Ailsa, calm and collected in the dreadful crisis, stood at the end of the ward, directing the unnerved stretcher bearers, superintending the carrying out of cots to the barns, which stood in the shelter of the rising ground along the course of the little stream.

Letty appeared from the corridor behind her; and Ailsa smiled and kissed her lightly on the cheek; and the blood came back to the girl’s face in a passion of gratitude which even the terror of death could not lessen or check.

“Ailsa—­darling—­” she whispered; then shuddered in the violence of an explosion that shattered the window-glass beside her,

“We’re taking them to the old barns, Letty,” said Ailsa, steadying her voice.  “Will you take charge here while I go to Colonel Arran?”

“They’ve taken him out,” whispered Letty.  “That ward is on fire.  Everybody is out.  W-what a cruel thing for our boys!  Some of them were getting well!  Can you come now?”

“As soon as they carry out young Spencer.  He’s the last. . . .  Look from the window!  They’re trying to put out the fire with water in buckets.  O—­h!” as a shell struck and the flame flashed out through a geyser of sand and smoke.

“Come,” murmured Letty.  “I will stay if there is anything to stay for——­”

“No, dear; we can go.  Give me your hand; this smoke is horrible.  Everything is on fire, I think. . . .  Hurry, Letty!”

She stumbled, half suffocated, but Letty kept her hand fast and guided her to the outer air.

A company of cavalry, riding hard, passed in a whirlwind of dust.  After them, clanking, thudding, pounding, tore a battery, horses on a dead run,

The west wing of the seminary was on fire; billows of sooty smoke rolled across the roof and blew downward over the ground where the forms of soldiers could be seen toiling to and fro with buckets.

Infantry now began to arrive, crowding the main road on the double quick, mounted officers cantering ahead.  Long lines of them were swinging out east and west across the country, where a battery went into action wrapped in torrents of smoke.

Bullets swarmed, singing above and around in every key, and the distracting racket of the shrapnel shells became continuous.

Ailsa and Letty ran, stooping, into the lane where the stretchers were being hurried across the little footbridge.  As they crossed they saw a dead artilleryman lying in the water, a crimson thread wavering from his head to the surface.  It was Arthur Wye; and Letty knew him, and halted, trembling; but Ailsa called to her in a frightened voice, for, confused by the smoke, they had come out in the rear of a battery among the caissons, and the stretchers had turned to the right, filing down into the hollow where the barns stood on the edge of a cedar grove.

Already men were hard at work erecting hospital tents; the wounded lay on their stretchers, bloodless faces turned to the sky, the wind whipping their blankets and uncovering their naked, emaciated bodies.  The faces of the dead had turned black.