It was all over. Melanie was not dead and the small baby boy who

made noises like a young kitten was receiving his first bath at

Prissy's hands. Melanie was asleep. How could she sleep after

that nightmare of screaming pain and ignorant midwifery that hurt

more than it helped? Why wasn't she dead? Scarlett knew that she

herself would have died under such handling. But when it was over,

Melanie had even whispered, so weakly she had to bend over her to

hear: "Thank you." And then she had gone to sleep. How could she

go to sleep? Scarlett forgot that she too had gone to sleep after

Wade was born. She forgot everything. Her mind was a vacuum; the

world was a vacuum; there had been no life before this endless day

and there would be none hereafter--only a heavily hot night, only

the sound of her hoarse tired breathing, only the sweat trickling

coldly from armpit to waist, from hip to knee, clammy, sticky,

chilling.

She heard her own breath pass from loud evenness to spasmodic

sobbing but her eyes were dry and burning as though there would

never be tears in them again. Slowly, laboriously, she heaved

herself over and pulled her heavy skirts up to her thighs. She was

warm and cold and sticky all at the same time and the feel of the

night air on her limbs was refreshing. She thought dully what Aunt

Pitty would say, if she could see her sprawled here on the front

porch with her skirts up and her drawers showing, but she did not

care. She did not care about anything. Time had stood still. It

might be just after twilight and it might be midnight. She didn't

know or care.

She heard sounds of moving feet upstairs and thought "May the Lord

damn Prissy," before her eyes closed and something like sleep

descended upon her. Then after an indeterminate dark interval,

Prissy was beside her, chattering on in a pleased way.

"We done right good, Miss Scarlett. Ah specs Maw couldn' a did no

better."

From the shadows, Scarlett glared at her, too tired to rail, too

tired to upbraid, too tired to enumerate Prissy's offenses--her

boastful assumption of experience she didn't possess, her fright,

her blundering awkwardness, her utter inefficiency when the

emergency was hot, the misplacing of the scissors, the spilling of

the basin of water on the bed, the dropping of the new born baby.

And now she bragged about how good she had been.

And the Yankees wanted to free the negroes! Well, the Yankees were

welcome to them.

She lay back against the pillar in silence and Prissy, aware of her

mood, tiptoed away into the darkness of the porch. After a long

Interval in which her breathing finally quieted and her mind

steadied, Scarlett heard the sound of faint voices from up the

road, the tramping of many feet coming from the north. Soldiers!

She sat up slowly, pulling down her skirts, although she knew no

one could see her in the darkness. As they came abreast the house,

an indeterminate number, passing like shadows, she called to them.

"Oh, please!"

A shadow disengaged itself from the mass and came to the gate.

"Are you going? Are you leaving us?"

The shadow seemed to take off a hat and a quiet voice came from the

darkness.

"Yes, Ma'm. That's what we're doing. We're the last of the men

from the breastworks, 'bout a mile north from here."

"Are you--is the army really retreating?"

"Yes, Ma'm. You see, the Yankees are coming."

The Yankees are coming! She had forgotten that. Her throat

suddenly contracted and she could say nothing more. The shadow

moved away, merged itself with the other shadows and the feet

tramped off into the darkness. "The Yankees are coming! The

Yankees are coming!" That was what the rhythm of their feet said,

that was what her suddenly bumping heart thudded out with each

beat. The Yankees are coming!

"De Yankees is comin'!" bawled Prissy, shrinking close to her.

"Oh, Miss Scarlett, dey'll kill us all! Dey'll run dey baynits in

our stummicks! Dey'll--"

"Oh, hush!" It was terrifying enough to think these things without

hearing them put into trembling words. Renewed fear swept her.

What could she do? How could she escape? Where could she turn for

help? Every friend had failed her.

Suddenly she thought of Rhett Butler and calm dispelled her fears.

Why hadn't she thought of him this morning when she had been

tearing about like a chicken with its head off? She hated him, but

he was strong and smart and he wasn't afraid of the Yankees. And

he was still in town. Of course, she was mad at him. But she

could overlook such things at a time like this. And he had a horse

and carriage, too. Oh, why hadn't she thought of him before! He

could take them all away from this doomed place, away from the

Yankees, somewhere, anywhere.

She turned to Prissy and spoke with feverish urgency.

"You know where Captain Butler lives--at the Atlanta Hotel?"

