great noise, to
shout, to do anything, but he did not dare. It would have been breaking
the rules. In that assembly no sound was allowed, for the meeting was
unholy and wicked and worked with hurried stealth, so that the attention
of God should not be drawn. Aladdin knew that he had no right to be
there, that without knocking he had entered the bedroom of horror and
found her naked in the arms of lust. He turned and rode away shivering
and without looking back. He had not ridden the distance between two
forest trees before the carcass was again black with the descending
birds, and the blood streamed to their bills.

The Peninsular campaign developed four kinds of men: the survivors, the
wounded, the dead, and the missing. When the campaign was over Aladdin
sometimes woke starting in the night to think of those missing and of
what he had seen in the woods.

XXIV

The tedious locomotion of an army and the incessant reluctance of
the battle to be met will try a sinner; but a scarcity of tobacco and
constantly wet feet will try a saint. Aladdin was somewhat of both. But
in the fidgety gloom which presently settled upon man and beast, his,
great Irish gift of cheerfulness shone like a star. He even gave up
longing for promotion, and strained his mind to the cracking-point for
humorous verses and catching tunes. He went singing up the Peninsula,
and thumped the gay banjo by the camp-fire, and was greatly beloved by
the foot-sore and sick. He had given up worrying about what he would do
in battle, for there were much more important things to think about.

Battles are to soldiers what Christmas trees are to children: you must
wait, wait, and wait for them, and forever wait; and when they do come
the presents are apt to be a little tawdry. And you are only envied by
the other little children who didn't really see what you really got. The
most comforting man in the army was one minister of the gospel, and
the most annoying was another. The first had the divine gift of
story-telling and laughter, and the second thanked God because the
soldiers had run out of their best friend, tobacco, which he described
through his nose as "filthy weed," "vile narcotic," or "pernicious
hell-plant." And they both served the Lord as hard as they could--and
they both suffered from dysentery.

As the days passed and the temperature of the army rose, and its
digestion became permanently impaired, Aladdin, by giving out, and
constantly, a