All turned their eyes swiftly toward the head of the stairs. There had
appeared there a youth in a grey uniform. He stood looking coolly down
at them. No word was said by the troopers. The girl gave vent to a
little wail of desolation, "O Harry!"
He began slowly to descend the stairs. His right arm was in a white
sling, and there were some fresh blood-stains upon the cloth. His face
was rigid and deathly pale, but his eyes flashed like lights. The girl
was again moaning in an utterly dreary fashion, as the youth came
slowly down toward the silent men in blue.
Six steps from the bottom of the flight he halted and said: "I reckon
it's me you're looking for."
The troopers had crowded forward a trifle and, posed in lithe, nervous
attitudes, were watching him like cats. The captain remained unmoved.
At the youth's question he merely nodded his head and said, "Yes."
The young man in grey looked down at the girl, and then, in the same
even tone which now, however, seemed to vibrate with suppressed fury,
he said: "And is that any reason why you should insult my sister?"
At this sentence, the girl intervened, desperately, between the young
man in grey and the officer in blue. "Oh, don't, Harry, don't! He was
good to me! He was good to me, Harry--indeed he was!"
The youth came on in his quiet, erect fashion, until the girl could
have touched either of the men with her hand, for the captain still
remained with his foot upon the first step. She continually repeated:
"O Harry! O Harry!"
The youth in grey manoeuvred to glare into the captain's face, first
over one shoulder of the girl and then over the other. In a voice that
rang like metal, he said: "You are armed and unwounded, while I have no
weapons and am wounded; but--"
The captain had stepped back and sheathed his sabre. The eyes of these
two men were gleaming fire, but otherwise the captain's countenance was
imperturbable. He said: "You are mistaken. You have no reason to--"
"You lie!"
All save the captain and the youth in grey started in an electric
movement. These two words crackled in the air like shattered glass.
There was a breathless silence.
The captain cleared his throat. His look at the youth contained a
quality of singular and terrible ferocity, but he said in his stolid
tone: "I don't suppose you mean what you say now."
Upon his arm he had felt the pressure of some unconscious little
fingers. The girl was leaning against the wall as if she no longer knew
how to keep her balance, but those fingers--he held his arm very still.
She murmured: "O Harry, don't! He was good to me--indeed he was!"
The corporal had come forward until he in a measure confronted the
youth in grey, for he saw those fingers upon the captain's arm, and he
knew that sometimes very strong men were not able to move hand nor foot
under such conditions.
The youth had suddenly seemed to become weak. He breathed heavily and
clung to the rail. He was glaring at the captain, and apparently
summoning all his will power to combat his weakness. The corporal
addressed him with profound straightforwardness: "Don't you be a derned
fool!" The youth turned toward him so fiercely that the corporal threw
up a knee and an elbow like a boy who expects to be cuffed.
The girl pleaded with the captain. "You won't hurt him, will you? He
don't know what he's saying. He's wounded, you know. Please don't mind
him!"
"I won't touch him," said the captain, with rather extraordinary
earnestness; "don't you worry about him at all. I won't touch him!"
Then he looked at her, and the girl suddenly withdrew her fingers from
his arm.
The corporal contemplated the top of the stairs, and remarked without
surprise: "There's another of 'em coming!"
An old man was clambering down the stairs with much speed. He waved a
cane wildly. "Get out of my house, you thieves! Get out! I won't have
you cross my threshold! Get out!" He mumbled and wagged his head in an
old man's fury. It was plainly his intention to assault them.
And so it occurred that a young girl became engaged in protecting a
stalwart captain, fully armed, and with eight grim troopers at his
back, from the attack of an old man with a walking-stick!
A blush passed over the temples and brow of the captain, and he looked
particularly savage and weary. Despite the girl's efforts, he suddenly
faced the old man.
"Look here," he said distinctly, "we came in because we had been
fighting in the woods yonder, and we concluded that some of the enemy
were in this house, especially when we saw a grey sleeve at the window.
But this young man is wounded, and I have nothing to say to him. I will
even take it for granted that there are no others like him upstairs. We
will go away, leaving your d---d old house just as we found it! And we
are no more thieves and rascals than you are!"
The old man simply roared: "I haven't got a cow nor a pig nor a chicken
on the place! Your soldiers have stolen everything they could carry
away. They have torn down half my fences for firewood. This afternoon
some of your accursed bullets even broke my window panes!"