spring, was gone. All
things, the trees, the leaves, the grass and the bushes, seemed burnt,
dull and dead.

"Listen!" cried Harley. "Don't you hear that--the beat of horses' feet!
A thousand, five thousand of them! The cavalry are charging! But whose
cavalry?"

His soul was with them. He felt the rush of air past him, the strain of
his leaping horse under him, and then the impact, the wild swirl of
blood and fire and death when foe met foe. Once more he groaned and
struck the window-sill with an angry hand.

Nearer and nearer rolled the battle and louder and shriller grew its
note. The crackle of the rifles became a crash as steady as the thunder
of the great guns, and Helen began to hear, above all the sound of human
voices, cries and shouts of command. Dark figures, perfectly black like
tracery, began to appear against a background of pallid smoke, or ruddy
flame, distorted, shapeless even, and without any method in their
motions. They seemed to Helen to fly back and forth and to leap about as
if shot from springs like jumping-jacks and with as little of life in
them--mere marionettes. The great pit of fire and smoke in which they
fought enclosed them, and to Helen it was only a pit of the damned. For
the moment she had no feeling for either side; they were not fellow
beings to her--they who struggled there amid the flame and the smoke and
the falling trees and the wild screams of the wounded horses.

The coloured woman cowering in the corner continued to cry softly, but
with deep sobs drawn from her chest, and Helen wished that she would
stop, but she could not leave the window to rebuke her even had she the
heart to do so.

The smoke, of a close, heavy, lifeless quality, entered the window and
gathered in the rooms, penetrating everything. The floor and the walls
and the furniture grew sticky and damp, but the three at the window did
not notice it. They had neither eyes nor heart now save for the
tremendous scene passing before them. No thought of personal danger
entered the mind of either woman. No, this was a somber but magnificent
panorama set for them, and they, the spectators, were in their proper
seats. They were detached, apart from the drama which was of another age
and another land, and had no concern with them save as a picture.

Helen could not banish from her mind this panoramic quality of the
battle. She was ashamed of herself; she ought to draw from her heart
sympathy for those who were falling