[Part 11] "Gone With The Wind" by Margaret Mitchell

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐗𝐗𝐈.

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AFTER SENDING UP MELANIE’S BREAKFAST TRAY, Scarlett dispatched Prissy for Mrs. Meade and sat down with Wade to eat her own breakfast.

But for once she had no appetite.

Between her nervous apprehension over the thought that Melanie’s time was approaching and her unconscious straining to hear the sound of the cannon, she could hardly eat.

Her heart acted very queerly, beating regularly for several minutes and then thumping so loudly and swiftly it almost made her sick at her stomach.

The heavy hominy stuck in her throat like glue and never before had the mixture of parched corn and ground-up yams that passed for coffee been so repulsive.

Without sugar or cream it was bitter as gall, for the sorghum used for “long sweetening” did little to improve the taste.

After one swallow she pushed her cup away.

If for no other reason she hated the Yankees because they kept her from having real coffee with sugar and thick cream in it.

Wade was quieter than usual and did not set up his every-morning complaint against the hominy that he so disliked.

He ate silently the spoonfuls she pushed into his mouth and washed them down with noisily gulped water.

His soft brown eyes followed her every movement, large, round as dollars, a childish bewilderment in them as though her own scarce-hidden fears had been communicated to him.

When he had finished she sent him off to the back yard to play and watched him toddle across the straggling grass to his playhouse with great relief.

She arose and stood irresolutely at the foot of the stairs.

She should go up and sit with Melanie and distract her mind from her coming ordeal but she did not feel equal to it.

Of all days in the world, Melanie had to pick this day to have the baby!

And of all days to talk about dying!

She sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and tried to compose herself, wondering again how yesterday’s battle had gone, wondering how today’s fighting was going.

How strange to have a big battle going on just a few miles away and to know nothing of it!

How strange the quiet of this deserted end of town in contrast with the day of the fighting at Peachtree Creek!

Aunt Pitty’s house was one of the last on the north side of Atlanta and with the fighting somewhere to the far south, there were no reinforcements going by at double-quick, no ambulances and staggering lines of walking wounded coming back.

She wondered if such scenes were being enacted on the south side of town and thanked God she was not there.

If only everyone except the Meades and the Merriwethers had not refugeed from this north end of Peachtree!

It made her feel so forsaken and alone.

She wished fervently that Uncle Peter were with her so he could go down to headquarters and learn the news.

If it wasn’t for Melanie she’d go to town this very minute and learn for herself, but she couldn’t leave until Mrs. Meade arrived.

Mrs. Meade.

Why didn’t she come on?

And where was Prissy?

She rose and went out onto the front porch and looked for them impatiently, but the Meade house was around a shady bend in the street and she could see no one.

After a long while Prissy came into view, alone, idling along as though she had the whole day before her, switching her skirts from side to side and looking over her shoulder to observe the effect.

“You’re as slow as molasses in January,” snapped Scarlett as Prissy opened the gate.

“What did Mrs. Meade say?

How soon will she be over here?”

“She warn’t dar,” said Prissy.

“Where is she?

When will she be home?”

“Well’m,” answered Prissy, dragging out her words pleasurably to give more weight to her message.

“Dey Cookie say Mis Meade done got wud early dis mawnin’ dat young Mist’ Phil done been shot an’ Miss Meade she tuck de cah’ige an’ Ole Talbot an’ Betsy an’ dey done gone ter fotch him home.

Cookie say he bad hurt an’ Miss Meade ain’ gwine ter be studyin’ ’bout comin’ up hyah.”

Scarlett stared at her and had an impulse to shake her.

Negroes were always so proud of being the bearers of evil tidings.

“Well, don’t stand there like a ninny.

Go down to Mrs. Merriwether’s and ask her to come up or send her mammy.

Now, hurry.”

“Dey ain’ dar, Miss Scarlett.

Ah drapped in ter pass time of de day wid Mammy on mah way home.

Dey’s done gone.

House all locked up.

Spec dey’s at de horsepittle.”

“So that’s where you were so long!

Whenever I send you somewhere you go where I tell you and don’t stop to ‘pass any time’ with anybody.

Go—”

She stopped and racked her brain.

Who was left in town among their friends who would be helpful?

There was Mrs. Elsing.

Of course, Mrs. Elsing didn’t like her at all these days but she had always been fond of Melanie.

“Go to Mrs. Elsing’s, and explain everything very carefully and tell her to please come up here.

And, Prissy, listen to me.

Miss Melly’s baby is due and she may need you any minute now.

Now you hurry right straight back.”

“Yas’m,” said Prissy and, turning, sauntered down the walk at snail’s gait.

“Hurry, you slow poke!”

“Yas’m.”

Prissy quickened her gait infinitesimally and Scarlett went back into the house.

She hesitated again before going upstairs to Melanie.

She would have to explain to her just why Mrs. Meade couldn’t come and the knowledge that Phil Meade was badly wounded might upset her.

Well, she’d tell a lie about it.

She entered Melanie’s room and saw that the breakfast tray was untouched.

Melanie lay on her side, her face white.

“Mrs. Meade’s over at the hospital,” said Scarlett.

“But Mrs. Elsing is coming.

Do you feel bad?”

“Not very,” lied Melanie.

“Scarlett, how long did it take Wade to get born?”

“Less than no time,” answered Scarlett with a cheerfulness she was far from feeling.

“I was out in the yard and I didn’t hardly have time to get into the house.

Mammy said it was scandalous—just like one of the darkies.”

“I hope I’ll be like one of the darkies too,” said Melanie, mustering a smile which suddenly disappeared as pain contorted her face.

Scarlett looked down at Melanie’s tiny hips with none too sanguine hopes but said reassuringly: “Oh, it’s not really so bad.”

“Oh, I know it isn’t.

I’m afraid I’m a little coward.

Is—is Mrs. Elsing coming right away?”

“Yes, right away,” said Scarlett.

“I’ll go down and get some fresh water and sponge you off.

It’s so hot today.”

She took as long a time as possible in getting the water, running to the front door every two minutes to see if Prissy were coming.

There was no sign of Prissy so she went back upstairs, sponged Melanie’s perspiring body and combed out her long dark hair.

When an hour had passed she heard scuffing negro feet coming down the street, and looking out of the window, saw Prissy returning slowly, switching herself as before and tossing her head with as many airy affectations as if she had a large and interested audience.

“Some day, I’m going to take a strap to that little wench,” thought Scarlett savagely, hurrying down the stairs to meet her.

“Miss Elsing ober at de horsepittle.

Dey Cookie ’lows a whole lot of wounded sojers come in on de early train.

Cookie fixin’ soup ter tek ober dar.

She say—”

“Never mind what she said,” interrupted Scarlett, her heart sinking.

“Put on a clean apron because I want you to go over to the hospital.

I’m going to give you a note to Dr. Meade, and if he isn’t there, give it to Dr. Jones or any of the other doctors.

And if you don’t hurry back this time, I’ll skin you alive.”

“Yas’m.”

“And ask any of the gentlemen for news of the fighting.

If they don’t know, go by the depot and ask the engineers who brought the wounded in.

Ask if they are fighting at Jonesboro or near there.”

“Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett!”

And sudden fright was in Prissy’s black face.

“De Yankees ain’ at Tara, is dey?”

“I don’t know.

I’m telling you to ask for news.”

“Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett!

Whut’ll dey do ter Maw?”

Prissy began to bawl suddenly, loudly, the sound adding to Scarlett’s own uneasiness.

“Stop bawling!

Miss Melanie will hear you.

Now go change your apron, quick.”

Spurred to speed, Prissy hurried toward the back of the house while Scarlett scratched a hasty note on the margin of Gerald’s last letter to her —the only bit of paper in the house.

As she folded it, so that her note was uppermost, she caught Gerald’s words, “Your mother—typhoid—under no condition—to come home—”

She almost sobbed.

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If it wasn’t for Melanie, she’d start home, right this minute, if she had to walk every step of the way.

Prissy went off at a trot, the letter gripped in her hand, and Scarlett went back upstairs, trying to think of some plausible lie to explain Mrs. Elsing’s failure to appear.

But Melanie asked no questions.

She lay upon her back, her face tranquil and sweet, and the sight of her quieted Scarlett for a while.

She sat down and tried to talk of inconsequential things, but the thoughts of Tara and a possible defeat by the Yankees prodded cruelly.

She thought of Ellen dying and of the Yankees coming into Atlanta, burning everything, killing everybody.

Through it all, the dull far-off thundering persisted, rolling into her ears in waves of fear.

Finally, she could not talk at all and only stared out of the window at the hot still street and the dusty leaves hanging motionless on the trees.

Melanie was silent too, but at intervals her quiet face was wrenched with pain.

She said, after each pain: “It wasn’t very bad, really,” and Scarlett knew she was lying.

She would have preferred a loud scream to silent endurance.

She knew she should feel sorry for Melanie, but somehow she could not muster a spark of sympathy.

Her mind was too torn with her own anguish.

Once she looked sharply at the pain-twisted face and wondered why it should be that she, of all people in the world, should be here with Melanie at this particular time—she who had nothing in common with her, who hated her, who would gladly have seen her dead.

Well, maybe she’d have her wish, and before the day was over too.

A cold superstitious fear swept her at this thought.

It was bad luck to wish that someone were dead, almost as bad luck as to curse someone.

Curses came home to roost, Mammy said.

She hastily prayed that Melanie wouldn’t die and broke into feverish small talk, hardly aware of what she said.

At last, Melanie put a hot hand on her wrist.

“Don’t bother about talking, dear.

I know how worried you are.

I’m so sorry I’m so much trouble.”

Scarlett relapsed into silence but she could not sit still.

What would she do if neither the doctor nor Prissy got there in time?

She walked to the window and looked down the street and came back and sat down again.

Then she rose and looked out of the window on the other side of the room.

An hour went by and then another.

Noon came and the sun was high and hot and not a breath of air stirred the dusty leaves.

Melanie’s pains were harder now.

Her long hair was drenched in sweat and her gown stuck in wet spots to her body.

Scarlett sponged her face in silence but fear was gnawing at her.

God in Heaven, suppose the baby came before the doctor arrived!

