The position of the masked battery was simply devilish; every gun, hidden completely in the oak-scrub, was now trained on the pass.
Opposite, across the stream, long files of gray infantry were moving to cover among the trees; behind, a battalion arrived to support the guns; below, the cavalry had begun to leave the pass; troopers, dismounted, were carefully removing from the road all traces of their arrival.
Leaning there by the window, the Special Messenger counted the returning fours as troop after troop retired southward and disappeared around the bend of the road.
For a while the picks and shovels of the gunners sounded noisily; concealed riflemen, across the creek, were also busy intrenching. But by noon all sound had ceased in the sunny ravine; there was nothing to be seen from below; not a human voice echoed; not a pick-stroke; only the sweet, rushing sound of the stream filled the silence; only the shadows of the branches moved.
Warned again by the sentinels to close the battered window and keep the door shut, she still watched the gunners, through the dirty window panes, where they now lay under the bushes beside their guns. There was no conversation among them; some of the artillerymen seemed to be asleep; some sprawled belly-deep in the ferns, chewing twigs or idly scraping holes in the soil; a few lay about, eating the remnants of the morning’s scanty rations, chewing strips of bacon rind, and licking the last crumbs from the palms of their grimy hands.
Along the bush-hidden parapet of earth, heaps of ammunition lay—cannister and common shell. She recognized these, and, with a shudder, a long row of smaller projectiles on which soldiers were screwing copper caps—French hand grenades, brought in by blockade runners, and fashioned to explode on impact—so close was to be the coming slaughter of her own people in the road below.
Toward one o’clock the gunners were served noon rations. She watched them eating for a while, then, nerveless, turned back into the single room of the cabin and opened the rear door—so gently and noiselessly that the boyish staff-major who was seated on the sill did not glance around until she spoke, asking his permission to remain there.
“You mustn’t open that door,” he said, looking up, surprised by the sweetness of the voice which he heard now for the first time.
“How can anybody see me from the pass?” she asked innocently. “That is what you are afraid of, isn’t it?”
He shot a perplexed and slightly suspicious glance at her, then the frowning importance faded from his beardless face; he bit a piece out of the soggy corncake he was holding and glanced up at her again, amiably conscious of her attractions; besides, her voice and manner had been a revelation. Evidently her father had had her educated at some valley school remote from these raw solitudes.