"There is no mark to guide the eye,"
Faltered the chidden man;
"Yon thing of white is as the sky—
No difference can I scan!"
"Let charge the gun with mitraille show'r,
And Allah will be heard no more."
And the gun was charged, and fixed, and fired;
Full fifty bullets flew.
The smoke hung long, the men admired
How the cannon burst not through.
And the startled echoes thundered,
And more again all wondered—
As died away the echoes' roar—
The name of Allah rose once more.
And "Allah! Allah! Allah!" rose,
While horse and rider look'd repose,
As statues on the mountain raised,
Round whom the mitraille idly blazed,
And rent and tore the earth around;
But nothing shook except the ground,
Still the untroubled lip ne'er quivered,
Still that white altar-horse ne'er shivered.
"Wait his return," the captain cried;
"The mountain's side a mark supplies,
And range in line some twenty guns:
Fire one by one, as back he runs;
With mitraille loaded be each gun—
For him who kills a grade is won!"
But back the White Horse ran not—no!
His pace was gentle, grand, and slow;
His rider on the holy skies,
In meditation fix'd his eyes.
The enemy, with murderous plan,
Knew not which to most admire,
The grand White Steed, the grander man,
When, lo! the signal—"Fire!"
"Unscath'd! unscath'd! now mark the race!"
The laughing soldiers cried:
The White Horse quickens not his pace,
The Priest spurs not his side.
"Ha! mark his figure on the rock!"
A second gun is ringing,
The rock itself is springing,
As from a mine's low shock,
Its splinters flying in the air,
And round the Priest and steed is there
Of balls and stones an atmosphere.
What not one stain upon his side!
The whited robe remains undyed—
No bloody rain upon the path—
Surprise subdues the soldier's wrath.
"Give him a chance for life, one chance;
(Now, hear the chance the captain gave)
Let every gun be fired at once—
At random, too—and he, the brave,
If he escape, will have to tell
A prodigy—a miracle—
Or meet the bloodiest grave
That ever closed o'er human corse,
O'er rider brave, or gallant horse."
And away, and away, like thunder weather,
Full twenty cannon blaze together;
Forth the volcano vomits wide.
The men who fired them spring aside,
As back the cannons wheeled.
Then came a solemn pause;
One would have thought the mountain reeled,
As a crater opes its jaws.
But the smoke and sulphur clearing,
Down the mountain's side, unfearing,
Phantom-like glided horse and man,
As though they had no danger ran.