One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home in a
small field and entered a forest unobserved. It was happy in a new sense
of freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of exploration and
adventure; for this child's spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for
thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and
conquest--victories in battles whose critical moments were centuries,
whose victors' camps were cities of hewn stone. From the cradle of its
race it had conquered its way through two continents and passing a great
sea had penetrated a third, there to be born to war and dominion as a
heritage.
The child was a boy aged about six years, the son of a poor planter. In
his younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought against
naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a
civilized race to the far South. In the peaceful life of a planter the
warrior-fire survived; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man
loved military books and pictures and the boy had understood enough to
make himself a wooden sword, though even the eye of his father would
hardly have known it for what it was. This weapon he now bore bravely,
as became the son of an heroic race, and pausing now and again in the
sunny space of the forest assumed, with some exaggeration, the postures
of aggression and defense that he had been taught by the engraver's art.
Made reckless by the ease with which he overcame invisible foes
attempting to stay his advance, he committed the common enough military
error of pushing the pursuit to a dangerous extreme, until he found
himself upon the margin of a wide but shallow brook, whose rapid waters
barred his direct advance against the flying foe that had crossed with
illogical ease. But the intrepid victor was not to be baffled; the
spirit of the race which had passed the great sea burned unconquerable
in that small breast and would not be denied. Finding a place where some
bowlders in the bed of the stream lay but a step or a leap apart, he
made his way across and fell again upon the rear-guard of his imaginary
foe, putting all to the sword.
Now that the battle had been won, prudence required that he withdraw to
his base of operations. Alas; like many a mightier conqueror, and like
one, the mightiest, he could not
curb the lust for war,
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.
Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found himself
confronted with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he was
following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before
it, a rabbit! With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not
in what direction, calling with inarticulate cries for his mother,
weeping, stumbling, his tender skin cruelly torn by brambles, his little
heart beating hard with terror--breathless, blind with tears--lost in
the forest! Then, for more than an hour, he wandered with erring feet
through the tangled undergrowth, till at last, overcome by fatigue, he
lay down in a narrow space between two rocks, within a few yards of the
stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a
companion, sobbed himself to sleep. The wood birds sang merrily above
his head; the squirrels, whisking their bravery of tail, ran barking
from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away
was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in
celebration of nature's victory over the son of her immemorial
enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black
were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother's heart
was breaking for her missing child.
Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet. The chill of
the evening was in his limbs, the fear of the gloom in his heart. But he
had rested, and he no longer wept. With some blind instinct which
impelled to action he struggled through the undergrowth about him and
came to a more open ground--on his right the brook, to the left a
gentle acclivity studded with infrequent trees; over all, the gathering
gloom of twilight. A thin, ghostly mist rose along the water. It
frightened and repelled him; instead of recrossing, in the direction
whence he had come, he turned his back upon it, and went forward toward
the dark inclosing wood. Suddenly he saw before him a strange moving
object which he took to be some large animal--a dog, a pig--he could not
name it; perhaps it was a bear. He had seen pictures of bears, but knew
of nothing to their discredit and had vaguely wished to meet one. But
something in form or movement of this object--something in the
awkwardness of its approach--told him that it was not a bear, and
curiosity was stayed by fear. He stood still and as it came slowly on
gained courage every moment, for he saw that at least it had not the
long, menacing ears of the rabbit. Possibly his impressionable mind was
half conscious of something familiar in its shambling, awkward gait.
Before it had approached near enough to resolve his doubts he saw that
it was followed by another and another. To right and to left were many
more; the whole open space about him was alive with them--all moving
toward the brook.
They were men. They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their
hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms
hanging idle at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell
prone in the attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike,
save only to advance foot by foot in the same direction. Singly, in
pairs and in little groups, they came on through the gloom, some halting
now and again while others crept slowly past them, then resuming their
movement. They came by dozens and by hundreds; as far on either hand as
one could see in the deepening gloom they extended and the black wood
behind them appeared to be inexhaustible. The very ground seemed in
motion toward the creek. Occasionally one who had paused did not again
go on, but lay motionless. He was dead. Some, pausing, made strange
gestures with their hands, erected their arms and lowered them again,
clasped their heads; spread their palms upward, as men are sometimes
seen to do in public prayer.
