I'm afraid your Uncle Henry has a black eye due to Mr. Merriwether's zeal for his part.
He--"
The back door swung open and India entered, followed by old Dr.
Dean, his long white hair tumbled, his worn leather bag bulging under his cape.
He nodded briefly but without words to those present and quickly lifted the bandage from Ashley's shoulder.
"Too high for the lung," he said.
"If it hasn't splintered his collar bone it's not so serious.
Get me plenty of towels, ladies, and cotton if you have it, and some brandy."
Rhett took the lamp from Scarlett and set it on the table as Melanie and India sped about, obeying the doctor's orders.
"You can't do anything here.
Come into the parlor by the fire."
He took her arm and propelled her from the room.
There was a gentleness foreign to him in both hand and voice.
"You've had a rotten day, haven't you?"
She allowed herself to be led into the front room and though she stood on the hearth rug in front of the fire she began to shiver.
The bubble of suspicion in her breast was swelling larger now.
It was more than a suspicion.
It was almost a certainty and a terrible certainty.
She looked up into Rhett's immobile face and for a moment she could not speak.
Then:
"Was Frank at--Belle Watling's?"
"No."
Rhett's voice was blunt.
"Archie's carrying him to the vacant lot near Belle's.
He's dead.
Shot through the head."
CHAPTER XLVI
Few families in the north end of town slept that night for the news of the disaster to the Klan, and Rhett's stratagem spread swiftly on silent feet as the shadowy form of India Wilkes slipped through back yards, whispered urgently through kitchen doors and slipped away into the windy darkness.
And in her path, she left fear and desperate hope.
From without, houses looked black and silent and wrapped in sleep but, within, voices whispered vehemently into the dawn.
Not only those involved in the night's raid but every member of the Klan was ready for flight and in almost every stable along Peachtree Street, horses stood saddled in the darkness, pistols in holsters and food in saddlebags.
All that prevented a wholesale exodus was India's whispered message:
"Captain Butler says not to run.
The roads will be watched.
He has arranged with that Watling creature--" In dark rooms men whispered:
"But why should I trust that damned Scallawag Butler?
It may be a trap!"
And women's voices implored:
"Don't go!
If he saved Ashley and Hugh, he may save everybody.
If India and Melanie trust him--" And they half trusted and stayed because there was no other course open to them.
Earlier in the night, the soldiers had knocked at a dozen doors and those who could not or would not tell where they had been that night were marched off under arrest.
Rene Picard and one of Mrs. Merriwether's nephews and the Simmons boys and Andy Bonnell were among those who spent the night in jail.
They had been in the ill- starred foray but had separated from the others after the shooting.
Riding hard for home they were arrested before they learned of Rhett's plan.
Fortunately they all replied, to questions, that where they had been that night was their own business and not that of any damned Yankees.
They had been locked up for further questioning in the morning.
Old man Merriwether and Uncle Henry Hamilton declared shamelessly that they had spent the evening at Belle Watling's sporting house and when Captain Jaffery remarked irritably that they were too old for such goings on, they wanted to fight him.
Belle Watling herself answered Captain Jaffery's summons, and before he could make known his mission she shouted that the house was closed for the night.
A passel of quarrelsome drunks had called in the early part of the evening and had fought one another, torn the place up, broken her finest mirrors and so alarmed the young ladies that all business had been suspended for the night.