enty minutes the head of the street all murk. In the first
charge Coffin received a sabre cut over the head. The blood blinded him
at first, and when he had wiped it away, and tied a beautiful new
handkerchief from a Broadway shop about the wound, he found it still
affected sight and hearing. He understood that their first musketry fire
had driven the cavalry back, indeed he saw two or three riderless horses
galloping away. He understood also that the Yankees had brought up a
gun, and that the captain was answering with the superannuated howitzer.
He was sure, too, that he himself was firing his musket with great
precision. _Fire!--load, fire!--load, fire! One, two,--one, two!_ but
his head, he was equally sure, was growing larger. It was now larger
than the globe pictured on the first page of the geography he had
studied at school. It was the globe, and he was Atlas holding it.
_Fire--load, fire--load!_ Now the head was everything, and all life was
within it. There was a handsome young man named Coffin, very brave, but
misunderstood by all save one. He was brave and handsome. He could take
a tower by himself--_Fire, load--Fire, load--One, two._ The enemy knew
his fame. They said, "Coffin! Which is Coffin?"--_Fire, load, one, two._
The grey armies knew this young hero. They cheered when he went by. They
cheered--they cheered--when he went by to take the tower. They wrote
home and lovely women envied the loveliest woman. "Coffin! Coffin!
Coffin's going to take the tower! Watch him! _Yaaaaih! Yaaaih!_"--He
struck the tower and looked to see it go down. Instead, with a roar, it
sprang, triple brass, height on height to the skies. The stars fell, and
suddenly, in the darkness, an ocean appeared and went over him. He lay
beneath the overturned Federal gun, and the grey rush that had silenced
the gunners and taken the piece went on.

For a long time he lay in a night without a star, then day began to
break. It broke curiously, palely light for an instant, then obscured by
thick clouds, then faint light again. Some part of his brain began to
think. His head was not now the world; the world was lying on his
shoulder and arm, crushing it. With one piece of his brain he began to
appeal to people; with another piece to answer the first. "Mother, take
this thing away! Mother, take this thing away! She's dead. She can't,
however much she wants to. Father! He's dead, too. Rob, Carter--Jack!
Grown up and moved away. Judge Allen, sir!--