ed the colour of blood, beneath a sky
black with bellowing thunder and illumined occasionally by a blaze of
splendour. It would be useless to attempt to set out the experience and
adventures of the particular cavalry regiment to which he was attached
as a major, since, notwithstanding their infinite variety, they were
such as all shared whose glory it was to take part with what the Kaiser
called the "contemptible little army" of England in the ineffable
retreat from Mons, that retreat which saved France and Civilisation.

Godfrey played his part well, once or twice with heroism indeed, but
what of that amid eighty thousand heroes? Back he staggered with the
rest, exhausted, sleepless, fighting, fighting, fighting, his mind
filled alternately with horror and with wonder, horror at the deeds to
which men can sink and the general scheme of things that makes them
possible, wonder at the heights to which they can rise when lifted by
the inspiration of a great ideal and a holy cause. Death, he reflected,
could not after all mean so very much to man, seeing how bravely it was
met every minute of the day and night, and that the aspect of it, often
so terrible, did but encourage others in like fashion to smile and die.
But oh! what did it all mean, and who ruled this universe with such a
flaming, blood-stained sword?

Then at last came the turn of the tide when the hungry German wolf was
obliged to abandon that Paris which already he thought between his jaws
and, a few days after it, the charge, the one splendid, perfect charge
that consoled Godfrey and those with him for all which they had
suffered, lost and feared. He was in command of the regiment now, for
those superior to him had been killed, and he directed and accompanied
that charge. They thundered on to the mass of the Germans who were
retreating with no time to entrench or set entanglements, a gentle
slope in front, and hard, clear ground beneath their horses' feet. They
cut through them, they trod them down, they drove them by scores and
hundreds into the stream beyond, till those two battalions, or what
remained of them, were but a tangled, drowning mob. It was finished;
the English squadron turned to retreat as had been ordered.

Then of a sudden Godfrey felt a dull blow. For a few moments
consciousness remained to him. He called out some command about the
retirement; it came to his mind that thus it was well to die in the
moment of his little victory. After that-