ugh the dark firmament that fiery orange shape began canting
downward; and the cheering swelled in a savage frenzy of sound. And
Pierson's arm tightened on her waist.

"Thank God!" he muttered.

The bright oblong seemed to break and spread, tilted down below the level
of the roofs; and suddenly the heavens flared, as if some huge jug of
crimson light had been flung out on them. Something turned over in
Pierson's heart; he flung up his hand to his eyes.

"The poor men in it!" he said. "How terrible!"

Noel's voice answered, hard and pitiless:

"They needn't have come. They're murderers!"

Yes, they were murderers--but how terrible! And he stood quivering, with
his hands pressed to his face, till the cheering had died out into
silence.

"Let's pray, Nollie!" he whispered. "O God, Who in Thy great mercy hath
delivered us from peril, take into Thy keeping the souls of these our
enemies, consumed by Thy wrath before our eyes; give us the power to pity
them--men like ourselves."

But even while he prayed he could see Noel's face flame-white in the
darkness; and, as that glow in the sky faded out, he felt once more the
thrill of triumph.

They went down to tell the maids, and for some time after sat up
together, talking over what they had seen, eating biscuits and drinking
milk, which they warmed on an etna. It was nearly two o'clock before
they went to bed. Pierson fell asleep at once, and never turned till
awakened at half-past six by his alarum. He had Holy Communion to
administer at eight, and he hurried to get early to his church and see
that nothing untoward had happened to it. There it stood in the
sunlight; tall, grey, quiet, unharmed, with bell gently ringing.

3

And at that hour Cyril Morland, under the parapet of his trench,
tightening his belt, was looking at his wrist-watch for the hundredth
time, calculating exactly where he meant to put foot and hand for the
going over: 'I absolutely mustn't let those chaps get in front of me,' he
thought. So many yards before the first line of trenches, so many yards
to the second line, and there stop. So his rehearsals had gone; it was
the performance now! Another minute before the terrific racket of the
drum-fire should become the curtain-fire, which would advance before
them. He ran his eye down the trench. The man next him was licking his
two first fingers, as if he might be going to bowl at cricket. Further
down, a man was feeling his put