In her mind, stories Aunt Pittypat had whispered of attacks on

unprotected women, throat cuttings, houses burned over the heads of

dying women, children bayoneted because they cried, all of the

unspeakable horrors that lay bound up in the name of "Yankee."

Her first terrified impulse was to hide in the closet, crawl under

the bed, fly down the back stairs and run screaming to the swamp,

anything to escape him. Then she heard his cautious feet on the

front steps and his stealthy tread as he entered the hall and she

knew that escape was cut off. Too cold with fear to move, she

heard his progress from room to room downstairs, his steps growing

louder and bolder as he discovered no one. Now he was in the

dining room and in a moment he would walk out into the kitchen.

At the thought of the kitchen, rage suddenly leaped up in

Scarlett's breast, so sharply that it jabbed at her heart like a

knife thrust, and fear fell away before her overpowering fury. The

kitchen! There, over the open kitchen fire were two pots, one

filled with apples stewing and the other with a hodgepodge of

Vegetables brought painfully from Twelve Oaks and the MacIntosh

garden--dinner that must serve for nine hungry people and hardly

enough for two. Scarlett had been restraining her appetite for

hours, waiting for the return of the others and the thought of the

Yankee eating their meager meal made her shake with anger.

God damn them all! They descended like locusts and left Tara to

starve slowly and now they were back again to steal the poor

leavings. Her empty stomach writhed within her. By God, this was

one Yankee who would do no more stealing!

She slipped off her worn shoe and, barefooted, she pattered swiftly

to the bureau, not even feeling her festered toe. She opened the

top drawer soundlessly and caught up the heavy pistol she had

brought from Atlanta, the weapon Charles had worn but never fired.

She fumbled in the leather box that hung on the wall below his

saber and brought out a cap. She slipped it into place with a hand

that did not shake. Quickly and noiselessly, she ran into the

upper hall and down the stairs, steadying herself on the banisters

with one hand and holding the pistol close to her thigh in the

folds of her skirt.

"Who's there?" cried a nasal voice and she stopped on the middle of

the stairs, the blood thudding in her ears so loudly she could

hardly hear him. "Halt or I'll shoot!" came the voice.

He stood in the door of the dining room, crouched tensely, his

pistol in one hand and, in the other, the small rosewood sewing box

fitted with gold thimble, gold-handled scissors and tiny gold-

topped acorn of emery. Scarlett's legs felt cold to the knees but

rage scorched her face. Ellen's sewing box in his hands. She

wanted to cry: "Put it down! Put it down, you dirty--" but words

would not come. She could only stare over the banisters at him and

watch his face change from harsh tenseness to a half-contemptuous,

half-ingratiating smile.

"So there is somebody ter home," he said, slipping his pistol back

Into its holster and moving into the hall until he stood directly

below her. "All alone, little lady?"

Like lightning, she shoved her weapon over the banisters and into

the startled bearded face. Before he could even fumble at his

belt, she pulled the trigger. The back kick of the pistol made her

reel, as the roar of the explosion filled her ears and the acrid

smoke stung her nostrils. The man crashed backwards to the floor,

sprawling into the dining room with a violence that shook the

furniture. The box clattered from his hand, the contents spilling

about him. Hardly aware that she was moving, Scarlett ran down the

stairs and stood over him, gazing down into what was left of the

face above the beard, a bloody pit where the nose had been, glazing

eyes burned with powder. As she looked, two streams of blood crept

across the shining floor, one from his face and one from the back

of his head.

Yes, he was dead. Undoubtedly. She had killed a man.

The smoke curled slowly to the ceiling and the red streams widened

about her feet. For a timeless moment she stood there and in the

still hot hush of the summer morning every irrelevant sound and

scent seemed magnified, the quick thudding of her heart, like a

drumbeat, the slight rough rustling of the magnolia leaves, the

far-off plaintive sound of a swamp bird and the sweet smell of the

flowers outside the window.

She had killed a man, she who took care never to be in at the kill

on a hunt, she who could not bear the squealing of a hog at

slaughter or the squeak of a rabbit in a snare. Murder! she

thought dully. I've done murder. Oh, this can't be happening to

me! Her eyes went to the stubby hairy hand on the floor so close

to the sewing box and suddenly she was vitally alive again, vitally

glad with a cool tigerish joy. She could have ground her heel into

the gaping wound which had been his nose and taken sweet pleasure