He
waited there a little while, breathing hard, but he had not been
observed. From his rosy shelter he could still see the sentinels on
either side, walking up and down, undisturbed. Around him was a
frightful litter. The shell, the history of which he would never know,
had struck fairly in the center of the place, and it must have burst in
a thousand fragments. Scarcely a pane of glass had been left unbroken,
and the great pots, containing rare fruits and flowers, were mingled
mostly in shattered heaps. It was a pitiable wreck, and it stirred John,
although he had seen so many things so much worse.
He walked a little distance in a stooping position, and then stood up
among some shrubs, tall enough to hide him. He noticed a slight dampness
in the air, and he saw, too, that the feathery clouds were growing
darker. The faint quiver in the air brought with it, as always, the
rumble of the guns, but he believed that it was not a blended sound.
There was real thunder on the horizon, where the French lay, and then he
saw a distant flash, not white like that of a searchlight, but like
yellow lightning. Rain, a storm perhaps, must be at hand. He had read
that nearly all the great battles in the civil war in his own country
had been followed at once by violent storms of thunder, lightning and
rain. Then why not here, where immense artillery combats never ceased?
Near the end of the conservatory he paused and looked back at the house.
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