es jostled one another;
faces long forgot reappeared; scenes from boyhood rose before him. Home!
He had none, save that which was the length and breadth of his native
land. On, on, on; the low snuffle of the horse sometimes aroused him
from the stupor.

"Why you do this I do not know, nor shall I ask. Monsieur, my prayers
go with you!"... She had said that to him, and had given him her hand to
kiss; a princess, one of the chosen and the few. To live long enough to
see her again; a final service--and adieu!... Ah, but it had been a good
fight, a good fight. No fine phrases; nothing but the lust for blood;
a life for a life; a game in which the winner was also like to lose. A
gray patch in the white of the road attracted his attention--a bridge.

"Water!" he murmured.

Mottled with the silver of the stars, it ran along through the fields;
a brook, shallow and narrow, but water. The perfume of the grasses was
sweet; the horse sniffed joyously. He stopped of his own accord. Maurice
had strength enough to dismount. The saber slid from his grasp. He
staggered down to the water. In kneeling a faintness passed over him; he
rolled into the brook and lay there until the water, almost clogging his
throat and nostrils, revived him. He crawled to his knees, coughing
and choking. The contact of the cold with the burning wound caused a
delightful sensation.

"Water!" he said, and splashed it in his face.

The horse had come down from the road. He had not waited for an
invitation. He drank thirstily at the side of his master. The water
gurgled in his long, black throat.

"Good boy!" Maurice called, and dashed water against his shoulder. "Good
boy!" he remembered that the horse in biting the white one had saved his
life.

Each handful of the cold liquid caused him to gasp; but soon the fever
and fire died out, leaving only the duller pain. When he rose from his
knees, however, he found that the world had not yet ceased its wild
reeling. He stooped to regain his saber, and fell into the dust; though
to him it was not he who fell, but the earth which rose. He struggled to
his feet, leaned panting on his saber, and tried to steady himself. He
laughed hysterically. He had dismounted, but he knew that he could never
climb to the back of the horse; and Bleiberg might yet be miles away. To
walk the distance; was it possible? To reach Bleiberg before Madame....
Madame the duchess and her army! He laughed again, but there was a wild
str