y
thick around, already blackening in the heat, the dying raved in
delirium for water which never came, and the battle raged on with
unceasing violence. Lying uncomfortably on a slope, propped against a
dead Turk, he scarcely seemed to feel the burning heat of the sun, the
irritation of the flies, the torturing thirst nor the pain of his
wound, for his spirit lay soothed in a strange restfulness, in the
satisfaction of peace, in a manner like the weary wishing for nothing
but sleep after a day of honest work. For Mac the fight was over; he
had done what had been asked of him, and his spirit, serenely happy in
this knowledge, seemed to rise above earthly discomfort and to concern
itself little with the shattered state of his body, nor yet with the
fact that he was far from out of the wood. Death was all around; and,
had it come to him, he would have had no terror of it, but simply the
resigned acceptance of a happy soul.

Early in the morning Mac had inquired whether he could not be taken on
to the dressing-station, but learned that it was impossible as the
enemy swept the country between with an impassable hail of bullets.
The lower end of the ravine was in Turkish hands, elsewhere there were
unscalable cliffs, and the only means of getting back was by crossing a
ridge close under the enemy rifles. There was nothing for it but to
await nightfall.

The ravine was full of wounded. The more lightly injured had drifted
towards the bottom, but those who had not been able to walk lay crowded
close in the shallow head near Mac. Most of them were already dead,
for many had been wounded two nights previously, and few so seriously
injured could stand a second day of such torment. Mac asked sometimes
if there was water, but there was none. Occasionally he inquired how
the battle was going, and if there were any men near to hear him, they
replied only with unassuming grunts. He sat up once for a change of
position and moved away a little from the dead Turk, but the flying
bullets sent him back. He may have been light-headed once or twice,
but this he himself could not tell. Queerly enough, he troubled not at
all about the form his wound had taken. Though he knew with absolute
certainty that he would never see again, he was not worried by the
horrors of a future world of darkness; and found himself in his vague
wanderings of mind deeply pitying those round him, and his heart was
full of grief at their sufferings.

Gr