The Lions of the Lord | Page 5

to gasp, though thickly and with pain, as they still strove:
"Seth Wright--wait--let go--wait, Seth--I'm Joel--Joel Rae!"
He managed it with difficulty.
"Joel Rae--Rae--Rae--don't you see?"
He felt the other's tension relax. With many a panting, puffing "Hey!" and "What's that now?" he was loosed, and drew himself up into a chair by the saving window. His assailant, a hale, genial-faced man of forty, sat on the floor where the revelation of his victim's identity had overtaken him. He was breathing hard and feeling tenderly of his neck. This was ruffled ornamentally by a style of whisker much in vogue at the time. It had proved, however, but an inferior defense against the onslaught of the younger man in his frantic efforts to save his own neck.
They looked at each other in panting amazement, until the older man recovered his breath, and spoke:
"Gosh and all beeswax! The Wild Ram of the Mountains a-settin' on the Lute of the Holy Ghost's stomach a-chokin' him to death. My sakes! I'm a-pantin' like a tuckered hound--a-thinkin' he was a cussed milishy mobocrat come to spoil his household!"
The younger man was now able to speak, albeit his breathing was still heavy and the marks of the struggle plain upon him.
"What does it mean, Brother Wright--all this? Where are the Saints we left here--why is the city deserted--and why this--this?"
He shook back the thick, brown hair that fell to his shoulders, tenderly rubbed the livid fingerprints at his throat, and readjusted the collar of his blue flannel shirt.
"Thought you was a milishy man, I tell you, from the careless way you hollered--one of Brockman's devils come back a-snoopin', and I didn't crave trouble, but when I saw the Lord appeared to reely want me to cope with the powers of darkness, why, I jest gritted into you for the consolation of Israel. You'd 'a' got your come-uppance, too, if you'd 'a' been a mobber. You was nigh a-ceasin' to breathe, Joel Rae. In another minute I wouldn't 'a' give the ashes of a rye-straw for your part in the tree of life!"
"Yes, yes, man, but go back a little. Where are our people, the sick, the old, and the poor, that we had to leave till now? Tell me, quick."
The older man sprang up, the late struggle driven from his mind, his face scowling. He turned upon his questioner.
"Does my fury swell up in me? No wonder! And you hain't guessed why? Well, them pitiful remnant of Saints, the sick, the old, the poor, waitin' to be helped yender to winter quarters, has been throwed out into that there slough acrost the river, six hundred and forty of 'em."
"When we were keeping faith by going?"
"What does a mobocrat care for faith-keepin'? Have you brought back the wagons?"
"Yes; they'll reach the other side to-night. I came ahead and made the lower crossing. I've seen nothing and heard nothing. Go on--tell me--talk, man!"
"Talk?--yes, I'll talk! We've had mobs and the very scum of hell to boil over here. This is Saturday, the 19th, ain't it? Well, Brockman marched against this stronghold of Israel jest a week ago, with eight hundred men. They had cannons and demanded surrender. We was a scant two hundred fightin' men, and the only artillery we had was what we made ourselves. We broke up an old steamboat shaft and bored out the pieces so's they'd take a six-pound shot--but we wasn't goin' to give up. We'd learned our lesson about mobocrat milishies. Well, Brockman, when he got our defy, sent out his Warsaw riflemen as flankers on the right and left, put the Lima Guards to our front with one cannon, and marched his main body through that corn-field and orchard to the south of here to the city lines. Then we had it hot. Brockman shot away all his cannon-balls--he had sixty-one--and drew back while he sent to Quincy for more. He'd killed three of our men. Sunday and Monday we swopped a few shots. And then Tuesday, along comes a committee of a hundred to negotiate peace. Well, Wednesday evening they signed terms, spite of all I could do. _I'd_ 'a' fought till the white crows come a-cawin', but the rest of 'em wasn't so het up with the Holy Ghost, I reckon. Anyway, they signed. The terms wasn't reely set till Thursday morning, but we knew they would be, and so all Wednesday night we was movin' acrost the river, and it kept up all next day,--day before yesterday. You'd ought to 'a' been here then; you wouldn't wonder at my comin' down on you like a thousand of brick jest now, takin' you for a mobocrat. You'd 'a' seen families druv right out of their homes, with no horses, tents, money, nor a day's provisions,--jest a little foolish household stuff they could