Jim was doubtful how far they should venture, but Jack was intent on seeing. This was history. This was the consummation of all the hopes, and the weary days and nights, that had gone into those mighty zigzags up on the hill there. This was his own arm striking as it had never struck before since time began, and he must see it at its best. But, though they could hear enough, they could not see much, because of the mist and the rain and the dense clouds of smoke rolling down the hill-sides. The Russian batteries were only beginning to reply, by the time the boys reached their usual look-out on the eastern slope near the cathedral, and then the uproar doubled, and the very ground beneath them seemed to shudder under it. Jim helped his brother to his usual seat in a niche in the broken wall of a garden, and tucked his cloak carefully about him, for between his boiling excitement and the rawness of the morning, he was all ashake and his teeth were chattering. "Every gun we have," gasped Jack . . . "hard at it!" "If they can't see more than we can, they're going it blind," growled Jim, as he strode about to get warm. And then, like a bolt from the sky, without an instant's warning, out of the chill white mist in front came a great round black ball, which dropped with a thud into the ground almost at Jack's feet. It lay there, hissing and spitting like a venomous devil gloating over its anticipated villainy, and Jim rushed at it with an unaccustomed oath of dismay. It was sheer instinct. He had no time for thought. The devilish thing was close to Jack, and Jack could not move. He got his right hand under it to hurl it down the slope. His feet slipped from under him as he heaved. Then with a splintering crash the thing burst. . . . And the Coil of Carne, cut by a stray British shell, lay shattered about the eastern slope of Sebastopol. CHAPTER LXVI PURGATORY Jim came to himself in purgatory. It seemed to him that he came slowly out of a dead black sleep into a horrible wakening dream. He was in a vast room, low-roofed, with massive arches which obstructed his view and lay like weights on his brain. Small, heavy windows let in a murky light. All about him were dismal groanings, and mutterings, and curses, and a most evil atmosphere, which turned his stomach. He tried to move, and was seized with grinding pains up his right side and arm and shoulder. He tried to grope back into the meaning of it all, and suddenly he remembered the shell. It must have burst and wounded him. His right hand shot suddenly with burning pangs. He wondered how Jack had fared. He could not remember whether he had succeeded in pitching it down the slope or not. He had done his best; but he remembered that the fuse was very short. . . . Was he really alive? . . . or was he dead, and this hell? . . . The groans and curses . . . that awful smell of blood and dead men! . . .