ould have
broken a half-mile of his bones and made nothing of it. Very annoying this
must have been--these twenty gunners beating back an army because a
sluggish creek had been pleased to fall into a river at one point rather
than another. Such is the part that accident may play in the game of war.

As a spectacle this was rather fine. We could just discern the black
bodies of these boats, looking very much like turtles. But when they let
off their big guns there was a conflagration. The river shuddered in its
banks, and hurried on, bloody, wounded, terrified! Objects a mile away
sprang toward our eyes as a snake strikes at the face of its victim. The
report stung us to the brain, but we blessed it audibly. Then we could
hear the great shell tearing away through the air until the sound died out
in the distance; then, a surprisingly long time afterward, a dull, distant
explosion and a sudden silence of small-arms told their own tale.

IV

There was, I remember, no elephant on the boat that passed us across that
evening, nor, I think, any hippopotamus. These would have been out of
place. We had, however, a woman. Whether the baby was somewhere on board I
did not learn. She was a fine creature, this woman; somebody's wife. Her
mission, as she understood it, was to inspire the failing heart with
courage; and when she selected mine I felt less flattered by her
preference than astonished by her penetration. How did she learn? She
stood on the upper deck with the red blaze of battle bathing her beautiful
face, the twinkle of a thousand rifles mirrored in her eyes; and
displaying a small ivory-handled pistol, she told me in a sentence
punctuated by the thunder of great guns that if it came to the worst she
would do her duty like a man! I am proud to remember that I took off my
hat to this little fool.

V

Along the sheltered strip of beach between the river bank and the water
was a confused mass of humanity--several thousands of men. They were
mostly unarmed; many were wounded; some dead. All the camp-following
tribes were there; all the cowards; a few officers. Not one of them knew
where his regiment was, nor if he had a regiment. Many had not. These men
were defeated, beaten, cowed. They were deaf to duty and dead to shame. A
more demented crew never drifted to the rear of broken battalions. They
would have stood in their tracks and been shot down to a man by a
provost-marshal's guard, but they could not have been urged