Harley groaned again and smote the unoffending window-sill with his hand.
"Why am I here—why am I here," he repeated, "when the greatest battle of all the world is being fought?"
The clouds of smoke from the cannon and the clouds from the heated and heavy air continued to gather in both heavens and were now meeting at the zenith. The skies were dark, obscure and somber. Most trying of all was the continuous, heavy jarring sound made by the thunder of the guns. It got upon the nerves, it smote the brain cruelly, and once Helen clasped her hands over her ears to shut it out, but she could not; the sullen mutter was still there, no less ominous because its note was lower.
A sudden tongue of flame shot up in the east above the forest, but unlike the others did not go out again; it hung there a red spire, blood-red against the sky, and grew taller and broader.
"The forest burns!" murmured Harley.
"In May?" said Helen.
"What a cannonade it must be to set green trees on fire!" continued Harley.
The varying and shriller notes heard through the steady roar of the great guns now grew more numerous and louder; and most persistent among them was a nasty buzz, inconceivably wicked in its cry.
"The rifles! A hundred thousand of them at least!" murmured Harley, to whose ear all these sounds were familiar.
New tongues of fire leaped above the trees and remained there, blood-red against the sky; sparks at first fugitive and detached, then in showers and millions, began to fly. Columns of vapour and smoke breaking off from the main cloud floated toward the house and assailed those at the window until eyes and nostrils tingled. The strange, nauseous odour, the mingled reek of blood and dust, powder and human sweat grew heavier and more sickening.