 | CHAPTER X. Tiger-lilies |  |
10. CHAPTER X.
Buckingham.
King Henry VI.
At a wooden building which bore sign “Provost
Marshal's Office,” our prisoner sat down in midst of
some frightened-looking men, and one or two women,
who seemed to be following similar instructions to those
given to Philip by his guard: —
“Wait here till you hear your name called.”
The guard stepped into a room adjoining the ante-chamber
where the prisoners sat, delivered a written
paper, and retired after a short colloquy with the clerk
at the desk.
Philip was evidently to be shortly disposed of; his
turn came first.
“Philip Sterling!” called out the clerk. Mein
Himmel, Federal conquerors, how greasy, sleek, and
complacent was the voice of this clerk in your provost's
office there! It was the tone of the spider after the
fly has walked into his little parlor.
“That your name?” inquired the greasy voice, as
Philip stood up.
“Yes.”
Without further ado, a spruce attendant in citizen's
dress, unarmed, stepped from the next room, politely
— let him here receive benedictions!) requested
Philip to walk with him, and led the way
along a plank sidewalk, which divided an irregular,
crooked street from a line of crooked, irregular buildings.
Philip's impression, as he walked, was a miscellaneous
idea of grayish sand, of whitewash, and of the
want of it, of granite bastions, of earthworks of a casemate,—
through whose one embrasure peered a cannon
like an ennuyée prisoner through his window, — of parapets
over which also peeped black cannon-faces, as if
the cannon had climbed there to see over, and were
holding on by their hands and knees, — of a wilderness
of smoke-stacks and masts, — of a strange gassy odor.
He turned once to look back. Chesapeake smiled to
him, like a maiden inviting him to stay. He disregarded
the invitation, as in duty bound, and followed his guide
through a sally-port. They emerged from the inner
mouth of the dark passage into a brick-paved court.
A tall grenadier, in blue with red trimmings, stood at
the angle of the wall, bearing at his belt an immense
key.
With a half-smile, Philip's conductor made a sign
silently. The red-trimmed faced about, turned a key
which was in the lock of a wooden door opening out
from the wall, and disclosed a huge iron grating which
he unfastened with the key at his belt. It creaked
open wide enough to admit a man.
“Step in!” growled the key-bearer.
Philip stepped in.
Instantly the iron grating clanged, the sound reverberated
through the brick-walled court, the wooden
in darkness, amidst a Babel of oaths, songs, groans,
chain-clankings, jars, unmeaning cries, and intermingling
echoes.
He had closed his eyes in order to accustom them
more quickly to the darkness. When he opened them
he saw at first a semicircular line of sparkles gathered
around him. A moment elapsed before he perceived
that these were human eyes, the shadowy forms of
whose owners he could barely trace at the distance of
a few feet from him. The noises had suddenly ceased.
The occupants of the cell had discovered the new-comer
and were peering curiously into his face.
Suddenly a furious clanking and rolling of heavy
metal issued from a low-arched corridor, which communicated
between the main cell and some subterranean
recess. The dusky crowd around Philip opened.
Through the opening appeared a tall, thin man, with
long hair and beard, and glimmering cat-like eyes. He
was dancing a progressive jig toward Philip; his saltatory
performances being apparently little impeded by a
chain which connected both his legs to a large cannon-ball,
that darted about in all kinds of gyratory
movements by reason of the vigorous and eccentric
jerks of the legs about which its chain was wound. As
he approached, his arms and hands lashed the air with
fierce and threatening gestures.
Suddenly he made a bound which placed him immediately
in front of the new prisoner. Philip was in the
act of drawing back to defend himself, when he saw the
strange dancer place his hand on his heart and bend in
a profound bow, until his peaked face almost touched
the floor.
“Sir,” said the shadow, “permit me to inquire if you
intend to remain in this house for some time?”
“I must confess, I think it extremely likely,” replied
Philip.
“Ah! Then I hope I shall be able to offer you better
accommodations than is possible to-night. You
perceive,” — with a stately apologetic wave of the hand
— “how crowded I am at present. My guests come
faster than they go; but I hope I may do better for you
to-morrow. For this time, at least, allow me to point
out to you what I consider the softest bed in the establishment.
