rom the pocket of her
gown and gently lowered her head until one ear was close to his
lips.

"What is your name and regiment?"

His voice became suddenly clear.

"John Casson--Egerton's Dragoons. . . . Mrs. Henry Casson, Islip,
Long Island. My mother is a widow; I don't--think
she--can--stand----"

Then he died--went out abruptly into eternity.

Beside him, in the grass, lay a zouave watching everything with
great hollow eyes. His body was only a mass of bloody rags; he had
been shot all to pieces, yet the bleeding heap was breathing, and
the big sunken eyes patiently watched Ailsa's canteen until she
encountered his unwinking gaze. But the first swallow he took
killed him, horribly; and Ailsa, her arms drenched with blood,
shrank back and crouched shuddering under the roots of a shattered
tree, her consciousness almost deserting her in the roaring and
jarring and splintering around her. She saw more stretcher bearers
in the smoke, stooping, edging their way--unarmed heroes of many a
field who fell unnoted, died unrecorded on the rolls of glory.

A lieutenant of artillery, powder-blackened, but jaunty, called
down to her from the bank above:

"Look out, little lady. We're going to try to limber up, and we
don't want to drop six horses and a perfectly good gun on top of
you!"

Somebody seized her arm and dragged her across the leaves; and she
struggled to her knees, to her feet, turned, and started to run.

"This way," said Berkley's voice in her ear; and his hand closed on
hers.

"Phil--help me--I don't know where I am!"

"I do. Run this way, under the crest of the hill. . . . Dr.
Connor told me that you had climbed up here. This isn't your
place! Are you stark mad?"

They ran on westward, panting, sheltered by the grassy crest behind
which soldiers lay firing over the top of the grass--long lines of
them, belly flattened to the slope, dusty blue trousers hitched up
showing naked ankles and big feet pendant. Behind them, swords
drawn, stood or walked their officers, quietly encouraging them or
coolly turning to look at Ailsa and Berkley as they hurried past.

In a vast tobacco field to their left, just beyond a wide cleft in
the hills, a brigade of cavalry was continually changing station to
avoid shell fire. The swallow-tailed national flags, the yellow
guidons with their crossed sabres, the blue State colours, streamed
above their shifting squadrons as they trotted hither and thither
wi