tongues rose in a clamorous medley; but through them all as a bugle rings out on the firing-line there rose again that wild, wide-throated scream of intolerable physical pain.
I knew the sound. I had heard it several times. The latest was in San Francisco on one of the big United States transports when a stevedore had up-ended a crate of primers which had exploded and filled the man's body with splinters so that he looked like a porcupine. Leyden had heard it also, as the first glance at his face told me, and from his expression I saw that he had guessed the present cause; but there was no time to inquire, for the screams now followed each other in quick succession and were approaching, and such screams! Opposite me Rosenthal, who had thrown down his hand at the beginning of the play and was about to take a swallow of his Rhine wine, paused, the glass half way to his lips, and hardened, world-worn adventurer that the Jew was, he positively looked sickened at the sound.
[ 271 ]
