Page:Vorse--The ninth man.djvu/16

 the state: they love and die, bear children, buy and sell, and strive for power, and the days will go by one like the other and you may think that you know each of your fellows as a book; then singe them with the fire of a great event and, behold, your town will turn on you an unaccustomed and terrifying face.

Myself, I cannot even now distinguish the events as they came, they happened so quickly, one on top of the other, like a dog tumbling down-stairs. Whether it was his head or his tail that went first you would be at a loss to tell. We were in sore straits in the city, I know that. There was wildcat fighting; there was a surrender to a greater might of mind and body than we could show—this I know, too. Then there was peace; we wondered that we were not burned and pillaged like the cities that had fallen before us. Before he entered the gate we had made a shrewd fight of it; but he had more of everything than we—any outsider would have foretold the end. He had more men; and though it may not be becoming of a soldier to say it, a clerk like myself may perhaps be