So deep indeed was my agitation, so intense my thought, that I scarcely realized I was creeping along barely beneath the dead line of those bullets which constantly swept the apartment. Their crashing into the wall was almost meaningless, and I barely noted either the dense smoke or the fitful flashes of flame as the little garrison returned shot for shot. It was Brennan's voice--how hateful it sounded then--which recalled my attention.
"Mapes," he said, with the sharp tone of wearied command, "take a crack at that fellow over yonder by the big tree; he must be in range. You men, I verily believe, shut your eyes when you shoot, for there hasn't a man dropped out there in the last half hour."
I had reached the door by this time, but paused now, determined to venture one word of expostulation at his recklessness.
"Major Brennan," I said, speaking sufficiently loud to be audible above the uproar, "do you not think they will attempt to charge the house?"
"Not while we keep up this fire," he returned coldly, evidently recognizing my voice.
"I grant that, at least while darkness lasts. But you have just complained that your men were doing but small execution, and is there not danger of exhausting our stock of ammunition by such a useless fusillade?"
"It will last until our fellows get here--that is, if your man was ever really sent for aid, as you say."
There was a thinly veiled sneer in the words as he spoke them, but I curbed my temper.
"Well, in my judgment, sir,--and I tell it you because I deem it a duty,--" I retorted plainly, "you are making a grave mistake which you may realize when it becomes too late to rectify it. Possibly I have no right to criticise one who is technically in command; yet I am serving as a volunteer, and the conditions are peculiar. I not only remember the scene witnessed by me in the lines out yonder, but also recall the fact that we are here to fulfil a sacred duty--the defence of helpless women from outrage. A fatal mistake upon our part would be horrible."
"Your deep interest in the welfare of the ladies is purely chivalric, I presume?"
"It is merely the interest a true soldier must always feel," I responded, determined not to be goaded into quarrel. "I have neither wife nor sister, but I have a mother."