The Yellow Dove

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Yellow Dove, by George Gibbs, Illustrated by George Gibbs
THE YELLOW DOVE
GEORGE GIBBS
ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR
NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1915, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America

THE YELLOW DOVE
Rifts of sullen gray in the dirty veil of vapor beyond the reaches of dunes, where the sea in long lines of white, like the ghostly hosts of lost regiments, clamored along the sand....
A soughing wind, a shrieking of sea-birds, audible in pauses between the faraway crackle of rifle-fire and the deep reverberations of artillery—familiar music to ears trained by long listening. A shrill scream of flying shrapnel, a distant crash and then a tense hush....
Silence—nearly, but not quite. A sound so small as to be almost lost in the echoes of the clamor, an impact upon the air like the tapping of the wings of an insect against one’s ear-drum, a persistent staccato note which no other noise could still, borne with curious distinctness upon some aërial current of the fog bank.