atmosphere was rent apart as by a lightning stroke directly overhead.
The man and the horse by the blue wall dropped noiselessly to the earth.
A Rough Rider paled and limped down the hill and Blackford shook his
hand--a piece of shrapnel had fallen harmlessly on his wrist. On the
hill--Crittenden laughed as he looked--on the hill, nobody
ran--everybody tumbled. Besides the men at the guns, only two others
were left--civilians.

"You're a fool," said one.

"You're another."

"What'd you stay here for?"

"Because you did. What'd you stay for?"

"Because _you_ did."

Then they went down together--rapidly--and just in time. Another shell
shrieked. Two artillerymen and two sergeants dropped dead at their guns,
and a corporal fell, mortally wounded. A third burst in a group of
Cubans. Several of them flew out, killed or wounded, into the air; the
rest ran shrieking for the woods. Below, those woods began to move.
Under those shells started the impatient soldiers down that narrow lane
through the jungle, and with Reynolds and Abe Long on the "point" was
Crittenden, his Krag-Jorgensen across his breast--thrilled, for all the
world, as though he were on a hunt for big game.

* * * * *