What would she do?

She knew less than nothing of midwifery.

This was exactly the emergency she had been dreading for weeks.

She had been counting on Prissy to handle the situation if no doctor should be available.

Prissy knew all about midwifery.

She’d said so time and again.

But where was Prissy?

Why didn’t she come?

Why didn’t the doctor come?

She went to the window and looked again.

She listened hard and suddenly she wondered if it were only her imagination or if the sound of cannon in the distance had died away.

If it were farther away it would mean that the fighting was nearer Jonesboro and that would mean—

At last she saw Prissy coming down the street at a quick trot and she leaned out of the window.

Prissy, looking up, saw her and her mouth opened to yell.

Seeing the panic written on the little black face and fearing she might alarm Melanie by crying out evil tidings, Scarlett hastily put her finger to her lips and left the window.

“I’ll get some cooler water,” she said, looking down into Melanie’s dark, deep-circled eyes and trying to smile.

Then she hastily left the room, closing the door carefully behind her.

Prissy was sitting on the bottom step in the hall, panting.

“Dey’s fightin’ at Jonesboro, Miss Scarlett!

Dey say our gempmums is gittin’ beat.

Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett!

Whut’ll happen ter Maw an’ Poke?

Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett!

Whut’ll happen ter us effen de Yankees gits hyah?

Oh, Gawd—”

Scarlett clapped a hand over the blubbery mouth.

“For God’s sake, hush!”

Yes, what would happen to them if the Yankees came—what would happen to Tara?

She pushed the thought firmly back into her mind and grappled with the more pressing emergency.

If she thought of these things, she’d begin to scream and bawl like Prissy.

“Where’s Dr. Meade?

When’s he coming?”

“Ah ain’ nebber seed him, Miss Scarlett.”

“What!”

“No’m, he ain’ at de horsepittle.

Miss Merriwether an’ Miss Elsing ain’ dar needer.

A man he tole me de doctah down by de car shed wid the wounded sojers jes’ come in frum Jonesboro, but Miss Scarlett, Ah wuz sceered ter go down dar ter de shed—dey’s folkses dyin’ down dar.

Ah’s sceered of daid folkses—”

“What about the other doctors?”

“Miss Scarlett, fo’ Gawd, Ah couldn’ sceercely git one of dem ter read yo note.

Dey wukin’ in de horsepittle lak dey all done gone crazy.

One doctah he say ter me, ‘Damn yo’ hide!

Doan you come roun’ hyah bodderin’ me ’bout babies w’en we got a mess of men dyin’ hyah.

Git some woman ter he’p you.’

An’ den Ah went aroun’ an’ about an’ ast fer news lak you done tole me an’ dey all say ‘fightin’ at Jonesboro’ an’ Ah—”

“You say Dr. Meade’s at the depot?”

“Yas’m.

He—”

“Now, listen sharp to me.

I’m going to get Dr. Meade and I want you to sit by Miss Melanie and do anything she says.

And if you so much as breathe to her where the fighting is, I’ll sell you South as sure as gun’s iron.

And don’t you tell her that the other doctors wouldn’t come either.

Do you hear?”

“Yas’m.”

“Wipe your eyes and get a fresh pitcher of water and go on up.

Sponge her off.

Tell her I’ve gone for Dr. Meade.”

“Is her time nigh, Miss Scarlett?”

“I don’t know.

I’m afraid it is but I don’t know.

You should know.

Go on up.”

Scarlett caught up her wide straw bonnet from the console table and jammed it on her head.

She looked in the mirror and automatically pushed up loose strands of hair but she did not see her own reflection.

Cold little ripples of fear that started in the pit of her stomach were radiating outward until the fingers that touched her cheeks were cold, though the rest of her body streamed perspiration.

She hurried out of the house and into the heat of the sun.

It was blindingly, glaringly hot and as she hurried down Peachtree Street her temples began to throb from the heat.

From far down the street she could hear the rise and fall and roar of many voices.

By the time she caught sight of the Leyden house, she was beginning to pant, for her stays were tightly laced, but she did not slow her gait.

The roar of noise grew louder.

From the Leyden house down to Five Points, the street seethed with activity, the activity of an anthill just destroyed.

Negroes were running up and down the street, panic in their faces; and on porches, white children sat crying untended.

The street was crowded with army wagons and ambulances filled with wounded and carriages piled high with valises and pieces of furniture.

Men on horseback dashed out of side streets pell-mell down Peachtree toward Hood’s headquarters.

In front of the Bonnell house, old Amos stood holding the head of the carriage horse and he greeted Scarlett with rolling eyes.

“Ain’ you gone yit, Miss Scarlett?

We is goin’ now.

Ole Miss packin’ her bag.”

“Going?

Where?”

“Gawd knows, Miss.

Somewheres.

De Yankees is comin’!”

She hurried on, not even saying good-by.

The Yankees were coming!

At Wesley Chapel, she paused to catch her breath and wait for her hammering heart to subside.

If she did not quiet herself she would certainly faint.

As she stood clutching a lamp post for support, she saw an officer on horseback come charging up the street from Five Points and, on an impulse, she ran out into the street and waved at him.

“Oh, stop!

Please, stop!”

He reined in so suddenly the horse went back on its haunches, pawing the air.

There were harsh lines of fatigue and urgency in his face but his tattered gray hat was off with a sweep.

“Madam?”

“Tell me, is it true?

Are the Yankees coming?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Do you know so?”

“Yes, Ma’m.

I know so.

A dispatch came in to headquarters half an hour ago from the fighting at Jonesboro.”

“At Jonesboro?

Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.

There’s no use telling pretty lies, Madam.

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The message was from General Hardee and it said: ‘I have lost the battle and am in full retreat.’”

“Oh, my God!”

The dark face of the tired man looked down without emotion.

He gathered the reins again and put on his hat.

“Oh, sir, please, just a minute.

What shall we do?”

“Madam, I can’t say.

The army is evacuating Atlanta soon.”

“Going off and leaving us to the Yankees?”

“I’m afraid so.”

The spurred horse went off as though on springs and Scarlett was left standing in the middle of the street with the red dust thick upon her ankles.

The Yankees were coming.

The army was leaving.

The Yankees were coming.

What should she do?

Where should she run?

No, she couldn’t run.

There was Melanie back there in the bed expecting that baby.

Oh, why did women have babies?

If it wasn’t for Melanie she could take Wade and Prissy and hide in the woods where the Yankees could never find them.

But she couldn’t take Melanie to the woods.

No, not now.

Oh, if she’d only had the baby sooner, yesterday even, perhaps they could get an ambulance and take her away and hide her somewhere.

But now—she must find Dr. Meade and make him come home with her.

Perhaps he could hurry the baby.

She gathered up her skirts and ran down the street, and the rhythm of her feet was “The Yankees are coming!

The Yankees are coming!”

Five Points was crowded with people who rushed here and there with unseeing eyes, jammed with wagons, ambulances, ox carts, carriages loaded with wounded.

A roaring sound like the breaking of surf rose from the crowd.

Then a strangely incongruous sight struck her eyes.

Throngs of women were coming up from the direction of the railroad tracks carrying hams across their shoulders.

Little children hurried by their sides, staggering under buckets of streaming molasses.

Young boys dragged sacks of corn and potatoes.

One old man struggled along with a small barrel of flour on a wheelbarrow.

Men, women and children, black and white, hurried, hurried with straining faces, lugging packages and sacks and boxes of food—more food than she had seen in a year.

The crowd suddenly gave a lane for a careening carriage and through the lane came the frail and elegant Mrs. Elsing, standing up in the front of her victoria, reins in one hand, whip in the other.

She was hatless and white faced and her long gray hair streamed down her back as she lashed the horse like a Fury.

Jouncing on the back seat of the carriage was her black mammy, Melissy, clutching a greasy side of bacon to her with one hand, while with the other and both feet she attempted to hold the boxes and bags piled all about her.

One bag of dried peas had burst and the peas strewed themselves into the street.

Scarlett screamed to her, but the tumult of the crowd drowned her voice and the carriage rocked madly by.

For a moment she could not understand what it all meant and then, remembering that the commissary warehouses were down by the railroad tracks, she realized that the army had thrown them open to the people to salvage what they could before the Yankees came.

She pushed her way swiftly through the crowds, past the packed, hysterical mob surging in the open space of Five Points, and hurried as fast as she could down the short block toward the depot.

Through the tangle of ambulances and the clouds of dust, she could see doctors and stretcher bearers bending, lifting, hurrying.

Thank God, she’d find Dr. Meade soon.

As she rounded the corner of the Atlanta Hotel and came in full view of the depot and the tracks, she halted appalled.

Lying in the pitiless sun, shoulder to shoulder, head to feet, were hundreds of wounded men, lining the tracks, the sidewalks, stretched out in endless rows under the car shed.

Some lay stiff and still but many writhed under the hot sun, moaning.

Everywhere, swarms of flies hovered over the men, crawling and buzzing in their faces, everywhere was blood, dirty bandages, groans, screamed curses of pain as stretcher bearers lifted men.

The smell of sweat, of blood, of unwashed bodies, of excrement rose up in waves of blistering heat until the fetid stench almost nauseated her.

The ambulance men hurrying here and there among the prostrate forms frequently stepped on wounded men, so thickly packed were the rows, and those trodden upon stared stolidly up, waiting their turn.

She shrank back, clapping her hand to her mouth feeling that she was going to vomit.

She couldn’t go on.

She had seen wounded men in the hospitals, wounded men on Aunt Pitty’s lawn after the fighting at the creek, but never anything like this.

Never anything like these stinking, bleeding bodies broiling under the glaring sun.

This was an inferno of pain and smell and noise and hurry—hurry—hurry!

The Yankees are coming!

The Yankees are coming!

She braced her shoulders and went down among them, straining her eyes among the upright figures to distinguish Dr. Meade.

But she discovered she could not look for him, for if she did not step carefully she would tread on some poor soldier.

She raised her skirts and tried to pick her way among them toward a knot of men who were directing the stretcher bearers.

As she walked, feverish hands plucked at her skirt and voices croaked: “Lady—water!

Please, lady, water!

