Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/733

1864.] not cry out for peace, for peace on any terms?

And while these thoughts were in my mind, the cringing, foul-mouthed, brutal, contemptible ruffian who had caused all this misery stood within two paces of me! I could have reached out my hand, and, with half an effort, have crushed him, and—I did not do it! Some invisible Power held my arm, for murder was in my heart.

"This is where that Yankee devil Streight, that raised hell so among you down in Georgia, got out," said Turner, pausing before a jut in the wall of the room. "A flue was here, you see, but we've bricked it up. They took up the hearth, let themselves down into the basement, and then dug through the wall, and eighty feet underground into the yard of a deserted building over the way. If you'd like to see the place, step down with me."

"We would, Major. We'd be right glad ter," I replied, adopting, at a hint from the Judge, the Georgia dialect.

We descended a rough plank stairway, and entered the basement. It was a damp, mouldy, dismal place, and even then—in hot July weather—as cold as an ice-house. What must it have been in midwinter!

The keeper led us along the wall to where Streight and his party had broken out, and then said,—

"It's three feet thick, but they went through it, and all the way under the street, with only a few case-knives and a dust-pan."

"Wal, they war smart. But, keeper, whar' wus yer eyes all o' thet time? Down our way, ef a man couldn't see twenty Yankees a-wuckin' so fur six weeks, by daylight, in a clar place like this yere, we'd reckon he warn't fit ter 'tend a pen o' niggers."

The Judge whispered, "You're overdoing it. Hold in." Turner winced like a struck hound, but, smothering his wrath, smilingly replied,—

"The place wasn't clear then. It was filled with straw and rubbish. The Yankees covered the opening with it, and hid away among it when any one was coming. I caught two of them down here one day, but they pulled the wool over my eyes, and I let them off with a few days in a dungeon. But that fellow Streight would outwit the Devil. He was the most unruly customer I've had in the twenty months I've been here. I put him in keep, time and again, but I never could cool him down."

"Whar' is the keeps?" I asked. "Ye's got lots o' them, ha'n't ye?"

"No,—only six. Step this way, and I'll show you."

"Talk better English," said the Judge, as we fell a few paces behind Turner on our way to the front of the building. "There are some schoolmasters in Georgia."

"Wal, thar' ha'n't,—not in the part I come from."

The dungeons were low, close, dismal apartments, about twelve feet square, boarded off from the remainder of the cellar, and lighted only by a narrow grating under the sidewalk. Their floors were incrusted with filth, and their walls stained and damp with the rain, which, in wet weather, had dripped down from the street.

"And how many does ye commonly lodge yere, when yer hotel's full?" I asked.

"I have had twenty in each, but fifteen is about as many as they comfortably hold."

"I reckon! And then the comfut moughtn't be much ter brag on."

The keeper soon invited us to walk into the adjoining basement. I was a few steps in advance of him, taking a straight course to the entrance, when a sentinel, pacing to and fro in the middle of the apartment, levelled his musket so as to bar my way, saying, as he did so,—

"Ye carn't pass yere, Sir. Ye must gwo round by the wall."

This drew my attention to the spot, and I noticed that a space, about fifteen feet square, in the centre of the room, and