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34
THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE
THE DEPARTURE
earth disturbed as if by an army of frantic moles. An ever increasing mass of yellowish dirt was rising before the blue lines of his company. The men were loading and firing now, and for an instant Harry cheered them on, encouraged them, thundered his orders. Then a man staggered back with a sudden thick sob, caromed against him, and sank at his feet. A man to his right rose from his crouching position, and without transition there was a mass of quivering limbs on the ground where he had stood. A shell had taken off the top of his head. The Confederates were getting the range.
Harry gave back a pace in horror. Then his limbs carried him two more. A howling demon shrieked in his ear}< and two minutes later found him' crouching in a clump of bushes shaking like one of the leaves which his passage had disturbed. He rose to his feet and ran on blindly anywhere, anywhere out of the path of those gray-coated fiends who were trying to take his life. Before his eyes, half blinded with perspiration and terror, appeared the house where he had but now been dancing. He darted in thru the shattered doorway, crossed the parlor at a bound, and burst into a room beyond to find Grace !
Grace upon her knees, sobbing and praying for his safety; Grace upon her feet, facing him with incredulous joy.
" It is over, ' ' she whispered. ' ' You are safe. We have won."
A crash of musketry disproved her statement, and cut short his reply. She shuddered at the sound, for the first time, altho spent bullets had pattered at her casement. Realization dawned in her eyes even before he groveled at her feet, begging, gasping, ejaculating.
"Oh, Grace, I cant! It's awful! I want to live, dear — and marry you. I cant die ! I dont want to be killed ! There are enough out there. Grace, for God's sake pity me!"
t And then the girl laughed. Like ripples of sunshine her sweet voice rang out in the little room around which the battle thundered. Harry stared in astonishment at the sound. Oh, Harry, ' ' she exclaimed, musically, "get up and go out and get shot at. What did you come here for? Do you know that this is my room ? ' '
If he had gazed about him its daintiness would have betrayed the fact, but he was far beyond any power of observation.
' ' You d-d-dont understand, Grace, ' ' he stuttered. "They shriek and yell about you, the shells, and mock you until you almost pray that one will end it. And the bullets whistle spitefully. Men bleed. They groan. They writhe upon the ground "
The girl's eyes blazed with unbearable scorn. ' * And some of them, ' ' she added, "are cowards and run away."
A heavy tramp was heard upon the veranda, and the sound of men set
THE BATTLE