For Christ’s sake, water!”

Perspiration came down her face in streams as she pulled her skirts from clutching hands.

If she stepped on one of these men, she’d scream and faint.

She stepped over dead men, over men who lay dull eyed with hands clutched to bellies where dried blood had glued torn uniforms to wounds, over men whose beards were stiff with blood and from whose broken jaws came sounds which must mean: “Water!

Water!”

If she did not find Dr. Meade soon, she would begin screaming with hysteria.

She looked toward the group of men under the car shed and cried as loudly as she could: “Dr. Meade!

Is Dr. Meade there?”

From the group one man detached himself and looked toward her.

It was the doctor.

He was coatless and his sleeves were rolled up to his shoulders.

His shirt and trousers were as red as a butcher’s and even the end of his iron-gray beard was matted with blood.

His face was the face of a man drunk with fatigue and impotent rage and burning pity.

It was gray and dusty, and sweat had streaked long rivulets across his cheeks.

But his voice was calm and decisive as he called to her.

“Thank God, you are here.

I can use every pair of hands.”

For a moment she stared at him bewildered, dropping her skirts in dismay.

They fell over the dirty face of a wounded man who feebly tried to turn his head to escape from their smothering folds.

What did the doctor mean?

The dust from the ambulances came into her face with choking dryness, and the rotten smells were like a foul liquid in her nostrils.

“Hurry, child!

Come here.”

She picked up her skirts and went to him as fast as she could go across the rows of bodies.

She put her hand on his arm and felt that it was trembling with weariness but there was no weakness in his face.

“Oh, Doctor!” she cried.

“You must come.

Melanie is having her baby.”

He looked at her as if her words did not register on his mind.

A man who lay upon the ground at her feet, his head pillowed on his canteen, grinned up companionably at her words.

“They will do it,” he said cheerfully.

She did not even look down but shook the doctor’s arm.

“It’s Melanie.

The baby.

Doctor, you must come.

She—the—”

This was no time for delicacy but it was hard to bring out the words with the ears of hundreds of strange men listening.

“The pains are getting hard.

Please, Doctor!”

“A baby?

Great God!” thundered the doctor and his face was suddenly contorted with hate and rage, a rage not directed at her or at anyone except a world wherein such things could happen.

“Are you crazy?

I can’t leave these men.

They are dying, hundreds of them.

I can’t leave them for a damned baby.

Get some woman to help you.

Get my wife.”

She opened her mouth to tell him why Mrs. Meade could not come and then shut it abruptly.

He did not know his own son was wounded!

She wondered if he would still be here if he did know, and something told her that even if Phil were dying he would still be standing on this spot, giving aid to the many instead of the one.

“No, you must come, Doctor.

You know you said she’d have a hard time—”

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Was it really she, Scarlett, standing here saying these dreadful indelicate things at the top of her voice in this hell of heat and groans?

“She’ll die if you don’t come!”

He shook off her hand roughly and spoke as though he hardly heard her, hardly knew what she said.

“Die?

Yes, they’ll all die—all these men.

No bandages, no salves, no quinine, no chloroform.

Oh, God, for some morphia!

Just a little morphia for the worst ones.

Just a little chloroform.

God damn the Yankees!

God damn the Yankees!”

“Give um hell, Doctor!” said the man on the ground, his teeth showing in his beard.

Scarlett began to shake and her eyes burned with tears of fright.

The doctor wasn’t coming with her.

Melanie would die and she had wished that she would die.

The doctor wasn’t coming.

“Name of God, Doctor!

Please!”

Dr. Meade bit his lip and his jaw hardened as his face went cool again.

“Child, I’ll try.

I can’t promise you.

But I’ll try.

When we get these men tended to.

The Yankees are coming and the troops are moving out of town.

I don’t know what they’ll do with the wounded.

There aren’t any trains.

The Macon line has been captured….

But I’ll try.

Run along now.

Don’t bother me.

There’s nothing much to bringing a baby.

Just tie up the cord.

…”

He turned as an orderly touched his arm and began firing directions and pointing to this and that wounded man.

The man at her feet looked up at Scarlett compassionately.

She turned away, for the doctor had forgotten her.

She picked her way rapidly through the wounded and back to Peachtree Street.

The doctor wasn’t coming.

She would have to see it through herself.

Thank God, Prissy knew all about midwifery.

Her head ached from the heat and she could feel her basque, soaking wet from perspiration, sticking to her.

Her mind felt numb and so did her legs, numb as in a nightmare when she tried to run and could not move them.

She thought of the long walk back to the house and it seemed interminable.

Then, “The Yankees are coming!” began to beat its refrain in her mind again.

Her heart began to pound and new life came into her limbs.

She hurried into the crowd at Five Points, now so thick there was no room on the narrow sidewalks and she was forced to walk in the street.

Long lines of soldiers were passing, dust covered, sodden with weariness.

There seemed thousands of them, bearded, dirty, their guns slung over their shoulders, swiftly passing at route step.

Cannon rolled past, the drivers flaying the thin mules with lengths of rawhide.

Commissary wagons with torn canvas covers rocked through the ruts.

Cavalry raising clouds of choking dust went past endlessly.

She had never seen so many soldiers together before.

Retreat!

Retreat!

The army was moving out.

The hurrying lines pushed her back onto the packed sidewalk and she smelled the reek of cheap corn whisky.

There were women in the mob near Decatur Street, garishly dressed women whose bright finery and painted faces gave a discordant note of holiday.

Most of them were drunk and the soldiers on whose arms they hung were drunker.

She caught a fleeting glimpse of a head of red curls and saw that creature, Belle Watling, heard her shrill drunken laughter as she clung for support to a one-armed soldier who reeled and staggered.

When she had shoved and pushed her way through the mob for a block beyond Five Points the crowd thinned a little and, gathering up her skirts, she began to run again.

When she reached Wesley Chapel, she was breathless and dizzy and sick at her stomach.

Her stays were cutting her ribs in two.

She sank down on the steps of the church and buried her head in her hands until she could breathe more easily.

If she could only get one deep breath, way down in her abdomen.

If her heart would only stop bumping and drumming and cavorting.

If there were only someone in this mad place to whom she could turn.

Why, she had never had to do a thing for herself in all her life.

There had always been someone to do things for her, to look after her, shelter and protect her and spoil her.

It was incredible that she could be in such a fix.

Not a friend, not a neighbor to help her.

There had always been friends, neighbors, the competent hands of willing slaves.

And now in this hour of greatest need, there was no one.

It was incredible that she could be so completely alone, and frightened, and far from home.

Home!

If she were only home, Yankees or no Yankees.

Home, even if Ellen was sick.

She longed for the sight of Ellen’s sweet face, for Mammy’s strong arms around her.

She rose dizzily to her feet and started walking again.

When she came in sight of the house, she saw Wade swinging on the front gate.

When he saw her, his face puckered and he began to cry, holding up a grubby bruised finger.

“Hurt!” he sobbed.

“Hurt!”

“Hush!

Hush!

Hush!

Or I’ll spank you.

Go out in the back yard and make mud pies and don’t move from there.”

“Wade hungwy,” he sobbed and put the hurt finger in his mouth.

“I don’t care.

Go in the back yard and—”

She looked up and saw Prissy leaning out of the upstairs window, fright and worry written on her face; but in an instant they were wiped away in relief as she saw her mistress.

Scarlett beckoned to her to come down and went into the house.

How cool it was in the hall.

She untied her bonnet and flung it on the table, drawing her forearm across her wet forehead.

She heard the upstairs door open and a low wailing moan, wrenched from the depths of agony, came to her ears.

Prissy came down the stairs three at a time.

“Is de doctah come?”

“No.

He can’t come.”

“Gawd, Miss Scarlett!

Miss Melly bad off!”

“The doctor can’t come.

Nobody can come.

You’ve got to bring the baby and I’ll help you.”

Prissy’s mouth fell open and her tongue wagged wordlessly.

She looked at Scarlett sideways and scuffed her feet and twisted her thin body.

“Don’t look so simple minded!” cried Scarlett, infuriated at her silly expression.

“What’s the matter?”

Prissy edged back up the stairs.

“Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett—”

Fright and shame were in her rolling eyes.

“Well?”

“Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett!

We’s got ter have a doctah.

Ah—Ah—Miss Scarlett, Ah doan know nuthin’ ’bout bringin’ babies.

Maw wouldn’ nebber lemme be ’round folkses whut wuz havin’ dem.”

All the breath went out of Scarlett’s lungs in one gasp of horror before rage swept her.

Prissy made a lunge past her, bent on flight, but Scarlett grabbed her.

“You black liar—what do you mean?

You’ve been saying you knew everything about birthing babies.

What is the truth?

Tell me!”

She shook her until the kinky head rocked drunkenly.

“Ah’s lyin’, Miss Scarlett!

Ah doan know huccome Ah tell sech a lie.

Ah jes’ see one baby birthed, an’ Maw she lak ter wo’ me out fer watchin’.”

Scarlett glared at her and Prissy shrank back, trying to pull loose.

For a moment her mind refused to accept the truth, but when realization finally came to her that Prissy knew no more about midwifery than she did, anger went over her like a flame.

She had never struck a slave in all her life, but now she slapped the black cheek with all the force in her tired arm.

Prissy screamed at the top of her voice, more from fright than pain, and began to dance up and down, writhing to break Scarlett’s grip.

As she screamed, the moaning from the second floor ceased and a moment later Melanie’s voice, weak and trembling, called.

“Scarlett?

Is it you?

Please come!

Please!”

Scarlett dropped Prissy’s arm and the wench sank whimpering to the steps.

For a moment Scarlett stood still, looking up, listening to the low moaning which had begun again.

As she stood there, it seemed as though a yoke descended heavily upon her neck, felt as though a heavy load were harnessed to it, a load she would feel as soon as she took a step.

She tried to think of all the things Mammy and Ellen had done for her when Wade was born but the merciful blurring of the childbirth pains obscured almost everything in mist.

She did recall a few things and she spoke to Prissy rapidly, authority in her voice.

“Build a fire in the stove and keep hot water boiling in the kettle.

And bring up all the towels you can find and that ball of twine.

And get me the scissors.

