breathless moments, Ray examined his
rifle coolly enough, and listened to the chirp of a solitary cricket
that sung its thin strain so unbrokenly on the edge of strife as to
represent something sublime in its petty indifference. He was stationed
on the extreme left; near him the tumult of the torrent drowned much
discordant noise, its fairy scarf forever forming and falling and
floating on the evening air. He thought of Vivia sitting far away and
looking out upon the quiet starlight night; then he thought of swampy
midnight lairs, with maddened men in fevered covert there,--of little
children crying for their mothers,--of girls betrayed to hell,--of flesh
and blood at price,--of blistering, crisping fagot and stake to-day,--of
all the anguish and despair down there before him. And with the vivid
sting of it such a wrath raged along his veins, such a holy fire, that
it seemed there were no arms tremendous enough for his handling, through
his shut teeth darted imprecatory prayers for the power of some almighty
vengeance, his soul leaped up in impatient fury, his limbs tingled for
the death-grapple, when suddenly sound surged everywhere about them and
they were in the midst of conflict. Silver trumpet-peals and clash and
clang of iron, crying voices, whistling, singing, screaming shot,
thunderous drum-rolls, sharp sheet of flame and instant abyss of
blackness, horses' heads vaulting into sight, spurts of warm blood upon
the brow, the bullet rushing like a blast beside the ear, all the
terrible tempest of attack, trampled under the flashing hoof, climbing,
clinching, slashing, back-falling beneath cracking revolvers, hand to
hand in the night, both bands welded in one like hot and fusing metal, a
spectral struggle of shuddering horror only half guessed by lurid gleams
and under the light cloud flying across the stars. Clearly and remotely
over the plain the hidden east sent up a glow into the sky; its
reflection lay on Ray; he fought like one possessed of a demon,
scattering destruction broadcast, so fiercely his anger wrapped him,
white and formidable. Fresh onset after repulse, and, like the very
crest of the toppling wave, one shadowy horseman in all the dark rout,
spurring forward, the fight reeling after him, the silver lone star
fitfully flashing on his visor, the boy singled for his rifle;--inciting
such fearless rivalry, his fall were the fall of a hundred. Something
hindered; the marksman delayed an instant; he woul