And so, I confess, it was a surprise to discover that I was dead and yet not dead.
I did not make the discovery at once. There had been a blinding concussion, a moment of darkness, a sensation of falling—falling—into a deep abyss. An indefinite time afterward, I found myself standing dazedly on the hillside, toward the crest of which we had been pressing against the enemy. The thought came that I must have momentarily lost consciousness. Yet now I felt strangely free from physical discomfort.
What had I been doing when that moment of blackness blotted everything out? I had been dominated by a purpose, a flaming desire——
Like a flash, recollection burst upon me, and, with it, a blaze of hatred—not toward the Boche gunners, ensconced in the woods above us, but toward the private enemy I had been about to kill.
It had been the opportunity for which I had waited interminable days and nights. In the open formation, he kept a few paces ahead of me. As we alternately ran forward, then dropped on our bellies and fired, I had watched my chance. No one would suspect, with the dozens who were falling every moment under the merciless fire from the trees beyond, that the bullet which ended Louis Winston’s career came from a comrade’s rifle.
Twice I had taken aim, but withheld my fire—not from indecision, but lest, in my vengeful heat, I might fail to reach a vital spot. When I raised my rifle the third time, he offered a fair target.
God! how I hated him. With fingers itching to speed the steel toward his heart, I forced myself to remain calm—to hold fire for that fragment of a second that would insure careful aim.
Then, as the pressure of my finger tightened against the trigger, came the blinding flash—the moment of blackness.
II.
I HAD evidently remained unconscious longer than I realized.