Don’t come telling me you can’t find them.

Get them and get them quick.

Now hurry.”

She jerked Prissy to her feet and sent her kitchenwards with a shove.

Then she squared her shoulders and started up the stairs.

It was going to be difficult, telling Melanie that she and Prissy were to deliver her baby.

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐈.

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THERE WOULD NEVER AGAIN BE AN AFTERNOON as long as this one.

Or as hot.

Or as full of lazy insolent flies.

They swarmed on Melanie despite the fan Scarlett kept in constant motion.

Her arms ached from swinging the wide palmetto leaf.

All her efforts seemed futile, for while she brushed them from Melanie’s moist face, they crawled on her clammy feet and legs and made her jerk them weakly and cry: “Please!

On my feet!”

The room was in semigloom, for Scarlett had pulled down the shades to shut out the heat and brightness.

Pin points of sunlight came in through minute holes in the shades and about the edges.

The room was an oven and Scarlett’s sweat-drenched clothes never dried but became wetter and stickier as the hours went by.

Prissy was crouched in a corner, sweating too, and smelled so abominably Scarlett would have sent her from the room had she not feared the girl would take to her heels if once out of sight.

Melanie lay on the bed on a sheet dark with perspiration and splotched with dampness where Scarlett had spilled water.

She twisted endlessly, to one side, to the other, to left, to right and back again.

Sometimes she tried to sit up and fell back and began twisting again.

At first, she had tried to keep from crying out, biting her lips until they were raw, and Scarlett, whose nerves were as raw as the lips, said huskily: “Melly, for God’s sake, don’t try to be brave.

Yell, if you want to.

There’s nobody to hear you but us.”

As the afternoon wore on, Melanie moaned whether she wanted to be brave or not, and sometimes she screamed.

When she did, Scarlett dropped her head into her hands and covered her ears and twisted her body and wished that she herself were dead.

Anything was preferable to being a helpless witness to such pain.

Anything was better than being tied here waiting for a baby that took such a long time coming.

Waiting, when for all she knew the Yankees were actually at Five Points.

She fervently wished she had paid more attention to the whispered conversations of matrons on the subject of childbirth.

If only she had!

If only she had been more interested in such matters she’d know whether Melanie was taking a long time or not.

She had a vague memory of one of Aunt Pitty’s stories of a friend who was in labor for two days and died without ever having the baby.

Suppose Melanie should go on like this for two days!

But Melanie was so delicate.

She couldn’t stand two days of this pain.

She’d die soon if the baby didn’t hurry.

And how could she ever face Ashley, if he were still alive, and tell him that Melanie had died—after she had promised to take care of her?

At first, Melanie wanted to hold Scarlett’s hand when the pain was bad but she clamped down on it so hard she nearly broke the bones.

After an hour of this, Scarlett’s hands were so swollen and bruised she could hardly flex them.

She knotted two long towels together and tied them to the foot of the bed and put the knotted end in Melanie’s hands.

Melanie hung onto it as though it were a life line, straining, pulling it taut, slackening it, tearing at it.

Throughout the afternoon, her voice went on like an animal dying in a trap.

Occasionally she dropped the towel and rubbed her hands feebly and looked up at Scarlett with eyes enormous with pain.

“Talk to me.

Please talk to me,” she whispered and Scarlett would gabble something until Melanie again gripped the knot and again began writhing.

The dim room swam with heat and pain and droning flies, and time went by on such dragging feet Scarlett could scarcely remember the morning.

She felt as if she had been in this steaming, dark, sweating place all her life.

She wanted very much to scream every time Melanie did, and only by biting her lips so hard it infuriated her could she restrain herself and drive off hysteria.

Once Wade came tiptoeing up the stairs and stood outside the door, wailing.

“Wade hungwy!”

Scarlett started to go to him, but Melanie whispered: “Don’t leave me.

Please.

I can stand it when you’re here.”

So Scarlett sent Prissy down to warm up the breakfast hominy and feed him.

For herself, she felt that she could never eat again after this afternoon.

The clock on the mantel had stopped and she had no way of telling the time but as the heat in the room lessened and the bright pin points of light grew duller, she pulled the shade aside.

She saw to her surprise that it was late afternoon and the sun, a ball of crimson, was far down the sky.

Somehow, she had imagined it would remain broiling hot noon forever.

She wondered passionately what was going on downtown.

Had all the troops moved out yet?

Had the Yankees come?

Would the Confederates march away without even a fight?

Then she remembered with a sick dropping in her stomach how few Confederates there were and how many men Sherman had and how well fed they were.

Sherman!

The name of Satan himself did not frighten her half so much.

But there was no time for thinking now, as Melanie called for water, for a cold towel on her head, to be fanned, to have the flies brushed away from her face.

When twilight came on and Prissy, scurrying like a black wraith, lit a lamp, Melanie became weaker.

She began calling for Ashley, over and over, as if in a delirium until the hideous monotony gave Scarlett a fierce desire to smother her voice with a pillow.

Perhaps the doctor would come after all.

If he would only come quickly!

Hope raising its head, she turned to Prissy and ordered her to run quickly to the Meades’ house and see if he were there or Mrs. Meade.

“And if he’s not there, ask Mrs. Meade or Cookie what to do.

Beg them to come!”

Prissy was off with a clatter and Scarlett watched her hurrying down the street, going faster than she had ever dreamed the worthless child could move.

After a prolonged time she was back, alone.

“De doctah ain’ been home all day.

Sont wud he mout go off wid de sojers.

Miss Scarlett, Mist’ Phil’s ’ceased.”

“Dead?”

“Yas’m,” said Prissy, expanding with importance.

“Talbot, dey coachman, tole me.

He wuz shot—”

“Never mind that.”

“Ah din’ see Miss Meade.

Cookie say Miss Meade she washin’ him an’ fixin’ ter buhy him fo’ de Yankees gits hyah.

Cookie say effen de pain git too bad, jes’ you put a knife unner Miss Melly’s bed an’ it cut de pain in two.”

Scarlett wanted to slap her again for this helpful information but Melanie opened wide, dilated eyes and whispered: “Dear—are the Yankees coming?”

“No,” said Scarlett stoutly.

“Prissy’s a liar.”

“Yas’m, Ah sho is,” Prissy agreed fervently.

“They’re coming,” whispered Melanie undeceived and buried her face in the pillow.

Her voice came out muffled.

“My poor baby.

My poor baby.”

And, after a long interval: “Oh, Scarlett, you mustn’t stay here.

You must go and take Wade.”

What Melanie said was no more than Scarlett had been thinking but hearing it put into words infuriated her, shamed her as if her secret cowardice was written plainly in her face.

“Don’t be a goose.

I’m not afraid.

You know I won’t leave you.”

“You might as well.

I’m going to die.”

And she began moaning again.

********

Scarlett came down the dark stairs slowly, like an old woman, feeling her way, clinging to the banisters lest she fall.

Her legs were leaden, trembling with fatigue and strain, and she shivered with cold from the clammy sweat that soaked her body.

Feebly she made her way onto the front porch and sank down on the top step.

She sprawled back against a pillar of the porch and with a shaking hand unbuttoned her basque halfway down her bosom.

The night was drenched in warm soft darkness and she lay staring into it, dull as an ox.

It was all over.

Melanie was not dead and the small baby boy who made noises like a young kitten was receiving his first bath at Prissy’s hands.

Melanie was asleep.

How could she sleep after that nightmare of screaming pain and ignorant midwifery that hurt more than it helped?

Why wasn’t she dead?

Scarlett knew that she herself would have died under such handling.

But, when it was over, Melanie had even whispered, so weakly she had to bend over her to hear: “Thank you.”

And then she had gone to sleep.

How could she go to sleep?

Scarlett forgot that she too had gone to sleep after Wade was born.

She forgot everything.

Her mind was a vacuum; the world was a vacuum; there had been no life before this endless day and there would be none hereafter—only a heavily hot night, only the sound of her hoarse tired breathing, only the sweat trickling coldly from armpit to waist, from hip to knee, clammy, sticky, chilling.

She heard her own breath pass from loud evenness to spasmodic sobbing but her eyes were dry and burning as though there would never be tears in them again.

Slowly, laboriously, she heaved herself over and pulled her heavy skirts up to her thighs.

She was warm and cold and sticky all at the same time and the feel of the night air on her limbs was refreshing.

She thought dully what Aunt Pitty would say, if she could see her sprawled here on the front porch with her skirts up and her drawers showing but she did not care.

She did not care about anything.

Time had stood still.

It might be just after twilight and it might be midnight.

She didn’t know or care.

She heard sounds of moving feet upstairs and thought “May the Lord damn Prissy,” before her eyes closed and something like sleep descended upon her.

Then after an indeterminate dark interval, Prissy was beside her, chattering on in a pleased way.

“We done right good, Miss Scarlett.

Ah specs Maw couldn’ a did no better.”

From the shadows, Scarlett glared at her, too tired to rail, too tired to upbraid, too tired to enumerate Prissy’s offenses—her boastful assumption of experience she didn’t possess, her fright, her blundering awkwardness, her utter inefficiency when the emergency was hot, the misplacing of the scissors, the spilling of the basin of water on the bed, the dropping of the new born baby.

And now she bragged about how good she had been.

And the Yankees wanted to free the negroes!

Well, the Yankees were welcome to them.

She lay back against the pillar in silence and Prissy, aware of her mood, tiptoed away into the darkness of the porch.

After a long interval in which her breathing finally quieted and her mind steadied, Scarlett heard the sound of faint voices from up the road, the tramping of many feet coming from the north.

Soldiers!

She sat up slowly, putting down her skirts, although she knew no one could see her in the darkness.

As they came abreast the house, an indeterminate number, passing like shadows, she called to them.

“Oh, please!”

A shadow disengaged itself from the mass and came to the gate.

“Are you going?

Are you leaving us?”

The shadow seemed to take off a hat and a quiet voice came from the darkness.

“Yes, Ma’m.

That’s what we’re doing.

We’re the last of the men from the breastworks, ’bout a mile north from here.”

“Are you—is the army really retreating?”

“Yes, Ma’m.

You see, the Yankees are coming.”

