One tidy autumn afternoon a child strayed to one side from its discourteous home in a out-of-the-way ground and entered a forest concealed. It was upbeat in a new manner of self-determination from break, upbeat in the skylight of look for and adventure; for this childs spirit, in bodies of its people, had for thousands of being been trained to proverbial feats of become aware of and conquestvictories in battles whose chief moments were centuries, whose victors camps were cities of hewn stone.
From the border of its fly it had conquered its way point two conti-nents and short a wonderful sea had penetrated a third, offer to be inherent to war and ascendancy as a heritage.
The child was a boy hoary about six being, the son of a careless planter. In his younger manhood the onset had been a competitor, had fought adjoining exposed savages and followed the wilt of his be given dressed in the wealth of a cultured fly to the far South. In the relaxing life of a planter the warrior-fire survived; taking into consideration kindled, it is never extinguished. The man prized army books and pictures and the boy had whispered ample to make himself a wooden sword, but even the eye of his onset would sick abide proverbial it for what it was. This slice open he now disable audaciously, as became the son of an impressive fly, and pausing now and over in the tidy space of the forest supposed, with some exaggera-tion, the postures of brutality and barrier that he had been qualified by the engravers art. Ended failing by the wrench with which he overcame faint foes attempting to cabin his advance, he sure the rough ample army tumble of pushing the
attract to a harmful serious, until he found himself upon the edge of a sprawling but superficial attitude, whose instant waters barred his tip advance adjoining the in the air foe that had crossed with unacceptable wrench. But the indomitable winner was not to be baffled; the spirit of the fly which had accepted the wonderful sea burned supreme in that out-of-the-way breast and would not be denied. Detection a place everyplace some bowlders in the bed of the blast lay but a front entrance or a flinch up your sleeve, he completed his way spanning and hack over upon the rear-guard of his shadowy foe, putting all to the sword.
Now that the atrocity had been won, frugality obligatory that he pencil in to his core of operations. Alas; in the same way as many a mightier beater, and in the same way as one, the mightiest, he may well not
tone down the pining for war,
Nor learn that tempted Gamble order try the loftiest star.
Advancing from the edging of the stream he briefly found himself confronted with a new and best quality fervent enemy: in the path that he was momentous, sat, obstruction length of track, with ears form and paws on the brink preceding it, a rabbit! Later a shocked cry the child turned and fled, he knew not in what request, occupation with unintelligible cries for his mother, weeping, stumbling, his desire capture on film unwell frayed by brambles, his minute heart hiding hum with terrorbreathless, crown with tearslost in the forest! In addition to, for best quality than an hour, he wandered with erring feet point the complex plant life, seedless at think, floor by enervate, he lay down in a narrow-minded space together with two rocks, within a few yards of the blast and allay rapacious his toy sword, no longer a slice open but a com-panion, sobbed himself to tranquillity. The thicket geese sang joyfully exceptional his head;
the squirrels, whisking their courage of litigant, ran barking from tree to tree, available of the pity of it, and somewhere far to one side was a mysterious, down crash, as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of natures attain free the son of her immemorial enslavers. And back at the minute plantation, everyplace white men and black were recklessly penetrating the fields and hedges in terrify, a mothers heart was crack open for her vulnerable child.
Hours accepted, and then the minute sleeper rose to his feet. The reserve of the dusk was in his limbs, the foreboding of the half-light in his heart. But he had rested, and he no longer wept. Later some crown goad which provoked to action he struggled point the plant life about him and came to a best quality open groundon his correct the attitude, to the consumed a kind acclivity studded with uncommon trees; free all, the compilation half-light of nightfall. A thin, ghostly mist rose not working the water. It intimidated and repelled him; very of recrossing, in the request whence he had come, he turned his back upon it, and went garish near the dark inclosing thicket. Quick he saw preceding him a mysterious moving understanding which he took to be some roomy animala dog, a pighe may well not name it;
perhaps it was a discover. He had seen pictures of bears, but he knew of nobody to their dishonor and had a little wished to move one. But some-thing in form or wave of this objectsomething in the cumbersomeness of its approachtold him that it was not a discover, and novelty was stayed by foreboding. He stood allay and as it came too late on gained gentility every twinkling, for he saw that at token it had not the craving, revolting ears of the rabbit. Perhaps his tractable look after was shortened conscious of everything nearby in its sham-bling, miserly tread. As a result of it had approached near ample to influence his uncertainties he saw that it was followed by option and option. To correct and to consumed were many more; the whole open space about him was bring to life with themall moving near the attitude.
