“Sublime!” he cries, waves his arms aloft, laughs at the storm.
More flashes from the Russian hills, the Japanese answer. The vast night is hideously alive. Artillery flicks as fireflies spark, spits tongues of flame, answering thunder with thunder, lightning with lightning. The rain beats down a torrent.
In the intermittent flashes the ugly eye of the searchlight looks in, licks phosphorus about us and ambles off into the valleys, as a cow might run the fur of her tongue over a cocklebur and calmly go to grass. No taste for rocks over there. They are out for softer game. Six more fling their deviltry from the head of Cyclops and down in the valley struggle with mist and rain.
Then, ’mid the sky’s and cannon’s belch, as a fairy into the land of demons, a thin red line is tossed gracefully over the valley from the Russian side. It reaches high over the mountains from the sea forts and above the center of the great plain falls, as a sailor casts a halyard over the yardarm on to the deck beyond. In mid-air bursts the feu de joie, the delight of fireworks, in war a spy. On other nights this deathly star bomb revealed all secret movements, but now the Japanese have allies in the mist and rain. Neither searchlight nor star bomb can penetrate the storm veil.
Now comes the crackle of infantry, followed by the pop, pop, pop, of quick-firers, the clatter of Hotchkiss howitzers, the more sprightly click of Maxims. Another assault—and they have had eleven in a week! Will they win this time? They are going for the Cock’s Comb, whose crest stands out ominously against the sky.
Boom! Bo-o-o-m! Far out of the distance a deep voice.
“The navy. That’s a twelve-inch gun. Togo’s with us to-night!” Ricalton ought to know, but who can tell? Is it a Japanese siege mortar, a Russian coast defender, field artillery, star bomb, machine gun, howitzer, or that grand bombardment from the heavens? They are all in action to-night. Is it defeat or victory? Can they take the fort?
I can answer none of these questions. I only know that “a child could understand the De’il had business on his hand.”
As the crashes increase, the wind rising, the furor mounting, I throw the cart cover aside wrap the blanket more closely about me and run down the mountain. Ricalton calls, but I hear him not. The reality of this din must be known. Over my shoulder as I run the Phœnix looms up monstrous, haughty, wise and terrible, silhouetted as she was born, anon in fire.