The Yankees are coming!

She had forgotten that.

Her throat suddenly contracted and she could say nothing more.

The shadow moved away, merged itself with the other shadows and the feet tramped off into the darkness.

“The Yankees are coming!

The Yankees are coming!”

That was what the rhythm of their feet said, that was what her suddenly bumping heart thudded out with each beat.

The Yankees are coming!

“De Yankees is comin’!” bawled Prissy, shrinking close to her.

“Oh, Miss Scarlett, dey’ll kill us all!

Dey’ll run dey beynits in our stummicks!

Dey’ll—”

“Oh, hush!”

It was terrifying enough to think these things without hearing them put into trembling words.

Renewed fear swept her.

What could she do?

How could she escape?

Where could she turn for help?

Every friend had failed her.

Suddenly she thought of Rhett Butler and calm dispelled her fears.

Why hadn’t she thought of him this morning when she had been tearing about like a chicken with its head off?

She hated him, but he was strong and smart and he wasn’t afraid of the Yankees.

And he was still in town.

Of course, she was mad at him and he had said unforgivable things the last time she’d seen him.

But she could overlook such things at a time like this.

And he had a horse and carriage, too.

Oh, why hadn’t she thought of him before!

He could take them all away from this doomed place, away from the Yankees, somewhere, anywhere.

She turned to Prissy and spoke with feverish urgency.

“You know where Captain Butler lives—at the Atlanta Hotel?”

“Yas’m, but—”

“Well, go there, now, as quick as you can run and tell him I want him.

I want him to come quickly and bring his horse and carriage or an ambulance if he can get one.

Tell him about the baby.

Tell him I want him to take us out of here.

Go, now.

Hurry!”

She sat upright and gave Prissy a push to speed her feet.

“Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett!

Ah’s sceered ter go runnin’ roun’ in de dahk by mahseff!

Spose de Yankees gits me?”

“If you run fast you can catch up with those soldiers and they won’t let the Yankees get you.

Hurry!”

“Ah’s sceered!

Sposin’ Cap’n Butler ain’ at de hotel?”

“Then ask where he is.

Haven’t you any gumption?

If he isn’t at the hotel, go to the barrooms on Decatur Street and ask for him.

Go to Belle Watling’s house.

Hunt for him.

You fool, don’t you see that if you don’t hurry and find him the Yankees will surely get us all?”

“Miss Scarlett, Maw would weah me out wid a cotton stalk, did Ah go in a bahroom or a ho’ house.”

Scarlett pulled herself to her feet.

“Well, I’ll wear you out if you don’t.

You can stand outside in the street and yell for him, can’t you?

Or ask somebody if he’s inside.

Get going.”

When Prissy still lingered, shuffling her feet and mouthing, Scarlett gave her another push which nearly sent her headlong down the front steps.

“You’ll go or I’ll sell you down the river.

You’ll never see your mother again or anybody you know and I’ll sell you for a field hand too.

Hurry!”

“Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett—”

But under the determined pressure of her mistress’s hand she started down the steps.

The front gate clicked and Scarlett cried: “Run, you goose!”

She heard the patter of Prissy’s feet as she broke into a trot, and then the sound died away on the soft earth.

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐈𝐈.

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AFTER PRISSY HAD GONE, Scarlett went wearily into the downstairs hall and lit a lamp.

The house felt steamingly hot, as though it held in its walls all the heat of the noontide.

Some of her dullness was passing now and her stomach was clamoring for food.

She remembered she had had nothing to eat since the night before except a spoonful of hominy, and picking up the lamp she went into the kitchen.

The fire in the oven had died but the room was stiflingly hot.

She found half a pone of hard corn bread in the skillet and gnawed hungrily on it while she looked about for other food.

There was some hominy left in the pot and she ate it with a big cooking spoon, not waiting to put it on a plate.

It needed salt badly but she was too hungry to hunt for it.

After four spoonfuls of it, the heat of the room was too much and, taking the lamp in one hand and a fragment of pone in the other, she went out into the hall.

She knew she should go upstairs and sit beside Melanie.

If anything went wrong, Melanie would be too weak to call.

But the idea of returning to that room where she had spent so many nightmare hours was repulsive to her.

Even if Melanie were dying, she couldn’t go back up there.

She never wanted to see that room again.

She set the lamp on the candle stand by the window and returned to the front porch.

It was so much cooler here, even though the night was drowned in soft warmth.

She sat down on the steps in the circle of faint light thrown by the lamp and continued gnawing on the corn bread.

When she had finished it, a measure of strength came back to her and with the strength came again the pricking of fear.

She could hear a humming of noise far down the street, but what it portended she did not know.

She could distinguish nothing but a volume of sound that rose and fell.

She strained forward trying to hear and soon she found her muscles aching from the tension.

More than anything in the world she yearned to hear the sound of hooves and to see Rhett’s careless, self-confident eyes laughing at her fears.

Rhett would take them away, somewhere.

She didn’t know where.

She didn’t care.

As she sat straining her ears toward town, a faint glow appeared above the trees.

It puzzled her.

She watched it and saw it grow brighter.

The dark sky became pink and then dull red and, suddenly above the trees, she saw a huge tongue of flame leap high to the heavens.

She jumped to her feet, her heart beginning again its sickening thudding and bumping.

The Yankees had come!

She knew they had come and they were burning the town.

The flames seemed to be off to the east of the center of town.

They shot higher and higher and widened rapidly into a broad expanse of red before her terrified eyes.

A whole block must be burning.

A faint hot breeze that had sprung up bore the smell of smoke to her.

She fled up the stairs to her own room and hung out the window for a better view.

The sky was a hideous lurid color and great swirls of black smoke went twisting up to hang in billowy clouds above the flames.

The smell of smoke was stronger now.

Her mind rushed incoherently here and there, thinking how soon the flames would spread up Peachtree Street and burn this house, how soon the Yankees would be rushing in upon her, where she would run, what she would do.

All the fiends of hell seemed screaming in her ears and her brain swirled with confusion and panic so overpowering she clung to the window sill for support.

“I must think,” she told herself over and over.

“I must think.”

But thoughts eluded her, darting in and out of her mind like frightened hummingbirds.

As she stood hanging to the sill, a deafening explosion burst on her ears, louder than any cannon she had ever heard.

The sky was rent with gigantic flame.

Then other explosions.

The earth shook and the glass in the panes above her head shivered and came down around her.

The world became an inferno of noise and flame and trembling earth as one explosion followed another in earsplitting succession.

Torrents of sparks shot to the sky and descended slowly, lazily, through blood-colored clouds of smoke.

She thought she heard a feeble call from the next room but she paid it no heed.

She had no time for Melanie now.

No time for anything except a fear that licked through her veins as swiftly as the flames she saw.

She was a child and mad with fright and she wanted to bury her head in her mother’s lap and shut out this sight.

If she were only home!

Home with Mother.

Through the nerve-shivering sounds, she heard another sound, that of fear-sped feet coming up the stairs three at a time, heard a voice yelping like a lost hound.

Prissy broke into the room and, flying to Scarlett, clutched her arm in a grip that seemed to pinch out pieces of flesh.

“The Yankees—” cried Scarlett.

“No’m, it’s our gempmums!” yelled Prissy between breaths, digging her nails deeper into Scarlett’s arms.

“Dey’s buhnin’ de foun’ry an’ de ahmy supply depots an’ de wa’houses an’, fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett, dey done set off dem sebenty freight cahs of cannon balls an’ gunpowder an’, Jesus, we’s all gwine ter buhn up!”

She began yelping again shrilly and pinched Scarlett so hard she cried out in pain and fury and shook off her hand.

The Yankees hadn’t come yet!

There was still time to get away!

She rallied her frightened forces together.

“If I don’t get a hold on myself,” she thought, “I’ll be squalling like a scalded cat!” and the sight of Prissy’s abject terror helped steady her.

She took her by the shoulders and shook her.

“Shut up that racket and talk sense.

The Yankees haven’t come, you fool!

Did you see Captain Butler?

What did he say?

Is he coming?”

Prissy ceased her yelling but her teeth chattered.

“Yas’m, Ah finely foun’ him.

In a bahroom, lak you told me.

He—”

“Never mind where you found him.

Is he coming?

Did you tell him to bring his horse?”

“Lawd, Miss Scarlett, he say our gempmums done tuck his hawse an’ cah’ige fer a amberlance.”

“Dear God in Heaven!”

“But he comin’—”

“What did he say?”

Prissy had recovered her breath and a small measure of control but her eyes still rolled.

“Well’m, lak you tole me, Ah foun’ him in a bahroom.

Ah stood outside an’ yell fer him an’ he come out.

An’ terreckly he see me an’ Ah starts ter tell him, de sojers tech off a sto’ house down Decatur Street an’ it flame up an’ he say Come on an’ he grab me an’ we runs ter Fibe Points an’ he say den: What now?

Talk fas’.

An’ Ah say you say, Cap’n Butler, come quick an’ bring yo’ hawse and cah’ige.

Miss Melly done had a chile an’ you is bustin’ ter git outer town.

An’ he say: Where all she studyin’ ’bout goin’?

An’ Ah say: Ah doan know, suh, but you is boun’ ter go fo’ de Yankees gits hyah an’ wants him ter go wid you.

An’ he laugh an’ say dey done tuck his hawse.”

Scarlett’s heart went leaden as the last hope left her.

Fool that she was, why hadn’t she thought that the retreating army would naturally take every vehicle and animal left in the city?

For a moment she was too stunned to hear what Prissy was saying but she pulled herself together to hear the rest of the story.

“An’ den he say, Tell Miss Scarlett ter res’ easy.

Ah’ll steal her a hawse outer de ahmy crall effen dey’s ary one lef’.

An’ he say, Ah done stole hawses befo’ dis night.

Tell her Ah git her a hawse effen Ah gits shot fer it.

Den he laugh agin an’ say, Cut an’ run home.

An’ befo’ Ah gits started Kerbloom!

Off goes a noise an’ Ah lak ter drap in mah tracks an’ he tell me twarn’t nuthin’ but de ammernition our gempmums blowin’ up so’s de Yankees don’t git it an’—”

“He is coming?

