anding, dissolving the
barriers of caste, passed between him and the valet, eloquent of their
approval and their loyal readiness to share the fate of their fallen
chief.

The canopy of shrapnel smoke grew thicker; the infantry began to break.

"But, no!" said Westerling. "The place for a chief of staff is at his
headquarters."

XLV

THE RETREAT

Marta remained where Westerling had left her, rooted to the ground by
the monstrous spell of the developing panorama of seemingly limitless
movement. With each passing minute there must be a hundred acts of
heroism which, if isolated in the glare of a day's news, would make the
public thrill. At the outset of the war she had seen the Browns, as part
of a preconceived plan, in cohesive rear-guard resistance, with every
detail of personal bravery a utilized factor of organized purpose. Now
she saw defence, inchoate and fragmentary, each part acting for itself,
all deeds of personal bravery lost in a swirl of disorganization. That
was the pity of it, the helplessness of engineers and of levers when the
machine was broken; the warning of it to those who undertake war
lightly.

The Browns' rifle flashes kept on steadily weaving their way down the
slopes, their reserves pressing close on the heels of the skirmishers in
greedy swarms. A heavy column of Brown infantry was swinging in toward
the myriad-legged, writhing gray caterpillar on the pass road and many
field-batteries were trotting along a parallel road. Their plan
developed suddenly when a swath of gun-fire was laid across the pass
road at the mouth of the defile, as much as to say: "Here we make a gate
of death!" At the same time the head of the Brown infantry column
flashed its bayonets over the crest of a hill toward the point where the
shells were bursting. These men minded not the desperate, scattered
rifle-fire into their ranks. Before their eyes was the prize of a panic
that grew with their approach. Kinks were out of legs stiffened by long
watches. The hot breath of pursuit was in their nostrils, the fever of
victory in their blood.

In the defile, the impulse of one Gray straggler, who shook a
handkerchief aloft in fatalistic submission to the inevitable, became
the impulse of all. Soon a thousand white signals of surrender were
blossoming. As the firing abruptly ceased, Marta heard the faint roar of
the mighty huzzas of the hunters over the size of their bag.

In the area visible to Marta was the st