He dreamt of a serpent coiling around his throat, and when he strove to

grasp it the slimy thing glided away from his clutch. Then his dream was

clamor.

"Git your duds! you! Frenchy!" Nick was bellowing in his face. There

was what appeared to be a scramble and a rush rather than any regulated

movement. The hill side was alive with clatter and motion; with sudden

up-springing lights among the pines. In the east the dawn was unfolding

out of the darkness. Its glimmer was yet dim in the plain below.

"What's it all about?" wondered a big black bird perched in the top of

the tallest tree. He was an old solitary and a wise one, yet he was

not wise enough to guess what it was all about. So all day long he kept

blinking and wondering.

The noise reached far out over the plain and across the hills and awoke

the little babes that were sleeping in their cradles. The smoke curled

up toward the sun and shadowed the plain so that the stupid birds

thought it was going to rain; but the wise one knew better.

"They are children playing a game," thought he. "I shall know more about

it if I watch long enough."

At the approach of night they had all vanished away with their din and

smoke. Then the old bird plumed his feathers. At last he had understood!

With a flap of his great, black wings he shot downward, circling toward

the plain.

A man was picking his way across the plain. He was dressed in the

garb of a clergyman. His mission was to administer the consolations of

religion to any of the prostrate figures in whom there might yet linger

a spark of life. A negro accompanied him, bearing a bucket of water and

a flask of wine.

There were no wounded here; they had been borne away. But the retreat

had been hurried and the vultures and the good Samaritans would have to

look to the dead.

There was a soldier--a mere boy--lying with his face to the sky. His

hands were clutching the sward on either side and his finger nails

were stuffed with earth and bits of grass that he had gathered in his

despairing grasp upon life. His musket was gone; he was hatless and his

face and clothing were begrimed. Around his neck hung a gold chain and

locket. The priest, bending over him, unclasped the chain and removed

it from the dead soldier's neck. He had grown used to the terrors of

war and could face them unflinchingly; but its pathos, someway, always

brought the tears to his old, dim eyes.




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