nly
loathsome things to be hidden from sight before the bugles called the
army to move.

Now he saw a vision. Over every dark bundle on those blood-soaked fields
bent a brother, a father, a mother, a sister or sweetheart. He heard
their cries of anguish until all other sounds were dumb.

The heaps of amputated legs and arms he had seen so often without a sigh
were bathed now in tears. The surgeons with their hands and arms and
clothes soaked with red--he saw them with the eyes of love--scene on
scene in hideous review--the young officer at Cold Harbor whose leg they
were cutting off without the use of chloroform, his face convulsed, his
jaws locked as the knife crashed through nerve and sinew, muscle and
artery. And those saws gnawing through bones--God in heaven, he could
hear them all now--they were cutting and tearing those he loved.

He heard their terrible orders with new ears. For the first time he
realized what they meant.

"Give them the bayonet now----"

The low, savage, subdued tones of the officer had once thrilled his
soul. The memory sickened him.

He could hear the impassioned speech of the Colonel as the men lay flat
on their faces in the grass--the click of bayonets in their places--the
look on the faces of the men eager, fierce, intense, as they sprang to
their feet at the call:

"Charge!"

And the fight. A big, broad-shouldered brute is trying to bayonet a boy
of fifteen. The boy's slim hand grips the steel with an expression of
mingled rage and terror. He holds on with grim fury. A comrade rushes to
his rescue. His bayonet misses the upper body of the strong man and
crashes hard against his hip bone. The man with his strength seizes the
gun, snatches it from his bleeding thigh and swings it over his head to
brain his new antagonist, when the first boy, with a savage laugh,
plunges his bayonet through the strong man's heart and he falls with a
dull crash, breaking the steel from the musket's muzzle and lies
quivering, with the blood-spouting point protruding from his side. He
understood now--these were not soldiers obeying orders--they were
fathers and brothers and playmates, killing and maiming and tearing each
other to pieces.

Lord God of Love and Mercy, the pity and horror of it all!

It was one o'clock before Julius, searching the field with a lantern,
came on him huddled against the tree with Ned's body still in his arms,
staring into the dead face.

CHAPTER XXXIV

LOVE'S P