seeming now so near, erects its towers of cloud, and the great shot
pitch roaring down among our moving masses. Flag after flag of ours
emerges from the wood, line after line sweeps forth, catching the
sunlight on its burnished arms. The rear battalions alone are in
obedience; they preserve their proper distance from the insurgent front.

The commander has not moved. He now removes his field-glass from his
eyes and glances to the right and left. He sees the human current
flowing on either side of him and his huddled escort, like tide waves
parted by a rock. Not a sign of feeling in his face; he is thinking.
Again he directs his eyes forward; they slowly traverse that malign and
awful crest. He addresses a calm word to his bugler. Tra-la-la!
Tra-la-la! The injunction has an imperiousness which enforces it. It is
repeated by all the bugles of all the subordinate commanders; the sharp
metallic notes assert themselves above the hum of the advance, and
penetrate the sound of the cannon. To halt is to withdraw. The colors
move slowly back, the lines face about and sullenly follow, bearing
their wounded; the skirmishers return, gathering up the dead.

Ah, those many, many needless dead! That great soul whose beautiful body
is lying over yonder, so conspicuous against the sere hillside - could
it not have been spared the bitter consciousness of a vain devotion?
Would one exception have marred too much the pitiless perfection of the
divine, eternal plan?




A Horseman in the Sky