_vice-versa._ He was unable to see the upper surface of the barrel, but
could see the under surface of the stock at a slight angle. The piece
was, in fact, aimed at the exact centre of his forehead.

In the perception of this circumstance, in the recollection that just
previously to the mischance of which this uncomfortable situation was
the result he had cocked the rifle and set the trigger so that a touch
would discharge it, Private Searing was affected with a feeling of
uneasiness. But that was as far as possible from fear; he was a brave
man, somewhat familiar with the aspect of rifles from that point of
view, and of cannon too. And now he recalled, with something like
amusement, an incident of his experience at the storming of Missionary
Ridge, where, walking up to one of the enemy's embrasures from which he
had seen a heavy gun throw charge after charge of grape among the
assailants he had thought for a moment that the piece had been
withdrawn; he could see nothing in the opening but a brazen circle. What
that was he had understood just in time to step aside as it pitched
another peck of iron down that swarming slope. To face firearms is one
of the commonest incidents in a soldier's life--firearms, too, with
malevolent eyes blazing behind them. That is what a soldier is for.
Still, Private Searing did not altogether relish the situation, and
turned away his eyes.

After groping, aimless, with his right hand for a time he made an
ineffectual attempt to release his left. Then he tried to disengage his
head, the fixity of which was the more annoying from his ignorance of
what held it. Next he tried to free his feet, but while exerting the
powerful muscles of his legs for that purpose it occurred to him that a
disturbance of the rubbish which held them might discharge the rifle;
how it could have endured what had already befallen it he could not
understand, although memory assisted him with several instances in
point. One in particular he recalled, in which in a moment of mental
abstraction he had clubbed his rifle and beaten out another gentleman's
brains, observing afterward that the weapon which he had been diligently
swinging by the muzzle was loaded, capped, and at full cock--knowledge
of which circumstance would doubtless have cheered his antagonist to
longer endurance. He had always smiled in recalling that blunder of his
"green and salad days" as a soldier, but now he did not smile. He turned
his eyes again t