Looking toward Caney he could even see the hill from which he had
witnessed the flight of the first shell that had been the storm centre
of the hurricane of death that had swept all through the white,
cloudless day. It burst harmlessly--that shell--and meant no more than a
signal to fire to the soldiers closing in on Caney, the Cubans lurking
around a block-house at a safe artillery distance in the woods and to
the impatient battery before San Juan. Retrospectively now, it meant the
death-knell of brave men, the quick cry and long groaning of the
wounded, the pained breathing of sick and fever-stricken, the quickened
heart-beats of the waiting and anxious at home--the low sobbing of the
women to whom fatal news came. It meant Cervera's gallant dash, Sampson
and Schley's great victory, the fall of Santiago; freedom for Cuba, a
quieter sleep for the Maine dead, and peace with Spain. Once more, as
he rose, he looked at the dark woods, the dead-haunted jungles which the
moon was draping with a more than mortal beauty, and he knew that in
them, as in the long grass of the orchard-like valley below him, comrade
was looking for dead comrade. And among the searchers was the faithful
Bob, looking for his Old Captain, Crittenden, his honest heart nigh to
bursting, for already he had found Raincrow torn with a shell and he had
borne a body back to the horror-haunted little hospital under the creek
bank at the Bloody Ford--a body from which the head hung over his
shoulder--limp, with a bullet-hole through the neck--the body of his
Young Captain, Basil.