its staff over Fort McHenry. At eventide a breeze unfurled its folds,
and as it floated out a shell struck it and tore out one of its
fifteen stars.

Night fell. His companions went below to seek rest in such unquiet
slumbers as might visit them, but there was no sleep in the heart of
Key. Not until the mighty question which filled the night sky with
thunder and flame and surged in whelming billows through his own soul
found its answer in the court of Eternal Destiny could rest come to
the man who watched through the long hours of darkness, waiting for
dawn to bring triumph or despair.

Silence came--the silence that meant victory and defeat. Whose was the
victory? The night gave no answer, and the lonely man still paced up
and down the deck of the _Minden_. Then day dawned in a glory in the
east, and a glory in the heart of the anxious watcher. In that first
thrill of joy and triumph our majestic anthem was formed.

Key took from his pocket an old letter, and on its blank page
pencilled the opening lines of the song. In the boat which took him
back to Baltimore he finished the poem, and in his hotel made a copy
for the press. The next day the lines were put into type by Samuel
Sands, an apprentice in the office of the _Baltimore American_, who
had been deserted in the general rush to see the battle as being too
young to be trusted at the front, and that evening they were sung in
the Holliday Street Theatre. The next day the air was heard upon the
streets of Baltimore from every boy who had been gifted with a voice
or a whistle, and "The Star-Spangled Banner" was soon waving over the
musical domain as victoriously as it had floated from the ramparts of
Fort McHenry.