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Even leaving out his ancient ancestry, he remains the descendant of families who have given soldier-sons to their country during five hundred years of almost ceaseless war in one part of the world or the other. He is really born with battle-smoke in his nostrils, and the beat of the battle-drum in his heart and he knows that, neither on land nor sea has he ever been finally beaten.

And standing in this coign of vantage, in my mind's eye I saw this mighty vessel as she had been, the heave of the fathomless sea below, the whirling battle-smoke about her, the air full of the crashing thunder of her guns as she quivered 'neath their discharge.

When the Union emerges from the battle-smoke, her crest towering over the ruins of traitorous cities and the wrecks of Rebel armies, her eye flashing defiance to all her evil-wishers, her breast heaving under its corselet of iron, her arm wielding the mightiest enginery that was ever forged into the thunderbolts of war, her triumph will be grand enough without her setting fire to the stubble with which the folly of the Old World has girt its thrones.

He had visited stranger spots than any seaside cave; encountered men more terrible than any spirit; done and dared and suffered in that incredible, unsung epic of the Mutiny War; played his part with the field force of Delhi, beleaguering and beleaguered; shared in that enduring, savage anger and contempt of death and decency that, for long months together, bedevil'd and inspired the army; was hurled to and fro in the battle-smoke of the assault; was there, perhaps, where Nicholson fell; was there when the attacking column, with hell upon every side, found the soldier's enemy strong drink, and the lives of tens of thousands trembled in the scale, and the fate of the flag of England staggered.