Chapter 31

THE SURRENDER OF CAPTAIN GRUNDY

Deck Lyon reloaded his rifle without a moment's delay; then resuming his kneeling posture, he gazed at the window again. The ruffian had fallen forwards from the bed, and his companions had picked him up. The observer could see that he had not been killed. The other two laid him on the bed, and it was evident that he had been severely wounded. They examined him, but of course the result could not be known to the lieutenant.

While one of them was tying a handkerchief around the head of the wounded man, the other went to the window. A pane of glass had been broken, and this must have assured him that the ball had come from outside of the mansion. Then he proceeded to look about the surroundings in search of the person who had fired the shot, confining his gaze to the ground. If he had reasoned at all over the matter, which perhaps his education did not enable him to do, he might have realized that the bullet did not come from the ground.

The man had thrown the window wide open, and was making a very scrutinizing examination of every part of the courtyard. He could see plainly whatever was in front of the window; but this did not seem to satisfy him. He thrust half his body out of the opening, looking both sides of him, as though it had been possible to fire a rifle around a corner. The fellow was certainly stupid enough to be shot, and Deck did not wait any longer to do his work.

The ball struck him in the head as he was stretching his neck to the utmost to enlarge the extent of his vision to a point from which the fatal bullet could not possibly have come. If he could have imagined a line from the round hole in the pane of glass to the point where his comrade's head had been, it would have pointed directly to Deck's locality when he discharged the rifle.

The ruffian dropped from the window-sill to the ground with a heavy thud, and did not move again. The ball had penetrated his brain, and he was the victim of his unscientific observations. But the lieutenant did not remove his gaze from the open window. It seemed very like slaughter to shoot down the enemy in this manner, and a twinge of conscience disturbed him. But he reasoned that he had given the ruffians a chance to surrender, which they had refused to accept. Then they were pirates, robbers, making war for gain against friend and foe alike.

The third man in the room did not remain there any longer. He could hardly have known what became of the one at the window, unless he had heard the crack of a rifle, and failed to see him again. Under these circumstances it was not difficult for him to reason out the conclusion that the chamber where he was must be a dangerous locality, and he sought a safer place.

The lieutenant continued to watch the window, but no enemy appeared in the room again. It had proved to be a chamber of death. He had hardly lost sight of the foe before he heard the crack of a rifle in the grove. The two Hickmans there were riflemen, and Deck did not believe it would be possible for either of them to fire without killing or wounding his man; but he heard but one shot, and probably four of the land pirates were still living.

Deck waited some time for the sound of another shot, but in vain. He did not believe another ruffian would enter the fatal room commanded by his position, and he decided to seek a more promising place for his operations. Since the shot he had heard, he was confident that none of the enemy would show themselves at the windows. He descended to the cellar of the stable, and then, by the way he had come, reached the kitchen, and then the parlor, at the door of which the planter was fortified.

"Anything new, Colonel Hickman?" he asked.

"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed the sentinel over the staircase. "What have you been doing outside? Something has happened."

"I think we have reduced the enemy by three, and perhaps more," replied the young officer; and he proceeded to explain what he and his companions had been doing.

"You think you have knocked down three or more of the robbers?"

"As many as that."

"Then that explains it!"

"Explains what?" asked Deck, as much puzzled by the exhilarated tones of the planter as by his questions.

"One of them hailed me some time ago, and wanted to see the one in command. I told him the commander was not in the house, but was conducting the fight outside. He asked me to send for him, but I refused to do so. I did not intend to interrupt your operation; for I never take another's command away from him," replied the colonel, indulging at the same time in a chuckle, to which he was somewhat given when pleased.

"Do you know what he wanted?"

"I do; for he shouted down the stairs that he and the rest of them desired to surrender."

"Then we will let them do so," added Deck, who was not disposed to fight after the battle had been won.

"What shall you do with them after they have surrendered, Lieutenant?" asked the planter, plainly much interested in the question.

"I shall do nothing at all with them; I am not the judge or the civil power of Russell County. We have beaten the enemy, and I have nothing further to do with the matter," answered Deck.

The colonel decided not to ask any more questions, though the lieutenant suspected he intended to dispose of the prisoners as he thought best.

"Up-stairs, there!" shouted the planter. "The commander is here now."

"Ask him to come up here, and we will arrange things," returned the ruffian with unblushing effrontery.

"The commander will do nothing of the sort," replied the colonel indignantly. "Do you really believe that he would trust himself with such cutthroats as you are?"

"We will agree not to hurt him, though he has used us very unfairly," said the spokesman. "He has tried to murder all of us!"

