Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-09-24
NNNNNNlANNNlNNNS
BY
FREDERICK PALMER
(Oopyrieht, 1914. by Chnr rios scribner's sonSl


After . time, her ear becoming &C.
customed to the firing as city dwell
ler's to the distant roar of city traf.
f1c, Mrs. Gslland slept. But Marta
could not follow her advice. If, tran
silently at least. she had found some
thing OF the peace Of the confessional,
the yigor of,yoath vas In her arteries;
and youth cannot help remaining
awake under some conditions. She
tiptoed across the hall into her own
room and seated herself by the win.
dow. The symbol OF what the ear
had heard the eye saw-war, working
In tones of the landscape by day with
smokeless powder; war, revealed by
its tongues of fame at night Ugly
bursts of fire from the higher hills
spread to the heavens like an aurora
borealis and broke their messengers
in sheets of flame over the lower hills
the batteries of the Browns sprin
king death about the heads of the
gunners of the Grays emplacing their
single point counted so many bullets
from an automatic, which directed by
the beams of the search-lights, found
their targets in sections of advancing
infantry. Hill crests, set off With
flashes running back and forth, de-
marked infantry lines of the Browns
assisting the automatics.
There were mlls between the
crashes of the small arms and the
heavy, throaty speech of the guns;
lulls that seemed to say that both
sides had paused for a breathing
spell; lulls that allowed the battle In
the distance to be heard in its perva
sive undertone. in one of them, when
even the undertone had ceased for
few seconds, Marta caught family the
groans Of wounded man-one of the
crew of a Gray dirigible burned by
an explosion and brought in his agony
softly to earth by billowing piece OF
envelope which acted as parachute.
Fighting. proceeded in La Tir in
stages of ferocity and blank silence.
The upper part of the town, which
the Browns still held, was In dark.
ness; the lower part, where the Grays
were, was illuminated.
Another one of Lanny's plans!"
thought Marta. "IIe would have them
work in the light, while we fire out
of obscurityl"
Soon all the town was In darkness,
for the Grays had cut the wire in the
main conduit shortly after she had
heard the groans Of the wounded man.
There the automatics broke out in a
mad storm. voicing their feelings at
getting company in close order in a
street for the space of minute, be-
fore those who escaped could plaster
themselves against doorways or find
cover in alleys. Then silence from
the automatlcs and a cheer from the
Browns that raspcd out its triumph
like the rubbing together of steel files.
From the line of defense, that in
Guided the first terrace of the Galland
grounds as the angle Of redoubt, not
a shot, not a sound; silence on the
part Of officers and men as profound
as Mrs. Galland's siumber, while one
Of the Browns search-lights, like some
great witch's slow-turning eye In a
narrow radius, covered the lower ter
races and the road.
Marta gave intermittent glances at
the garden; the glances of a guardian.
She happened to be looking in that
direction when figures sprang across
the road, crouching, running with the
short, quick steps of no body move
ment accompanying that of the legs.
The search-light caught them In mer-
ciless silhouette and the automatic
and the rifles from behind the sand
bags on the first terrace let go. Some
of the figures dropped and lay in the
road and she knew that she had seen
men hit for the first time. Others, she
thought. got safely to the cover of the
gutter on the garden side. OF those
on the road some were still and some
she saw we're moving slowly back on
their stomachs to safety. Now the
search-light laid its beam steadily on
the road. Again silence. From the
upper terrace came a great voice, like
that Of the guns, from human throat:
why didn't we level those ter
races2 They'll creep up from one to
the otherl" 1t was Stransky.
In answer was another voice-Del-
larme's.
'Perhaps there wasn't time to. do
everything. II they get US far as the
first terrace-well in case of a crisis,
we have hand-grenades. But, God
knows, hope we shall not have to
use them"
After an interval, more figures made
. rush across the road. They, too, in
Strapsky's words, paid a price for
seeing the garden. But the flashes
from the rifles and the automatic pro-
vided target for Gray battery. The
blue spark that iies from an overhead
trolley or third rail, multiplied a
hundredfold. broke in Marta's face
1t was dazzling. binding as bolt Of
lightning few feet distant, with the