n and death which could be inflicted by
the jagged shards and fiendish shells, or the even more demon-like
shrapnel-balls, was visible.

Everything was torn, rent, and ragged, as if soma mighty giant, insane
to destroy, had spent his fury there. Nothing had escaped the iron flail
of devastation. Trees shattered or cut entirely down; limberchests and
cannon-wheels merely bunches of blackened splinters; frightfully mangled
horses, dead, or yet living in agony that filled their great plaintive
eyes; lying in ghastly pools of blood, which filmed and clotted under
the bright rays of the May morning sun.

"Looks like Judgment morn or the fall of Babylon," muttered the
religious-minded Alf Russell, the first to break their awed silence.

[Illustration: AWFUL DESTRUCTION. 241]

"Or the destruction of Sennacherib," suggested Monty Scruggs--

"For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed."

"I should say he had a mighty strong breath, Monty," Shorty interrupted.
He liked to break in on Monty's heroics. "Excuse me from havin' a
12pounder breathin' around me."

"And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts
but once heaved, and forever grew still," continued Monty.

"I'll bet there wasn't much sleepin' around here while that shell'n' was
goin' on," broke in Shorty again. "Except the sleep that has the sod for
a coverlet and Gabriel's trumpet for a breakfast bell."

Monty continued impressively:

"And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide,
But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf."

"Poor horses," murmured Shorty. "I always feel mighty sorry for them.
They hadn't nothin' to do with gittin' up this rebellion. We must go
around and kill such as is alive, and put them out o' their misery."

Monty resumed:

"And there lay the rider, distorted and pale.
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone.
The lances uplifted, the trumpets unblown."

"Serves 'em right, the yaller-bellied, clay-eatin' yowlers," said Shorty
savagely, looking over the mangled corpses. "Pays 'em up for their
murderin' abatis. We got it in this time worse on them than they did on
us, though it'd take as much of this as'd make up several Counti