edly over the
cobblestones below. A rooster crowed for day.

She looked across the way, and a dark group of whispering women were
huddled in a corner on the roof, their gaze fixed on Sumter.

Another wagon rumbled heavily over the cobbles, and another, and
another. A blue light flamed from Fort Sumter, blinking at intervals.
Anderson was signaling someone. To the fleet that lay on the eastern
horizon beyond the bar, perhaps.

The chimes of St. Michael struck the fatal hour of four. Their sweet
notes rang clear and soft and musical over the dim housetops just as
they had sung to the sleeping world through years of joyous peace.

Jennie sprang to her feet and strained her eyes toward the black lump
that was Sumter out in the harbor. She waited with quick beating heart
for the first flash of red from the shore batteries. It did not come.
Five minutes passed that seemed an hour, and still no sound of war.

Only those wagons were rumbling now at closer intervals--one after the
other in quick succession. They were ammunition trains! The crack of the
drivers' whips could be heard distinctly, and the cries of the men
urging their horses on. The noise became at last a dull, continuous
roar.

The chimes from the old church tower again sang the half hour and then
it came--_a sudden sword leap of red flame on the horizon_! A shell rose
in the sky, glowing in pale phosphorescent trail, and burst in a flash
of blinding flame over the dark lump in the harbor. The flash had
illumined the waters and revealed the clear outlines of the casemates
with their black mouths of steel gaping through the portholes. A roar of
deep, dull thunder shook the world.

Jennie fell on her knees with clasped hands and upturned face. Her lips
were not moving, and no sound came from the little dry throat, but from
the depths of her heart rose the old, old cry of love.

"Lord have mercy on my darling brothers, and keep them safe--let no harm
come to them--and Dick, too--brave and strong!"

The house below was stirring with the rush of hurrying feet in the
corridors and the clatter on the narrow stairs that led to the roof.
They crowded to the edge and gazed seaward. The hum of voices came now
from every house. Women were crying. Some were praying. Men were talking
in low, excited tones.

Jennie paid no attention to the people about her. Her eyes were fixed
on those tongues of flame that circled Sumter.

Anderson was firing now, his big guns flash