ame a
roar and a yell, and in an instant the opposite side of the square was
black with negroes pouring out from behind the low brick building. With
a howl and a rush they came, but from three sides volley after volley
was poured into them, the white men using their shot guns. The effect
was terrible, and soon the square was cleared of all but the dead and
the wounded. A cessation fell, and Mayo's voice could be heard,
shouting at his men. He saw that to attempt to take the house by storm
was certain death, so to comparative safety behind the house and into a
deep-cut road a little farther back he withdrew his men. He had not
expected so early to find such opposition, and his aim was to crush with
the senseless weight of force, but the shot-guns were too deadly. Now he
was cool and cautious. The fire from the whites was straggling. Suddenly
out from behind the brick building rushed three black giants, torches in
hand, making desperately for the court-house. It was indeed a forlorn
hope, for one by one they fell, the last, so death-defying was he, that
he fell upon the steps and his torch flew from his hand into the hallway
and crackled on the floor. A man reached out to grasp it, but a
shattered arm was drawn back. "Not you, Major!" cried old Parker.
Outward he leaned, grabbing at the torch, but Mayo's guns swept the
hall. And when they drew the old man back, he brought the snapping pine,
but left his life. They laid him out upon the floor, stood for a moment
sadly to view him; and through a hole a bullet zipped and beside him
fell a neighbor.

"Back to your places!" the Major commanded. Now the guns on the opposite
side of the square were silent. "They are lying low and our men can't
reach them," said the Major. "What are they up to now? Preparing for
another charge?"

"Worse than that," said the man who had seen them in the fields. "They
have hoisted that cannon up into the brick building and are going to
poke it through the window. See there! See that big log up-ended? That's
to brace it. From where I lay I saw them just now breaking up an old
stove out in the lot and they are going to load with the fragments. I
killed two of them, but they got the stove away. Listen, don't you hear
them pounding it up?"

"And this house will afford no more protection that so much paper," said
the Major, speaking low. "We have badly planned our defense. We are ill
protected from bullets, and a cannon will blow us into the air." An