CHAPTER XIX
NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS
The two women clasped hands again and looked at each other as Harley disappeared amid the smoke.
"He has left us," said Mrs. Markham.
"Yes, but he has gone to his country's need," said his sister proudly.
Then they were silent again. Night, smoky, cloudy and dark, thick with vapours and mists, and ashes and odours that repelled, was coming down upon the Wilderness. Afar in the east the fire in the forest still burned, sending up tongues of scarlet and crimson over which sparks flew in myriads. Nearer by, the combat went on, its fury undimmed by the darkness, its thunder as steady, as persistent and terrible as before.
Helen was struck with horror. The battle, weird enough in the day, was yet more so in the darkness, and she could not understand why it did not close with the light. It partook of an inhuman quality, and that scene out there was more than ever to her an inferno because the flaming pit was now enclosed by outer blackness, completely cut off from all else—a world to itself in which all the passions strove, and none could tell to which would fall the mastery.
She felt for the moment horror of both sides, North and South alike, and she wished only that the unnatural combat would cease; she did not care then—a brief emotion, though—which should prove the victor.