"General! General!" shrieked Desmit in desperation, as he rushed forward.
"What do you want, sir?" said the officer sternly.
There was a rush, a crackle, and a still louder shout.
Both turned and saw a tongue of red flame with a black, sooty tip leap suddenly skyward. The great mass of naval stores was fired, and no power on earth could save a barrel of them now. Desmit staggered to the nearest tree, and faint and trembling watched the flame. How it raged! How the barrels burst and the liquid flame poured over the ground and into the river! Still it burned! The whole earth seemed aflame! How the black billows of heavy smoke poured upward, hiding the day! The wind shifted and swept the smoke-wave over above the crowding, hustling, shouting column. It began to rain, but under the mass of heavy smoke the group at the pines stood dry.
And still, out of the two openings in the dark pines upon the other side of the stream, poured the two blue-clad, steel-crowned columns! Still the staff officer shouted the glad tidings, "Lee—surrendered—unconditionally.'" Still waved aloft the dispatch! Still the boundless forests rang with shouts! Still the fierce flame raged, and from the column which had gone into the forest beyond came back the solemn chant, which sounded at that moment like the fateful voice of an avenging angel;
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave; His soul is marching on!"
One who looked upon the scene thinks of it always when he reads of the last great day—the boundless flame—the fervent heat—the shouts—the thousands like the sands of the sea—all are not to be forgotten until the likeness merges into the dread reality!
The Irishman touched Desmit as he leaned against the pine.
"War that yours, misther?" he asked, not unkindly.
Desmit nodded affirmatively.