"You deserve to be hung; and it would be too merciful to shoot you!" roared the colonel, his wrath getting the better of him.

"Do Union men hang their prisoners?" demanded the ruffian bitterly.

"Prisoners!" exclaimed the planter contemptuously. "You are such prisoners as they shut up in the penitentiary, or hang in the public square."

"Can I see the commander?" asked the spokesman, quite gently by this time.

"I will see him if he comes down into the parlor," said Deck. "I shall make prisoners of them; but I wish to stipulate that neither Sergeant Fronklyn nor myself shall have anything to do with punishing them, either by hanging or shooting after they have surrendered."

"The commander will see you down-stairs; but I will shoot any other that attempts to put his foot on the first stair," shouted Colonel Hickman.

"I will come down," replied the spokesman; and he came to the head of the staircase with a gun in his hand.

"Halt!" cried the planter. "Leave all your arms up-stairs! Have you any pistols about you?"

He passed his musket to one of the others, and did the same with a couple of pistols when the colonel mentioned them. Having complied with the order, he came down the stairs. He was directed to the parlor in which the lieutenant was waiting for him.

"Are you the commander here?" he inquired.

"I am. May I ask what you are?" demanded Deck, without rising from the armchair in which he was seated.

"I am called Captain Grundy."

"Not Mrs. Grundy?"

"Captain Grundy," replied the ruffian, with something of dignity in his looks and manner.

"Have you a captain's commission?"

"Not yet."

"In what service are you?"

"In the service of the Confederate States of America."

"In what regiment?"

"In no regiment; in a company organized by my government."

"A company of Partisan Rangers?"

"But in the service of my country."

"Are you a Kentuckian?"

"I am."

"And your service is to roam over your native State, killing, robbing, plundering your fellow-citizens; a highwayman, a thief, and a murderer," continued the lieutenant very severely. "This is the second time you have visited this mansion for plunder; but you don't come out of it so well as you expected," said Deck with a sneer, evident in his tones as well as his looks.

"Where is the rest of your company, Captain Grundy?"

"On duty in another county."

"But you expect the balance of your command here some time to-day?"

"There will soon be a time when the treatment we have received here will be returned with compound interest," said Grundy with a savage and revengeful look on his ill-favored countenance.

"You wished to see me; what is your business?" demanded the lieutenant.

"I am ready to surrender. You and your gang have murdered nearly all my men here in cold blood. I can do nothing more, and I must yield," replied Grundy.

"Are you a lawyer, Captain?"

"I am not; I am a horse-dealer."

"I should think you might be!" sneered Deck. "Do you think it is right to ride over the State, robbing your fellow-citizens, threatening to hang a planter to a tree for refusing to give up his money?"

"In the service of my country, yes! Kentucky belongs to the Confederacy; and those who fight to keep the State in the exploded Union are traitors, and should be treated as enemies of the State and the Confederacy."

"Suppose I should visit your house, demand your money, and hang you if you did not give it up? Would that be all right?"

"That is another matter," growled Grundy.

"Precisely; the same boot don't fit both feet," returned Deck.

"I am your prisoner; but you need not thorn me with your Union logic."

At this moment the lieutenant heard the voice of Davis Hickman in the hall, talking to his father. He called him into the parlor, and requested him to bring a quantity of cord or straps to him; and he went for them.

"What do you want of cords and straps?" asked Grundy.

"To bind my prisoner."

"Do you mean to hang me?"

"I do not; I leave that job to the regular hangman. He will perform it in due time, I have no doubt," replied Deck, as Davis brought in the cords.

"I don't mean to be tied up like a wildcat," said the captain doggedly.

"Then you do not surrender; and if you wish to do so, you may go up-stairs again."

"I surrender; but I will not be bound like a nigger!" exclaimed Captain Grundy, as he sprang away from the lieutenant, and ran into the back room.

"What's the matter now, Phil?" demanded the colonel, as the mulatto of this name rushed into the hall, panting more from excitement than physical exertion, for his horse was at the door.

Both Deck and Davis pursued the captain; but they were taken off their guard, and neither of them succeeded in getting hold of the ruffian. He fled to a window which some one had left open, leaped out, and ran towards the front of the mansion. Davis fired his rifle at him; but being "on the wing," he failed to bring him down. Deck, believing that the fight was finished, had left his rifle in the parlor.

"The Lord save us, Mars'r Cun'l!" shouted Phil, as he broke into the hall. "The ruffians, more'n twenty of 'em, is coming up the road on hossback, at full gallop!"

It looked like another fight against great odds.