Walk this way, sir!” The host stepped a
pace toward the wall.
“There, sir!” he continued, with a magnificent gesture
of one hand, while he pointed to the dirty bricks
of the floor with the other. “I, myself, having a constitutional
aversion to sleeping with the whole Democratic
party, have retired to an inner apartment. But
you will find these bricks good bricks, soft bricks as
ever you slept on in your life, sir. I have tried them.
You will repose in the honored consciousness of sleeping,
sir, where I have slept!”
In this cell the sweet light was niggard of her cheer.
Day dawned there about noon, glimmered an hour or
two, and the night came on before sunset.
Philip was weary. He stretched himself upon the
soft spot indicated by his singular landlord, and clasped
his hands under his head for a pillow. But he could
not sleep yet. The noises recommenced with their
pristine fury. A man would rise and start across the
floor. Suddenly he would yell like a fiend, and, as if
the inspiration of a howling dervish had rushed upon
and head strove in variety and wild energy of movement.
To this the invariable accompaniment was the
rattle of chains connecting ankles or wrists, or dragging
balls, — sometimes both. A double shuffle and a
terrible oath would complete the performance, and the
man would proceed upon his errand across the room.
It was as if some infernal deity had his altar in the centre
of the floor, at which each must perform his hideous
devotions before he could pass.
Upon each side of Philip a man lay stretched along
the floor. The face of one, in which the eyes rolled
restlessly, was turned towards him.
“Who was the man that danced up to me just now?”
said Philip to the eyes.
“Oh hell! he 's a fellow that 's been in here some
time.”
The eyes looked down, and Philip following the direction,
saw two legs elevated at an angle of forty-five
degrees. The ankles were linked together by a chain.
“Them things,” continued Philip's companion, while
the feet dangled to and fro so as to rattle the chain-links,
“is apt to make a feller sorter how-come-you-so
'bout the head, if a feller wears 'em too long. He” —
jerking one foot toward the corridor into which the
host had retired, “he 's dam nigh crazy.”
“You are not Confederate soldiers?”
“No, not much. Yanks, all of us. Don't you see
the blue blouses? But you aint got owl-eyed yet!”
“Why in the world do they confine you so rigidly?
It is worse than their prisoners fare!”
“Oh, we 're extra fellers. Bounty-jumpin', stealin',
with the brass buttons there, he 's a paymaster; 'counts
not square, or the like o' that. Jugged him. The feller
inside that skeered you, he 's been waitin' some time
for 'em to take him out and shoot him. Sentenced!”
Philip remained quietly watching the dusky figures
that stormed about the cell. Gradually the noises receded,
the shadows flitted silently, the coarse web of the
darkness lightened into an airy scarf that inclosed him,
and day dawned for Philip in a peaceful dream.
It was about eleven o'clock at night when, oppressed
with a vague sense that some alien earth-light was
struggling through the pure heaven-light of his dream,
Philip turned and sighed and woke. A man was standing
over him with a lighted candle, but quickly passed
on when he saw that he had roused the sleeper.
Philip raised up on his elbow and looked around.
The room was still, except in one spot, where, on a sort
of platform constructed of a couple of planks resting
on two camp-kettles, sat four men, of whom one was
shuffling a pack of cards whose recondite symbols were
nearly obliterated with grease and dirt. On his right
lay two men close together conversing in a low tone.
The card-players talked as the game went on.
“— In that lock-up” was saying one, emphasizing the
“that” by slapping his card on the plank. “Now,
when they do put a gentleman in the lock-up, I say,
treat him like a gentleman!”
“'Xactly so!” chimed another. “Some places, they
does. There 's some lock-ups where they hands your
vittles through the bars o' the gratin', a mou'ful at a
time, and you has to take it with your mouth. I don't
in lock-ups,” continued the `gent'man,' swelling with the
pleasing recollection, “where they brung your vittles to
you reg'lar and handed 'em to you, slice and hunk, and
you could eat 'em then or whenever you dam please!”
At this moment Philip's attention was attracted to
the conversation on his right. It had grown louder:
one of the speakers was talking rapidly and excitedly.
“— An' when I do git thar,” he was saying, “jest let
'em stand f'om under, for I 'm agwine to root 'em out
lively now, sure!”
