The excited town came out of doors. On the whole it was better to see the shells than to hear them where you sat in dark rooms. The women had a horror of being caught within falling walls, beneath a roof that was on fire; they, too, preferred to meet death and terror in the open. Not that they believed that death was coming to many to-night, or that they could have been called terrified. Vicksburg was growing used to bombardments. The women gathered the children and came out into the streets and gardens. There had been that evening a party and a dance. The signal gun boomed hard upon its close; young girls and matrons had reached home, but had not yet undressed. They came out of doors again in their filmy ball gowns, with flowers in their hair. As the guns opened mouth, as the blue shells rose into the night, each a swift, brilliant horror, the caves were suggested, but the women of Vicksburg did not like the caves and only meant to use them when the rain was furious. Not all came out of doors. The young wife of a major-general was afraid of the night air for her baby, and stayed quietly by its cradle, and others kept by the bedridden. Vicksburg, no more than any other Southern town, lacked its sick and wounded. The signal shot had awakened Désirée and Edward. Before he was dressed there came the sound of the beaten drum in the streets below. “The long roll!” he said. “I must hurry. The regiment is camped by the river.” He bent over her, took her in his arms. “Good-bye, love! goodbye, love!” “Good-bye, love; good-bye, good-bye!” He was gone. With a sob in her throat she fell back, lay for a moment outstretched on the bed, face down, her hands locked above her head. The house shook, a light came in the window, there were hurried voices through the house and in the garden below. She rose and dressed, braiding her long hair with flying fingers, her eyes upon the red light in the sky. When she had done she looked around her once, then went out, closing the door behind her, and ran down into the garden. CHAPTER VII PORT GIBSON