BY this recital of the messenger our sympathies were sufficiently enlisted; but if anything additional were needed, further to gain our attention, it was given then and there.
As the speaker drew his narration to a close, all present instinctively turned their eyes in the direction whence he had come: namely, toward the south-east. There a sight met our gaze that riveted us to the spot—a spectacle as marvelous as it was beautiful, and singularly confirmatory of our informer's words. To our utter astonishment we looked directly, at that moment, into the enemy's camp twenty miles away, though seemingly less than a quarter of that distance. It was one of those peculiar phenomena, rarely seen on the water and less frequently on the land, and more wonderful in the latter case when it does thus appear, because more perfect and on a grander scale: the mirage.
The prairie mirage is of wondrous beauty. It is usually in the autumn, when all the atmospheric conditions are favorable, that these strange illusions take place on the prairie ocean. Along the eastern horizon, near sunrise, a narrow belt of silver light appears. As it grows broader the silvery gray of its lower side changes slightly golden. Fleecy clouds above the belt take on a yellow red. The grayish shadows of the dawn lift slowly from the earth. Just before the red disk of the sun peers above the horizon-line, one sees in the sky the landscape of trees, of waving grasses or grain, of rocks and hills, held together as it were by threads of yellow and gray and azure. The earth stands inverted in the air.
The groundwork of this illusion is a grayish, semi-opaque mist; and the objects are seen standing or moving along in it. The feet of animals and of men, the trunks of trees, the rocks and hillocks, are set in this aqueous soil. When the conditions are perfect, objects far beyond the range of vision over the prairie are brought near and into plain view of the beholder.
That morning was such a time and afforded such a scene. There was the camp of the enemy,—miles away, as has been said,—mirrored perfectly and beautifully on the sky, every feature of it traced with the minuteness of a line-engraving. By the aid of our military field-glass we could see the early risers moving through the camp-ground; the horses, standing patiently outside awaiting their morning meal; the positions of the pickets keeping guard; the tent-doors flapping in the slight breeze or swaying back and forth as the men made egress or entrance. Here and there were knots of soldiers,—of two or three or four men each,—apparently discussing the situation or lighting the early camp-fires for breakfast. Even the curling smoke of the newly kindled flame, as it ascended upward, curiously traced itself visibly to the eye.
But, what was of yet more interest and practical moment to us, we beheld the stacks of arms, the rifles and shot-guns, of our foe, reflecting their burnished steel, and the army-wagons for bearing their luggage and provisions, stretched along the exposed sides of their position to serve as barricades for defense in case of attack. Moreover, there were the evidences on every side of wanton and cruel destruction,—whole cornfields stripped or trodden into the dust, and the blackened sites or yet smoking remains of burned houses, corn-bins, and wheat-stacks, the property of the Northern settlers.
Here we had, right before our eyes, direct demonstration of the truth that had just been told us. Deeply impressive was it indeed, and well calculated to fire us and to spur us to the rescue.
Surely that effect it had.
