"He pitched out a bomb that must have contained
hundreds of these darts; and the bomb was timed to explode a thousand or
more feet above the earth and scatter the darts. Some of them fell into
a cavalry troop on the road leading to La Fere.
"Hurt anyone? Ach, but yes! Hurt many and killed several--both men and
horses. One dart hit a trooper on top of his head. It went through his
helmet, through his skull, his brain, his neck, his body, his leg--all
the way through him lengthwise it went. It came out of his leg, split
open his horse's flank, and stuck in the hard road.
"I myself saw the man afterward. He died so quickly that his hand still
held his bridle rein after he fell from the saddle; and the horse
dragged him--his corpse, rather--many feet before the fingers relaxed."
The officers who were with us were tremendously interested--not
interested, mind you, in the death of that trooper, spitted from the
heavens by a steel pencil, but interested in the thing that had done the
work.
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