sh were mingled in the maceration. Like some giant reptile with its
vertebrae breaking, gouged and torn and pinioned, the charge stopped, in
writhing, throbbing confusion. Those on the outer circle of explosions
were thrown against their fellows, who surged back in another direction
from an explosion in the opposite quarter. From the rear the pressure
weakened; the human hammer was no longer driving the ram. Blinded by the
lightnings and dust, dizzy from concussions and noise, too blank of
mind to be sane or insane, the atoms of the bulk of the charge in
natural instinct turned from their goal and toward the place whence they
had come, with death from all sides still buffeting them. Staggeringly,
at first, they went, for want of initiative in their paralysis; then
rapidly, as the law of self-preservation asserted itself in wild
impulse.

As sheep driven over a precipice they had advanced; as men they fled.
There was no longer any command, no longer any cohesion, except of legs
struggling in and out over the uneven footing of dead and wounded, while
they felt another pressure, that of the mass of the Browns in pursuit.
Of all those of Fracasse's company whom we know, only the judge's son
and Jacob Pilzer were alive. Stained with blood and dust, his teeth
showing in a grimace of mocking hate of all humankind, Pilzer's savagery
ran free of the restraint of discipline and civilized convention.
Striking right and left, he forced his way out of the region of shell
fire and still kept on. Clubbing his rifle, he struck down one officer
who tried to detain him; but another officer, quicker than he, put a
revolver bullet through his head.

* * * * *

Westerling, who had buried his face in his hands in Marta's presence at
the thought of failure, must keep the pose of his position before the
staff. With chin drawn in and shoulders squared in a sort of petrified
military habit, he received the feverish news that grew worse with each
brief bulletin. He, the chief of staff; he, Hedworth Westerling, the
superman, must be a rock in the flood of alarm. When he heard that his
human ram was in recoil he declared that the repulse had been
exaggerated--repulses always were. With word that a heavy counter-attack
was turning the retreat into an ungovernable rout, he broke into a
storm. He was not beaten; he could not be beaten.

"Let our guns cut a few swaths in the mob!" he cried. "That will stop
them from r