For Love of Country - Cyrus Townsend Brady (great book club books txt) 📗

you for a gentleman for an instant?" he added, with withering contempt; and then turning his head toward the fierce soldiery, "Stop, stop, you bloody assassins!" he cried.

"Silence, sir! He might as well die this way as on the gallows. Besides, he struck the first blow, and he has killed one of his majesty's loyal soldiers. The soldier only wanted to kiss the girl anyway, and she will find, before she gets to camp, that kisses are cheap."

"Oh, my God," groaned the father, "and they call this war!"

At this moment one of the soldiers lifted his bayonet to plunge it into the prostrate form of the unconscious sailor. There was a blinding flash of light in the room, and a quick, sharp report. The man's arm dropped to his side, and he shrieked and groaned with pain. Katharine, unnoticed in the confusion, had slipped to the side of the table, and had quickly picked up one of the pistols which Johnson had laid upon it after the silver had been taken away. Her ready decision and unerring aim had saved her lover's life. She threw the smoking pistol she had used with such effect down at her feet, and, seizing the other, she stepped over to the side of her unconscious lover.

"I swear," she said, in a shrill, high-pitched voice which just escaped a scream, and which trembled with the agitation of the moment, "by my hope of heaven, if a single man of you lay hands on him, he shall have this bullet also, you cowards!"

After a moment's hesitation, amid shouts of "Kill the girl!" the men surged toward her. Chloe, her black maid, flung herself upon her mistress' breast.

"Oh, honey, I let dem kill me fust."

"Well done, Kate! It's the true Wilton blood. Oh, if I had a free arm, you villains!" cried the still struggling colonel.

"Seize the girl," Johnson commanded promptly, "and let us get out of this."

The men made a rush toward the table where Katharine stood undaunted, her face flushed with excitement, her mouth tense with resolution. She cried,--

"Have a care, men! have a care!"

One life she could still command with her loaded pistol. Her hands did not tremble. She waited to strike once more for love and country, but it would be all over in a moment.

The colonel groaned in agony, "Kate, Kate!" but they were almost upon her, when a new voice rose above the uproar,--

"Hold! Are you men? Do you war with old men and women? Back with you! Get back, you dogs! Back, I say!"


CHAPTER V


A Timely Interference

A young man in the uniform of a British naval lieutenant leaped in front of the girl with drawn sword, with which he laid about him lustily, striking some of the men with the flat of it, threatening others with the point; and backing his actions by the prompt commands of one not accustomed to be gainsaid, he soon cleared the space in front of her.

"How dare you interfere in this matter, my lord?" shouted Johnson, passionately. "I command this party, and I intend--"

"I know you do," replied the officer, "and that I am only a volunteer who has chosen to accompany you, worse luck! but I am a gentleman and a lieutenant in his Britannic majesty's navy, and by heaven! when I see old men mishandled, and wounded helpless men about to be assassinated, and young women insulted, I don't care who commands the party, I interfere. And I don't propose to bandy words with any runagate American partisan who uses his commission to further private vengeance. And I swear to you, on my honor, if you do not instantly modify your treatment of this gentleman, and call off this ragamuffin crew, you shall be court-martialled, if I have any influence with Dunmore or Parker or Lord Howe, or whoever is in authority, and I will have the rest of you hung as high as Haman. This is outrage and robbery and murder; it is not fighting or making prisoners," continued the young officer. "You are not fit to be an officer; and you, you curs, you disgrace the uniform you wear."

Johnson glanced at his men, who stood irresolute before him fiercely muttering. A rascally mob of the lowest class of people in the colony, to whom war simply meant opportunity for plunder and rapine, they would undoubtedly back up their leader, in their present mood, in any attempt at resistance he might make the young officer. But he hesitated a moment. Desborough was a lord, high in the confidence of Governor Dunmore, and a man of great influence; his own position was too precarious, the game was not worth the candle, and the risk of opposition was too great.

"Well," he said in sulky acquiescence, "the men meant no special harm, but have it your own way. Fall back, men! As to what you say to me personally, you shall answer to me for that at a more fitting time," he continued doggedly.

"When and where you please," answered Desborough, hotly, "though I 'd soil a sword by passing it through you. What was Dunmore thinking of when he put you in charge of this party and sent you to do this work, I wonder? Give your orders to your men to unhand this gentleman instantly. You will give your parole, sir? I regret that we are compelled to secure your person, but those were the orders; and you, madam," turning to Katharine, "I believe no order requires you to be taken prisoner, and therefore you shall go free."

