But
here the fields were uncultivated, surrounded with wire fences, yet with
the same appearance of Sabbath calm. Knowing by sad experience, what
curiosity oftentimes cost, the official would not permit them to linger
here. "Keep right ahead! Forward march!"
For an hour and a half the party kept doggedly on until the senior
members became greatly bewildered and fatigued by their serpentine
meanderings. They could no longer tell whether they were advancing or
receding, the sudden steeps and the continual turning bringing on an
attack of vertigo.
"Have we much further to go?" asked the senator.
"There!" responded the guide pointing to some heaps of earth above them.
"There" was a bell tower surrounded by a few charred houses that could
be seen a long ways off--the remains of a hamlet which had been taken
and retaken by both sides.
By going in a direct line on the surface they would have compassed
this distance in half an hour. To the angles of the underground road,
arranged to impede the advance of an enemy, there had been added the
obstacles of campaign fortification, tunnels cut with wire lattice work,
large hanging cages of wire which, on falling, could block the passage
and enable the defenders to open fire across their gratings.
They began to meet soldiers with packs and pails of water who were soon
lost in the tortuous cross roads.
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