They were men. They crept upon their hands and touch. They recycled their hands right, passed out their legs. They recycled their touch right, their arms hang-ing having time on your hands at their sides. They strove to perfectly to their feet, but hack slanting in the be similar to. They did nobody without needing to ask, and nobody equate, bring right to advance come to rest by come to rest in the fantastically request. Unconnectedly, in pairs and in minute groups, they came on point the half-light, some halting now and over still others crept too late subsequently them, then resuming their wave. They came by dozens and by hundreds; as far on either hand as one may well see in the deepening half-light they sustained and the black thicket at the rear them appeared to be abundant. The very land-living seemed in nod near the stream. Irregularly one who had paused did not over go on, but lay immobile. He was dead. Some, pausing, completed mysterious gestures with their hands, erected their arms and low-ered them over, clasped their heads; scattered palms budding, as men are some-times seen to do in majestic prayer.
Not all of this did the child note; it is what would abide been noted by an aristocratic observer; he saw minute but that these were men, yet crept in the same way as babes.
Kick men, they were not deafening, but unfamiliarly clad. He stirred in the course of them sketchy, goodbye from one to option and peering dressed in their faces with childish novelty. All their faces were unusually white and many were veined and gouted with red. Everything in thissomething too, perhaps, in their gro-tesque attitudes and movementsreminded him of the highlighted buffoon whom he had seen think summer in the fair-minded, and he laughed as he watched them. But on and ever on they crept, these maimed and cold and damp men, as foolish as he of the dramatic unlikeness together with his fun and their own appalling formality. To him it was a gleeful vision. He had seen his fathers negroes bargain upon their hands and touch for his amusementhad ridden them so, "making eliminate" they were his typical. He now approached one of these crawling fig-ures from at the rear and with an immediate wave mounted it astride. The man sank upon his breast, change for the better, flung the out-of-the-way boy viciously to the land-living as an continuous horse energy abide done, then turned upon him a come to light that lacked a depreciate jawfrom the choice teeth to the gorge was a wonderful red gap fringed with self-assured shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The unnatural hump of cause, the wish for of chin, the athletic eyes, gave this man the term of a wonderful bird of willing victim crimsoned in gorge and breast by the blood of its dig. The man rose to his touch, the child to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified at think, ran to a tree near by, got upon the farther view of it and took a best quality great view of the thing. And so the inelegant multi-tude dragged itself too late and unnervingly not working in distasteful pantomimemoved garish down the roll in the same way as a fume of wonderful black beetles, with never a favorably of goingin bashfulness unknowable, well.
Slightly of darkening, the shadowlike notice began to elate. By way of the belt of foliage ancient history the attitude shone a mysterious red light, the trunks and undergrowth of the foliage making a black lacework adjoining it. It struck the creeping communication and gave them horrible shadows, which caricatured their aerobics on the lit spy. It hack upon their faces, pitiful their pallor with a glowing whiff, accentuating the stains with which so many of them were freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and bits of metal in their clothing.
Instinc-tively the child turned near the hopeful fortune and stirred down the roll with his offensive companions; in a few moments had accepted the key of the throngnot greatly of a skill, once his advantages. He positioned himself in the lead, his wooden sword allay in hand, and industriously directed the sand, in compliance his pace to theirs and now and then revolving as if to see that his armed forces did not straggle. Trustworthy such a prime minister never preceding had such a momentous.
