"What's the matter? Tell me before I murder you!"
"Yassam!" Mandy gasped and again her head was cocked to one side as if straining her ears for the dreaded sound of Gabriel.
"What's happened?—Tell me!" Jennie stormed.
At last poor Mandy's senses slowly returned. She stared into her young mistress' face and gasped:
"Yassam—Mr. Castle's killed a Yankee ossifer on de ship an' dey gwine ter shell—"
"Boom!"
The deep thunder peal of a great gun shook the world. There was no mistaking the sound of it or its meaning. The fleet had opened fire on the defenseless town. Mandy's teeth chattered and her voice failed.
And then pandemonium.
Poor old negroes and helpless pickaninnies swarmed into the house for shelter from the doom of Judgment Day.