The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve. Altsheler Joseph Alexander

Mid-February had passed, and the day had been one of unusual warmth for that time of the year, like a day in full spring. The wind from the south was keen with the odor of fresh foliage and of roses, and of faint far perfumes, unknown but thrilling. A sky of molten silver clothed city, bay, and forts in enchantment. Nothing seemed further away than war, yet they had to walk but a little distance to see the defiant flag over Sumter, and the hostile Palmetto flags waving not far away.

      Madame Delaunay appeared in the doorway. She was dressed as usual in white and her shining black hair was bound with the slender gold fillet.

      "We are going away tomorrow, Madame," said Colonel Talbot, "and I know that we cannot find in Montgomery any such pleasant entertainment as my young friends have enjoyed here."

      Harry was confirmed in his belief that the thread of an old romance still formed a firm tie between them.

      "But you will come back," said Madame Delaunay. "You will come back very soon. Surely, they will not try to keep us from going our ways in peace."

      A sudden thrill of passion and feeling had appeared in her voice.

      "That no one can tell, Julie," said Colonel Talbot very gravely—it was the first time that Harry had ever heard him call her by her first name—"but it seems to me that I should tell what I think. A Union such as ours has been formed amid so much suffering and hardship, courage and danger, that it is not to be broken in a day. We may come back soon from Montgomery, Julie, but I see war, a great and terrible war, a war, by the side of which those we have had, will dwindle to mere skirmishes. I shut my eyes, but it makes no difference. I see it close at hand, just the same."

      Madame Delaunay sighed.

      "And you, Major St. Hilaire?" she said.

      "There may be a great war, Madame Delaunay," he said, "I fear that Colonel Talbot is right, but we shall win it."

      Colonel Talbot said nothing more, nor did Madame Delaunay. Presently she went back into the house. After a long silence the colonel said:

      "If I were not sure that our friend Shepard had left Charleston long since, I should say that the figure now passing in the street is his."

      A small lawn filled with shrubbery stretched before the house, but from the piazza they could see into the street. Harry, too, caught a glimpse of a passing figure, and like the colonel he was sure that it was Shepard.

      "It is certainly he!" he exclaimed.

      "After him!" cried Colonel Talbot, instantly all action. "As sure as we live that man is a spy, drawing maps of our fortifications, and I should have warned the Government before."

      The four sprang from the piazza and ran into the street. Harry, although he had originally felt no desire to seize Shepard, was carried along by the impetus. It was the first man-hunt in which he had ever shared, and soon he caught the thrill from the others. The colonel, no doubt, was right. Shepard was a spy and should be taken. He ran as fast as any of them.

      Shepard, if Shepard it was, heard the swift footsteps behind him, glanced back and then ran.

      "After him!" cried Major St. Hilaire, his volatile blood leaping high. "His flight shows that he's a spy!"

      But the fugitive was a man of strength and resource. He ran swiftly into a cross street, and when they followed him there he leaped over the low fence of a lawn, surrounding a great house, darted into the shrubbery, and the four, although they were joined by others, brought by the alarm, sought for him in vain.

      "After all, I'm not sorry he got away," said Colonel Talbot, as they walked back to Madame Delaunay's. "There is no war, and hence, in a military sense, there can be no spies. I doubt whether we should have known what to do with him had we caught him, but I am certain that he has complete maps of all our defenses."

      Harry, with Arthur and many others whom he knew, started the next day for Montgomery. Jefferson Davis had already been chosen President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President, and Davis was on his way from his Mississippi home to the same town to be inaugurated. In the excitement over the great event, so near at hand, Harry forgot all about Shepard and his doubts. He bade a regretful farewell to Charleston, which had taken him to its heart, and turned his face to this new place, much smaller, and, as yet, without fame.

      Harry, Arthur, and their older friends began the momentous journey across the land of King Cotton, passing through the very heart of the lower South, as they went from Charleston to Montgomery. Davis and Stephens would be inaugurated on the 17th of that month, which was February. But the Palmetto Guards would arrive at Montgomery before Davis himself, who had left his home and who would cross Mississippi, Alabama, and a corner of Georgia before he reached the new capital to receive the chief honor.

      Trains were slow and halting, and Harry had ample opportunity to see the land and the people who crowded to the stations to bring news or to hear it. He crossed a low, rolling country with many rivers, great and small. He saw large houses, with white-pillared porticos, sitting back among the trees, and swarms of negro cabins. Much of the region was yet dead and brown from the touch of winter, but in the valleys the green was appearing. Spring was in the air, and the spirits of the Palmetto Guards, nearly all of whom were very young, were rising with it.