But Katharine had knelt down by her prostrate lover as soon as the space in front of her had been cleared, and was entirely oblivious to all that was taking place about her.

"Allow me to introduce myself, colonel," he resumed. "I am Lord Desborough. I have often heard my father, the Earl of Desmond, in Ireland, speak of you. I regret that we meet under such unpleasant circumstances, but the governor's orders must be carried out, though I wish he had sent a more worthy representative to do so. I will see, however, that everything is done for your comfort in the future."

"Sir," said the colonel, bowing, "you have rendered me a service I can never repay. I know your father well. He is one of the finest gentlemen of his time, and his son has this day shown that he is worthy of the honored name he bears. I will go with you cheerfully, and you have my parole of honor. Katharine, you are free; you will be safe in the house, I think, until I can arrange for your departure."

She looked up from the floor, and then rose. "Oh, father, he is dead, he is dead," she moaned. "Yes, I will go with you; take me away."

"Nay, my child, I cannot."

"Enough of this!" broke in the sneering voice of Johnson. "She has been taken in open resistance to the king's forces, and, warrant or no warrant, orders or no orders, or court-martial either," this with a malevolent glance at Desborough, "she goes with us as a prisoner."

"I will pledge my word, Colonel Wilton, that no violence is offered her," exclaimed Desborough, promptly, and then, turning to Katharine,--

"Trust me, madam."

"I do, sir," she said faintly, giving him her hand. "You are very kind."

"It is nothing, mistress," he replied, bowing low over it, as he raised it respectfully to his lips. "I will hold you safe with my life."

"Very pretty," sneered Johnson; "but are you coming?"

"What shall we do with these two, captain?" asked the sergeant, kicking the prostrate form of Seymour, and pointing to the body of the man who had been slain.

"Oh, let them lie there! We can't be bothered with dead and dying men. One of them is gone; the other soon will be. The slaves will bury them, and those other three at the foot of the hill--d' ye hear, ye black niggers? There 's hardly room enough on the sloop for the living," he continued with cynical indifference.

"All right, captain! As you say, poor Joe's no good now; and as for the other, that crack of Welsh's was a rare good one; he will probably die before morning anyhow," replied the sergeant, there being little love lost among the members of this philosophic crew; besides, the more dead, the more plunder for the living. And many of the band were even now following the example of their leader, and roaming over the house, securing at will whatever excited their fancy, the wine-cellar especially not being forgotten.

"Oh, my God! John," whispered Katharine, falling on her knees again by his side, "must I leave you now, oh, my love!" she moaned, taking his head in her arms, and with her handkerchief wiping the blood from off his forehead, "and you have died for me--for me."

The colonel saw the action, and knew now what was the subject of the interview after supper which Seymour had so much desired. He knelt down beside his daughter, a great pity for her in his soul, and laid his hand on the prostrate man's heart.

"He is not dead, Katharine," he whispered. "I do not even think he will die; he will be all right in an hour. If we don't go soon, Katharine, Philip and Bentley will return and be taken also," he continued rapidly. "Come, Katharine," he said more loudly, rising. "Dearest child, we must go,--you must bear this, my daughter; it is for our country we suffer." But the talismanic word apparently had lost its charm for her.

"What's all this?" said Johnson, roughly; "she must go." She only moaned and pressed her lover's hands against her heart.

"And go now! Do you hear? Come, mistress," laying his hand roughly upon her shoulder.

"Have a care, sir," said Desborough, warningly. "Keep to yourself, my dear sir; no harm is done. But we must go; and if she won't go willingly, she will have to be carried, that's all. Do you hear me? Come on!"

"Come, Katharine," said the colonel, entreatingly.

"Oh, father, father, I cannot leave him! I love him!"

"I know you do, dear; and worthy he is of your love too. Please God you shall see him once again! But now we must go. Will you not come with me?"

"I cannot, I cannot!" she repeated.

"But you must, Kate," said the colonel, lifting her up, in deadly anxiety to get away before his son returned. "You are a prisoner."

"I can't, father; indeed I can't!" she cried again.

She struggled a moment, then half fainted in his arms.

"Who else is here?" said Johnson.

"Only the slaves," replied the colonel.

"Well, we don't want them. Move on, then! Your daughter can take her maid with her if she wishes," he said with surly courtesy. "Is this the wench? Well, get your mistress a cloak, and be quick about it!"

Assisted by Chloe, the maid, and Lord Desborough, the colonel half carried, half led, his daughter out of the room.