outlined in
the void was swinging signal flags against the sky.

"Wait here," said the Special Messenger to Troopers Burke and Campbell,
and they unslung carbines, and leaned quietly against their feeding
horses, watching her climb the crest.

The crest was bathed in early sunlight, an aerial island jutting up
above a smoky sea. From the terrible, veiled maelstrom roaring below,
battle thunder reverberated and the lightning of the guns flared
incessantly.

For a moment, poised, she looked down into the inferno, striving to
penetrate the hollow, then glanced out beyond, over fields and woods
where sunlight patched the world beyond the edges of the dark pall.

Behind her Captain West, field glasses leveled, seemed to be intent upon
his own business.

She sat down on the grassy acclivity. Below her, far below, Confederate
shells were constantly striking the base of the hill. A mile away black
squares checkered a slope; beyond the squares a wood was suddenly belted
with smoke, and behind her she heard the swinging signal flags begin to
whistle and snap in the hill wind. She had sat there a long while before
Captain West spoke to her, standing tall and thin beside her; some
half-serious, half-humorous pleasantry--nothing for her to answer. But
she looked up into his face, and he became silent, and after a while he
moved away.

A little while later the artillery duel subsided and finally died out
abruptly, leaving a comparative calm, broken only by slow and very
deliberate picket firing.

The signal men laid aside their soiled flags and began munching
hardtack; Captain West came over, bringing his own rations to offer her,
but she refused with a gesture, sitting there, chin propped in her
palms, elbows indenting her knees.

"Are you not hungry or thirsty?" he asked.

"No."

He had carelessly seated himself on the natural rocky parapet, spurred
boots dangling over space. For one wild instant she hoped he might slip
and fall headlong--and his blood be upon the hands of his Maker.

Sitting near one another they remained silent, restless-eyed, brooding
above the battle-scarred world. As he rose to go he spoke once or twice
to her with that haunting softness of voice which had begun to torture
her; but her replies were very brief; and he said nothing more.

At intervals during the afternoon orderlies came to the hill; one or two
general officers and their staffs arrived for brief consultations, and
departed at a sh