some arrow of scorn might lay him
mentally low before he could raise his protecting tale.

He imagined the whole regiment saying: "Where's Henry Fleming? He
run, didn't 'e? Oh, my!" He recalled various persons who would be
quite sure to leave him no peace about it. They would doubtless
question him with sneers, and laugh at his stammering hesitation. In
the next engagement they would try to keep watch of him to discover
when he would run.

Wherever he went in camp, he would encounter insolent and lingeringly
cruel stares. As he imagined himself passing near a crowd of comrades,
he could hear one say, "There he goes!"

Then, as if the heads were moved by one muscle, all the faces were
turned toward him with wide, derisive grins. He seemed to hear some
one make a humorous remark in a low tone. At it the others all crowed
and cackled. He was a slang phrase.

Chapter 12

The column that had butted stoutly at the obstacles in the roadway was
barely out of the youth's sight before he saw dark waves of men come
sweeping out of the woods and down through the fields. He knew at once
that the steel fibers had been washed from their hearts. They were
bursting from their coats and their equipments as from entanglements.
They charged down upon him like terrified buffaloes.

Behind them blue smoke curled and clouded above the treetops, and
through the thickets he could sometimes see a distant pink glare. The
voices of the cannon were clamoring in interminable chorus.

The youth was horrorstricken. He stared in agony and amazement. He
forgot that he was engaged in combating the universe. He threw aside
his mental pamphlets on the philosophy of the retreated and rules for
the guidance of the damned.

The fight was lost. The dragons were coming with invincible strides.
The army, helpless in the matted thickets and blinded by the
overhanging night, was going to be swallowed. War, the red animal,
war, the blood-swollen god, would have bloated fill.

Within him something bade to cry out. He had the impulse to make a
rallying speech, to sing a battle hymn, but he could only get his
tongue to call into the air: "Why--why--what--what 's th' matter?"

Soon he was in the midst of them. They were leaping and scampering all
about him. Their blanched faces shone in the dusk. They seemed, for
the most part, to be very burly men. The youth turned from one to
another of them as they galloped along. His inc