The soldiers glanced at him curiously. This regard for property in the midst of battle was unusual. But the Sergeant answered, as he thrust his musket barrel through the chair legs,
"Sure, we'll treat it as well as we can."
The Confederates beyond the front fence seemed all at once to have become tired. They declined to be coaxed or urged forward by their officers, but from behind their hiding-places they kept up a constant pop-popping of muskets and carbines which gradually reduced all the doors and windows on that side of the house to kindlings. Framed pictures on the opposite walls were punctured, and here and there light from the adjoining rooms shone through holes in the plastering. A soldier in the parlor was desperately wounded and lay in a stupor on a spot of the plush carpet which was sopping wet with blood, his head pillowed on a gay silk sofa cushion. Now and then other soldiers dodged into or out of the house through doorways on the side opposite to the enemy, and once the officer who had directed the fight at the creek came in, but finding the Sergeant in charge, left immediately. Time seemed to stand still. The little garrison, wrapped in the absorbing occupation of pumping lead at the almost invisible enemy in front, took no note of its passage.
Outside, a steady, rattling roar seemed to envelop the whole town and country around, pierced constantly by human voices, shouting, pleading or commanding, now near and again distant. Once Al, his throat parched with the choking fumes of confined powder smoke, darted back to the kitchen in search of water. While he was drinking he heard a slight creak and rustle, audible in the uproar by reason of its very lightness, and, looking around, he saw a woman standing on the top step of the cellar stairs, her hand on the door knob. He had to look twice before he knew her, for when he had last seen her, her hair, now iron gray, was brown, and her face, now wrinkled, was smooth and youthful.
"Why, Mrs. Falkner!" he stammered. "Why, are you here?"
She peered at him. "Al Briscoe!" she exclaimed, in a trembling voice. "What on earth—why, how you've grown!"
She uttered the commonplace remark almost mechanically. She seemed hardly to know what she was doing.
"Mrs. Falkner, you are in great danger here," cried Al.
"No, no; I am down cellar. I am safe if the house doesn't burn. Is it on fire?"
"No, but it is being riddled with bullets."