CHAPTER XIX.
A car full of leaf tobacco had been brought in that day, and Berkley secured a little of it for his pipe.
Seated on the edge of the shaky veranda in the darkness, he filled and lighted his cob pipe and, smoking tranquilly, listened to the distant cannonade which had begun about sundown.

Thousands of fire-flies sailed low in the damp swale beyond the store-house, or, clinging motionless to the long wet grass and vines, sparkled palely at intervals.

There was no wind.

Far on the southern horizon the muttering thunder became heavier and more distinct.
From where he sat he could now watch the passage of the great mortar shells through the sky, looking like swiftly moving comets cleaving unfathomable space; then, falling, faster and faster, dropping out of the heights of night, they seemed to leave behind them tracks of fire that lingered on the dazzled retina long after they had disappeared.

The explosion of the incendiary shells was even more spectacular; the burning matter of the chemical charge fell from them in showers of clear blue and golden stars, dropping slowly toward the unseen river below.
He could distinguish the majestic thunder of the huge mortars from the roar of the Parrotts; the irregular volleys of musketry had a resonant clang of metal in them like thousands of iron balls dropped on a sheet of tin.
For an hour the distant display of fireworks continued, then the thunder rolled away, deadened to a dull rumour, and died out; and the last lingering spark of Greek fire faded in mid-heaven.