside, the better, for 't will just so much lessen the chance of contagion."

Before the father had well broken the news to Janice, or could persuade her to leave the invalid, the surgeon was returned, and, regardless of the girl's prayers and tears, her mother was placed upon a stretcher, carried to the river-side, and then transferred to the pest-s.h.i.+p, which was anch.o.r.ed in mid-stream. Against his better judgment, but unable to resist his daughter's appeals, the squire sought out Cornwallis with the request that she might be allowed to attend Mrs. Meredith on the s.h.i.+p, but the British general refused.

"Not only would it be contrary to necessary rules, sir, but it would merely expose her needlessly. Fear not that Mrs.

Meredith will lack the best of care, for I will give especial directions to the surgeons. My intention was to send a flag, as soon as the enemy approached, with a request that I might pa.s.s you all through the lines, out of danger; and this is a sad derangement to the wish, for General Was.h.i.+ngton would certainly refuse pa.s.sage to any one sick of this disease, and all must justify him in the refusal. I still think that 't would be best to let me apply for leave for you and Miss Meredith to go out, but--"

"Neither the la.s.s nor I would consider it for a moment, though grateful to your Lords.h.i.+p for the offer."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Where are you going?"]

"Then I will see that you have room in one of the bomb-proofs, but 't will be a time of horror, that I warn you."

He spoke only too truly, and the misery of the next twenty days are impossible to picture. The moment the bombardment began, father and daughter were forced to seek the protection of one of the caves that had been dug in the side of the bluff; and here, in damp, airless, almost dark, and fearfully overcrowded quarters, they were compelled to remain day and night during the siege. Almost from the first, scarcity of wood produced an entire abandonment of cooked food, every one subsisting on raw pork or raw salt beef, or, as Janice chose, eating only s.h.i.+p biscuit and unground coffee berries. Once the fire of the allies began to tell, each hour supplied a fresh tale of wounded, and these were brought into the bomb-proofs for the surgeons to tend, their presence and moans adding to the nightmare; yet but for them it seemed to Janice she would have gone mad in those weeks, for she devoted herself to nursing and feeding them, as an escape from dwelling on her mother's danger and their own helplessness. Even news from the pest-s.h.i.+p had its torture, for when her father twice each day descended the bluff to get the word from the doctor's boat, as it came ash.o.r.e, she stood in the low doorway of the cave, and at every shot that was heard shrieking through the air, and at every sh.e.l.l which exploded with a crash, she held her breath, full of dread of what it might have done, and in anguish till her father was safe returned with the unvarying and uncheering bulletin the surgeons gave him of Mrs. Meredith's condition.

Yet those in the bomb-proofs escaped the direst of the horrors. Above them were enacted scenes which turned even the stoutest hearts sick with fear and loathing. The least of these was the slaughter of the horses, baggage, cavalry, and artillery, which want of forage rendered necessary, one whole day being made hideous by the screams of the poor beasts, as one by one they were led to a spot where the putrefying of their carca.s.ses would least endanger the health of the soldiery, and their throats cut. All pretence of care of the negroes disappeared with the demand on the officers and soldiers to man the redoubts, and on the surgeons to care for the sick and wounded soldiers, who soon numbered upwards of two thousand. Naked and half starving, they who had dreamed of freedom were left for the small-pox and putrid fever and for shot and sh.e.l.l to work their will among them. In the abandoned houses and even in the streets, they lay, sick, dismembered, dying, and dead, with not so much as one to aid or bury them.

On the morning of the 17th a fresh number of wounded men were brought into the already overcrowded cave; and though Janice was faint with the long days of anxiety, fright, bad air, poor food, and hard work, she went from man to man, doing what could be done to ease their torments and lessen their groans. The last brought in was in a faint, with the lower part of his face and shoulder horribly torn and shattered by the fragments of a sh.e.l.l, but a little brandy revived him, and he moaned for water. Hurriedly she stooped over him, to drop a little from a spoon between the open lips.

"Janice!" he startled her by crying.

"Who are--? Oh, Sir Frederick!" she exclaimed. "You!

How came you here?"

"They let me out of the prison Clowes me put in," Mobray gasped; "and having nothing better, I enlisted in the ranks under another name." There he choked with blood.

"Doctor," called Janice, "come quickly!"

