of home, a place that few of those who heard
him had seen in two years or more, but he spoke of it not to enfeeble
them, rather to call another influence to their aid in this struggle of
valour and endurance. Prescott saw tears rise more than once in the eyes
of hardened soldiers, and he became conscious again of the power of
oratory over the Southern people. The North loved to read and the South
to hear speeches; that seemed to him to typify the difference in the
sections.

The minister grew more fiery and more impassioned. His penetrating voice
reached far through the woods and around him was a ring of many
thousands. Few have ever spoken to audiences so large and so singular;
of women there were not twenty, just men, and men mostly young, mere
boys the majority, but with faces brown and scarred and clothing
tattered and worn, men hardened to wounds and reckless of death, men who
had seen life in its wildest and most savage phases. But all the brown
and scarred faces were upturned to the preacher, and the eyes of the
soldiers as they listened gleamed with emotional fire. The wind moaned
now and then, but none heard it. Around them the smoky camp-fires flared
and cast a distorting light over those who heard.

Prescott's mind, as he listened to the impassioned voice of the preacher
and looked at the brown, wild faces of those who listened, inevitably
went back to the Crusades. There was now no question of right or wrong,
but he beheld in it the spirit of men stirred by their emotions and
gathering a sort of superhuman fire for the last and greatest conflict,
for Armageddon. Here was the great drama played against the background
of earth and sky, and all the multitude were actors.

The spirit of the preacher, too, was that of the crusading priest. The
battlefields before them were but part of the battle of life; it was
their duty to meet the foe there as bravely as they met the temptation
of evil, and then he preached of the reward afterward, the Heaven to
come. His listeners began to see a way into a better life through such a
death, and many shook with emotion.

The spell was complete. The wind still moaned afar, and the fires still
flared, casting their pallid light, but all followed the preacher. They
saw only his deepset, burning eyes, the long pale face, and the long
black hair that fell around it. They followed only his promises of death
and life. He besought them to cast their sins at the feet of the
Master--