rting,--formed devilishly gruesome
arabesques that yet were formless; some burst like pon-pons; some
released long streamers and darted earthward. Jeb's eyes were held by
this appalling grandeur; his soul was chained, numbed, by its unlicensed
braggadocio.

As though some invisible hand touched the spring of a jumping-jack box
eight miles in length and released twenty thousand monkeys, the trench
beneath Jeb seemed to open with a snap. Even above the cannonading he
could hear men give vent to savage cheering. But his blood congealed and
his fingers dug into the earth, his breath came in agonized gasps, as he
watched them rush pell-mell, with bayonets fixed, across that deadly
strip of ground.

Then suddenly the artillery ceased. The far-off German guns still
roared, but they were as taps of rain upon a roof to ears that had
almost bled from other detonations. For a moment Jeb thought he had been
stricken deaf, and turned a questioning glance at Bonsecours, whose eyes
were staring ahead in strained expectancy.

"See, Americans! The curtain has raised for our brave fellows, and it
will now fall on the second line!"

In the immediate silence his voice seemed to be bellowing--then the
mighty guns, having lifted the range, crashed out again. Yet, mingled
with the blasting of this second line, could be heard the spiteful
rattling of machine-guns, the fusillade of rifle fire, as the enemy,
scrambling to places from the punishment they had just been through,
poured death into the headlong charge.

The scene to Jeb now became a phantasmagoria of horrors. Men running
with the speed of deer suddenly, and without apparent cause, pitched
forward, rose and again went down; some stumbled awkwardly and did not
try to rise. But the great wave, like a breaker rolling inward, swept
irresistibly. Tired and encumbered though each man was who made up this
wave, in a prodigiously short time they were pouring into the German
trench.

Such is the accuracy of modern warfare--and of the French, who are the
finest artillerymen in the world--that at the expiration of six minutes
another appalling silence filled the air. The curtain of fire had again
been lifted, to fall this time still farther back; even as the sweeping
wave of infantry, without apparently a check, rolled on to take the
second German line just emerging from its bath of fire.

Bonsecours seemed too fascinated to give or think of orders, yet he knew
the time was not quite ri