"Yas'm, but--"

"Well, go there, now, as quick as you can run and tell him I want

him. I want him to come quickly and bring his horse and carriage

or an ambulance if he can get one. Tell him about the baby. Tell

him I want him to take us out of here. Go, now. Hurry!"

She sat upright and gave Prissy a push to speed her feet.

"Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett! Ah's sceered ter go runnin' roun' in

de dahk by mahseff! Spose de Yankees gits me?"

"If you run fast you can catch up with those soldiers and they

won't let the Yankees get you. Hurry!"

"Ah's sceered! Sposin' Cap'n Butler ain' at de hotel?"

"Then ask where he is. Haven't you any gumption? If he isn't at

the hotel, go to the barrooms on Decatur Street and ask for him.

Go to Belle Watling's house. Hunt for him. You fool, don't you

see that if you don't hurry and find him the Yankees will surely

get us all?"

"Miss Scarlett, Maw would weah me out wid a cotton stalk, did Ah go

in a bahroom or a ho' house."

Scarlett pulled herself to her feet.

"Well, I'll wear you out if you don't. You can stand outside in

the street and yell for him, can't you? Or ask somebody if he's

inside. Get going."

When Prissy still lingered, shuffling her feet and mouthing,

Scarlett gave her another push which nearly sent her headlong down

the front steps.

"You'll go or I'll sell you down the river. You'll never see your

mother again or anybody you know and I'll sell you for a field hand

too. Hurry!"

"Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett--"

But under the determined pressure of her mistress' hand she started

down the steps. The front gate clicked and Scarlett cried: "Run,

you goose!"

She heard the patter of Prissy's feet as she broke into a trot, and

then the sound died away on the soft earth.

CHAPTER XXIII

After Prissy had gone, Scarlett went wearily into the downstairs

hall and lit a lamp. The house felt steamingly hot, as though it

held in its walls all the heat of the noontide. Some of her

dullness was passing now and her stomach was clamoring for food.

She remembered she had had nothing to eat since the night before

except a spoonful of hominy, and picking up the lamp she went into

the kitchen. The fire in the oven had died but the room was

stifling hot. She found half a pone of hard corn bread in the

skillet and gnawed hungrily on it while she looked about for other

food. There was some hominy left in the pot and she ate it with a

big cooking spoon, not waiting to put it on a plate. It needed

salt badly but she was too hungry to hunt for it. After four

spoonfuls of it, the heat of the room was too much and, taking the

lamp in one hand and a fragment of pone in the other, she went out

into the hall.

She knew she should go upstairs and sit beside Melanie. If

anything went wrong, Melanie would be too weak to call. But the

idea of returning to that room where she had spent so many

nightmare hours was repulsive to her. Even if Melanie were dying,

she couldn't go back up there. She never wanted to see that room

again. She set the lamp on the candle stand by the window and

returned to the front porch. It was so much cooler here, and even

the night was drowned in soft warmth. She sat down on the steps in

the circle of faint light thrown by the lamp and continued gnawing

on the corn bread.

When she had finished it, a measure of strength came back to her

and with the strength came again the pricking of fear. She could

hear a humming of noise far down the street, but what it portended

she did not know. She could distinguish nothing but a volume of

sound that rose and fell. She strained forward trying to hear and

soon she found her muscles aching from the tension. More than

anything in the world she yearned to hear the sound of hooves and

to see Rhett's careless, self-confident eyes laughing at her fears.

Rhett would take them away, somewhere. She didn't know where. She

didn't care.

As she sat straining her ears toward town, a faint glow appeared

above the trees. It puzzled her. She watched it and saw it grow

brighter. The dark sky became pink and then dull red, and suddenly

above the trees, she saw a huge tongue of flame leap high to the

heavens. She jumped to her feet, her heart beginning again its

sickening thudding and bumping.

The Yankees had come! She knew they had come and they were burning

the town. The flames seemed to be off to the east of the center of

town. They shot higher and higher and widened rapidly into a broad

expanse of red before her terrified eyes. A whole block must be

burning. A faint hot breeze that had sprung up bore the smell of

smoke to her.

She fled up the stairs to her own room and hung out the window for

a better view. The sky was a hideous lurid color and great swirls

of black smoke went twisting up to hand in billowy clouds above the

flames. The smell of smoke was stronger now. Her mind rushed