slouched along beside Fuselli.     

       They looked in the door of one of the barracks. A lot of soldiers were sitting in a ring round two tall negroes whose black faces and chests glistened like jet in the faint light.     

       “Come on, Charley, give us another,” said someone.     

       “Do Ah git it now, or mus' Ah hesit-ate?”      

       One negro began chanting while the other strummed carelessly on the guitar.     

       “No, give us the 'Titanic.'”      

       The guitar strummed in a crooning rag-time for a moment. The negro's voice broke into it suddenly, pitched high.     

       “Dis is de song ob de Titanic, Sailin' on de sea.”      

       The guitar strummed on. There had been a tension in the negro's voice that had made everyone stop talking. The soldiers looked at him curiously.     

      “How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg, How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg Sailin' on de sea.”  

       His voice was confidential and soft, and the guitar strummed to the same sobbing rag-time. Verse after verse the voice grew louder and the strumming faster.     

      “De Titanic's sinkin' in de deep blue, Sinkin' in de deep blue, deep blue, Sinkin' in de sea. O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea, O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea, Roun' dat cole iceberg, Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,'       Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee, Nearer to Thee.'”  

       The guitar was strumming the hymn-tune. The negro was singing with every cord in his throat taut, almost sobbing.     

       A man next to Fuselli took careful aim and spat into the box of sawdust in the middle of the ring of motionless soldiers.     

       The guitar played the rag-time again, fast, almost mockingly. The negro sang in low confidential tones.     

      “O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea. O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea, Roun' dat cole iceberg.”  

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