“But how the devil will you get to Tennessee from
here? You 'll have to go back the way you came,
won't you?”
“Never ye mind about that: I 'll git thar. I mought
ha' forged a pass an' ha' went to Lynchburg, an' f'om
thar I could ha' snaked it thu' the bushes to home,
easy. But I thought to myself I mought make a few
greenbacks afore I started; it's all Yankee-land, you
know, in Tennessy, now. I knowed whar ther was
some scouts on Jeems's River, an' I knowed they was
a-devillin' you folks powerful, an' I thought I 'd come
over an' help you all to ketch 'em; an' I 'lowed 'at your
officers mought gimme a leetle to make it wuth my
trouble.”
“Well; how did you come out?”
“Durned ef they did n't want to shoot me fur a spy,
a'ter I 'd done deserted! Ye see, out o' foolishness, or
somethin' — I — I scarcely knows what made me do
it. — I did n't give 'em my own name when they tuk
me up on this side, thar, at Newport News. 'Stead o'
that, I give 'em some dam rigmarole or other, jest
some of 'em said they be darn ef that was any man's
name on this yeath, an' said I was tryin' to fool 'em;
an' as luck would have it, I seed a man thar 'at I had
knowed in Tennessy afore the war, an' he got 'em to
send me down here untwell he could see the general
an' git me off. Major Cranston, — know him?”
“Yes. He 's on duty here.”
“A clever man, certin! Know'd me in a minit,
an' axed me about a gal in Tennessy, an' shuk hands
an' gimme a drink o' mortial good whiskey, an' said
he 'd see me in the mornin'. An' when he does git
me off, an' I git to the Cove,” continued Gorm Smallin,
rising to a sitting posture in his anger, which seemed
always to become inflamed at this idea, “jest let ole
Sterlin' git up an' git! He holped 'em to send me off
to the army whar I never had no house to keep off the
rain, — an' I be dam ef he shall have ary one! He
holped 'em put me whar the bullets was whizzin';
I 'm gwine to make him hear one whiz, a ole, sneakin',
meddlin',” —
“You infernal scoundrel!” cried Philip, and leapt
like a tiger upon Gorm Smallin, clutching his throat.
His opponent wound his arms about Philip, and endeavored
to turn him under. Like two serpents they
writhed and agonized. Philip's inferiority in strength
was for a time compensated by the indignation which
swelled his veins and corded his muscles.
“Fight! Fight!” cried a voice.
“The four card-players tumbled off their platform
and ran to see the fun, bringing their light. The other
inmates roared and gathered round. It was delightful:
to the varying fortunes of the combatants.
“Stick to him, little un!” cried one.
“Why don't you mash his mug?” screamed another.
“Hold yer light higher, I can't see 'em,” plaintively
begged a third.
“Bet rations on the big un!” said a speculator.
“Thump him, bump him. Hoo-oo-oo-ray!” yelled an
ecstatic enthusiast.
Gorm Smallin had the advantage of weight and
muscle. He succeeded in getting his throat loose, and
grasped Philip's with one hand, while he fumbled in
his pocket with the other. He drew out his knife,
caught the blade between his teeth, opened it, and
lifted it high over the powerless boy in his grasp. He
was in the act of striking, — when the butt of a musket
came down heavily upon his uplifted hand, crushing
the fingers and dashing the knife to the floor.
Sickened with pain, Gorm relaxed his grasp, and
Philip staggered to his feet.
“Should think you Confeds had had enough o' fightin',
outside o' here,” growled the corporal, who, with the
sentinel on duty, hearing the commotion in the den,
had rushed in unnoticed by the excited by-standers.
“Sentinel, walk your beat inside for the rest of your
watch, and keep a light burning. If anybody else gets
to fighting, just take a hand yourself with the butt o'
your musket, — or the bullet in it, I don't care much
which.”
The prisoners resumed their beds, laughingly discussing
the fight. Philip attempted to pace the floor,
of the restlessness of aroused tenderness, of unappeased
anger, of bitter repining against that most maddening
of all feelings to a man — helplessness, his exhaustion
prevailed and he slept, at first fitfully, at length
soundly.
| CHAPTER X. Tiger-lilies | |