e to deliver the message. Before anybody could
interpose, Brayle had cantered lightly into the field and the enemy's
works were in crackling conflagration.

"Stop that damned fool!" shouted the general.

A private of the escort, with more ambition than brains, spurred forward
to obey, and within ten yards left himself and his horse dead on the
field of honor.

Brayle was beyond recall, galloping easily along, parallel to the enemy
and less than two hundred yards distant. He was a picture to see! His
hat had been blown or shot from his head, and his long, blond hair rose
and fell with the motion of his horse. He sat erect in the saddle,
holding the reins lightly in his left hand, his right hanging carelessly
at his side. An occasional glimpse of his handsome profile as he turned
his head one way or the other proved that the interest which he took in
what was going on was natural and without affectation.

The picture was intensely dramatic, but in no degree theatrical.
Successive scores of rifles spat at him viciously as he came within
range, and our own line in the edge of the timber broke out in visible
and audible defense. No longer regardful of themselves or their orders,
our fellows sprang to their feet, and swarming into the open sent broad
sheets of bullets against the blazing crest of the offending works,
which poured an answering fire into their unprotected groups with deadly
effect. The artillery on both sides joined the battle, punctuating the
rattle and roar with deep, earth-shaking explosions and tearing the air
with storms of screaming grape, which from the enemy's side splintered
the trees and spattered them with blood, and from ours defiled the smoke
of his arms with banks and clouds of dust from his parapet.

My attention had been for a moment drawn to the general combat, but now,
glancing down the unobscured avenue between these two thunderclouds, I
saw Brayle, the cause of the carnage. Invisible now from either side,
and equally doomed by friend and foe, he stood in the shot-swept space,
motionless, his face toward the enemy. At some little distance lay his
horse. I instantly saw what had stopped him.

As topographical engineer I had, early in the day, made a hasty
examination of the ground, and now remembered that at that point was a
deep and sinuous gully, crossing half the field from the enemy's line,
its general course at right angles to it. From where we now were it was
invisible, and Brayle