_ CHAPTER LVI. FIRE AND SWORD
The year the war began dates also, for New Orleans, the advent of two better things: street-cars and the fire-alarm telegraph. The frantic incoherence of the old alarum gave way to the few solemn, numbered strokes that called to duty in the face of hot danger, like the electric voice of a calm commander. The same new system also silenced, once for all, the old nine-o'clock gun. For there were not only taps to signify each new fire-district,--one for the first, two for the second, three, four, five, six seven, eight, and nine,--but there was also one lone toll at mid-day for the hungry mechanic, and nine at the evening hour when the tired workman called his children in from the street and turned to his couch, and the slave must show cause in a master's handwriting why he or she was not under that master's roof.
And then there was one signal more. Fire is a dreadful thing, and all the alarm signals were for fire except this one. Yet the profoundest wish of every good man and tender women in New Orleans, when this pleasing novelty of electro-magnetic warnings was first published for the common edification, was that mid-day or midnight, midsummer or midwinter, let come what might of danger or loss or distress, that one particular signal might not sound. Twelve taps. Anything but that.
Dr. Sevier and Richling had that wish together. They had many wishes that were greatly at variance the one's from the other's. The Doctor had struggled for the Union until the very smoke of war began to rise into the sky; but then he "went with the South." He was the only one in New Orleans who knew--whatever some others may have suspected--that Richling's heart was on the other side. Had Richling's bodily strength remained, so that he could have been a possible factor, however small, in the strife, it is hard to say whether they could have been together day by day and night by night, as they came to be when the Doctor took the failing man into his own home, and have lived in amity, as they did. But there is this to be counted; they were both, though from different directions, for peace, and their gentle forbearance toward each other taught them a moderation of sentiment concerning the whole great issue. And, as I say, they both together held the one longing hope that, whatever war should bring of final gladness or lamentation, the steeples of New Orleans might never toll--twelve.
But one bright Thursday April morning, as Richling was sitting, half dressed, by an open window of his room in Dr. Sevier's house, leaning on the arm of his soft chair and looking out at the passers on the street, among whom he had begun to notice some singular evidences of excitement, there came from a slender Gothic church-spire that was highest of all in the city, just beyond a few roofs in front of him, the clear, sudden, brazen peal of its one great bell.
"Fire," thought Richling; and yet, he knew not why, wondered where Dr. Sevier might be. He had not seen him that morning. A high official had sent for him at sunrise and he had not returned.
"Clang," went the bell again, and the softer ding--dang--dong of others, struck at the same instant, came floating in from various distances. And then it clanged again--and again--and again--the loud one near, the soft ones, one by one, after it--six, seven, eight, nine--ah! stop there! stop there! But still the alarm pealed on; ten--alas! alas!--eleven--oh, oh, the women and children!--twelve! And then the fainter, final asseverations of the more distant bells--twelve! twelve! twelve!--and a hundred and seventy thousand souls knew by that sign that the foe had passed the forts. New Orleans had fallen.
Richling dressed himself hurriedly and went out. Everywhere drums were beating to arms. Couriers and aides-de-camp were galloping here and there. Men in uniform were hurrying on foot to this and that rendezvous. Crowds of the idle and poor were streaming out toward the levee. Carriages and cabs rattled frantically from place to place; men ran out-of-doors and leaped into them and leaped out of them and sprang up stair-ways; hundreds of all manner of vehicles, fit and unfit to carry passengers and goods, crowded toward the railroad depots and steam-boat landings; women ran into the streets wringing their hands and holding their brows; and children stood in the door-ways and gate-ways and trembled and called and cried.
Richling took the new Dauphine street-car. Far down in the Third district, where there was a silence like that of a village lane, he approached a little cottage painted with Venetian red, setting in its garden of oranges, pomegranates, and bananas, and marigolds, and coxcombs behind its white paling fence and green gate.
The gate was open. In it stood a tall, strong woman, good-looking, rosy, and neatly dressed. That she was tall you could prove by the gate, and that she was strong, by the graceful muscularity with which she held two infants,--pretty, swarthy little fellows, with joyous black eyes, and evidently of one age and parentage,--each in the hollow of a fine, round arm. There was just a hint of emotional disorder in her shining hair and a trace of tears about her eyes. As the visitor drew near, a fresh show of distressed exaltation was visible in the slight play of her form.
"Ah! Mr. Richlin'," she cried, the moment he came within hearing, "'the dispot's heels is on our shores!'" Tears filled her eyes again. Mike, the bruiser, in his sixth year, who had been leaning backward against her knees and covering his legs with her skirts, ran forward and clasped the visitor's lower limbs with the nerve and intention of a wrestler. Kate followed with the cherubs. They were Raphael's.
