ned
face.

He was alone on earth; and the solitudes around him were not more
desolate than his own fate.

He was like a man numbed and stupefied by intense cold; his veins seemed
stagnant, and his sight could only see those features that became so
terribly serene, so fearfully unmoved with the dread calm of death. Yet
the old mechanical instincts of a soldier guided him still; he vaguely
knew that his errand had to be done, must be done, let his heart ache as
it would, let him long as he might to lie down by the side of his only
friend, and leave the torture of life to grow still in him also for
evermore.

Instinctively, he moved to carry out the duty trusted to him. He looked
east and west, north and south; there was nothing in sight that could
bring him aid; there were only the dust clouds hurled in billows hither
and thither by the bitter winds still blowing from the sea. All that
could be done had to be done by himself alone. His own safety hung on
the swiftness of his flight; for aught he knew, at every moment, out
of the mist and the driven sheets of sand there might rush the desert
horses of his foes. But this memory was not with him; all he thought
of was that burden stretched across his limbs, which laid down one hour
here unwatched, would be the prey of the jackal and the vulture. He
raised it reverently in his arms, and with long, laborious effort drew
its weight up across the saddle of the charger which stood patiently
waiting by, turning its docile eyes with a plaintive, wondering sadness
on the body of the rider it had loved. Then he mounted himself; and with
the head of his lost comrade borne up upon his arm, and rested gently on
his breast, he rode westward over the great plain to where his mission
lay.

The horse paced slowly beneath the double load of dead and living; he
would not urge the creature faster on; every movement that shook
the drooping limbs, or jarred the repose of that last sleep, seemed
desecration. He passed the place where his own horse was stretched; the
vultures were already there. He shuddered; and then pressed faster on,
as though the beasts and birds of prey would rob him of his burden ere
he could give it sanctuary. And so he rode, mile after mile, over the
barren land, with no companion save the dead.

The winds blew fiercely in his teeth; the sand was in his eyes and hair;
the way was long, and weary, and sown thick with danger; but he knew of
nothing, felt and saw nothi