or the Valley of Armageddon, when the blood is to
run deep enough to reach to the horse-bridles."

"Captain," said the Colonel, "really I would rather--"

"Rather that I should talk about the present war, than anything in
Scripture? of course--very natural and quite correct. Let me see--you
were not at Fair Oaks, were you?"

"No," said the Colonel, emphatically.

"No, I suppose not," continued the pseudo-Captain. "Well, you ought to
have been there--that is all! Highest old fight that any man ever heard
of. When we went into battle we had not had a wink of sleep for ten
nights, but I tell you that it kept us wide awake while it lasted! In
the middle of the day the air was so thick with bullets and shells that
it seemed to be as dark as twilight, and the blood at one time made such
a river down one of the gulleys that dozens of men and horses were
drowned in it!"

"Oh, this is too much!" gasped the Colonel, who thought of getting up
and running away, anywhere beyond the sound of the voice of this
sanguinary madman.

"Too much? of course it was too much!" echoed the veracious narrator.
"But who could help it? Couldn't have so many dead men, you know,
without plenty of blood! At one time there were so many of our fellows
lying in a long win-row near the top of the hill, that when the rebels
made an advance we punched holes through the wall of corpses and used
them for breast-works."

The Colonel made an effort to stagger to his feet, but his nerves were
too terribly unstrung to allow him that escape. He sunk back upon his
chair in a state of partial syncope, aware that the terrible fellow was
talking, and that he must be _lying_, but that there might be truth
enough at the base of his stories to make them a fearful warning to all
who had ever thought of tempting the field.

"Talk about the _chances_ of war!" the incorrigible romancer went
on--"there was no chance about it, in such a fight as that at Fair Oaks
or at Gaines' Mills! We went into Fair Oaks nine hundred and eighty-four
strong, and came out _four_--three men and one officer! _I_ was the
officer. I only had one Minie bullet through the left breast, too high
to do much harm, two bullets in the left leg and right foot, my left arm
broken by a fragment of shell and my right eye punched out by another.
That was all that ailed _me_!"

"Heavens! heavens!" was all that the stupified Colonel could articulate.

"Yes," continued the Captain, "think of being obl