h, covered their track.
"Never give in!" he cried, and he heard them shout,
And grappled with death as a man that knows not doubt.

{66}

And the Guides looked down from their smouldering barrack again,
And behold, a banner of truce, and a voice that spoke:
"Come, for we know that the English all are slain,
We keep no feud with men of a kindred folk;
Rejoice with us to be free of the conqueror's yoke,"
Silence fell for a moment, then was heard
A sound of laughter and scorn, and an answering word.

"Is it we or the lords we serve who have earned this wrong,
That ye call us to flinch from the battle they bade us fight?
We that live--do ye doubt that our hands are strong?
They that have fallen--ye know that their blood was bright!
Think ye the Guides will barter for lust of the light
The pride of an ancient people in warfare bred,
Honour or comrades living, and faith to the dead?"

Then the joy that spurs the warrior's heart
To the last thundering gallop and sheer leap
Came on the men of the Guides; they flung apart
The doors not all their valour could longer keep;
They dressed their slender line; they breathed deep,
And with never a foot lagging or head bent,
To the clash and clamour and dust of death they went.

{67}

_The Gay Gordons_

(DARGAI, OCTOBER 20TH, 1897)

Who's for the Gathering, who's for the Fair?
(_Gay goes the Gordon to a fight_)
The bravest of the brave are at dead-lock there,
(_Highlanders! march! by the right!_)
There are bullets by the hundred buzzing in the air;
There are bonny lads lying on the hillside bare;
But the Gordons know what the Gordons dare
When they hear the pipers playing!

The happiest English heart to-day
(_Gay goes the Gordon to a fight_)
Is the heart of the Colonel, hide it as he may
(_Steady there! steady on the right!_)
He sees his work and he sees the way,
He knows his time and the word to say,
And he's thinking of the tune that the Gordons play
When he sets the pipers playing!

Rising, roaring, rushing like the tide,
(_Gay goes the Gordon to a fight_)
They're up through the fire-zone, not to be denied;
(_Bayonets! and charge! by the right!_)

{68}

Thirty bullets straight where the rest went wide,
And thirty lads are lying on the bare hillside;
But they passed in the hour of the Gordons' pride,
T