With his partly free right hand he now tried to get hold of the beam that lay across, but not quite against, his breast.  In no way could he do so.  He was unable to depress the shoulder so as to push the elbow beyond that edge of the timber which was nearest his knees; failing in that, he could not raise the forearm and hand to grasp the beam.  The brace that made an angle with it downward and backward prevented him from doing anything in that direction, and between it and his body the space was not half so wide as the length of his forearm.  Obviously he could not get his hand under the beam nor over it; the hand could not, in fact, touch it at all.  Having demonstrated his inability, he desisted, and began to think whether he could reach any of the debris piled upon his legs.

In surveying the mass with a view to determining that point, his attention was arrested by what seemed to be a ring of shining metal immediately in front of his eyes.  It appeared to him at first to surround some perfectly black substance, and it was somewhat more than a half-inch in diameter.  It suddenly occurred to his mind that the blackness was simply shadow and that the ring was in fact the muzzle of his rifle protruding from the pile of debris.  He was not long in satisfying himself that this was so—­if it was a satisfaction.  By closing either eye he could look a little way along the barrel—­to the point where it was hidden by the rubbish that held it.  He could see the one side, with the corresponding eye, at apparently the same angle as the other side with the other eye.  Looking with the right eye, the weapon seemed to be directed at a point to the left of his head, and vice-versa. He was unable to see the upper surface of the barrel, but could see the under surface of the stock at a slight angle.  The piece was, in fact, aimed at the exact centre of his forehead.

In the perception of this circumstance, in the recollection that just previously to the mischance of which this uncomfortable situation was the result he had cocked the rifle and set the trigger so that a touch would discharge it, Private Searing was affected with a feeling of uneasiness.  But that was as far as possible from fear; he was a brave man, somewhat familiar with the aspect of rifles from that point of view, and of cannon too.  And now he recalled, with something like amusement, an incident of his experience at the storming of Missionary Ridge, where, walking up to one of the enemy’s embrasures from which he had seen a heavy gun throw charge after charge of grape among the assailants he had thought for a moment that the piece had been withdrawn; he could see nothing in the opening but a brazen circle.  What that was he had understood just in time to step aside as it pitched another peck of iron down that swarming slope.  To face firearms is one of the commonest incidents in a soldier’s life—­firearms, too, with malevolent eyes blazing behind them.  That is what a soldier is for.  Still, Private Searing did not altogether relish the situation, and turned away his eyes.