disengage his horse
from the crush, wheel, and begin to use his heavy sabre in the mass
around him.

Bugles sounded persistently; he set spurs to his tired horse and
rode toward the buglers, and found himself beside Colonel Arran,
who, crimson in the face, was whipping his way out with dripping
sabre.

Across a rivulet on the edge of the woods he could see the
regimental colours and the bulk of his regiment re-forming; and he
spurred forward to join them, skirting the edge of a tangle of
infantry, dragoons, and lancers who were having a limited but
bloody affair of their own in a cornfield where a flag tossed
wildly--a very beautiful, square red flag, its folds emblazoned
with a blue cross set with stars,

Out of the melee a score of dishevelled lancers came plunging
through the corn, striking right and left at the infantry that
clung to them with the fury of panthers; the square battle flag,
flung hither and thither, was coming close to him; he emptied his
revolver at the man who carried it, caught at the staff, missed,
was almost blinded by the flashing blast from a rifle, set spurs to
his horse, leaned wide from his saddle, seized the silk, jerked it
from its rings, and, swaying, deluged with blood from a
sword-thrust in the face, let his frantic horse carry him whither
it listed, away, away, over the swimming green that his sickened
eyes could see no longer.

CHAPTER XVI

On every highway, across every wood trail, footpath, and meadow
streamed the wreckage of seven battle-fields. Through mud and rain
crowded heavy artillery, waggons, herds of bellowing cattle,
infantry, light batteries, exhausted men, wounded men, dead men on
stretchers, men in straw-filled carts, some alive, some dying.
Cannoneers cut traces and urged their jaded horses through the
crush, cursed and screamed at by those on foot, menaced by bayonets
and sabres. The infantry, drenched, starving, plastered with mud
to the waists, toiled doggedly on through the darkness; batteries
in deplorable condition struggled from mud hole to mud hole; the
reserve cavalry division, cut out and forced east, limped wearily
ahead, its rear-guard firing at every step.

To the north, immense quantities of stores--clothing, provisions,
material of every description were on fire, darkening the sky with
rolling, inky clouds; an entire army corps with heavy artillery and
baggage crossed the river enveloped in the pitchy, cinder-laden
smoke from two brid