The return of the O'Mahoney Author:Harold Frederic Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Linsky's Brief Military Career. Zeke. though gliding over the slippery ground with all the speed at his command, had kept a watch on the further... more » corner of the house. He straightened himself now against the angle of the projecting, weather-beaten chimney, and drew a long breath. " He didn't see us," he whispered, reassuringly to Linsky, who had also drawn up as flatly as possible against the side of the house. " Glory be to God!" the recruit ejaculated. After a brief breathing spell, Zeke ventured out a few feet, and looked the house over. There was a single window on his side, opening upon the ground floor. Beckoning to Linsky to follow, he stole over to the window, and standing his gun against the clapboards, cautiously tested the sash. It moved, and Zeke with infinite pains lifted it to the top, and stuck his knife in to hold it up. Then, with a bound, he raised himself on his arms, and crawled in over the sill. It was at this moment, as Linsky for the first time stood alone, that a clamorous outburst of artillery- fire made the earth quiver under his feet. Thecrash of noises reverberated with so many echoes from hill to hill that he had no notion whence they had proceeded, or from what distance. The whole broad valley before him, with its sodden meadows and wet, mist-wrapped forests showed no sign of life or motion. But from the crest of the ridge which they had quitted before daybreak there rose now, and whitened the gray of the overhanging clouds, a faint film of smoke—while suddenly the air above him was filled with a strange confusion of unfamiliar sounds, like nothing so much as the hoarse screams of a flock of giant wild-fowl; and then this affrighting babel ceased as swiftly as il had arisen, and he heard the thud and swish of splintered tree...« less