He lay in his bunk pondering upon it. He tried to mathematically
prove to himself that he would not run from a battle.

Previously he had never felt obliged to wrestle too seriously
with this question. In his life he had taken certain things for
granted, never challenging his belief in ultimate success, and
bothering little about means and roads. But here he was
confronted with a thing of moment. It had suddenly appeared to
him that perhaps in a battle he might run. He was forced to
admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself.

A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to
kick its heels at the outer portals of his mind, but now he felt
compelled to give serious attention to it.

A little panic-fear grew in his mind. As his imagination went
forward to a fight, he saw hideous possibilities. He contemplated
the lurking menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to
see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them. He recalled
his visions of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the
impending tumult he suspected them to be impossible pictures.

He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro.
"Good Lord, what's th' matter with me?" he said aloud.

He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless.
Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail.
He was an unknown quantity. He saw that he would again be
obliged to experiment as he had in early youth. He must
accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved