She woke hours after with a stifled scream, for her mother was
standing in the door of the room, half dressed, the candle she held
revealing a pale and frightened face, while the words Desire heard
were:
"Quick, get up and dress, or you'll be murdered in bed! An army of
Shayites is in the village."
"Four o'clock in the morning courage," that steadiness of nerve which
is not shaken when, suddenly roused from the relaxation and soft
languor of sleep, one is called to face pressing, deadly, and
undreamed of peril in the weird and chilling hour before dawn, was
described by Napoleon as a most rare quality among soldiers, and such
being the case it is hardly to be looked for among women. With
chattering teeth and random motions, half-distraught with incoherent
terrors, Desire made a hasty, incomplete toilet in the dark of her
freezing bedroom, and ran downstairs. In the living-room she found her
mother and the smaller children with the negro servants and Keziah
Pixley, the white domestic. Downstairs in the cellar her father and
Jonathan were at work burying the silver and other valuables, that
having been the first thought when a fugitive from the tavern where
the rebels had first halted, brought the alarm.
Pages:
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451