His voice, rather hoarse, but very pleasant, faltered a little at first, but was gradually permeated by a note of deepest feeling, and a strange, unwonted passion surged through the melody. Felan was pouring his soul into the song. A moment ago the singer was one with us; now he gave himself up to the song, and the whole lonely romance of war, its pity and its pain, swept through the building and held us in its spell. Kore's mobile nostrils quivered. M'Crone shook as if with ague. We all listened, enraptured, our eyes shut as the singer's were, to the voice that quivered through the smoky room. I could not help feeling that Felan himself listened to his own song, as something which was no part of him, but which affected him strangely.
"'Trumpeter, what are you sounding now?
Is it the call I'm seeking?'
'Lucky for you if you hear it all
For my trumpet's but faintly speaking—
I'm calling 'em home. Come home! Come home!
Tread light o'er the dead in the valley,
Who are lying around
Face down to the ground,
And they can't hear——'"