When Halcott returned one day from the cliff-top, some time after this sad funeral, there was a shade of greater uneasiness than usual on his face.
James was quick to note it.
“They are coming again?” he said quietly.
“You have guessed aright,” said Halcott. “And they are using the same tactics—coming up under cover of brushwood. There is no Fitz now to fire the heap, and our strength is terribly reduced.”
“Be of good cheer, Halcott—be of good cheer; it is God Himself who giveth the victory. But death cometh sooner or later to all.”
“Amen!” said Halcott; “and oh, James, I for one am almost tired of life.”
“Say not so, brother, say not so, ’tis sinful.”
How terrible is war, reader! The accounts that we read of this scourge, in papers or in books, seldom show it up in its true colours. We are told only of its glory—its tinsel show of glory. But that glory is but the gilded shell that hides the hideous kernel, consisting of sorrow, misery, murder, and rapine.
I am not poor Tandy’s judge, and shall not pretend to say whether the resolve he now made was right or wrong.