ad not
hitherto shown life at this point. His promptness alone had saved the
battery from annihilation. His swift orders secured the gallant
withdrawal of the battery into a zone of comparative safety and renewed
activity, while he was left with this one abandoned gun and his slain
men and fellow-officers.

But somehow it all suddenly became small and distant and insignificant
to his senses. He did not despise the work, for it had to be done. It
was big to those who lived, but in the long movement of time it was
small, distant, and subordinate.

If only the thirst did not torture him, if only the sounds of the
battle were less loud in his ears! It was so long since he waked from
that long sleep, and the world was so full of noises, the air so arid,
and the light of the sun so fierce. Darkness would be peace. He longed
for darkness.

He thought of the spring that came from the rocks in the glen behind
the house, where he was born in Derbyshire. He saw himself stooping
down, kneeling to drink, his face, his eyes buried in the water, as he
gulped down the good stream. Then all at once it was no longer the
spring from the rock in which he laved his face and freshened his
parched throat; a cool cheek touched his own, lips of tender freshness
swept his brow, silken hair with a faint perfume of flowers brushed his
temples, his head rested on a breast softer than any pillow he had ever
known.

"Jasmine!" he whispered, with parched lips and closed eyes.
"Jasmine--water," he pleaded, and sank away again into that dream from
which he had but just wakened.

It had not been all a vision. Water was here at his tongue, his head
was pillowed on a woman's breast, lips touched his forehead.

But it was not Jasmine's breast; it was not Jasmine's hand which held
the nozzle of the water-bag to his parched lips.

Through the zone of fire a woman and a young surgeon had made their way
from the attending ambulance that hovered on the edge of battle to this
corner of death in the great battle-field. It mattered not to the
enemy, who still remained in the segment of the circle where they first
fought, whether it was man or woman who crossed this zone of fire. No
heed could be given now to Red Cross work, to ambulance, nurse, or
surgeon. There would come a time for that, but not yet. Here were two
races in a life-and-death grip; and there could be no give and take for
the wounded or the dead until the issue of the day was closed.

The