, sightless
eyes. And looking back over the additional two hundred yards that this
effort had won for them, they could see the field of yellow stubble
strewn thick with dead and dying. Some there were who had fallen
headlong from their saddle and buried their face in the soft earth.
Others had alighted on their back and were staring up into the sun with
terror-stricken eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets. There
was a handsome black horse, an officer's charger, that had been
disemboweled, and was making frantic efforts to rise, his fore feet
entangled in his entrails. Beneath the fire, that became constantly more
murderous as they drew nearer, the survivors in the wings wheeled their
horses and fell back to concentrate their strength for a fresh onset.

Finally it was the fourth squadron, which, on the fourth attempt,
reached the Prussian lines. Prosper made play with his saber, hacking
away at helmets and dark uniforms as well as he could distinguish
them, for all was dim before him, as in a dense mist. Blood flowed in
torrents; Zephyr's mouth was smeared with it, and to account for it he
said to himself that the good horse must have been using his teeth on
the Prussians. The clamor around him became so great that he could not
hear his own voice, although his throat seemed splitting from the
yells that issued from it. But behind the first Prussian line there was
another, and then another, and then another still. Their gallant efforts
went for nothing; those dense masses of men were like a tangled jungle
that closed around the horses and riders who entered it and buried them
in its rank growths. They might hew down those who were within reach of
their sabers; others stood ready to take their place, the last squadrons
were lost and swallowed up in their vast numbers. The firing, at
point-blank range, was so furious that the men's clothing was ignited.
Nothing could stand before it, all went down; and the work that it left
unfinished was completed by bayonet and musket butt. Of the brave men
who rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield,
and the sole end achieved by that mad charge was to add another glorious
page to history. And then Zephyr, struck by a musket-ball full in the
chest, dropped in a heap, crushing beneath him Prosper's right thigh;
and the pain was so acute that the young man fainted.

Maurice and Jean, who had watched the gallant effort with burning
interest, uttered an ex