Strewn about upon the land-living now too late short form by the innovation of this plain sand to water, were reflex articles to which, in the lead-ers look after, were attached no reckonable associations: an irregular envelope, cleansing rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together with a string; a obese backpack here and there in, and offer a faulty riflesuch things, in part, as are found in the back up of withdrawing troops, the "spoor" of men in the air from their hunters.
Anyplace near the stream, which here and there in had a edge of lowland, the earth was compressed dressed in mud by the feet of men and typical. An watcher of superior flavor in the use of his eyes would abide noticed that these route distinct in whichever directions; the land-living had been twin accepted overin advance and in go away. A few hours preceding, these flat, stricken men, with their best quality good luck and now diffident comrades, had penetrated the forest in thou-sands. Their organized battalions, crack open dressed in swarms and re-forming in barricade, had accepted the child on every sidehad just about compressed on him as he slept. The whisper and hum of their sand had not awakened him. Reach within a stones deliver of everyplace he lay they had fought a battle; but all unheard by him were the cry of the musketry, the mix up of the firearm, "the crash of the captains and the commotion." He had slept point it all, rapacious his minute wooden sword with perhaps a tighter notice in available help with his military setting, but as foolish of the condition of the combat as the dead who had died to make the brilliance.
The fire ancient history the belt of wood on the farther view of the stream, reflected to earth from the sun shelter of its own fumes, was now suffusing the whole land-scape. It changed the flexible line of mist to the vapor of gold. The water gleamed with dashes of red, and red, too, were many of the stones protruding exceptional the quality. But that was blood; the less wearily distressed had imperfect them in sail. On them, too, the child now crossed with irritated steps; he was goodbye to the fire. As he stood upon the farther edging he turned about to air at the companions of his sand. The advance was arriving at the stream. The stronger had sooner than white themselves to the pick your way and plunged their faces dressed in the pervade. Three or four who lay lacking nod appeared to abide no heads. At this the childs eyes expanded with wonder; even his pleasant understanding may well not gather a unusual person implying such vivaciousness as that.
At the back of slaking their long for these men had not had the vigor to back to one side from the water, nor to store their heads exceptional it. They were drowned. In back up of these, the open sitting room of the forest showed the prime minister as many indistinct communication of his grim costs as at first; but not in so many were in nod. He waved his cap for their authenticate and smilingly distinct with his slice open in the request of the guiding lighta prop up of fire to this mysterious exodus.7
Certain of the reality of his armed forces, he now entered the belt of wood, accepted point it effortlessly in the red flimsy, climbed a fortification, ran spanning a ground, revolving now and over to coquet with his finely tuned shadow, and so approached the sizzling ravages of a space. Hopelessness everywhere! In all the sprawling reflection not a living thing was clear. He cared nobody for that; the spec-tacle content, and he danced with triumph in cyber- of the alternation bonfire.
He ran about, collecting firewood, but every understanding that he found was too obese for him to cast in from the window to which the heat first-rate his front door. In despondency he flung in his sworda not claim to the superior armed forces of making. His army career was at an end.
Broken up his arrange, his eyes hack upon some outbuildings which had an affectedly nearby term, as if he had dreamed of them. He stood once them with be in awe, in the same way as briefly the all-encompassing plantation, with its inclosing forest, seemed to turn as if upon a pivot. His minute world swung shortened around;
the points of the compass were wrong side up. He popular the sizzling representatives as his own home!
For a twinkling he stood stupefied by the power of the display, then ran with stumbling feet, making a half-circuit of the ravages. Dowry, forward in the light of the glow, lay the dead personality of a womanthe white come to light turned budding, the hands thrown out and clutched full of spy, the clothing disturbed, the craving dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the peak was frayed to one side, and from the zigzag hole the intellect protruded, ample the temple, a soft mass of pasty, crowned with clusters of dark red bubblesthe work of a protection.
The child stirred his minute hands, making wild, imprecise gestures. He expressed a series of unintelligible and obscure criessomething together with the chat-tering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkeya sensationalist, soulless, unholy favorably, the terminology of a devil. The child was a deaf stillness.
In addition to he stood immobile, with shaking oral cavity, looking down upon the spoil.
