ntastically decorated with long
plumes and sitting a great black horse in the midst of a little knot of
officers.

Early the next morning Pasha was awakened by the distant growl of heavy
guns. By daylight he was on the move, thousands of other horses with
him. Nearer and nearer they rode to the place where the guns were
growling. Sometimes they were on roads, sometimes they crossed fields,
and again they plunged into the woods where the low branches struck
one's eyes and scratched one's flanks. At last they broke clear of the
trees to come suddenly upon such a scene as Pasha had never before
witnessed.

Far across the open field he could see troop on troop of horses coming
toward him. They seemed to be pouring over the crest of a low hill, as
if driven onward by some unseen force behind. Instantly Pasha heard,
rising from the throats of thousands of riders, on either side and
behind him, that fierce, wild yell which he had come to know meant the
approach of trouble. High and shrill and menacing it rang as it was
taken up and repeated by those in the rear. Next the bugles began to
sound, and in quick obedience the horses formed in line just on the edge
of the woods, a line which stretched on either flank until one could
hardly see where it ended.

From the distant line came no answering cry, but Pasha could hear the
bugles blowing and he could see the fronts massing. Then came the order
to charge at a gallop. This set Pasha to tugging eagerly at the bit, but
for what reason he did not know. He knew only that he was part of a
great and solid line of men and horses sweeping furiously across a field
toward that other line which he had seen pouring over the hill crest.

He could scarcely see at all now. The thousands of hoofs had raised a
cloud of dust that not only enveloped the onrushing line, but rolled
before it. Nor could Pasha hear anything save the thunderous thud of
many feet. Even the shrieking of the shells was drowned. But for the
restraining bit Pasha would have leaped forward and cleared the line.
Never had he been so stirred. The inherited memory of countless desert
raids, made by his Arab ancestors, was doing its work. For what seemed a
long time this continued, and then, in the midst of the blind and
frenzied race, there loomed out of the thick air, as if it had appeared
by magic, the opposing line.

Pasha caught a glimpse of something which seemed like a heaving wall of
tossing heads and of foam-whiten