But guardedly as she began, the effect on the huddled crowd below was instant and electrical. They heard almost the first note; looking down anxiously, I saw the wonder and enthusiasm pass from man to man. They heard the first two lines in awed, ecstatic silence; but at the third, warily, first one, then three, then a dozen, then a score, bereft of arms, standard, and leader, little counting ever again to see freedom, flag, or home, they raised their voices, by the dawn's early light, in their song of songs.
Our main body were out in the highway, just facing into column, and the effect on them I could not see. The prisoners' guards, though instantly ablaze with indignation, were so taken by surprise that for two or three seconds, with carbines at a ready, they--and even their sergeant in command--only darted fierce looks here and there and up at me. The prisoners must have been used to singing in ordered chorus, for one of them strode into their middle, and smiling sturdily at the maddened guard and me, led the song evenly. "No, sir!" he cried, as I made an angry sign for them to desist, "one verse through, if every damned fool of us dies for it--let the Captain hear it boys--sing!
"'The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air--'"
Charlotte had ceased, in consternation not for the conditions without more than for those within. With the first strong swell of the song from below, the dying leader strove to sit upright and to lift his blade, but failed and would have slammed back upon the pillows had not she and Miss Harper saved him. He lay in their arms gasping his last, yet clutching his sabre with a quivering hand and listening on with rapt face untroubled by the fiery tumult of cries that broke into and over the strain.
"Club that man over the head!" cried the sergeant of the guard, and one of his men swung a gun; but the Yankee sprang inside of its sweep, crying, "Sing her through, boys!" grappled his opponent, and hurled him back. In the same instant the sergeant called steadily, "Guard, ready--aim--"
There sounded a clean slap of levelled carbines, yet from the prisoners came the continued song in its closing couplet:
"The star-spangled banner! O, long may it wave!--"