Just then a wide, dark opening appeared in the side of the vessel nearest them, a black object came slowly out, a thundering concussion rent the air, and a thirty-two pound shell came at them. It shrieked fearfully as it flew over the levee above their heads, and made such a horrid din when it exploded in the thick woods behind them, scattering iron and branches about and cutting down twigs and leaves in a perfect shower, that for a single instant the Home Guards were motionless with astonishment and terror. They had not hurt the gunboat at all, but they had made her captain angry, and the fear that he might resent the insult to his flag by firing more shells at them sent the Home Guards to their saddles in hot haste; and with Captain Tom, who rode the swiftest horse, far in the lead, they struck out for home at a better pace than they had ever travelled before. And they never drew rein until they had left the dangerous neighborhood miles behind.
"It was the narrowest escape from an ambuscade I ever had in my life," said Captain Tom to the first man he met when he rode into Mooreville that night, "and if it hadn't been for my promptness in getting out of there I shouldn't have had a man left. We'd have been cut to pieces or captured, the last one of us. We didn't see any enemy except the ship we fired at, but a minute or so after she opened on us a battery of flying artillery, that had all the while been concealed in the timber in our rear, cut loose on us with all its guns, and it's a miracle that one of us escaped to tell the story of the battle."
"But my partner came from Baton Rouge to-day," said the man doubtfully, "and he declares that there are no Yankee troops in the country this side of New Orleans. So where did that battery come from?"
"Don't you believe any such stuff," replied Tom indignantly. "I tell you the woods are full of them, and they are liable to come to Mooreville between now and sunrise."
If no one else believed his story Tom believed it himself, and the consequence was he slept in his chair that night. But for some reason the Yankees did not appear as he had predicted, and they might have postponed their coming indefinitely had it not been for the lawless acts of Captain Tom's own men.
CHAPTER III.
THE CONSCRIPT'S FRIEND.
Tom Randolph would have been very angry indeed if anyone had told him that the noise that thirty-two pound shell made when it exploded in the woods, and led him and his men to believe that there was a Union battery concealed there, had frightened all the war spirit out of him, but it is a fact that after his experience with the gunboat he did not show the least desire to take the field again at the head of his company. Everybody knew that there were no Federal troops in Baton Rouge, but there were war vessels in the Mississippi holding the city under their guns, and their presence had a depressing effect upon a good many red-hot rebels besides Tom Randolph. More than that, General Butler had assumed command at New Orleans; and the energetic and effective way in which he dealt with treason there opened the eyes of the Mooreville people to the fact that there might be a day of settlement coming for them also, and that it would be well if they could have a tolerably clean record to show when the invading army moved up to take possession of Baton Rouge.
This was the way Mr. Randolph and some of his neighbors looked at the situation; and acting upon the hints they dropped in his presence, Tom concealed his uniform and sword in the garret, where he thought no one would be likely to look for them. He was getting tired of war anyway, he said, and wished the past could be blotted out and things be as they were before South Carolina, by her senseless act of secession, brought so much trouble upon him and his friends. He was not as disgusted and angry as a good Confederate ought to have been when he heard a man from Baton Rouge affirm that after all the Yankees were not such a bad sort when one became acquainted with them, and that some of the towns-people were not ashamed to confess to a friendly feeling for the crews of the gunboats that were anchored in front of the city. The blue-jackets always acted like gentlemen when they came ashore, and, true to their instincts of traffic, had established a lively little trade with the citizens. They purchased everything the latter had to sell in the way of garden-truck, milk, butter, and eggs, and paid for all they got in good money; or, what was better, in coffee, tea (store tea too, and not sassafras), wheat flour, and salt. It is true that the salt was not as fine nor as clean as some they had seen, for it had been taken from the brine of the beef and pork barrels with which the store-rooms of the gunboats were abundantly supplied; but it was acceptable to people who had boiled down the dirt floors of their smoke-houses in order to get the salt that had trickled off the hams and sides of bacon which had been cured there in better times. The gunboat officers also sent their soiled linen ashore to be washed, so that not a day passed during which there was not more or less communication with the fleet.