scourged by the winds of God
had seemed to him but a phrase of rhetoric. His creeds and his
arguments seemed meaningless now in this solemn hour; the truth had been
his no more than his crude opponent's! Had he his days to live over
again he would look on the world with different eyes. No man any more
should call him a dreamer. It pleased him to think that, half-hearted
and sceptical as he had been, a humorist, a laughing philosopher, he was
now dying for one of the catchwords of the crowd. He had returned to
the homely paths of the commonplace, and young, unformed, untried, he
was caught up by kind fate to the place of the wise and the heroic.

Suddenly on his thoughts there broke in a dull tread of men, a sound of
slipping stones and feet upon dry gravel. He broke into the cold sweat
of tense nerves, and waited, half hidden, with his rifle ready. Then
came the light of dull lanterns which showed a thin, endless column
beneath the rock walls. They advanced with wonderful quietness, the
sound of feet broken only by a soft word of command. He calculated the
distance--now it was three hundred yards, now two, now a bare eighty.
At fifty his rifle flew to his shoulder and he fired. His nerves were
bad, for one bullet clicked on the rock, while the second took the dust
a yard before the enemy's feet. Instantly there was a halt and the
sound of speech.

The failure had steadied him. The second pair of shots killed their
men. He heard the quick cry of pain and shivered. He was new to this
work and the cry hurt him. But he picked up his express and fired
again, and again there was a cry and a fall. Then he heard a word of
command and the sound of men creeping in the side of the nullah. Eye
and ear were marvelously acute at the moment, for he picked out the
scouts and killed them. Then he loaded his rifles and waited.

He saw a man in the half-light not five yards below him. He fired and
the man dropped, but he had used his rifle and the great spattering of
earth showed his whereabouts. Now was the time for keen eye and steady
arm. The enemy had halted thirty yards off and beneath the slope there
was a patch of darkness. He kept one eye on this, for it might contain
a man. He fixed his attention on a ray of moonlight which fell across
the floor of the gully. When a man crept past this he shot, and he
rarely failed.

Then a command was given and the column came forward at the double. He
fired two shots, but the advance con