"Yes, it's terrible," said Richling.
"Ah! no, Mr. Richlin'," replied Kate, lifting her head proudly as she returned with him toward the gate, "it's outrageouz; but it's not terrible. At least it's not for me, Mr. Richlin'. I'm only Mrs. Captain Ristofalah; and whin I see the collonels' and gin'r'ls' ladies a-prancin' around in their carridges I feel my _humility_; but it's my djuty to be _brave_, sur! An' I'll help to _fight_ thim, sur, if the min can't do ud. Mr. Richlin', my husband is the intimit frind of Gin'r'l Garrybaldy, sur! I'll help to burrin the cittee, sur!--rather nor give ud up to thim vandjals! Come in, Mr. Richlin'; come in." She led the way up the narrow shell-walk. "Come 'n, sur, it may be the last time ye' do ud before the flames is leppin' from the roof! Ah! I knowed ye'd come. I was a-lookin' for ye. I knowed _ye'd_ prove yerself that frind in need that he's the frind indeed! Take a seat an' sit down." She faced about on the vine-covered porch, and dropped into a rocking-chair, her eyes still at the point of overflow. "But ah! Mr. Richlin', where's all thim flatterers that fawned around uz in the days of tytled prosperity?"
Richling said nothing; he had not seen any throngs of that sort.
"Gone, sur! and it's a relief; it's a relief, Mr. Richlin'!" She marshalled the twins on her lap, Carlo commanding the right, Francisco the left.
"You mustn't expect too much of them," said Richling, drawing Mike between his knees, "in such a time of alarm and confusion as this." And Kate responded generously:--
"Well, I suppose you're right, sur."
"I've come down," resumed the visitor, letting Mike count off "Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief," on the buttons of his coat, "to give you any help I can in getting ready to leave town. For you mustn't think of staying. It isn't possible to be anything short of dreadful to stay in a city occupied by hostile troops. It's almost certain the Confederates will try to hold the city, and there may be a bombardment. The city may be taken and retaken half-a-dozen times before the war is over."
"Mr. Richlin'," said Kate, with a majestic lifting of the hand, "I'll nivver rin away from the Yanks."
"No, but you must _go_ away from them. You mustn't put yourself in such a position that you can't go to your husband if he needs you, Mrs. Ristofalo; don't get separated from him."
"Ah! Mr. Richlin', it's you as has the right to say so; and I'll do as you say. Mr. Richlin', my husband"--her voice trembled--"may be wounded this hour. I'll go, sur, indeed I will; but, sur, if Captain Raphael Ristofalah wor _here_, sur, he'd be ad the _front_, sur, and Kate Ristofalah would be at his galliant side!"
"Well, then, I'm glad he's not here," rejoined Richling, "for I'd have to take care of the children."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Kate. "No, sur! I'd take the lion's whelps with me, sur! Why, that little Mike theyre can han'le the dthrum-sticks to beat the felley in the big hat!" And she laughed again.
They made arrangements for her and the three children to go "out into the confederacy" within two or three days at furthest; as soon as she and her feeble helper could hurry a few matters of business to completion at and about the Picayune Tier. Richling did not get back to the Doctor's house until night had fallen and the sky was set aglare by seven miles' length of tortuous harbor front covered with millions' worth of burning merchandise. The city was being evacuated.
Dr. Sevier and he had but few words. Richling was dejected from weariness, and his friend weary with dejections.
"Where have you been all day?" asked the Doctor, with a touch of irritation.
"Getting Kate Ristofalo ready to leave the city."
"You shouldn't have left the house; but it's no use to tell you anything. Has she gone?"
"No."
"Well, in the name of common-sense, then, when is she going?"
"In two or three days," replied Richling, almost in retort.
The Doctor laughed with impatience.
"If you feel responsible for her going get her off by to-morrow afternoon at the furthest." He dropped his tired head against the back of his chair.
"Why," said Richling, "I don't suppose the fleet can fight its way through all opposition and get here short of a week."
The Doctor laid his long fingers upon his brow and rolled his head from side to side. Then, slowly raising it:--
"Well, Richling!" he said, "there must have been some mistake made when you was put upon the earth."
Richling's thin cheek flushed. The Doctor's face confessed the bitterest resentment.
"Why, the fleet is only eighteen miles from here now." He ceased, and then added, with sudden kindness of tone, "I want you to do something for me, will you?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, go to bed; I'm going. You'll need every grain of strength you've got for to-morrow. I'm afraid then it will not be enough. This is an awful business, Richling."
