There was little conversation in the ranks of the new company, but
their faces grew black as they listened to the jeers and insults across
the way, and they greedily fingered their freshly issued rifles. They
would be ready when the command of execution came. Callomb himself went
forward with the flag of truce. He shouted his message, and a bearded
man came to the court-house door.
"Tell 'em," he said without redundancy, "thet we're all here. Come an'
git us."
The officer went back, and distributed his forces under such cover as
offered itself, about the four walls. Then, a volley was fired over the
roof, and instantly the two buildings in the public square awoke to a
volcanic response of rifle fire.
All day, the duel between the streets and county buildings went on
with desultory intervals of quiet and wild outbursts of musketry. The
troops were firing as sharpshooters, and the court-house, too, had its
sharpshooters. When a head showed itself at a barricaded window, a
report from the outside greeted it. Samson was everywhere, his rifle
smoking and hot-barreled. His life seemed protected by a talisman. Yet,
most of the firing, after the first hour, was from within. The troops
were, except for occasional pot shots, holding their fire. There was
neither food nor water inside the building, and at last night closed
and the cordon drew tighter to prevent escape. The Hollmans, like rats
in a trap, grimly held on, realizing that it was to be a siege. On the
following morning, a detachment of F Company arrived, dragging two
gatling guns. The Hollmans saw them detraining, from their lookout in
the courthouse cupola, and, realizing that the end had come, resolved
upon a desperate sortie. Simultaneously, every door and lower window of
the court-house burst open to discharge a frenzied rush of men, firing
as they came. They meant to eat their way out and leave as many hostile
dead as possible in their wake. Their one chance now was to scatter
before the machine-guns came into action. They came like a flood of
human lava, and their guns were never silent, as they bore down on the
barricades, where the single outnumbered company seemed insufficient to
hold them. But the new militiamen, looking for reassurance not so much
to Callomb as to the granite-like face of Samson South, rallied, and
rose with a yell to meet them on bayonet and smoking muzzle. The rush
wavered, fell back, desperately rallied, then broke in scattered
remnants for the shelter of the building.
Old Jake Hollman fell near the door, and his grandson, rushing out,
picked up his fallen rifle, and sent farewell defiance from it, as he,
too, threw up both arms and dropped.