Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/476

 The Last Raid. 475

moonlight he saw that one stood sentry at the front door. Following their example, he made a detour, and entered from the rear.

" Surrender !" he cried. But before the poor wretch had time to speak, he was ushered into eternity:

"Unshrived, unhouseled, unannalled."

Passing swiftly to the inner room, the Confederate officer found John Miller in bed, the woman of the house bending over him with a bottle of camphor, or spirits of some kind, in her hand. He had heard the report and was struggling violently to rise. But it was too late. In another moment his soul had sped to join those of his com- panions in evil-doing, and an untold list of atrocities and cruelties was at last avenged.

Within two hours, I held in my hand the little morocco purse, which I had not even missed. The tiny flag was still there; the sil- ver sixpence gone! The sides of the purse had been burst open as if too tightly packed. Some of old Mrs. DeG.'s gold had no doubt filled it; but it, too, had disappeared.

The gallant Captain offered me the huge revolvers, one of which had presented its cold muzzle to my head. Shudderingly, I refused. They were stained with human blood associated with nameless crimes.

When I went to my room that night it was not to sleep. In the flickering fire-light, which did duty as lamps and candles in those make-shift days, I lived again, over and over a hundred times, the fearful experiences of that brief afternoon. Not until then, in the silence and loneliness of midnight, did I realize the unutterable peril with which I had been threatened. As the ghostly shadows danced over the wall, I seemed to see the athletic, frame looming up out of the darkness, the fierce fair face, pallid, yet lit up with a baleful glare, staring at me till I was turned to stone. For weeks and months this fearful vision filled my waking hours as it did my dreams ; and not even the distance of twenty years has dimmed a memory so fraught with horror. No wonder that under the pressure of scenes like these many lost reason and some life itself.

The excitement and fright of this time speedily brought a fatal termination to the disease of poor old Mrs. DeGe. She had long been threatened with a heart trouble; and a few days later fell from her chair unconscious, and died within twenty-four hours.

For weeks Captain C. was compelled to keep himself perdu. The neighborhood was filled with Kilpatrick's men, seeking to take re-