They went upstairs together. As they were parting at its top Richling said:--
"You told me a few days ago that if the city should fall, which we didn't expect"--
"That I'd not leave," said the Doctor. "No; I shall stay. I haven't the stamina to take the field, and I can't be a runaway. Anyhow, I couldn't take you along. You couldn't bear the travel, and I wouldn't go and leave you here, Richling--old fellow!"
He laid his hand gently on the sick man's shoulder, who made no response, so afraid was he that another word would mar the perfection of the last.
When Richling went out the next morning the whole city was in an ecstasy of rage and terror. Thousands had gathered what they could in their hands, and were flying by every avenue of escape. Thousands ran hither and thither, not knowing where or how to fly. He saw the wife and son of the silver-haired banker rattling and bouncing away toward one of the railway depots in a butcher's cart. A messenger from Kate by good chance met him with word that she would be ready for the afternoon train of the Jackson Railroad, and asking anew his earliest attention to her interests about the lugger landing.
He hastened to the levee. The huge, writhing river, risen up above the town, was full to the levee's top, and, as though the enemy's fleet was that much more than it could bear, was silently running over by a hundred rills into the streets of the stricken city.
As far as the eye could reach, black smoke, white smoke, brown smoke, and red flames rolled and spread, and licked and leaped, from unnumbered piles of cotton bales, and wooden wharves, and ships cut adrift, and steam-boats that blazed like shavings, floating down the harbor as they blazed. He stood for a moment to see a little revenue cutter,--a pretty topsail schooner,--lying at the foot of Canal street, sink before his eyes into the turbid yellow depths of the river, scuttled. Then he hurried on. Huge mobs ran to and fro in the fire and smoke, howling, breaking, and stealing. Women and children hurried back and forth like swarms of giant ants, with buckets and baskets, and dippers and bags, and bonnets, hats, petticoats, anything,--now empty, and now full of rice and sugar and meal and corn and syrup,--and robbed each other, and cursed and fought, and slipped down in pools of molasses, and threw live pigs and coops of chickens into the river, and with one voiceless rush left the broad levee a smoking, crackling desert, when some shells exploded on a burning gunboat, and presently were back again like a flock of evil birds.
It began to rain, but Richling sought no shelter. The men he was in search of were not to be found. But the victorious ships, with bare black arms stretched wide, boarding nettings up, and the dark muzzles of their guns bristling from their sides, came, silently as a nightmare, slowly around the bend at Slaughterhouse Point and moved up the middle of the harbor. At the French market he found himself, without forewarning, witness of a sudden skirmish between some Gascon and Sicilian market-men, who had waved a welcome to the fleet, and some Texan soldiers who resented the treason. The report of a musket rang out, a second and third reechoed it, a pistol cracked, and another, and another; there was a rush for cover; another shot, and another, resounded in the market-house, and presently in the street beyond. Then, in a moment, all was silence and emptiness, into which there ventured but a single stooping, peeping Sicilian, glancing this way and that, with his finger on trigger, eager to kill, gliding from cover to cover, and presently gone again from view, leaving no human life visible nearer than the swarming mob that Richling, by mounting a pile of ship's ballast, could see still on the steam-boat landing, pillaging in the drenching rain, and the long fleet casting anchor before the town in line of battle.
Late that afternoon Richling, still wet to the skin, amid pushing and yelling and the piping calls of distracted women and children, and scuffling and cramming in, got Kate Ristofalo, trunks, baskets, and babes, safely off on the cars. And when, one week from that day, the sound of drums, that had been hushed for a while, fell upon his ear again,--no longer the jaunty rataplan of Dixie's drums, but the heavy, monotonous roar of the conqueror's at the head of his dark-blue columns,--Richling could not leave his bed.
Dr. Sevier sat by him and bore the sound in silence. As it died away and ceased, Richling said:--
"May I write to Mary?"
Then the Doctor had a hard task.
"I wrote for her yesterday," he said. "But, Richling, I--don't think she'll get the letter."
"Do you think she has already started?" asked the sick man, with glad eagerness.
"Richling, I did the best I knew how"--
"Whatever you did was all right, Doctor."
"I wrote to her months ago, by the hand of Ristofalo. He knows she got the letter. I'm afraid she's somewhere in the Confederacy, trying to get through. I meant it for the best, my dear boy."
"It's all right, Doctor," said the invalid; but the physician could see the cruel fact slowly grind him.
"Doctor, may I ask one favor?"
"One or a hundred, Richling."
"I want you to let Madame Zenobie come and nurse me."
"Why, Richling, can't I nurse you well enough?"
The Doctor was jealous.
"Yes," answered the sick man. "But I'll need a good deal of attention. She wants to do it. She was here yesterday, you knew. She wanted to ask you, but was afraid."
His wish was granted. _