the sight of their glittering
lance-points, with the driving force of the galloping steeds behind
them.

It had been short and sharp, perhaps a little foolish, but it had been a
charge in the old style, and no one minded a cut or a slash when the
squadron sergeant-majors formed them up again in the hollow from which
they had started.

"Great, eh?" said their leader, binding a silk handkerchief round his
wrist.

"Yes, I think it was worth it," laughed Dennis, tying the knots for him.

"I should rather think it was. Didn't some poet Johnny say something
about 'one crowded hour of glorious life'? And by gad, boy, if you only
knew how we've been eating our hearts out to get a show! Now you can do
as you like, but we're going to work up along that wood over yonder.
That's Delville Wood, you know. You're miles from your crush."

"Then I'll come with you if I may," responded Dennis, as the line opened
out and pushed slowly forward on reconnaissance.

They had not gone very far when machine-guns on their front suddenly
opened, and this time the leader deemed discretion the better part of
valour. Besides, an aeroplane flying very low came over their heads, and
for some minutes they were uncertain whether it was an enemy craft or
no, until it swooped above the hidden enemy among the corn and opened
fire upon them.

"By Jupiter, that's a good plucked 'un!" said the squadron commander, as
the airman swooped for the fourth time before he flew away unscathed.

But out of the ragged volley which the panic-stricken enemy fired at the
plane one ball found its billet in the neck of Dennis's mare, and with
a squeal and a bound that almost unseated him she tore madly northwards,
in spite of all his efforts to stay her.

In vain he hauled on the bit reins; the maddened creature was beyond all
human control. The shout of warning from the men behind him died away.
The trampled wood and the shell-torn grassland merged into a confused
carpet of greeny white beneath him. She took an empty trench in her
stride without checking perceptibly, until a crater yawned before them,
into which she plunged, tried gamely to keep her feet, and finally
rolled over and over to the bottom, flinging her rider clear as she fell
dead.

CHAPTER XXVI

Under the German Eagle

Dennis picked himself up with a sob of bitter disappointment, as he
realised that the dead mare, which had carried him for a brief moment
among his own people, had now la