He’s going to bring a horse?”

“So he say.”

She drew a long breath of relief.

If there was any way of getting a horse, Rhett Butler would get one.

A smart man, Rhett.

She would forgive him anything if he got them out of this mess.

Escape!

And with Rhett she would have no fear.

Rhett would protect them.

Thank God for Rhett!

With safety in view she turned practical.

“Wake Wade up and dress him and pack some clothes for all of us.

Put them in the small trunk.

And don’t tell Miss Melanie we’re going.

Not yet.

But wrap the baby in a couple of thick towels and be sure and pack his clothes.”

Prissy still clung to her skirts and hardly anything showed in her eyes except the whites.

Scarlett gave her a shove and loosened her grip.

“Hurry,” she cried, and Prissy went off like a rabbit.

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Scarlett knew she should go in and quiet Melanie’s fear, knew Melanie must be frightened out of her senses by the thunderous noises that continued unabated and the glare that lighted the sky.

It looked and sounded like the end of the world.

But she could not bring herself to go back into that room just yet.

She ran down the stairs with some idea of packing up Miss Pittypat’s china and the little silver she had left when she refugeed to Macon.

But when she reached the dining room, her hands were shaking so badly she dropped three plates and shattered them.

She ran out onto the porch to listen and back again to the dining room and dropped the silver clattering to the floor.

Everything she touched she dropped.

In her hurry she slipped on the rag rug and fell to the floor with a jolt but leaped up so quickly she was not even aware of the pain.

Upstairs she could hear Prissy galloping about like a wild animal and the sound maddened her, for she was galloping just as aimlessly.

For the dozenth time, she ran out onto the porch but this time she did not go back to her futile packing.

She sat down.

It was just impossible to pack anything.

Impossible to do anything but sit with hammering heart and wait for Rhett.

It seemed hours before he came.

At last, far up the road, she heard the protesting screech of unoiled axles and the slow uncertain plodding of hooves.

Why didn’t he hurry?

Why didn’t he make the horse trot?

The sounds came nearer and she leaped to her feet and called Rhett’s name.

Then, she saw him dimly as he climbed down from the seat of a small wagon, heard the clicking of the gate as he came toward her.

He came into view and the light of the lamp showed him plainly.

His dress was as debonair as if he were going to a ball, well-tailored white linen coat and trousers, embroidered gray watered-silk waistcoat and a hint of ruffle on his shirt bosom.

His wide Panama hat was set dashingly on one side of his head and in the belt of his trousers were thrust two ivory-handled, long-barreled dueling pistols.

The pockets of his coat sagged heavily with ammunition.

He came up the walk with the springy stride of a savage and his fine head was carried like a pagan prince.

The dangers of the night which had driven Scarlett into panic had affected him like an intoxicant.

There was a carefully restrained ferocity in his dark face, a ruthlessness which would have frightened her had she the wits to see it.

His black eyes danced as though amused by the whole affair, as though the earth-splitting sounds and the horrid glare were merely things to frighten children.

She swayed toward him as he came up the steps, her face white, her green eyes burning.

“Good evening,” he said, in his drawling voice, as he removed his hat with a sweeping gesture.

“Fine weather we’re having.

I hear you’re going to take a trip.”

“If you make any jokes, I shall never speak to you again,” she said with quivering voice.

“Don’t tell me you are frightened!”

He pretended to be surprised and smiled in a way that made her long to push him backwards down the steep steps.

“Yes, I am!

I’m frightened to death and if you had the sense God gave a goat, you’d be frightened too.

But we haven’t got time to talk.

We must get out of here.”

“At your service, Madam.

But just where were you figuring on going?

I made the trip out here for curiosity, just to see where you were intending to go.

You can’t go north or east or south or west.

The Yankees are all around.

There’s just one road out of town which the Yankees haven’t got yet and the army is retreating by that road.

And that road won’t be open long.

General Steve Lee’s cavalry is fighting a rear-guard action at Rough and Ready to hold it open long enough for the army to get away.

If you follow the army down the McDonough road, they’ll take the horse away from you and, while it’s not much of a horse, I did go to a lot of trouble stealing it.

Just where are you going?”

She stood shaking, listening to his words, hardly hearing them.

But, at his question she suddenly knew where she was going, knew that all this miserable day she had known where she was going.

The only place.

“I’m going home,” she said.

“Home?

You mean to Tara?”

“Yes, yes!

To Tara!

Oh, Rhett, we must hurry!”

He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

“Tara?

God Almighty, Scarlett!

Don’t you know they fought all day at Jonesboro?

Fought for ten miles up and down the road from Rough and Ready even into the streets of Jonesboro?

The Yankees may be all over Tara by now, all over the County.

Nobody knows where they are but they’re in that neighborhood.

You can’t go home!

You can’t go right through the Yankee army!”

“I will go home!” she cried.

“I will!

I will!”

“You little fool,” and his voice was swift and rough.

“You can’t go that way.

Even if you didn’t run into the Yankees, the woods are full of stragglers and deserters from both armies.

And lots of our troops are still retreating from Jonesboro.

They’d take the horse away from you as quickly as the Yankees would.

Your only chance is to follow the troops down the McDonough road and pray that they won’t see you in the dark.

You can’t go to Tara.

Even if you got there, you’d probably find it burned down.

I won’t let you go home.

It’s insanity.”

“I will go home!” she cried and her voice broke and rose to a scream.

“I will go home!

You can’t stop me!

I will go home!

I want my mother!

I’ll kill you if you try to stop me!

I will go home!”

Tears of fright and hysteria streamed down her face as she finally gave way under the long strain.

She beat on his chest with her fists and screamed again: “I will!

I will!

If I have to walk every step of the way!”

Suddenly she was in his arms, her wet cheek against the starched ruffle of his shirt, her beating hands stilled against him.

His hands caressed her tumbled hair gently, soothingly, and his voice was gentle too.

So gentle, so quiet, so devoid of mockery, it did not seem Rhett Butler’s voice at all but the voice of some kind strong stranger who smelled of brandy and tobacco and horses, comforting smells because they reminded her of Gerald.

“There, there, darling,” he said softly.

“Don’t cry.

You shall go home, my brave little girl.

You shall go home.

Don’t cry.”

She felt something brush her hair and wondered vaguely through her tumult if it were his lips.

He was so tender, so infinitely soothing, she longed to stay in his arms forever.

With such strong arms about her, surely nothing could harm her.

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

“Now, blow your nose like a good child,” he ordered, a glint of a smile in his eyes, “and tell me what to do.

We must work fast.”

She blew her nose obediently, still trembling, but she could not think what to tell him to do.

Seeing how her lip quivered and her eyes looked up at him helplessly, he took command.

“Mrs. Wilkes has had her child?

It will be dangerous to move her—dangerous to drive her twenty-five miles in that rickety wagon.

We’d better leave her with Mrs. Meade.”

“The Meades aren’t home.

I can’t leave her.”

“Very well.

Into the wagon she goes.

Where is that simple-minded little wench?”

“Upstairs packing the trunk.”

“Trunk?

You can’t take any trunk in that wagon.

It’s almost too small to hold all of you and the wheels are ready to come off with no encouragement.

Call her and tell her to get the smallest feather bed in the house and put it in the wagon.”

Still Scarlett could not move.

He took her arm in a strong grasp and some of the vitality which animated him seemed to flow into her body.

If only she could be as cool and casual as he was!

He propelled her into the hall but she still stood helplessly looking at him.

His lip went down mockingly: “Can this be the heroic young woman who assured me she feared neither God nor man?”

He suddenly burst into laughter and dropped her arm.

Stung, she glared at him, hating him.

“I’m not afraid,” she said.

“Yes, you are.

In another moment you’ll be in a swoon and I have no smelling salts about me.”

She stamped her foot impotently because she could not think of anything else to do—and without a word picked up the lamp and started up the stairs.

He was close behind her and she could hear him laughing softly to himself.

That sound stiffened her spine.

She went into Wade’s nursery and found him sitting clutched in Prissy’s arms, half dressed, hiccoughing quietly.

Prissy was whimpering.

The feather tick on Wade’s bed was small and she ordered Prissy to drag it down the stairs and into the wagon.

Prissy put down the child and obeyed.

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Wade followed her down the stairs, his hiccoughs stilled by his interest in the proceedings.

“Come,” said Scarlett, turning to Melanie’s door and Rhett followed her, hat in hand.

Melanie lay quietly with the sheet up to her chin.

Her face was deathly white but her eyes, sunken and black circled, were serene.

She showed no surprise at the sight of Rhett in her bedroom but seemed to take it as a matter of course.

She tried to smile weakly but the smile died before it reached the corners of her mouth.

“We are going home, to Tara,” Scarlett explained rapidly.

“The Yankees are coming.

Rhett is going to take us.

It’s the only way, Melly.”

Melanie tried to nod her head feebly and gestured toward the baby.

Scarlett picked up the small baby and wrapped him hastily in a thick towel.

Rhett stepped to the bed.

“I’ll try not to hurt you,” he said quietly, tucking the sheet about her.

“See if you can put your arms around my neck.”

Melanie tried but they fell back weakly.

He bent, slipped an arm under her shoulders and another across her knees and lifted her gently.

She did not cry out but Scarlett saw her bite her lip and go even whiter.

Scarlett held the lamp high for Rhett to see and started toward the door when Melanie made a feeble gesture toward the wall.

“What is it?” Rhett asked softly.

“Please,” Melanie whispered, trying to point.

“Charles.”

Rhett looked down at her as if he thought her delirious but Scarlett understood and was irritated.

She knew Melanie wanted the daguerreotype of Charles which hung on the wall below his sword and pistol.

“Please,” Melanie whispered again, “the sword.”

“Oh, all right,” said Scarlett and, after she had lighted Rhett’s careful way down the steps, she went back and unhooked the sword and pistol belts.

It would be awkward, carrying them as well as the baby and the lamp.

That was just like Melanie, not to be at all bothered over nearly dying and having the Yankees at her heels but to worry about Charles’ things.

As she took down the daguerreotype, she caught a glimpse of Charles’ face.

His large brown eyes met hers and she stopped for a moment to look at the picture curiously.

