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Whole regiments sprang at each other's throats, the men fighting each other like animals; trees were cut down by the bullets which tore through them from every direction; bursting shells set fire to the woods, suffocating the wounded or burning them to death; wild charges were made, ending in wilder stampedes or bloody repulses; the crackle of flames rose high above the pandemonium of battle and dense smoke-clouds drifted chokingly above this hideous carnival of death.
The sun had sunk quite below the hills, but his last rays struck upward, touching the zenith. The fog had risen, and the town and river were steeped in its thick, gray damp; but overhead, the sun-touched smoke-clouds opened like a cleft ocean, shifting, rolling seas of crimson mist, waves of billowy silver veined with blood-scarlet, inner depths unfathomable of glancing light.
The fire was gaining rapidly, and, every now and then, with a shift in the wind, the hot, choking gases from the flames, together with rolling clouds of smoke, would be blown into the rude chamber where the boys were imprisoned. When the smoke-clouds blew away the Khaki Boys could look out and see their rescuer, still hunting frantically about for some object to use as a lever.
Newcome's, and Clive lights a cigar in the hall and isn't there a jubilation at the Haunt when the young fellow's face appears above the smoke-clouds there? Many of Clive's Roman friends were by this time come to London, and the young man renewed his acquaintance with them, and had speedily a considerable circle of his own.
From their position on the plateau the whole wide field of battle lay stretched before them to the south and west: Sedan, almost at their feet, whose citadel they could see overtopping the roofs, then Balan and Bazeilles, dimly seen through the dun smoke-clouds that hung heavily in the motionless air, and further in the distance the hills of the left bank, Liry, la Marfee, la Croix-Piau.
Proud knights, doughty archers and men-at-arms who had fronted death unmoved on many a stricken field, wept aloud and crouched upon their knees and screamed but not so loud as those wild and maddened horses, that, bursting all bonds asunder, reared and leapt with lashing hooves, and, choked with rolling smoke-clouds, blinded by flame, plunged headlong through and over the doomed camp, wave upon wave of wild-flung heads and tossing manes.
The sun had sunk quite below the hills, but his last rays struck upward, touching the zenith. The fog had risen, and the town and river were steeped in its thick, gray damp; but overhead, the sun-touched smoke-clouds opened like a cleft ocean, shifting, rolling seas of crimson mist, waves of billowy silver reined with blood-scarlet, inner depths unfathomable of glancing light.
Just as Elisabeth passed through the doorway into the evening sunshine, which was flooding the whole land and turning even the smoke-clouds into windows of agate whereby men caught faint glimmerings of a dim glory as yet to be revealed, she turned and held out her hands once more to her friends.
Such were the thoughts of Agnes the day when she was preparing for her confession; and all the way to church she found them floating and dissolving and reappearing in new forms in her mind, like the silvery smoke-clouds which were constantly veering and sailing over Vesuvius. Only one thing was firm and never changing, and that was the purpose to reveal everything to her spiritual director.
Meanwhile Rama is performing a devil dance of his own in the smoke-clouds; the gong is ringing, cymbals clashing, onlookers shouting; the tresses of the women have fallen down and in the half-light look like black snakes writhing in torture; the women themselves are as mad as the Bacchantes and Menads of old fable: in a word, it is Pandemonium let loose!
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