Few persons, except those who from a distance had
been watching the fort with glasses, understood what
had happened; but every one in the city and surrounding
country was conscious that something had happened of a
most startling kind, and that it was over in the same
instant in which they had perceived it. Everywhere
there was the noise of falling window-glass. There were
those who asserted that for an instant they had
heard in the distance a grinding crash; and there were
others who were quite sure that they had noticed what
might be called a flash of darkness, as if something
had, with almost unappreciable quickness, passed
between them and the sun.

When the officers of the garrison mounted the hill
before them and surveyed the place where their fort had
been, there was not one of them who had sufficient
command of himself to write a report of what had
happened. They gazed at the bare, staring flatness of
the shorn bluff, and they looked at each other. This
was not war. It was something supernatural, awful!
They were not frightened; they were oppressed and
appalled. But the military discipline of their minds
soon exerted its force, and a brief account of the
terrific event was transmitted to the authorities, and
Sergeant Kilsey was sentenced to a month in the guard-
house.

No one approached the vicinity of the bluff where
the fort had stood, for danger might not be over; but