This man had been her husband, had lain beside her for a few nights, had given her a child with eyes as soft and brown as his.

And she could hardly remember him.

The child in her arms waved small fists and mewed softly and she looked down at him.

For the first time, she realized that this was Ashley’s baby and suddenly wished with all the strength left in her that he were her baby, hers and Ashley’s.

Prissy came bounding up the stairs and Scarlett handed the child to her.

They went hastily down, the lamp throwing uncertain shadows on the wall.

In the hall, Scarlett saw a bonnet and put it on hurriedly, tying the ribbons under her chin.

It was Melanie’s black mourning bonnet and it did not fit Scarlett’s head but she could not recall where she had put her own bonnet.

She went out of the house and down the front steps, carrying the lamp and trying to keep the saber from banging against her legs.

Melanie lay full length in the back of the wagon, and, beside her, were Wade and the towel-swathed baby.

Prissy climbed in and took the baby in her arms.

The wagon was very small and the boards about the sides very low.

The wheels leaned inward as if their first revolution would make them come off.

She took one look at the horse and her heart sank.

He was a small emaciated animal and he stood with his head dispiritedly low, almost between his forelegs.

His back was raw with sores and harness galls and he breathed as no sound horse should.

“Not much of an animal, is it?” grinned Rhett.

“Looks like he’ll die in the shafts.

But he’s the best I could do.

Some day I’ll tell you with embellishments just where and how I stole him and how narrowly I missed getting shot.

Nothing but my devotion to you would make me, at this stage of my career, turn horse thief—and thief of such a horse.

Let me help you in.”

He took the lamp from her and set it on the ground.

The front seat was only a narrow plank across the sides of the wagon.

Rhett picked Scarlett up bodily and swung her to it.

How wonderful to be a man and as strong as Rhett, she thought, tucking her wide skirts about her.

With Rhett beside her, she did not fear anything, neither the fire nor the noise nor the Yankees.

He climbed onto the seat beside her and picked up the reins.

“Oh, wait!” she cried.

“I forgot to lock the front door.”

He burst into a roar of laughter and flapped the reins upon the horse’s back.

“What are you laughing at?”

“At you—locking the Yankees out,” he said and the horse started off, slowly, reluctantly.

The lamp on the sidewalk burned on, making a tiny yellow circle of light which grew smaller and smaller as they moved away.

********

Rhett turned the horse’s slow feet westward from Peachtree and the wobbling wagon jounced into the rutty lane with a violence that wrenched an abruptly stifled moan from Melanie.

Dark trees interlaced above their heads, dark silent houses loomed up on either side and the white palings of fences gleamed faintly like a row of tombstones.

The narrow street was a dim tunnel, but faintly through the thick leafy ceiling the hideous red glow of the sky penetrated and shadows chased one another down the dark way like mad ghosts.

The smell of smoke came stronger and stronger, and on the wings of the hot breeze came a pandemonium of sound from the center of town, yells, the dull rumbling of heavy army wagons and the steady tramp of marching feet.

As Rhett jerked the horse’s head and turned him into another street, another deafening explosion tore the air and a monstrous skyrocket of flame and smoke shot up in the west.

“That must be the last of the ammunition trains,” Rhett said calmly.

“Why didn’t they get them out this morning, the fools!

There was plenty of time.

Well, too bad for us.

I thought by circling around the center of town, we might avoid the fire and that drunken mob on Decatur Street and get through to the southwest part of town without any danger.

But we’ve got to cross Marietta Street somewhere and that explosion was near Marietta Street or I miss my guess.”

“Must—must we go through the fire?” Scarlett quavered.

“Not if we hurry,” said Rhett and, springing from the wagon, he disappeared into the darkness of a yard.

When he returned he had a small limb of a tree in his hand and he laid it mercilessly across the horse’s galled back.

The animal broke into a shambling trot, his breath panting and labored, and the wagon swayed forward with a jolt that threw them about like popcorn in a popper.

The baby wailed, and Prissy and Wade cried out as they bruised themselves against the sides of the wagon.

But from Melanie there was no sound.

As they neared Marietta Street, the trees thinned out and the tall flames roaring up above the buildings threw street and houses into a glare of light brighter than day, casting monstrous shadows that twisted as wildly as torn sails flapping in a gale on a sinking ship.

Scarlett’s teeth chattered but so great was her terror she was not even aware of it.

She was cold and she shivered, even though the heat of the flames was already hot against their faces.

This was hell and she was in it and, if she could only have conquered her shaking knees, she would have leaped from the wagon and run screaming back the dark road they had come, to the refuge of Miss Pittypat’s house.

She shrank closer to Rhett, took his arm in fingers that trembled and looked up at him for words, for comfort, for something reassuring.

In the unholy crimson glow that bathed them, his dark profile stood out as clearly as the head on an ancient coin, beautiful, cruel and decadent.

At her touch he turned to her, his eyes gleaming with a light as frightening as the fire.

To Scarlett, he seemed as exhilarated and contemptuous as if he got strong pleasure from the situation, as if he welcomed the inferno they were approaching.

“Here,” he said, laying a hand on one of the long-barreled pistols in his belt.

“If anyone, black or white, comes up on your side of the wagon and tries to lay hand on the horse, shoot him and we’ll ask questions later.

But for God’s sake, don’t shoot the nag in your excitement.”

“I—I have a pistol,” she whispered, clutching the weapon in her lap, perfectly certain that if death stared her in the face, she would be too frightened to pull the trigger.

----------------------------------------------------------

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“You have?

Where did you get it?”

“It’s Charles’.”

“Charles?”

“Yes, Charles—my husband.”

“Did you ever really have a husband, my dear?” he whispered and laughed softly.

If he would only be serious!

If he would only hurry!

“How do you suppose I got my boy?” she cried fiercely.

“Oh, there are other ways than husbands—”

“Will you hush and hurry?”

But he drew rein abruptly, almost at Marietta Street, in the shadow of a warehouse not yet touched by the flames.

“Hurry!”

It was the only word in her mind.

Hurry!

Hurry!

“Soldiers,” he said.

The detachment came down Marietta Street, between the burning buildings, walking at route step, tiredly, rifles held any way, heads down, too weary to hurry, too weary to care if timbers were crashing to right and left and smoke billowing about them.

They were all ragged, so ragged that between officers and men there were no distinguishing insignia except here and there a torn hat brim pinned up with a wreathed “C.S.A.”

Many were barefooted and here and there a dirty bandage wrapped a head or arm.

They went past, looking neither to left nor right, so silent that had it not been for the steady tramp of feet they might all have been ghosts.

“Take a good look at them,” came Rhett’s jibing voice, “so you can tell your grandchildren you saw the rear guard of the Glorious Cause in retreat.”

Suddenly she hated him, hated him with a strength that momentarily overpowered her fear, made it seem petty and small.

She knew her safety and that of the others in the back of the wagon depended on him and him alone, but she hated him for his sneering at those ragged ranks.

She thought of Charles who was dead and Ashley who might be dead and all the gay and gallant young men who were rotting in shallow graves and she forgot that she, too, had once thought them fools.

She could not speak, but hatred and disgust burned in her eyes as she stared at him fiercely.

As the last of the soldiers were passing, a small figure in the rear rank, his rifle butt dragging the ground, wavered, stopped and stared after the others with a dirty face so dulled by fatigue he looked like a sleepwalker.

He was as small as Scarlett, so small his rifle was almost as tall as he was, and his grime-smeared face was unbearded.

Sixteen at the most, thought Scarlett irrelevantly, must be one of the Home Guard or a runaway schoolboy.

As she watched, the boy’s knees buckled slowly and he went down in the dust.

Without a word, two men fell out of the last rank and walked back to him.

One, a tall spare man with a black beard that hung to his belt, silently handed his own rifle and that of the boy to the other.

Then, stooping, he jerked the boy to his shoulders with an ease that looked like sleight of hand.

He started off slowly after the retreating column, his shoulders bowed under the weight, while the boy, weak, infuriated like a child teased by its elders, screamed out: “Put me down, damn you!

Put me down!

I can walk!”

The bearded man said nothing and plodded on out of sight around the bend of the road.

Rhett sat still, the reins lax in his hands, looking after them, a curious moody look on his swarthy face.

Then, there was a crash of falling timbers near by and Scarlett saw a thin tongue of flame lick up over the roof of the warehouse in whose sheltering shadow they sat.

Then pennons and battle flags of flame flared triumphantly to the sky above them.

Smoke burnt her nostrils and Wade and Prissy began coughing.

The baby made soft sneezing sounds.

“Oh, name of God, Rhett!

Are you crazy?

Hurry!

Hurry!”

Rhett made no reply but brought the tree limb down on the horse’s back with a cruel force that made the animal leap forward.

With all the speed the horse could summon, they jolted and bounced across Marietta Street.

Ahead of them was a tunnel of fire where buildings were blazing on either side of the short, narrow street that led down to the railroad tracks.

They plunged into it.

A glare brighter than a dozen suns dazzled their eyes, scorching heat seared their skins and the roaring, crackling and crashing beat upon their ears in painful waves.

For an eternity, it seemed, they were in the midst of flaming torment and then abruptly they were in semidarkness again.

As they dashed down the street and bumped over the railroad tracks, Rhett applied the whip automatically.

His face looked set and absent, as though he had forgotten where he was.

His broad shoulders were hunched forward and his chin jutted out as though the thoughts in his mind were not pleasant.

The heat of the fire made sweat stream down his forehead and cheeks but he did not wipe it off.

They pulled into a side street, then another, then turned and twisted from one narrow street to another until Scarlett completely lost her bearings and the roaring of the flames died behind them.

Still Rhett did not speak.

He only laid on the whip with regularity.

The red glow in the sky was fading now and the road became so dark, so frightening, Scarlett would have welcomed words, any words from him, even jeering, insulting words, words that cut.

But he did not speak.

Silent or not, she thanked Heaven for the comfort of his presence.

It was good to have a man beside her, to lean close to him and feel the hard swell of his arm and know that he stood between her and unnameable terrors, even though he merely sat there and stared.

“Oh, Rhett,” she whispered clasping his arm, “what would we ever have done without you?

