第180章

“But it’s got a solid-gold hilt,” insisted the little trooper.

“We’ll leave her thet to remember us by,” grinned the sergeant.

Scarlett took the sword, not even saying “Thank you.” Why should she thank these thieves for returning her own property to her? She held the sword against her while the little cavalryman argued and wrangled with the sergeant.

“By God, I’ll give these damn Rebels something to remember me by,” shouted the private finally when the sergeant, losing his good nature, told him to go to hell and not talk back. The little man went charging toward the back of the house and Scarlett breathed more easily. They had said nothing about burning the house. They hadn’t told her to leave so they could fire it. Perhaps—perhaps— The men came rambling into the hall from the upstairs and the out of doors.

“Anything?” questioned the sergeant.

“One hog and a few chickens and ducks.”

“Some corn and a few yams and beans. That wildcat we saw on the horse must have given the alarm, all right.”

“Regular Paul Revere, eh?”

“Well, there ain’t much here, Sarge. You got the pickin’s. Let’s move on before the whole country gets the news we’re comin’.”

“Didja dig under the smokehouse? They generally buries things there.”

“Ain’t no smokehouse.”

“Didja dig in the nigger cabins?”

“Nothin’ but cotton in the cabins. We set fire to it.”

For a brief instant Scarlett saw the long hot days in the cotton field, felt again the terrible ache in her back, the raw bruised flesh of her shoulders. All for nothing. The cotton was gone.

“You ain’t got much, for a fac’, have you, lady?”

“Your army has been here before,” she said coolly.

“That’s a fac’. We were in this neighborhood in September,” said one of the men, turning something in his hand. “I’d forgot.”

Scarlett saw it was Ellen’s gold thimble that he held. How often she had seen it gleaming in and out of Ellen’s fancy work. The sight of it brought back too many hurting memories of the slender hand which had worn it. There it lay in this stranger’s calloused duly palm and soon it would find its way North and onto the finger of some Yankee woman who would be proud to wear stolen things. Ellen’s thimble!

Scarlett dropped her head so the enemy could not see her cry and the tears fell slowly down on the baby’s head. Through the blur, she saw the men moving toward the doorway, heard the sergeant calling commands in a loud rough voice. They were going and Tara was safe, but with the pain of Ellen’s memory on her, she was hardly glad. The sound of the banging sabers and horses’ hooves brought little relief and she stood, suddenly weak and nerveless, as they moved off down the avenue, every man laden with stolen goods, clothing, blankets, pictures, hens and ducks, the sow.

Then to her nostrils was borne the smell of smoke and she turned, too weak with lessening strain, to care about the cotton. Through the open windows of the dining room, she saw smoke drifting lazily out of the negro cabins. There went the cotton. There went the tax money and part of the money which was to see them through this bitter winter. There was nothing she could do about it either, except watch. She had seen fires in cotton before and she knew how difficult they were to put out, even with many men laboring at it. Thank God, the quarters were so far from the house! Thank God, there was no wind today to carry sparks to the roof of Tara!

Suddenly she swung about, rigid as a pointer, and stared with horror-struck eyes down the hall, down the covered passageway toward the kitchen. There was smoke coming from the kitchen!

Somewhere between the hall and the kitchen, she laid the baby down. Somewhere she flung off Wade’s grip, slinging him against the wall. She burst into the smoke-filled kitchen and reeled back, coughing, her eyes streaming tears from the smoke. Again she plunged in, her skirt held over her nose.

The room was dark, lit as it was by one small window, and so thick with smoke that she was blinded, but she could hear the hiss and crackle of flames. Dashing a hand across her eyes, she peered squinting and saw thin lines of flame creeping across the kitchen floor, toward the walls. Someone had scattered the blazing logs in the open fireplace across the whole room and the tinder-dry pine floor was sucking in the flames and spewing them up like water.

Back she rushed to the dining room and snatched a rag rug from the floor, spilling two chairs with a crash.

“I’ll never beat it out—never, never! Oh, God, if only there was someone to help! Tara is gone—gone! Oh, God! This was what that little wretch meant when he said he’d give me something to remember him by! Oh, if I’d only let him have the sword!”

In the hallway she passed her son lying in the corner with his sword. His eyes were closed and his face had a look of slack, unearthly peace.

“My God! He’s dead! They’ve frightened him to death!” she thought in agony but she raced by him to the bucket of drinking water which always stood in the passageway by the kitchen door.

She soused the end of the rug into the bucket and drawing a deep breath plunged again into the smoke-filled room slamming the door behind her. For an eternity she reeled and coughed, beating the rug against the lines of fire that shot swiftly beyond her. Twice her long skirt took fire and she slapped it out with her hands. She could smell the sickening smell of her hair scorching, as it came loose from its pins and swept about her shoulders. The flames raced ever beyond her, toward the walls of the covered runway, fiery snakes that writhed and leaped and, exhaustion sweeping her, she knew that it was hopeless.