There is no hope except the hope against hope that the crest is clear.
True, he might prefer capture to death. So long as he advances, the line
will not fire--why should it? He can safely ride into the hostile ranks
and become a prisoner of war. But this would defeat his object. It would
not answer our question; it is necessary either that he return unharmed
or be shot to death before our eyes. Only so shall we know how to act.
If captured--why, that might have been done by a half-dozen stragglers.

Now begins an extraordinary contest of intellect between a man and an
army. Our horseman, now within a quarter of a mile of the crest,
suddenly wheels to the left and gallops in a direction parallel to it.
He has caught sight of his antagonist; he knows all. Some slight
advantage of ground has enabled him to overlook a part of the line. If
he were here he could tell us in words. But that is now hopeless; he
must make the best use of the few minutes of life remaining to him, by
compelling the enemy himself to tell us as much and as plainly as
possible--which, naturally, that discreet power is reluctant to do. Not
a rifleman in those crouching ranks, not a cannoneer at those masked and
shotted guns, but knows the needs of the situation, the imperative duty
of forbearance. Besides, there has been time enough to forbid them all
to fire. True, a single rifle-shot might drop him and be no great
disclosure. But firing is infectious--and see how rapidly he moves, with
never a pause except as he whirls his horse about to take a new
direction, never directly backward toward us, never directly forward
toward his executioners. All this is visible through the glass; it seems
occurring within pistol-shot; we see all but the enemy, whose presence,
whose thoughts, whose motives we infer. To the unaided eye there is
nothing but a black figure on a white horse, tracing slow zigzags
against the slope of a distant hill--so slowly they seem almost to
creep.

Now--the glass again--he has tired of his failure, or sees his error, or
has gone mad; he is dashing directly forward at the wall, as if to take
it at a leap, hedge and all! One moment only and he wheels right about
and is speeding like the wind straight down the slope--toward his
friends, toward his death! Instantly the wall is topped with a fierce
roll of smoke for a distance of hundreds of yards to right and left.
This is as instantly dissipated by the wind, and before the rattle of
the