The figure still lay on the grass untouched, and no one seemed to
remember that it had walked there of itself, or noticed that the
cigarette still burned, a tiny ring of living fire, at the place where
the figure had first stood.

The figure was a thing of the past, and the squad shook itself like a
great snake, and then broke into little pieces and started off
jauntily, stumbling in the high grass and striving to keep step to the
music.

The officers led it past the figure in the linen suit, and so close to
it that the file closers had to part with the column to avoid treading
on it. Each soldier as he passed turned and looked down on it, some
craning their necks curiously, others giving a careless glance, and
some without any interest at all, as they would have looked at a house
by the roadside or a passing cart or a hole in the road.

One young soldier caught his foot in a trailing vine, and fell forward
just opposite to it. He grew very red when his comrades giggled at him
for his awkwardness. The crowd of sleepy spectators fell in on either
side of the band. They had forgotten it, too, and the priests put their
vestments back in the bag and wrapped their heavy cloaks about them,
and hurried off after the others.

Every one seemed to have forgotten it except two men, who came slowly
toward it from the town, driving a bullock cart that bore an unplaned
coffin, each with a cigarette between his lips, and with his throat
wrapped in a shawl to keep out the morning mists.

At that moment the sun, which had shown some promise of its coming in