“My colonel has been misinformed, Sister.  I am intelligent enough to be afraid—­philosopher enough to realise that it doesn’t help me.  So nowadays I just go ahead.”

“Trusting in God,” she murmured.

He did not answer.

“Is it not true, soldier?”

But the fever was again transfiguring her into the shape of Ailsa Paige, and he remained shyly silent, fearing to disturb the vision—­yet knowing vaguely that it was one.

She sighed; later, in silence, she repeated some Credos and Hail Marys, her eyes fixed on space, the heavy cannonade dinning in her ears.  All around her rode the Lancers, tall pennoned weapons swinging from stirrup and loop, bridles loose under their clasped hands.  The men seemed stupefied with fatigue; yet every now and then they roused themselves to inquire after her comfort or to offer her a place behind them.  She timidly asked Berkley if she tired him, but he begged her to stay, alarmed lest the vision of Ailsa depart with her; and she remained, feeling contented and secure in her drowsy fatigue.  Colonel Arran dropped back from the head of the column once to ride beside her.  He questioned her kindly; spoke to Berkley, also, asking with grave concern about his wound.  And Berkley answered in his expressionless way that he did not suffer.

But the little Sister of Charity behind his back laid one finger across her lips and looked significantly at Colonel Arran; and when the colonel again rode to the head of the weary column his face seemed even graver and more careworn.

By late afternoon they were beyond sound of the cannonade, riding through a golden light between fields of stacked wheat.  Far behind in the valley they could see the bayonets of the Zouaves glistening; farther still the declining sun glimmered on the guns of the 10th battery.  Along a parallel road endless lines of waggons stretched from north to south, escorted by Egerton’s Dragoons.

To Berkley the sunset world had become only an infernal pit of scarlet strung with raw nerves.  The terrible pain in his face and head almost made him lose consciousnesss.  Later he seemed to be drifting into a lurid sea of darkness, where he no longer felt his saddle or the movement of his horse; he scarcely saw the lanterns clustering, scarcely heard the increasing murmur around him, the racket of picket firing, the noise of many bewildered men, the cries of staff-officers directing divisions and brigades to their camping ground, the confused tumult which grew nearer, nearer, mounting like the ominous clamour of the sea as the regiment rode through Azalea under the July stars.

He might have fallen from his saddle; or somebody perhaps lifted him, for all he knew.  In the glare of torches he found himself lying on a moving stretcher.  After that he felt straw under him; and vaguely wondered why it did not catch fire from his body, which surely now was but a mass of smouldering flame.