I’m so glad you aren’t in the army!”

He turned his head and gave her one look, a look that made her drop his arm and shrink back.

There was no mockery in his eyes now.

They were naked and there was anger and something like bewilderment in them.

His lip curled down and he turned his head away.

For a long time they jounced along in a silence unbroken except for the faint wails of the baby and sniffles from Prissy.

When she was able to bear the sniffling noise no longer, Scarlett turned and pinched her viciously, causing Prissy to scream in good earnest before she relapsed into frightened silence.

Finally Rhett turned the horse at right angles and after a while they were on a wider, smoother road.

The dim shapes of houses grew farther and farther apart and unbroken woods loomed wall-like on either side.

“We’re out of town now,” said Rhett briefly, drawing rein, “and on the main road to Rough and Ready.”

“Hurry.

Don’t stop!”

“Let the animal breathe a bit.”

Then turning to her, he asked slowly: “Scarlett, are you still determined to do this crazy thing?”

“Do what?”

“Do you still want to try to get through to Tara?

It’s suicidal.

Steve Lee’s cavalry and the Yankee Army are between you and Tara.”

Oh, dear God!

Was he going to refuse to take her home, after all she’d gone through this terrible day?

“Oh, yes!

Yes!

Please, Rhett, let’s hurry.

The horse isn’t tired.”

“Just a minute.

You can’t go down to Jonesboro on this road.

You can’t follow the train tracks.

They’ve been fighting up and down there all day from Rough and Ready on south.

Do you know any other roads, small wagon roads or lanes that don’t go through Rough and Ready or Jonesboro?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Scarlett in relief.

“If we can just get near to Rough and Ready, I know a wagon trace that winds off from the main Jonesboro road and wanders around for miles.

Pa and I used to ride it.

It comes out right near the MacIntosh place and that’s only a mile from Tara.”

“Good.

Maybe you can get past Rough and Ready all right.

General Steve Lee was there during the afternoon covering the retreat.

Maybe the Yankees aren’t there yet.

Maybe you can get through there, if Steve Lee’s men don’t pick up your horse.”

“I—I can get through?”

“Yes, you.”

His voice was rough.

“But Rhett—You—Aren’t you going to take us?”

“No.

I’m leaving you here.”

She looked around wildly, at the livid sky behind them, at the dark trees on either hand hemming them in like a prison wall, at the frightened figures in the back of the wagon—and finally at him.

Had she gone crazy?

Was she not hearing right?

He was grinning now.

She could just see his white teeth in the faint light and the old mockery was back in his eyes.

“Leaving us?

Where—where are you going?”

“I am going, dear girl, with the army.”

She sighed with relief and irritation.

Why did he joke at this time of all times?

Rhett in the army!

After all he’d said about stupid fools who were enticed into losing their lives by a roll of drums and brave words from orators—fools who killed themselves that wise men might make money!

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“Oh, I could choke you for scaring me so!

Let’s get on.”

“I’m not joking, my dear.

And I am hurt, Scarlett, that you do not take my gallant sacrifice with better spirit.

Where is your patriotism, your love for Our Glorious Cause?

Now is your chance to tell me to return with my shield or on it.

But, talk fast, for I want time to make a brave speech before departing for the wars.”

His drawling voice jibed in her ears.

He was jeering at her and, somehow, she knew he was jeering at himself too.

What was he talking about?

Patriotism, shields, brave speeches?

It wasn’t possible that he meant what he was saying.

It just wasn’t believable that he could talk so blithely of leaving her here on this dark road with a woman who might be dying, a new-born infant, a foolish black wench and a frightened child, leaving her to pilot them through miles of battle fields and stragglers and Yankees and fire and God knows what.

Once, when she was six years old, she had fallen from a tree, flat on her stomach.

She could still recall that sickening interval before breath came back into her body.

Now, as she looked at Rhett, she felt the same way she had felt then, breathless, stunned, nauseated.

“Rhett, you are joking!”

She grabbed his arm and felt her tears of fright splash down on her wrist.

He raised her hand and kissed it airily.

“Selfish to the end, aren’t you, my dear?

Thinking only of your own precious hide and not of the gallant Confederacy.

Think how our troops will be heartened by my eleventh-hour appearance.”

There was a malicious tenderness in his voice.

“Oh, Rhett,” she wailed, “how can you do this to me?

Why are you leaving me?”

“Why?” he laughed jauntily.

“Because, perhaps, of the betraying sentimentality that lurks in all of us Southerners.

Perhaps—perhaps because I am ashamed.

Who knows?”

“Ashamed?

You should die of shame.

To desert us here, alone, helpless—”

“Dear Scarlett!

You aren’t helpless.

Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless.

God help the Yankees if they should get you.”

He stepped abruptly down from the wagon and, as she watched him, stunned with bewilderment, he came around to her side of the wagon.

“Get out,” he ordered.

She stared at him.

He reached up roughly, caught her under the arms and swung her to the ground beside him.

With a tight grip on her he dragged her several paces away from the wagon.

She felt the dust and gravel in her slippers hurting her feet.

The still hot darkness wrapped her like a dream.

“I’m not asking you to understand or forgive.

I don’t give a damn whether you do either, for I shall never understand or forgive myself for this idiocy.

I am annoyed at myself to find that so much quixoticism still lingers in me.

But our fair Southland needs every man.

Didn’t our brave Governor Brown say just that?

No matter.

I’m off to the wars.”

He laughed suddenly, a ringing, free laugh that startled the echoes in the dark woods.

“‘I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not Honour more.’

That’s a pat speech, isn’t it?

Certainly better than anything I can think up myself, at the present moment.

For I do love you, Scarlett, in spite of what I said that night on the porch last month.”

His drawl was caressing and his hands slid up her bare arms, warm strong hands.

“I love you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike, renegades, both of us, dear, and selfish rascals.

Neither of us cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we are safe and comfortable.”

His voice went on in the darkness and she heard words, but they made no sense to her.

Her mind was tiredly trying to take in the harsh truth that he was leaving her here to face the Yankees alone.

Her mind said: “He’s leaving me.

He’s leaving me.”

But no emotion stirred.

Then his arms went around her waist and shoulders and she felt the hard muscles of his thighs against her body and the buttons of his coat pressing into her breast.

A warm tide of feeling, bewildering, frightening, swept over her, carrying out of her mind the time and place and circumstances.

She felt as limp as a rag doll, warm, weak and helpless, and his supporting arms were so pleasant.

“You don’t want to change your mind about what I said last month?

There’s nothing like danger and death to give an added fillip.

Be patriotic, Scarlett.

Think how you would be sending a soldier to his death with beautiful memories.”

He was kissing her now and his mustache tickled her mouth, kissing her with slow, hot lips that were as leisurely as though he had the whole night before him.

Charles had never kissed her like this.

Never had the kisses of the Tarleton and Calvert boys made her go hot and cold and shaky like this.

He bent her body backward and his lips traveled down her throat to where the cameo fastened her basque.

“Sweet,” he whispered.

“Sweet.”

She saw the wagon dimly in the dark and heard the treble piping of Wade’s voice.

“Muvver!

Wade fwightened!”

Into her swaying, darkened mind, cold sanity came back with a rush and she remembered what she had forgotten for the moment—that she was frightened too, and Rhett was leaving her, leaving her, the damned cad.

And on top of it all, he had the consummate gall to stand here in the road and insult her with his infamous proposals.

Rage and hate flowed into her and stiffened her spine and with one wrench she tore herself loose from his arms.

“Oh, you cad!” she cried and her mind leaped about, trying to think of worse things to call him, things she had heard Gerald call Mr. Lincoln, the MacIntoshes and balky mules, but the words would not come.

“You low-down, cowardly, nasty, stinking thing!”

And because she could not think of anything crushing enough, she drew back her arm and slapped him across the mouth with all the force she had left.

He took a step backward, his hand going to his face.

“Ah,” he said quietly and for a moment they stood facing each other in the darkness.

Scarlett could hear his heavy breathing, and her own breath came in gasps as if she had been running hard.

“They were right!

Everybody was right!

You aren’t a gentleman!”

“My dear girl,” he said, “how inadequate.”

She knew he was laughing and the thought goaded her.

“Go on!

Go on now!

I want you to hurry.

I don’t want to ever see you again.

I hope a cannon ball lands right on you.

I hope it blows you to a million pieces.

I—”

“Never mind the rest.

I follow your general idea.

When I’m dead on the altar of my country, I hope your conscience hurts you.”

She heard him laugh as he turned away and walked back toward the wagon.

She saw him stand beside it, heard him speak and his voice was changed, courteous and respectful as it always was when he spoke to Melanie.

“Mrs. Wilkes?”

Prissy’s frightened voice made answer from the wagon.

“Gawdlmighty, Cap’n Butler!

Miss Melly done fainted way back yonder.”

“She’s not dead?

Is she breathing?”

“Yassuh, she breathin’.”

“Then she’s probably better off as she is.

If she were conscious, I doubt if she could live through all the pain.

Take good care of her, Prissy.

Here’s a shin plaster for you.

Try not to be a bigger fool than you are.”

“Yassuh.

Thankee suh.”

“Good-by, Scarlett.”

She knew he had turned and was facing her but she did not speak.

Hate choked all utterance.

His feet ground on the pebbles of the road and for a moment she saw his big shoulders looming up in the dark.

Then he was gone.

She could hear the sound of his feet for a while and then they died away.

She came slowly back to the wagon, her knees shaking.

Why had he gone, stepping off into the dark, into the war, into a Cause that was lost, into a world that was mad?

Why had he gone, Rhett who loved the pleasures of women and liquor, the comfort of good food and soft beds, the feel of fine linen and good leather, who hated the South and jeered at the fools who fought for it?

Now he had set his varnished boots upon a bitter road where hunger tramped with tireless stride and wounds and weariness and heartbreak ran like yelping wolves.

And the end of the road was death.

He need not have gone.

He was safe, rich, comfortable.

But he had gone, leaving her alone in a night as black as blindness, with the Yankee Army between her and home.

Now she remembered all the bad names she had wanted to call him but it was too late.

She leaned her head against the bowed neck of the horse and cried.