“Ach, py tam, vot for a nigger haf zocks, dagleich? Zhuck dem off oncest!” “Laws a-massy, you sholy ain’ gwine take mah socks, too, is you, marster?” “Ach, you plack pup, vere did you get dem goot glozes already? Come away from the ladies already oncest. Py tam, I vants dem zoots, too!” So he drew the reluctant darky aside, and in a few moments old Joe came back a soldier, lugubrious enough in his baggy trousers and short-armed coat. By that time the men, failing to open the chest of communion vessels, had borne it off in triumph on their shoulders. “Mr. Shand, oh, sir, can you tell me where General Sherman is?” Helen asked. “I saw him a moment ago, Miss Brooks, just around the corner,” the outraged pastor declared. They fled on, and as they turned the corner they suddenly heard loud cries, and saw a group of men in front of them. A negro lay dead in the center, and General Sherman was asking of the mob: “Men, who did this?” “He slacked us,” one of the soldiers replied. “Well, men, it is bad. Don’t let it occur again.” By this time Helen reached them and stood near to the General. “Are you General Sherman?” she asked. “I am, madam,” he answered, stepping over the dead body of the negro to her side. “General Sherman, I am Helen Brooks, sister of Captain Henry Brooks, whom you know.” “I am happy to know—” “General, this is no time for pleasantries. In the name of the lowly Jesus, I beg of you stop this horrible outrage!” “It is not my doing, Miss Brooks. I would stop it if I could, but it is beyond my power.” “Beyond your power, General Sherman? Do you think these men would dare to do these things without your assent? Do you mean that your captains and colonels and lieutenants would rob, and loot, and pillage, and murder, and allow their men to do it, if you said it should not be done? Is this the power you have over your army? Look at those men throwing their firebrands on that house here under your very eyes! Do they fear Sherman’s anger or court Sherman’s favor?” “Do you want a guard, Miss Brooks?” “Want a guard! What mockery! General, I have just come from a house where the guards you sent set fire to the house they were guarding and burnt it down over the head of a young mother while she was giving birth to her first-born. Shame, shame on you, sir, and yours!” “Madam, this is war! We did not commence it.” “General Sherman, you know my family, or you would not have listened to me so far. You know how my father has sacrificed half his fortune for the Union cause, and how my brother well-nigh gave his life. And now—mark my words, sir—this is not a deed of war or necessity, but of infamous, vindictive hate, and the time will come when even in our loved Northland men will repudiate your deeds!” There was a crash as a house near by fell in. A great mass of sparks and smoke belched upwards.