“Never mind that,” retorted Amos, briskly. He was entirely calm; indeed, his face held the kind of grim elation that peril in any shape brings to some natures. “You toss things up and throw open the doors, as if you all had run away in a big fright, while I’ll set the table.” And, as Harned feverishly obeyed, he carefully filled the bottles from the demijohn. The last bottle he only filled half full, pouring the remains of the liquor into a tumbler.
“All ready?” he remarked; “well, here’s how,” and he passed the tumbler to Harned, who shook his head. “Don’t need a brace? I don’t know as you do. Then shake, pardner, and whichever one of us gets out of this all right will look after the women. And—it’s all right?”
“Thank you,” choked Harned; “just give the orders, and I’m there.”
“You get into the other room, and you keep there, still; those are the orders. Don’t you come out, whatever you hear; it’s the women’s and the children’s lives are at stake, do you hear? And no matter what happens to me, you stay there, you stay still! But the minute I twist the button on that door, let me in, and be ready with your hatchet—that will be handiest. Savez?”
“Yes; God bless you, Mr. Wickliff!” cried Harned.
“Pardner it is, now,” said Wickliff. They shook hands. Then Harned shut himself in the closet. He did not guess Wickliff’s plan, but that did not disturb the hope that was pumping his heart faster. He felt the magnetism of a born leader and an intrepid fighter, and he was Wickliff’s to the death. He strained his ears at the door. A chair scraped the boards; Wickliff was sitting down. Immediately a voice began to sing—Wickliff’s voice changed into a tipsy man’s maudlin pipe. He was singing a war-song:
“‘We’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again,
Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom!’”
The sound did not drown the thud of horses’ hoofs outside. They sounded nearer. Then a hail. On roared the song, all on one note. Wickliff couldn’t carry a tune to save his soul, and no living man, probably, had ever heard him sing.