"I have had twenty in each, but fifteen is about as many as they comfortably hold."
"I reckon! And then the comfut moughtn't be much ter brag on."
The keeper soon invited us to walk into the adjoining basement. I was a few steps in advance of him, taking a straight course to the entrance, when a sentinel, pacing to and fro in the middle of the apartment, levelled his musket so as to bar my way, saying, as he did so,—
"Ye carn't pass yere, Sir. Ye must gwo round by the wall."
This drew my attention to the spot, and I noticed that a space, about fifteen feet square, in the centre of the room, and directly in front of the sentinel, had been recently dug up with a spade. While in all other places the ground was trodden to the hardness and color of granite, this spot seemed to be soft, and had the reddish-yellow hue of the "sacred soil." Another sentry was pacing to and fro on its other side, so that the place was completely surrounded! Why were they guarding it so closely? The reason flashed upon me, and I said to Turner;—
"I say, how many barr'ls hes ye in thar'?"
"Enough to blow this shanty to ——," he answered, curtly.
"I reckon! Put 'em thar' when thet feller Dahlgreen wus a-gwine ter rescue 'em,—the Yankees?"
"I reckon."
He said no more, but that was enough to reveal the black, seething hell the Rebellion has brewed. Can there be any peace with miscreants who thus deliberately plan the murder, at one swoop, of hundreds of unarmed and innocent men?