"That may be Hazlett's victim," Quantrell thought. “I'll see.” He came unarmed with raised hands among them, merely saying "Prisoner," and looked down at the form of an athletic, bleeding man on the stones of an old stoop or arcade.

Quantrell recognized the horseman who had been galloping to save his friend; he was shot in the shoulder and neck, and was already dead, yet warm.

“Lay him back, that-a-way, like a ossifer!" said one of the men, rifle in hand, seeking to see both the street-corner and the dead man. "He's a West-P'inter, an' they likes to die with their shoulders stiff."

Stretched out upon the stones of Harper's Ferry, the first graduate of the United States Military Academy, to perish in the conflict of slavery, lay trembling in the rich red chevron of his heart's blood.

"George Turner loved Lew Washington," spoke another man; "they was chums. They liked their juleps jess the same; one would mix for t'other, and t'other preferred his'n to he own. It's true he died tryin' to shoot, for he was, as you may say, a eddicated ossifer."

"Take him off the street, friends," Quantrell said. Lay him in the house. Greater love hath no man than this—that he lay down his life for his friend!"

CHAPTER XX.

GAULT HOUSE.

"THREE citizens already killed; that is, two citizens and a nigger," Quantrell heard remarked, as he slipped across the Shenandoah Street to the railroad there, and, passing behind the arsenal, gained the exposed saloon on the railroad-track, where he had fought the Logans only sixteen hours before.

He now saw a sign over the door of this single-story frame saloon, "Gault House."

It was a cheap, perishable building, without social position or appearance, and yet, in the inconsistency of time, it remains down to the author's day, one of the three unimpaired monuments of ruined Harper's Ferry: these three monuments are the Catholic church on the hill, John Brown's Engine-House or "Fort" in the desolate armory-yard, and this saloon by the Shenandoah bridge

representatives of the three active principles of our century: Tradition, Revolution, and Alcohol-other words for Faith, Hope, and the Poor-House, or Charity; and now, as of old, the greatest of these is Alcohol or Charity.

"Let me in!” cried Quantrell, and, the door opening, he leaped in, and there was instant darkness.

"Who are you?" said a familiar voice.

"Why, Mr. Beall, I'm Mr. Quantrell, who made your acquaintance last night"; and there arose upon the dark the fine, natural tones of our hero, singing:

"Glenorchy's proud mountains, Coalchuirn and her towers,
Glenstrae, and Glenlyon, no longer are ours:

We're landless, landless, landless, Grigalach!"

The song brought admiration and low inquiries, "Who is he?" and John Beall vouched for Quantrell's courage; and when Lloyd told that he had been a prisoner, and what he had seen of Kagi's band falling, and of Turner's death but an instant before, all breathlessly listened, and then the back door was thrown open.

It was seen that a narrow and railed veranda ran along the back of the saloon, overhanging the foaming Shenandoah far below, and this veranda almost gave access to the Shenandoah bridge, whose rock abutment adjoined the saloon.

“Mr. Quantrell," spoke Beall, his face serious to the verge of gloom, "a few of us are holding this place with the greatest caution, because we believe it to be the key of the situation. We keep the front closed and have fired no shot from here, because the enemy with his rifles, from the engine-house, can riddle this thin building. We expect to kill him-all that there is left of him-when he retreats across the Potomac bridge. He must pass right in front of this house to get to the bridge, and we want to kill every man he has!"

The suppressed energy of the speaker called Quantrell's attention.

"Why, John," he said, "you would pity the poor devils if you had seen them, as I have, falling in the river, lying in the streets, hungry, absurd, misled, weeded out."

“No,” replied Beall, trembling, "I want to kill every man of them! We're lying low here, to shoot them down at their last chance! We let one scoundrel pass just now, lest we might draw

every rifle in that engine-house upon us and spoil our full revenge, sir."

"Indeed, you're a Scotchman, John, and Highlander too, I reckon. But, of course, I'm with you. Where's William Thompson, the

raider who guarded the Shenandoah bridge?"

"Taken. He's over in the hotel."

Beall's eyes smoldered, and his eyebrows and mouth were both drawn straight and hard.

"How did you capture the bridge?"

"From this saloon. We crept upon the guard, an unsuspecting fellow, and getting him fast, sent a detachment across the bridge to kill any who might escape from the Rifle-works."

Not a smile nor gratulation was in all this; a devout Indian, reciting the fate of the enemies he had doomed for the manes of his father, might have been less intense.

"I saw them die, John. It was a terrible scene."

"I should like to have witnessed it. But the leader is still yonder!"

He pointed to the engine-house, with a face drawn so hard together from the jaw to the skull, that every feature seemed to be a plain line. Reflective hate lay coldly there, incapable now of other joy.

