In groping about with his torn and bleeding hand he seized at last a strip of board, and, pulling, felt it give way.  It lay parallel with his body, and by bending his elbow as much as the contracted space would permit, he could draw it a few inches at a time.  Finally it was altogether loosened from the wreckage covering his legs; he could lift it clear of the ground its whole length.  A great hope came into his mind:  perhaps he could work it upward, that is to say backward, far enough to lift the end and push aside the rifle; or, if that were too tightly wedged, so place the strip of board as to deflect the bullet.  With this object he passed it backward inch by inch, hardly daring to breathe lest that act somehow defeat his intent, and more than ever unable to remove his eyes from the rifle, which might perhaps now hasten to improve its waning opportunity.  Something at least had been gained:  in the occupation of his mind in this attempt at self-defense he was less sensible of the pain in his head and had ceased to wince.  But he was still dreadfully frightened and his teeth rattled like castanets.

The strip of board ceased to move to the suasion of his hand.  He tugged at it with all his strength, changed the direction of its length all he could, but it had met some extended obstruction behind him and the end in front was still too far away to clear the pile of debris and reach the muzzle of the gun.  It extended, indeed, nearly as far as the trigger guard, which, uncovered by the rubbish, he could imperfectly see with his right eye.  He tried to break the strip with his hand, but had no leverage.  In his defeat, all his terror returned, augmented tenfold.  The black aperture of the rifle appeared to threaten a sharper and more imminent death in punishment of his rebellion.  The track of the bullet through his head ached with an intenser anguish.  He began to tremble again.

Suddenly he became composed.  His tremor subsided.  He clenched his teeth and drew down his eyebrows.  He had not exhausted his means of defense; a new design had shaped itself in his mind—­another plan of battle.  Raising the front end of the strip of board, he carefully pushed it forward through the wreckage at the side of the rifle until it pressed against the trigger guard.  Then he moved the end slowly outward until he could feel that it had cleared it, then, closing his eyes, thrust it against the trigger with all his strength!  There was no explosion; the rifle had been discharged as it dropped from his hand when the building fell.  But it did its work.

* * * * *

Lieutenant Adrian Searing, in command of the picket-guard on that part of the line through which his brother Jerome had passed on his mission, sat with attentive ears in his breastwork behind the line.  Not the faintest sound escaped him; the cry of a bird, the barking of a squirrel, the noise of the wind among the pines—­all were anxiously noted by his overstrained sense.  Suddenly, directly in front of his line, he heard a faint, confused rumble, like the clatter of a falling building translated by distance.  The lieutenant mechanically looked at his watch.  Six o’clock and eighteen minutes.  At the same moment an officer approached him on foot from the rear and saluted.