"On bofe sides, honey," said Aunt Chaney, "'cordin' ter de politics ob dem we is talkin' to!"
A rat whisked over the floor, across the dim slant of light that fell from the candle on the head of the barrel. Uncle Ephraim, his elbows on his knees, his gray head slightly canted in a listening attitude, smiled vaguely, pleased like a child himself with Aunt Chaney's sketch.
"Oh, Aunt Chaney!—do you s'pose we'll tell it that way?" cried Adelaide, meditating on the flattering contrast.
"Dat's de ve'y way de tales 'bout dis war is gwine be tole, honey, you mark my words," declared the prophetess.
The contrast of the imaginative future account with the troublous actuality of the present so delighted Adelaide that she spelled it off on her fingers to Lucille, both repairing to the side of the barrel where the candle was glimmering, in order to have the light on their twinkling fingers in the manual alphabet. The humors of the expectation, the incongruity of their martial efficiency, the boastful resources of the future, elicited bursts of delighted gigglings, and when the next shell exploded, neither took notice of the hurtling bomb shrieking over the house and bound for the river.
The rest of the populace were enjoying no such solace from any waggish interpretation of the future. The present, that single momentous day, was for them as much of time as they cared to contemplate. Doubtless the satisfaction was very general among the citizens, regardless of political prepossessions, when it became known that Captain Baynell with a detachment of horse artillery had gone out and taken up a position that had enabled him at last to silence the Confederate guns on the pinnacle, not, however, before the masked battery by the river was practically dismounted.
Now both infantry and cavalry were ordered out in an effort to intercept the venturesome Rebel artillerymen as they sought to descend from their steep pinnacle of rock. The dust on the turnpike, redly aflare in the sunset rays, betokened the progress of the march, and now and then it was harassed by shells and grape from the swivel guns of the fort, for Roscoe's limited command had not been able to bring the heavier ordnance of the embrasures to bear upon the camps around the town.
The whole community was in a panic, for this might soon betide. But a gunboat came, as it chanced, up the river, took a position of advantage, and with great precision of aim soon shelled the little force out of the main work. Their capture was momently expected, but they made good their retreat to their former position in the redoubt, with the intention unquestionably of escaping thence by the secret passage which had afforded them access. In leaving, however, the powder magazine was blown up by accident or design, destroying the integrity of the whole fortification, and shattering nearly every pane of glass in the town, the force of the concussion indeed bringing the tower of the hospital hard by to the ground. That the raiders had perished was not doubted, till news came of a sharp skirmish which took place under cover of darkness at the mouth of a sort of grotto in Judge Roscoe's grove, and in the confusion, surprise, and obscurity all escaped save some half-dozen left dead upon the ground.