Colonel Leonidas Talbot regarded the white flag with
feelings in which triumph and sadness were mingled strangely. But
the emotions of Harry and his comrades were, for the moment, those of
victory only.
Boats put out both from the fort and the shore. Discipline was relaxed
now, and Harry, St. Clair and Langdon went outside the battery. A light
breeze had sprung up, and it was very grateful to Harry, who for hours
had breathed the heavy odors of smoke and burned gunpowder. The smoke
itself, which had formed a vast cloud over harbor, forts and city,
was now drifting out to sea, leaving all things etched sharply in the
dazzling sunlight of a Southern spring day.
"Well, old Wait-and-See, you have waited, and you have seen," said
Langdon to Harry. "That white flag and those boats going out mean that
Sumter is ours. Everything is for the best and we win everywhere and
all the time."
Harry was silent. He was watching the boats. But the negotiations were
soon completed. Sumter, a mass of ruins, was given up, and the Star and
Bars, taking the place of the Stars and Stripes, gaily snapped defiance
to the whole North. "It begins to look well there," said Beauregard,
gazing proudly at the new flag.
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