Near the two women and among chance spectators on the piazza of the deserted house a well-known character of the times leaned against one of the pillars. This was Colonel Gift. Our chronicler, who has an eye for the telling phrase, describes him as "a tall, lank, empty-bowelled, tobacco-spurting Southerner, with eyes like burning black balls, who could talk a company of listeners into an insane asylum quicker than any man in California, and whose blasphemy could not be equalled, either in quantity or quality, by the most profane of any age or nation." In this crisis Colonel Gift's sympathies may be guessed. He watched the scene below him with a sardonic eye. As the armed columns wheeled into place and stood at attention, he turned to a man standing near. "I tell you, stranger," said he, "when you see those damned psalm-singing Yankees turn out of their churches, shoulder their guns, and march away of a Sunday, you may know that hell is going to crack shortly!" Mrs. Sherwood turned an amused eye in his direction. The colonel, for the first time becoming aware of her presence, swept off his black slouch hat and apologized profusely for the "damn." The armed men stood rigid, four deep all around the square. Behind them the masses of the people watched. Even the murmur died. Again everybody waited. Now, at a command, the ranks fell apart and from the side street marched the sixty men chosen by Olney dragging a field gun at the end of a rope. Their preliminary task of watching the jail for a possible escape finished, they had been again gathered. With beautiful military precision they wheeled and came to rest facing the frowning walls of the jail, the cannon pointed at the door. Nan gasped sharply, and seized Mrs. Sherwood's arm with both hands. She had recognized Keith standing by the right wheel of the cannon. He was looking straight ahead, and the expression on his face was one she had never seen there before. Suddenly something swelled up within her breast and choked her. The tears rushed to her eyes. Quite deliberately, each motion in plain sight, the cannon was loaded with powder and ball. A man lit a slow match, blew it painstakingly to a glow, then took his position at the breech. The slight innumerable sounds of these activities died. The bustle of men moving imperceptibly fell. Not even the coughing and sneezing usual to a gathering of people paying attention was heard, for the intense interest inhibited these nervous symptoms. Probably never have twenty thousand people, gathered in one place, made their presence so little evident. A deep, solemn stillness brooded over them. The spring sun lay warm and grateful on men's shoulders; the doves and birds, the distant dogs and roosters, cooed and twittered, barked and crowed.