Chapter X. The Great Assault - Page 2

gave a warm greeting to his uncle and elderly cousin, and nodded to Slade. Dick believed from his gesture that he did not like the guerilla leader, or at least he hoped so.

"Victor," said the colonel, "what word do you bring?"

"Grant is advancing his batteries, and they seem to be massing for attack. It will surely come in a day or two."

"As I thought. Then we shall need all our energies for immediate battle. And now, Mr. Slade, as I said before, I will see you again to-morrow about the matter of which we were speaking. I am old, wounded, and I grow weary. I would rest."

Slade rose to go. He was not a pleasant sight. His clothes were soiled and stained, and his face was covered with ragged beard. The eyes were full of venom and malice.

"Good day, Colonel Woodville," he said, "but I feel that I must bring the matter up again. As a scout and leader of irregulars for the Confederacy. I must be active in order to cope with the enemy's own scouts and spies. I shall return early to-morrow morning."

Colonel Woodville waved his hand and Slade, bowing, withdrew.

"Why was he so persistent, Uncle Charles?" asked Victor. "He seemed to have some underlying motive."

"He always has such a motive, Victor. He is a man who suspects everybody because he knows everybody has a right to suspect him. He may even have been suspecting me, his old, and, I fear, too generous employer. He has a mania about a spy hidden somewhere in Vicksburg."

Young Victor Woodville laughed gayly.

"What folly," he said, "for your old overseer, a man of Northern origin to boot, to suspect you, of all men, of helping a Yankee in any way. Why, Uncle Charles, everybody knows that you'd annihilate 'em if you could, and that you were making good progress with the task until you got that wound."

Colonel Woodville drew his great, white eyebrows together in his characteristic way.

"I admit, Victor, that I'm the prince of Yankee haters," he said. "They've ruined me, and if they succeed they'll ruin our state and the whole South, too. We've fled for refuge to a hole in the ground, and yet they come thundering at the door of so poor an abode. Listen!"

They heard plainly the far rumble of the cannon. The intensity of the fire increased with the growing day. Shells and bombs were falling rapidly on Vicksburg. The face of Colonel Woodville darkened and the eyes under the white thatch burned.

"Nevertheless, Victor," he said, "hate the Yankees as I do, and I hate them with all my heart and soul, there are some things a gentleman cannot do."

"What for instance, Uncle?"

"He cannot break faith. He cannot do evil to those who have done good to him. He must repay benefits with