of the trench, with Sharpe lying with his face
on his arm a few feet away, and the tall Cuban outstretched beside him,
and the dead Spaniards, Americans, and Cubans about them, Grafton told
the story of Crittenden. And at the end the other man gave a low whistle
and smote the back of one hand into the palm of the other softly.

Dusk fell quickly. The full moon rose. The stars came out, and under
them, at the foot of the big mountains, a red fire burned sharply out in
the mist rising over captured Caney, from which tireless Chaffee was
already starting his worn-out soldiers on an all-night march by the rear
and to the trenches at San Juan. And along the stormed hill-side
camp-fires were glowing out where the lucky soldiers who had rations to
cook were cheerily frying bacon and hardtack. Grafton moved down to
watch one squad and, as he stood on the edge of the firelight, wondering
at the cheery talk and joking laughter, somebody behind him said
sharply:

"Watch out, there," and he turned to find himself on the edge of a grave
which a detail was digging not ten yards away from the fire--digging for
a dead comrade. Never had he seen a more peaceful moonlit night than the
night that closed over the battlefield. It was hard for him to realize
that the day had not been a terrible dream, and yet, as the moon rose,
its rich light, he knew, was stealing into the guerilla-haunted jungles,
stealing through guava-bush and mango-tree, down through clumps of
Spanish bayonet, on stiff figures that would rise no more; on white, set
faces with the peace of painless death upon them or the agony of silent
torture, fought out under fierce heat and in the silence of the jungle
alone.

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