Quantrell looked at the other occupants of the sinister place—at the saloon-keeper, with long, fox-red beard, who was continually stroking it, and with eyes wide apart.

“Come up!”

"Forty drops," said the saloon-keeper. He went behind the dusky bar and set the bottle out, and peeped through a hole in the shutter at the engine-house-laying hand, meanwhile, upon the long revolver there, which had been in Lloyd's custody the night before.

'They're all caged in the engine-house," the saloon-man said. "Hello! yonder's one coming down the yard."

They peeped successively at the hole, and, when Lloyd's turn came, he saw in the vista of the armory-yard two men, one with a gun, keeping the other man between him and a party of armed men, who now and then fired a shot, but, seeking not to injure the hostage, they did no execution.

“That's Lehman!” Quantrell exclaimed. 'And, upon my word, the fellow running is Andrew Atzerodt!"

"Here, gentlemen," the warm-bearded saloon-keeper spoke;

"we'll close the back door, and that will darken the room, so we may see, and be unseen, out of the glass door, by keeping back from the light a little."

He raised the blind, and they could all see.

The landlord brought out his pistol, which was nearly as long as one of the outlaws' rifles, and it had a skeleton breech which made it a veritable gun to rest against his shoulder. He rolled the great steel chamber, charged with six slugs like Minié balls, between his thumb and finger, to see if it was true and well oiled.

66

'I hope there's a dead man in every cartridge," he said. “That's my pious design."

They all gazed at the boy Lehman, skirmishing with twenty enemies. The balls from the hills and town would tear up the ground around him and cut twigs from the elm and maple trees, and Atzerodt would fall upon the ground till Lehman's rifle covered him, and then he would start up with wide, imploring arms, only to be paralyzed by the open muzzle of the rifle.

"That boy's dead game," the saloon-keeper said; “but our friends are shooting very poor."

“Lehman don't want to kill anybody," Quantrell said.

drop a man with every ball, if he wants to."

"He can

They now observed one man at the angle of a building behind Lehman, deliberately aiming at his back. The pistol exploded, but only Atzerodt fell down, and lay like one stone-dead.

Lehman turned upon the man, whose gun was now uncharged, and raised his rifle at him.

The man fell on his knees.

"Now he'll blow his head right off!" said the saloon-keeper. As they looked, in the excitement of almost mortal suspense, they saw Lehman knock the pistol out of the man's hand and disappear behind the same angle of wall from which his assassination had been sought.

Atzerodt jumped up and ran at the top of his speed.

The man whose life had been spared, rose to his feet and quickly reloaded, rammed and capped his pistol, and started in the direction Lehman had gone.

"Forty drops," said the saloon-keeper.

"Come up!"

Every man around the bar had a weapon of some kind, and they drank with the zest of hunters. Beall alone was abstinent and brooding.

"Will this insult upon Virginia ever be wiped off?" he said to Quantrell.

"We entertained your invaders in Maryland," Quantrell replied; "that must be atoned for."

All looked carefully at their weapons, like fishermen inspecting their tackle. The splutter of gunnery in the street was continued. Gentlemen," spoke Quantrell, “I want to see the fate of little Lehman, and, by your leave, I'll make a dash for the railway-station."

Before there could be objection, he had opened the door and closed it behind him.

A very few steps brought him upon the railroad bridge, and he looked in wonder at the changed scene around him.

Men were everywhere-upon both bridges, on the strands of the rivers, upon both shores opposite, and crowding the railway-station and fringing the hills; and from every safe place guns were shooting at the little engine-house in the armory-yard, which began to show the marks of a bombardment: its doors were ripped and splintered, the trees around it clipped of twigs and stems; and yet it was languidly returning fire from the fresh port-holes and from the partly open doors, where now a man could be seen crouching and another standing.

As Quantrell came to the station and hotel, he heard a voice cry:

"O Heywood, speak! What will yo' po' wife say to me?—He's gone. He's dead! Now get me a gun. I want a robber's life!" Lloyd saw the negro porter lying still, and felt his body, which was already partly cold.

"I know whaw I can find a pistol," spoke the mayor of the town and station agent; I'll git it and return."

He dashed toward the Gault House saloon, and Quantrell swung down the railway trestle-work to the Potomac strand and crept along that churning river, stooping low. There were men lying flat upon their breasts from point to point, seeking to send a shot into the engine-house, and nearly every trestle-post had thus its revenger.

Running fast, the Baltimorean soon had passed most of the armory buildings, but was arrested by the whizzing of a ball within an inch, as it seemed, of his head.

He glanced across the river, in Maryland, and saw a puff of smoke rising from a place along the lower mountain-side; beneath