Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1902-03-19

e. 4
an incident occurred which saved me
from further batting. The rebels out
side the walls were conducting their
days attack with vigor and some in
telligence. More than once during
| our procession the lighter missiles
from their war engines had sang up
through the air and split against a
building, and thrown splinters which
wounded those which thronged the
streets. Still there had been nothing
to rutfie the nerves of anyone at all
used to the haps of warfare, or in
any way to hinder our courtship. But
presently, it seems, they stopped
hurting stones from their war en-
gines, and took to loading them with
carcasses of wood lined with the
throwing fire. a#
Now against stone buildings these
did little harm, save only tina. they
scorched horribly any poor wretch
that was within splash of them when
they burst; but when they fell upon
the rude wooden booths and rush
shelters of the poorer folk, they set
them ablaze instantly. There was
no putting out these fires.
These things also would have given
to either Phorenice or myself little
enough of concern, as they are the
trivial and common incidents of
every siege; but the mammoth on
which we rode had not been so prop
erly schooled. When the first blue
Whit of smoke came to us down the
windings of the street, the huge red
beast hoisted it's trunk, and began to
sway it's head uneasily. When the
smoke drifts grew more dense, and
here and there tongue of flame
showed pale beneath the sunshine, it
stopped abruptly and began to
trumpet.
The guards who led it tugged man
fully at the chains which hung from
the jagged metal collar round its
neck. so that the spikes ran deep
into it's flesh, and reminded it keenly
of its bondage. But the beasts ter
ror at the fire, which was native to
it's constitution, mastered all it's new
bought habits of obedience. From
time unknown men have hunted the
mammoth in the savage ground. and
the mammoth has hunted men; and
the men have always used fire as
shield, and mammoths have learned
to dread fire as the most dangerous
of all enemies.
Phorenice's brow began to darken
as the great beast grew more FESTIVE,
and she shook her red curls viciously.
Some one shall lose a head for this
laundering" said she. 81 ordered to
have this beast trained to stand in
different to drums, shouting, arrows,
stones, and fire, and the trainers as
sured me that all was done, and
brought examples
L slipped my girdle. Here said
quick. Let me lower you to the
ground
She turned on me with a CLEAN.
"Are you fearful for my neck then.
Deucalion?'
Il have no mind to be bereaved be-
fore L have tasted my welded life
"Pish! There is little enough of
danger. / will stay and ride it out.
l am not one of your nervous xom-
en-. sir. But go you, if you please
There is little enough chance for
that now
Blood flowed from the mammoth's
neck where the spikes of the collar
tore it, and with each drop, so did
the tameness seem to ooZe out from
1T also. With wild squeals and trum-
petlngs it turned and charged vicious
~ down the way it had come, scat
terlng like straws the spearmen who
tried to stop it, and moving a great
swathe through the crowd with its
monstrous progress. Many uust
have been trodden under foot, MANY
killed by its. murderous trunk, but
only their cries came to us. The
golden castle, with its canopy of
royal snakes, was swayed and tossed
so that we two occupants had much
ado not to be shot off like stones
from catapult. But I took a brace
with my feet against the front and
one arm around a pillar, and clapped
the spare arm round Phorenice, so as
to offer myself to her as cushion.
She lay there contentedly enough.
with her lovely face just beneath nv
chin, and the faint scent of her hair
coming in to me with every breath
took: and the mammoth charged
madly on through the narrow streets.
We had outstripped the faint of
smoke, and the original cause of fear.
but the beast seemed to have forgot
ten everything in its mad panic. 1t
held furiously on with enormous
strides. carving IFS trunk a1oft o,5