He smiled with a simple and transitory joy, although he could hear the voice of his wife (commonly called Mamma Major) rising in loud lament amid the chorus of sorrow with which the women and children moved away. The poor creature kept no grudge against her husband for his infidelity of a month previous. In the lonely and imperilled little household Colburne now took command. "Since you will fight," he said smiling, "you must fight under my orders. I am the military power, and I proclaim martial law." He forbade the Ravenels to undress; they must be prepared to run at a moment's notice. He laughed at the Doctor's proposition to barricade the doors and windows, and, instead thereof, opened two or three trunks and scattered articles of little value about the rooms. The property would be a bait, he said, which might amuse the raiders while the family escaped. To gratify Major Scott's tremulous enthusiasm he loaded his own revolver and the Doctor's doubled-barreled fowling-piece, smiling sadly to himself to think how absurd was the idea of fighting off a band of Texans with such a feeble artillery. He posted the two negroes as a vidette a quarter of a mile down the road, with strict orders not to build a fire, not to sleep, not to make a noise, but in case of the approach of a party to hasten to the house and give information. The Major begged hard for the fowling-piece, but Colburne would not let him have it. "He would be worse than a Nine Months' man," he said to the Doctor. "He would be banging away at stumps and shadows all night. There wouldn't be a living field mouse on the plantation by morning."