"Humph!" growled the surgeon, after one glance. "You should not summon me to waste time on him. Can't you see 't is hopeless?"

"Oh, don't--" began Janice.

"Nay, he speaks the truth," said Mobray; "and I thank G.o.d 't is so. Don't cry. I am glad to go; and though I have wasted my life, 't is a happier death than poor John Andre's."

For a moment only the sobs of the girl could be heard, then the dying man gaspingly resumed: "A comrade I once had whom I loved best in this world till I knew you. By a strange chance we loved the same girl; I wish I might die with the knowledge that he is to have the happiness that was denied to me."

"Oh, Sir Frederick, you must not ask it! He--"

"His was so bitter a story that he deserves a love such as yours would be to make it up to him. I can remember him the merriest of us all, loved by every man in the regiment, from batman to colonel."

"And what changed him?" Janice could not help asking.

"T was one evening at the mess of the Fusileers, when Powel, too deep in drink to know what he was saying, blurted out something concerning Mrs. Loring's relations with Sir William. Poor Charlie was the one man in the force who knew not why such favouritism had been shown in his being put so young into Howe's regiment. But that we were eight to one, he'd have killed Powel then and there. Prevented in that, he set off to slay his colonel, never dreaming he was his own father. He burst in on me late that night, crazed with grief, and told me how he had found him at his mother's, and how she had robbed him of his vengeance by a word. The next day he disappeared, and never news had I of him until that encounter at Greenwood. Does he not deserve something to sweeten his life?"

"I feel for him deeply," replied the girl, sadly, "the more that I did him a grave wrong in my thoughts, and by some words I spoke must have cut him to the quick and added pain to pain."

"Then you will make him happy?"

"No, Sir Frederick, that I cannot."

"Don't punish him for what was not his fault."

"'T is not for that," she explained. "Once I loved him, I own. But in a moment of direst need, when I appealed to him, he failed me; and though now I better understand his resentment against my father and myself I could never bring myself to forgive his cruelty, even were my love not dead."

"I will not believe it of him. Hot and impulsive he is by nature, but never cruel or resentful."

"'T is, alas! but too true," grieved Janice.

Once again the baronet choked with blood and struggled for a moment convulsively. Then more faintly he said: "Wilt give him my love and a good-by?"

"I will," sobbed the girl.

Nothing more was said for some time, then Mobray asked faintly: "Is it that I am losing consciousness, or has the firing eased?"

Janice raised her head with a start. "Why, it has stopped,"

she exclaimed. "What can it mean?"

"That courage and tenacity have done their all, and now must yield. Poor Cornwallis! I make no doubt he'd gladly change places with me at this instant."

Here Mr. Meredith's voice broke in upon them, as standing in the mouth of the cave he called: "Come, Janice. The firing has ceased, to permit an exchange of flags with the rebels. Up with ye, and get the fresh air while ye can."

"I will stay here, father," replied the girl, "and care for--"

"Nonsense, la.s.s! Ye shall not kill yourself. I order ye to come away."

"Go, Miss Meredith," begged Mobray. "You can do naught for me, and--and--I would have--Do as he says."

His hand blindly groped until Janice placed hers within it, when he gave it a weak pressure as he said, "'T is many a long march and many a sleepless night that the memory of you has sweetened. Thank you, and good-by."

Reluctantly Janice came out of the bomb-proof, blinking and gasping with the novelty of sunlight and sea breeze, after the darkness and stench of the last weeks; and her father, partly supporting, led her up the bluff. It was a strange transformation that greeted her eyes,--ploughed-up streets and ruins of buildings dismantled by shot or left heaps of ashes by the sh.e.l.l, everywhere telling of the fury of the siege.

Keep your eyes closed, la.s.s," suggested the squire, "for there are sights of horror. In a moment I'll have ye at headquarters, where things have been kept more tidy. There, now ye can look; sit down here and fill your lungs with this good air."

Silently the two seated themselves on the steps of the Nelson house, now pierced in every direction by the shot of the allies, though less damaged than many others. Presently Janice's attention was caught by the sound of shuffling footsteps, as of one with only partial use of his legs, and glancing up she gave a slight cry of fear. And well she might, for there stood the commissary, with his face like one risen from the dead, it was so white and staring.