“Hark!” he cried. “What is that?”
He stood up and listened. The air above the temple seemed full of confused sounds; now resembling the distant roar of the sea, now the hum of insects, now the yells of men.
“Jesu! I know that sound. There,—there!”
He listened again. Through the soaring, muffled din, came another report, as of thunder below the horizon.
“It is the artillery! By the mother that bore me, the guns of Mesa!”
The words of Io’, spoken in Xoli’s portico, came back to him.
“Battle! As I live, they are fighting on the street!”
And he, too, sat down, listening, thinking. How was he to get to his countrymen?
The sounds overhead continued, at intervals intensified by the bellowing guns. Battle has a fascination which draws men as birds are said to be drawn by serpents. They listen; then wish to see; lingering upon the edge, they catch its spirit, and finally thrill with fierce delight to find themselves within the heat and fury of its deadly circle. The page knew the feeling then. To see the fight was an overmastering desire.