Part 22 (2/2)

Every Northern eye was lifted to the window and I turned away. ”Richard!” gently called Charlotte, and I saw the end was at hand; a new anguish was on the brow; yet the soldier was asking for a song; ”a soldier's song, will you?”

”Why, Captain,” she replied, ”you know, we don't sing the same words to our soldier-songs that you do--except in the hymns. Shall I sing 'Am I a soldier of the cross?'”

He did not answer promptly; but when he did he said ”Yes--sing that.”

She sang it. As the second stanza was begun we heard a responsive swell grow softly to fuller and fuller volume beneath the windows; the prisoners were singing. I heard an austere voice forbid it, but it rose straight on from strength to strength:

”Sure I must fight if I would win, Increase my courage, Lord.

I'll bear the toil, endure the pain, Supported by thy word.”

The dying man lifted a hand and Charlotte ceased. He had not heard the m.u.f.fled chorus of his followers below; or it may be that he had, and that the degree of liberty they seemed to be enjoying prompted him to seek the new favor he now asked. I did not catch his words, but Charlotte heard, and answered tenderly, yet with a thrill of pain so keen she could not conceal it even from him.

”Oh! you wouldn't ask a rebel to sing that,” she sighed, ”would you?”

He made no rejoinder except that his eyes were insistent. She wiped his temples. ”I hate to refuse you.”

His gaze was grateful. She spoke again: ”I suppose I oughtn't to mind it.”

Miss Harper came in, and Charlotte, taking her hand without a glance, told the Captain's hard request under her voice. Miss Harper, too, in her turn, gave a start of pain, but when the dying eyes and smile turned pleadingly to her she said, ”Why, if you can, Charlotte, dear, but oh! how can you?”

Charlotte addressed the wounded man: ”Just a little bit of it, will that do?” and as he eagerly a.s.sented she added, to Miss Harper, ”You know, dear, in its history it's no more theirs than ours.”

”No, not so much,” said Miss Harper, with a gleam of pride; and thereupon it was my amazement to hear Charlotte begin guardedly to sing:

”O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?”

But guardedly as she began, the effect on the huddled crowd below was instant and electrical. They heard almost the first note; looking down anxiously, I saw the wonder and enthusiasm pa.s.s from man to man. They heard the first two lines in awed, ecstatic silence; but at the third, warily, first one, then three, then a dozen, then a score, bereft of arms, standard, and leader, little counting ever again to see freedom, flag, or home, they raised their voices, by the dawn's early light, in their song of songs.

Our main body were out in the highway, just facing into column, and the effect on them I could not see. The prisoners' guards, though instantly ablaze with indignation, were so taken by surprise that for two or three seconds, with carbines at a ready, they--and even their sergeant in command--only darted fierce looks here and there and up at me. The prisoners must have been used to singing in ordered chorus, for one of them strode into their middle, and smiling st.u.r.dily at the maddened guard and me, led the song evenly. ”No, sir!” he cried, as I made an angry sign for them to desist, ”one verse through, if every d.a.m.ned fool of us dies for it--let the Captain hear it boys--sing!

”'The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air--'”

Charlotte had ceased, in consternation not for the conditions without more than for those within. With the first strong swell of the song from below, the dying leader strove to sit upright and to lift his blade, but failed and would have slammed back upon the pillows had not she and Miss Harper saved him. He lay in their arms gasping his last, yet clutching his sabre with a quivering hand and listening on with rapt face untroubled by the fiery tumult of cries that broke into and over the strain.

”Club that man over the head!” cried the sergeant of the guard, and one of his men swung a gun; but the Yankee sprang inside of its sweep, crying, ”Sing her through, boys!” grappled his opponent, and hurled him back. In the same instant the sergeant called steadily, ”Guard, ready--aim--”

There sounded a clean slap of levelled carbines, yet from the prisoners came the continued song in its closing couplet:

”The star-spangled banner! O, long may it wave!--”

and out of the midst of its swell the oaths and curses and defiant laughter of a dozen men crying, with tears in their eyes, ”Shoot! shoot! why don't you shoot?”

But the command to fire did not come; suddenly there was a drumming of hoofs, then their abrupt stoppage, and the voice of a vigilant commander called, ”Attention!”

With a few words to the sergeant, more brief than harsh, and while the indomitable singers pressed on to the very close of the stanza without a sign from him to desist, Ferry bade the subaltern resume his command, and turned toward me at the window. He lifted his sword and spoke in a lowered tone, the sullen guard stood to their arms, and every captive looked up for my reply.

”Shall I come?” he inquired; but I shook my head.

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