I passed out the side door into the next room, which would bring
me nearer the back stairs, believing I would thus be less exposed to
Major Hardy's observation. I glanced out first, and saw him beside the
front window at the opposite end of the hall. He was intent upon the
battle, the noise of which was deafening. The firing was so continuous
and so near at hand--the very house shaking--that I almost lost my
nerve. Then I turned my head and looked the other way, and there, back
in the shadows of the ell hallway, in almost exactly the same spot where
I had seen him before, stood one of your soldiers. He had his revolver
out in his hand, and was crouching forward in such a way that his hat
brim almost totally concealed his face, but I knew instinctively that he
was the same man I saw last night. And--and he was watching father."
Her voice broke, and she pressed her hands to her eyes, as though to
blot out the memory, yet her hesitancy was but for an instant.
"I didn't know what to do. If I cried out, or made any alarm, I was
afraid he would fire. My father was standing unconsciously, his back
toward him, unarmed. I cannot tell you how frightened I was, for,
somehow, the man did not seem real; I--I felt as I have sometimes in
dreams.
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