signal to fire to the soldiers closing in on Caney, the Cubans lurking
around a block-house at a safe artillery distance in the woods and to
the impatient battery before San Juan. Retrospectively now, it meant the
death-knell of brave men, the quick cry and long groaning of the
wounded, the pained breathing of sick and fever-stricken, the quickened
heart-beats of the waiting and anxious at home--the low sobbing of the
women to whom fatal news came. It meant Cervera's gallant dash, Sampson
and Schley's great victory, the fall of Santiago; freedom for Cuba, a
quieter sleep for the _Maine_ dead, and peace with Spain. Once more, as
he rose, he looked at the dark woods, the dead-haunted jungles which the
moon was draping with a more than mortal beauty, and he knew that in
them, as in the long grass of the orchard-like valley below him, comrade
was looking for dead comrade. And among the searchers was the faithful
Bob, looking for his Old Captain, Crittenden, his honest heart nigh to
bursting, for already he had found Raincrow torn with a shell and he had
borne a body back to the horror-haunted little hospital under the creek
bank at the Bloody Ford--a body from which the head hung over his
shoulder--limp, with a bullet-hole through the neck--the body of his
Young Captain, Basil.




XII


Grafton sat, sobered and saddened, where he was awhile. The moon swung
upward white and peaceful, toward mild-eyed stars. Crickets chirped in
the grass around him, and nature's low night-music started in the wood
and the valley below, as though the earth had never known the hell of