hen, in that great happiness which a man knows but once, I had
leaped in the softness of the night, my heart traveling up the moon-ray
in the driven flame of her kiss. (She did not sleep that night, nor I,
for the husk of the world had been torn away.) ... He sang our maidens
back to us--to each man, his maiden--their breasts near, and shaken with
weeping. They held out our babes, to lure us home--crying "_Come back_!"
to us....

And some had not seen the latest babe at _her_ breast; and some of us
only longed for that which we knew--the little hands and the wondering
eyes at her skirts--hands that had helped us over the first rough
mysteries of fatherhood.

And now I glimpsed the face of Chautonville in the mass--the open mouth.
It was not the face that I had seen. For he had lied to me, as he had
lied to the officers, and this was the face of an angel, and so happy.
Long had he dreamed and long had he waited for this moment--and happy,
he was, as a child on a great white horse. He was not singing us across
the red-white valley. He was singing us home.

Then I heard the firing, and saw the officers trying to reach him, but
we were there. We laughed and called to him, "Sing us the maidens
again!"... "_For I have a maiden_--" a man said.... "Sing us the good
Christ." ... "_For I was called to the ministry_--" another cried....
"Sing of the Spring and the mothers at the milking--" for we all had
our mothers who do not die.... He was singing of our homes in the north
country--singing as if he would sing the Austrians home--and the
Germans--and would to God that he had!

Then his voice came through to us--not in the great dusky baritone of
song, but like a command of the Father: "_Come on, men, we are going
home!_"

... But I could not go. A pistol stopped me. So I lay on my elbow
watching them turn back--a little circle of hundreds eager to die
for him. All who had heard the singing turned homeward. And the lines
came in from the east and from the west and deluged them.... Propped
on my elbow, I saw them go down in the deluge of the obedient--watched
until the blood went out and blurred the picture. But I saw enough in
that darkening--that there was fine sanity in their dying. I wished
that I could die with them. It was not slaughter, but martyrdom. It
called me through the darkness--and I knew that some man's song would
reach _all_ the armies--all men turning home together--each with his
vision and unafraid.