"Every one. They knew they were going to their death--and everybody else
knew it that saw them go--but they charged!"

"Did you see it, Capt. Drummond?"

"I saw it."

"And did they go to their death?" said Daisy, awe-stricken, for Captain
Drummond's look said that he was thinking of something it had been grave
to see.

"Why yes. Look here, Daisy--here were cannon; there were cannon; there
were more cannon; cannon on every side of them but one. They went into
death they knew, when they went in there."

"How many of them went there?"

"Six hundred."

"Six hundred!--were they _all_ killed?"

"No. There were a part of them that escaped and lived to come back."

Daisy looked at the pebbles and the guns in profound silence.

"But if the officer knew the order was a mistake, why must he obey it?"

"That's a soldier's duty, Daisy. He can do nothing but follow orders. A
soldier can't know, very often, what an order is given for; he cannot
judge; he does not know what his General means to accomplish. All he has