Not all of this did the child note; it is what would have been noted by
an elder observer; he saw little but that these were men, yet crept like
babes. Being men, they were not terrible, though unfamiliarly clad. He
moved among them freely, going from one to another and peering into
their faces with childish curiosity. All their faces were singularly
white and many were streaked and gouted with red. Something in this--
something too, perhaps, in their grotesque attitudes and movements--
reminded him of the painted clown whom he had seen last summer in the
circus, and he laughed as he watched them. But on and ever on they
crept, these maimed and bleeding men, as heedless as he of the dramatic
contrast between his laughter and their own ghastly gravity. To him it
was a merry spectacle. He had seen his father's negroes creep upon their
hands and knees for his amusement--had ridden them so, "making believe"
they were his horses. He now approached one of these crawling figures
from behind and with an agile movement mounted it astride. The man sank
upon his breast, recovered, flung the small boy fiercely to the ground
as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon him a face that
lacked a lower jaw--from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red
gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The
unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, gave
this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and
breast by the blood of its quarry. The man rose to his knees, the child
to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified
at last, ran to a tree near by, got upon the farther side of it and took
a more serious view of the situation. And so the clumsy multitude
dragged itself slowly and painfully along in hideous pantomime--moved
forward down the slope like a swarm of great black beetles, with never a
sound of going--in silence profound, absolute.
Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to brighten. Through
the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks
and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck
the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured
their movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching
their whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which
so many of them were freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and
bits of metal in their clothing. Instinctively the child turned toward
the growing splendor and moved down the slope with his horrible
companions; in a few moments had passed the foremost of the throng--not
much of a feat, considering his advantages. He placed himself in the
lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march,
conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that
his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had such
a following.
Scattered about upon the ground now slowly narrowing by the encroachment
of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in the
leader's mind, were coupled no significant associations: an occasional
blanket, tightly rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together
with a string; a heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle--such
things, in short, as are found in the rear of retreating troops, the
"spoor" of men flying from their hunters. Everywhere near the creek,
which here had a margin of lowland, the earth was trodden into mud by
the feet of men and horses. An observer of better experience in the use
of his eyes would have noticed that these footprints pointed in both
directions; the ground had been twice passed over--in advance and in
retreat. A few hours before, these desperate, stricken men, with their
more fortunate and now distant comrades, had penetrated the forest in
thousands. Their successive battalions, breaking into swarms and
re-forming in lines, had passed the child on every side--had almost
trodden on him as he slept. The rustle and murmur of their march had not
awakened him. Almost within a stone's throw of where he lay they had
fought a battle; but all unheard by him were the roar of the musketry,
the shock of the cannon, "the thunder of the captains and the shouting."
He had slept through it all, grasping his little wooden sword with
perhaps a tighter clutch in unconscious sympathy with his martial
environment, but as heedless of the grandeur of the struggle as the dead
who had died to make the glory.
The fire beyond the belt of woods on the farther side of the creek,
reflected to earth from the canopy of its own smoke, was now suffusing
the whole landscape. It transformed the sinuous line of mist to the
vapor of gold. The water gleamed with dashes of red, and red, too, were
many of the stones protruding above the surface. But that was blood; the
less desperately wounded had stained them in crossing. On them, too, the
child now crossed with eager steps; he was going to the fire. As he
stood upon the farther bank he turned about to look at the companions of
his march. The advance was arriving at the creek. The stronger had
already drawn themselves to the brink and plunged their faces into the
flood. Three or four who lay without motion appeared to have no heads.
At this the child's eyes expanded with wonder; even his hospitable
understanding could not accept a phenomenon implying such vitality as
that. After slaking their thirst these men had not had the strength to
back away from the water, nor to keep their heads above it. They were
drowned. In rear of these, the open spaces of the forest showed the
leader as many formless figures of his grim command as at first; but not
nearly so many were in motion. He waved his cap for their encouragement
and smilingly pointed with his weapon in the direction of the guiding
light--a pillar of fire to this strange exodus.
Confident of the fidelity of his forces, he now entered the belt of
woods, passed through it easily in the red illumination, climbed a
fence, ran across a field, turning now and again to coquet with his
responsive shadow, and so approached the blazing ruin of a dwelling.
Desolation everywhere! In all the wide glare not a living thing was
visible. He cared nothing for that; the spectacle pleased, and he danced
with glee in imitation of the wavering flames. He ran about, collecting
fuel, but every object that he found was too heavy for him to cast in
from the distance to which the heat limited his approach. In despair he
flung in his sword--a surrender to the superior forces of nature. His
military career was at an end.
Shifting his position, his eyes fell upon some outbuildings which had an
oddly familiar appearance, as if he had dreamed of them. He stood
considering them with wonder, when suddenly the entire plantation, with
its inclosing forest, seemed to turn as if upon a pivot. His little
world swung half around; the points of the compass were reversed. He
recognized the blazing building as his own home!
For a moment he stood stupefied by the power of the revelation, then ran
with stumbling feet, making a half-circuit of the ruin. There,
conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a
woman--the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched
full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and
full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away,
and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a
frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles--the work
of a shell.
The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He
uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries--something
between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey--a
startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child
was a deaf mute.
Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the
wreck.