en with planks toiled heavily through the sand. Even
the drill coats of the soldiers were tinted red by the sunset light.
Reimers strolled on further. A sandy pathway cut across the pink
blossoms of the heather; without thinking he turned into it. This was
the road which had formerly led from the forest towards the ruined
village; there was now no use for it, and it was being allowed to fall
into disrepair.

The solitary wanderer approached the dilapidated dwellings. In the
village itself the perilously inclined walls of the ruins threatened to
fall into the roadway. Reimers stepped through a doorway into the
courtyard of one of the largest houses. A rose-tree spread its branches
over the wall. Everything was bathed in the red light of the setting
sun. Through the empty casements Reimers seemed to be looking at the
fierce glow of some incendiary fire. The white roses gleamed pink, and
a pool of water that had run down from a gutter shone like newly-shed
blood. The deserted garden, the empty casements, the smoke-blackened
walls, the glowing colour in the sky, and the red pool on the ground:
this was a picture of war, in which men were laid low beneath
blossoming rose trees, whose roots were drenched in their hearts'
blood.

Reimers stumbled down the dim mud-stained passage and over the broken
threshold into the village street, and wandered back again to the camp,
gazing with thoughtful eyes into the gathering dusk.

The picture of the ruined cottages had recalled his South African
experiences to his memory.

He saw the cosy farm-houses burst into flames behind the fleeing
riders. The men shook their clenched fists as they looked back, and
sent up grim but child-like petitions to a patriarchal God on whose
help they had too confidently relied. But they made no stand, possessed
by the irresistible panic which had seized upon them after the
unfortunate episode of Cronje's capture.

It was but now and then that a handful of brave men, together with a
few from the foreign legion, had made a short resistance at some pass
or ford; and these were the only experiences, during the time of that
gradual break-up, to which he could look back with any satisfaction.

Like the others he had lain in the high grass or behind a jutting rock,
and had picked out his man; while beside him a twig would occasionally
be snapped by a bullet, or splinters of stone strewn over him. This had
been sharp, honest skirmishing, and he had had no s