ir clasped
hands. The men seemed stupefied with fatigue; yet every now and
then they roused themselves to inquire after her comfort or to
offer her a place behind them. She timidly asked Berkley if she
tired him, but he begged her to stay, alarmed lest the vision of
Ailsa depart with her; and she remained, feeling contented and
secure in her drowsy fatigue. Colonel Arran dropped back from the
head of the column once to ride beside her. He questioned her
kindly; spoke to Berkley, also, asking with grave concern about his
wound. And Berkley answered in his expressionless way that he did
not suffer.

But the little Sister of Charity behind his back laid one finger
across her lips and looked significantly at Colonel Arran; and when
the colonel again rode to the head of the weary column his face
seemed even graver and more careworn.

By late afternoon they were beyond sound of the cannonade, riding
through a golden light between fields of stacked wheat. Far behind
in the valley they could see the bayonets of the Zouaves
glistening; farther still the declining sun glimmered on the guns
of the 10th battery. Along a parallel road endless lines of
waggons stretched from north to south, escorted by Egerton's
Dragoons.

To Berkley the sunset world had become only an infernal pit of
scarlet strung with raw nerves. The terrible pain in his face and
head almost made him lose consciousnesss. Later he seemed to be
drifting into a lurid sea of darkness, where he no longer felt his
saddle or the movement of his horse; he scarcely saw the lanterns
clustering, scarcely heard the increasing murmur around him, the
racket of picket firing, the noise of many bewildered men, the
cries of staff-officers directing divisions and brigades to their
camping ground, the confused tumult which grew nearer, nearer,
mounting like the ominous clamour of the sea as the regiment rode
through Azalea under the July stars.

He might have fallen from his saddle; or somebody perhaps lifted
him, for all he knew. In the glare of torches he found himself
lying on a moving stretcher. After that he felt straw under him;
and vaguely wondered why it did not catch fire from his body, which
surely now was but a mass of smouldering flame.

For days the fever wasted him--not entirely, for at intervals he
heard cannon, and always the interminable picket firing; and he
heard bugles, too, and recognised the various summons. But it was
no use trying to ob