ey are making directly to our left, parallel to the
now steadily blazing and smoking wall. The rattle of the musketry is
continuous, and every bullet's target is that courageous heart.

Suddenly a great bank of white smoke pushes upward from behind the
wall. Another and another--a dozen roll up before the thunder of the
explosions and the humming of the missiles reach our ears, and the
missiles themselves come bounding through clouds of dust into our
covert, knocking over here and there a man and causing a temporary
distraction, a passing thought of self.

The dust drifts away. Incredible!--that enchanted horse and rider
have passed a ravine and are climbing another slope to unveil another
conspiracy of silence, to thwart the will of another armed host. Another
moment and that crest too is in eruption. The horse rears and strikes
the air with its forefeet. They are down at last. But look again--the
man has detached himself from the dead animal. He stands erect,
motionless, holding his sabre in his right hand straight above his head.
His face is toward us. Now he lowers his hand to a level with his face
and moves it outward, the blade of the sabre describing a downward
curve. It is a sign to us, to the world, to posterity. It is a hero's
salute to death and history.

Again the spell is broken; our men attempt to cheer; they are choking
with emotion; they utter hoarse, discordant cries; they clutch their
weapons and press tumultuously forward into the open. The skirmishers,
without orders, against orders, are going forward at a keen run, like
hounds unleashed. Our cannon speak and the enemy's now open in full
chorus; to right and left as far as we can see, the distant crest,
seeming now so near, erects its towers of cloud, and the great shot
pitch roaring down among our moving masses. Flag after flag of ours
emerges from the wood, line after line sweeps forth, catching the
sunlight on its burnished arms. The rear battalions alone are in
obedience; they preserve their proper distance from the insurgent front.

The commander has not moved. He now removes his field-glass from his
eyes and glances to the right and left. He sees the human current
flowing on either side of him and his huddled escort, like tide waves
parted by a rock. Not a sign of feeling in his face; he is thinking.
Again he directs his eyes forward; they slowly traverse that malign
and awful crest. He addresses a calm word to his bugler. Tra-la-la!
Tra-la