"You look as if you hadn't
seen water for a month."
"We can't see ourselves, old Wait-and-See," retorted Langdon, "but I
guess we're beauties alongside of you. If I didn't have the honor of
your acquaintance, I wouldn't know whether you came from the Indian
Territory, Ashantee or the Cannibal Islands."
"And the music goes merrily on," said St. Clair. "I went to sleep with
the cannon firing, and I wake up with them still at it. I suppose a
fellow will get used to it after a while."
"You can get used to anything," said an officer who heard them. "Now,
you boys eat your breakfasts. Your turn at the guns will come again
soon."
They took breakfast willingly, although they found a strong flavor of
smoke, sand, and burned gunpowder in everything they ate and drank.
Then they went to their guns, but, when a few more shots were fired,
a trumpet blew a signal, and it was echoed from battery to battery.
Every cannon ceased, and, in the silence and under the lifting smoke,
Harry saw a white flag going up on the fort.
Sumter was about to yield.
CHAPTER VII
THE HOMECOMING
A great and exultant cheer went up from the massed thousands in
Charleston. A smile passed over Beauregard's swarthy face and he showed
his white teeth.
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