"For God's sake, use your discretion as Commanding General and open fire. If that fleet reaches Sumter the cause of the Confederacy is lost. Old Davis is too slow. He's still crying peace, peace, when there is no peace. The war has begun!" The General calmly shook his head and asked for instructions. Besides losing her brothers, she might be an orphan to-morrow. Her father was quite capable of an attack on Sumter without orders. And if the bombardment should begin he would probably be roaming over the harbor from fort to fort, superintending the job under the guns of both sides. "If Anderson does not accept the terms of surrender offered he will be fired on at four o'clock." Jennie repeated the headlines of the extra with a shiver. The chimes of St. Michael's struck three. The minutes slowly dragged. The half hour was sung through the soft balmy air of the Southern spring. Dick Welford, too, was behind one of those black guns on the shore. How handsome he had looked in his bright new uniform! He was a soldier from the crown of his blond head to the soles of his heavy feet. He had laughed at danger. She had liked him for that. He hadn't posed. He hadn't asked for sympathy or admiration. He just marched to his duty with the quick, firm step of the man who means business. She was sorry now she hadn't told him how much she liked and admired him. She might not have another chance-- "Nonsense, of course I will!" she murmured with a toss of her brown head. A dog barked across the street, and a wagon rattled hurriedly over the cobblestones below. A rooster crowed for day. She looked across the way, and a dark group of whispering women were huddled in a corner on the roof, their gaze fixed on Sumter. Another wagon rumbled heavily over the cobbles, and another, and another. A blue light flamed from Fort Sumter, blinking at intervals. Anderson was signaling someone. To the fleet that lay on the eastern horizon beyond the bar, perhaps. The chimes of St. Michael struck the fatal hour of four. Their sweet notes rang clear and soft and musical over the dim housetops just as they had sung to the sleeping world through years of joyous peace. Jennie sprang to her feet and strained her eyes toward the black lump that was Sumter out in the harbor. She waited with quick beating heart for the first flash of red from the shore batteries. It did not come. Five minutes passed that seemed an hour, and still no sound of war. Only those wagons were rumbling now at closer intervals--one after the other in quick succession. They were ammunition trains! The crack of the drivers' whips could be heard distinctly, and the cries of the men urging their horses on. The noise became at last a dull, continuous roar.