“They’re the boys for an imposing advance!”
“How many d’ye suppose they’ve got?”
“Don’t know. Don’t know about Ulysses. Xerxes had a million.”
“Hope they’re all there. Hope they aren’t trying any flank and rear foolishness.”
“Hope not, but I wouldn’t swear to it! I’ve got a distrust of Grant—though it may not be well founded, as the storekeeper said when the clerk and the till were found on the same train.”
“Wish there was water up here on Sinai! My mouth’s awful dry.”
A man spat. “It’s curious how many this morning I’ve heard say their mouth was awful dry and they felt a little dizzy—”
“It’s the altitude.”
“Six hundred feet? No. It’s something else. I don’t know just what it is—”
Voices died. There fell a quiet as before a thunderstorm, an oppressive quiet. Missionary Ridge, its brows faintly drawn and raised, looked forth upon the sea. The sea stood broodingly quiet, without music now, the coloured blossoms still upon their stems. It held and held, the quietude.