“Gentlemen, are you all mad?”
“Bruton!” exclaimed Preston, hoarsely; “then you are not badly hurt?”
“Badly enough,” said my father; “but look—look! Of what are you thinking?”
“Thinking?” cried the General. “We can do no more; the place is doomed.”
“But are we to be doomed too, man?” cried my father, furiously; and he looked as if he might have had the question he had first asked put to him. For his face was blackened and wild, his long hair burned, and a terrible look of excitement was in his starting eyes.
“Doomed?” exclaimed the General and the colonel in a breath, as the men gathered round.
“Yes; the women—the children. This enclosure will be swept away. Have you forgotten the powder—the magazine?”