The Rock of Chickamauga | Page 8

had gone through most of the rooms at their arrival and he still
retained a clear idea of the interior of the house. He knew that there was
another door on the far side of the chamber in which he stood, and he

meant to follow the wall until he reached it. Some one had been in the
room with him and Dick believed that he was leaving by the far door.
While he heard no further footsteps he felt a sudden light draught on
his face and he knew that the door had been opened and shut. He might
go to Colonel Winchester and tell him that a lurking spy or somebody
of that character was in the house, but what good would it do? A spy at
such a time and in such a place could not harm them, and the whole
regiment would be disturbed for nothing. He would follow the chase
alone.
He found the door and passed into the next room. Its windows opened
upon the southern piazza and two or three shutters were thrown back. A
faint light entered and Dick saw that no one was there but himself. He
could discern the dim figures of the soldiers sleeping on the piazza and
beyond a cluster of the small pines grown on lawns.
Dick felt that he had lost the trail for the time, but he did not intend to
give it up. Doubtless the intruder was some one who knew the house
and who was also aware of his presence inside. He also felt that he
would not be fired upon, because the stranger himself would not wish
to bring the soldiers down upon him. So, with a hand upon his pistol
butt, he opened the side door and followed once more into the darkness.
The ghostly chase went on for a full half-hour, Dick having nothing to
serve him save an occasional light footfall. There was one period of
more than half an hour when he lost the fugitive entirely. He wandered
up to the second floor and then back again. There, in a room that had
been the library, he caught a glimpse of the man. But the figure was so
shadowy that he could tell nothing about him.
"Halt!" cried Dick, snatching out his pistol. But when he leveled it
there was nothing to aim at. The figure had melted away, or rather it
had flitted through another door. Dick followed, chagrined. The
stranger seemed to be playing with him. Obviously, it was some one
thoroughly acquainted with the house, and that brought to Dick's mind
the thought that he himself, instead of the other man, was the stranger
there.

He came at last to a passage which led to the kitchen, a great room,
because many people were often guests at Bellevue, and here he
stopped short, while his heart suddenly beat hard. A distinct odor
coming from different points suddenly assailed his nostrils. He had
smelled it too often in the last two years to be mistaken. It was smoke,
and Bellevue had been set on fire in several places.
He inhaled it once or twice and then he saw again the shadowy figure
flitting down to the passage and to a small door that, unnoticed by the
soldiers, opened on the kitchen garden in the rear of the house.
Dick never acted more promptly. Instantly he fired his pistol into the
ceiling, the report roaring in the confined spaces of the house, and then
shouting with all his might: "Fire! Fire! Fire!" as he dashed down the
passage he ran through the little door, which the intruder had left open,
and pursued him in the darkness and rain into the garden. There was a
flash ahead of him and a bullet whistled past his ear, but he merely
increased his speed and raced in the direction of the flash. As he ran he
heard behind him a tremendous uproar, the voices and tread of
hundreds of soldiers, awakened suddenly, and he knew that they would
rush through Bellevue in search of the fires.
But it was Dick's impulse to capture the daring intruder who would
destroy the house over their heads. Built of wood, it would burn so fast,
once the torches were set, that the rain would have little effect upon the
leaping flames, unless measures were taken at once, which he knew
that the regiment would do, under such a capable man as Colonel
Winchester. Meanwhile he was hot in pursuit.
The trail which was not that of footsteps, but of a shadowy figure, ran
between tall and close rows of grapevines so high on wooden
framework that they hid any one who passed. The suspicion that Dick
had held at first was confirmed. This was no