"What's it all about?" wondered a big black bird perched in
the top of the tallest tree. He was an old solitary and a wise
one, yet he was not wise enough to guess what it was all about.
So all day long he kept blinking and wondering.
The noise reached far out over the plain and across the hills
and awoke the little babes that were sleeping in their cradles.
The smoke curled up toward the sun and shadowed the plain so that
the stupid birds thought it was going to rain; but the wise one
knew better.
"They are children playing a game," thought he. "I shall know
more about it if I watch long enough."
At the approach of night they had all vanished away with their
din and smoke. Then the old bird plumed his feathers. At last he
had understood! With a flap of his great, black wings he shot
downward, circling toward the plain.
A man was picking his way across the plain. He was dressed in
the garb of a clergyman. His mission was to administer the
consolations of religion to any of the prostrate figures in whom
there might yet linger a spark of life. A negro accompanied him,
bearing a bucket of water and a flask of wine.
There were no wounded here; they had been borne away. But the
retreat had been hurried and the vultures and the good Samaritans
would have to look to the dead.
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