Excerpt from The Reading Club and Handy Speaker: Being Selections in Prose and Poetry, Serious, Humorous, Pathetic, Patriotic, and Dramatic, for Readings and RecitationsThe evening sun has sunk full soon, Tinging the west with crimson and gold, But over each man's left shoulder the moon Evil omen As e'er foretold To other foemen In da 3 of old Danger and deat in majesty Silently climbs the eastern sky. The moon behind, the stars shining o'er us, Shadows and darkness around, But we only know straight before us Are twenty miles of ground. 0 God! To think of the terrible fate Awaiting that home if we come too late! To think twenty miles and two hours hence May make such fearful difference! Ah, noble steeds, do all ye know That twenty miles we draw not rein, But after that ye shall rest again.Ga110ping, galloping, a110ping on, Four times thirty hoo s as one, Galloping on at a fearful pace, In terrible race, One by one the miles go by, Quickly the horses and moments ¿y. Stranger, are we almost there? The Mexican, he shook his head: Ten miles farther on, he said, Then bowed his head in muttered prayer. Ten miles more! Will they never pass? On and on and on we go: We brush the dew from the buffalo-grass, We're in the Badlands now. Still the miles are passing by, Still the horses and moments ¿y: Stranger, do we near the place The Mexican nods in mute re 1y, Then suddenly, with ghastly ace, Points to the western sky. Aha! What means that lurid glow? Surely the sun set long ago. Pause not for your lives, the captain said: 'tis a house in ¿ames, five miles ahead!God grant that rarely on human sight There dawn such a scene as we saw that night! Such horrible pictures no brush could produce, Such terrible story no pen could tell, As if in an instant had been let loose A thousand fiends of hell. A bit of timber, a patch of green, A house in a winding-sheet of ¿ame, Smoke and fire and ghastly glare, The shrieks of a poor wretch tortured there, The cries of women bemoaning their fate, The yells of the devils incarnate.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.