Miss Lily leaned a little forward, her thin hands clasped about her knees, her luminous dark eyes upon the murky sky. She had a voice of liquid sweetness, all shot with little lights and shadows. “I had such a vivid dream last night. I thought that suddenly all the shells, instead of coming this way, were going that way, and somebody said it would be because General Johnston was coming with a great army and that the enemy’s cannon were turned against them. All the sky grew clear red instead of blue, and in it I saw the army coming. It was like the pictures of the Judgment Day. And the flag was in front, and there were clouds and thunders. And the enemy was swept of the face of the earth.” She sighed. “And then I woke up, and the shells were coming this way.”
“I dreamed, too,” said the little girl; “I dreamed about Christmas.”
Désirée went back to Cape Jessamine. On the way she walked for a while beside an old negro woman. “Yass, ’m, yass, ’m! De debbil am rainin’ fire an’ brimstone! En now ef de Lawd’d only send de manna an’ de quails!”
“Are you hungry?” asked Désirée. “You look hungry.”
“Well, ’m, dar wuz de chillern. I done hab my ration en dey done hab theirs, but de Lawd Jesus knows growin’ chillern need six rations! I couldn’t give ’em six, but I giv ’em mine.—I ben lookin’ at de berries in de patch ober dar, but Lawd! de bloom ain’t much moh’n fallen!”
Désirée uncovered the basket and shared with her her loaf of bread. The other took it with glistening eyes and profuse thanks. They parted, and Désirée went on to the cave below the cedars in the ruined garden. The day was hot, hot! and the air was thick, and there was always smell of burned powder, and dull, continual noise. But the cave itself was dark and cool. She had drawn the ivy so that it fell like a curtain across the entrance. She drank a cup of water, ate a piece of bread, then lay down upon her pallet. She lay very straight, her hands clasped upon her breast, her dark eyes fixed upon the veil of ivy. The light came in, cool and green like emerald water. The booming of the cannon grew rhythmic like great waves against a cliff. Edward! Edward! They beat in her brain—Edward! Edward!
She knew that he was gone with the others for the musket caps. Day by day soldiers in numbers passed her garden. She had come to know the faces of many and had made friends with them. Sometimes they asked for water. Sometimes the wounded rested here. An officer, mortally wounded, had been laid upon this pallet and had died here, upheld for the last labouring breath in her arms. The colonel commanding the troops in the redan and trenches at this point stopped occasionally in coming or going. He was a chivalrous, grey-mustached hero who paid her compliments three-piled. It was he who told her of the volunteers for dangerous service, but it was a smoke-grimed, tattered private who brought her a line from Edward, pencilled just at starting.... Five days ago.
She lay perfectly still, breathing lightly but deeply. Her mind, like a bird, flew now into this landscape, now into that. Cape Jessamine—Cape Jessamine—and the river rolling over what had been home and life. Her room—the river rolling over her room—the balcony with the yellow rose and the silken dresses in the carved wardrobe.... She was in New Orleans—Mardigras—Rex passing—Louis as Rex—flowers down raining. All the masks—the ball.... France—an old house in Southern France with poplars and a still stream.... Her eyelids closed. Green water falling, and the cypresses of Cape Jessamine.... She turned on her side—Edward! Edward!
The great waves continued to break against the cliffs, then arose a deafening crash as of down-ruining land. Désirée sprang to her feet and went and pushed aside the ivy. Thick smoke hung over a salient some distance to the right; she saw men running. Though she had never seen a mine exploded, she knew it for what it was. She watched the thickest of the smoke lift and drift aside, she saw that the flag still waved from the salient and she gathered from the steadiness of the world in general and the rhythmic pursuance of the cannonading that the mine had not been large, or had failed of its full intent. She knew, however, that in the salient there had been moments of destruction and anguish.
Sleep was driven from her eyes. She sat down upon the bench without the door. It was the blazing afternoon. She saw the air upquivering from the baked earth, the ruined wall. The neglected garden looked dead with sultriness. Beyond, in the heat, she saw the camps, tents, huts of dried boughs, small wooden structures. From them to the front ran strange geometric lines that were the covered ways. She saw the sentries, small, metallic-looking figures. Then came trenches, breastworks, redan. Smoke was over them, but here and there it gave and let through the red points of flags, or a vision of soldiers. The horizon all around stood a wall of murk torn by red flashes. That the air rocked with sound was now a matter of course. The ear was accustomed to it, as to the roar of a familiar cataract, or as mechanics and mill-hands might be to the roar of machinery. Distracting sound ceased to be distracting. The attention went where it was needed, as in the silence of the desert. Désirée sat with her hands in her lap, staring into the heat and light. She sat with a certain look of the Sphinx, accepting the spectator’s place, since the ages had fixed her there, and yet with a dim and inner query that raised the corners of her lips.