Brayle was beyond recall, galloping easily along, parallel to the enemy and less than two hundred yards distant.  He was a picture to see!  His hat had been blown or shot from his head, and his long, blond hair rose and fell with the motion of his horse.  He sat erect in the saddle, holding the reins lightly in his left hand, his right hanging carelessly at his side.  An occasional glimpse of his handsome profile as he turned his head one way or the other proved that the interest which he took in what was going on was natural and without affectation.

The picture was intensely dramatic, but in no degree theatrical.  Successive scores of rifles spat at him viciously as he came within range, and our own line in the edge of the timber broke out in visible and audible defense.  No longer regardful of themselves or their orders, our fellows sprang to their feet, and swarming into the open sent broad sheets of bullets against the blazing crest of the offending works, which poured an answering fire into their unprotected groups with deadly effect.  The artillery on both sides joined the battle, punctuating the rattle and roar with deep, earth-shaking explosions and tearing the air with storms of screaming grape, which from the enemy’s side splintered the trees and spattered them with blood, and from ours defiled the smoke of his arms with banks and clouds of dust from his parapet.

My attention had been for a moment drawn to the general combat, but now, glancing down the unobscured avenue between these two thunderclouds, I saw Brayle, the cause of the carnage.  Invisible now from either side, and equally doomed by friend and foe, he stood in the shot-swept space, motionless, his face toward the enemy.  At some little distance lay his horse.  I instantly saw what had stopped him.

As topographical engineer I had, early in the day, made a hasty examination of the ground, and now remembered that at that point was a deep and sinuous gully, crossing half the field from the enemy’s line, its general course at right angles to it.  From where we now were it was invisible, and Brayle had evidently not known about it.  Clearly, it was impassable.  Its salient angles would have afforded him absolute security if he had chosen to be satisfied with the miracle already wrought in his favor and leapt into it.  He could not go forward, he would not turn back; he stood awaiting death.  It did not keep him long waiting.

By some mysterious coincidence, almost instantaneously as he fell, the firing ceased, a few desultory shots at long intervals serving rather to accentuate than break the silence.  It was as if both sides had suddenly repented of their profitless crime.  Four stretcher-bearers of ours, following a sergeant with a white flag, soon afterward moved unmolested into the field, and made straight for Brayle’s body.  Several Confederate officers and men came out to meet them, and with uncovered heads assisted them to take up their sacred burden.  As it was borne toward us we heard beyond the hostile works fifes and a muffled drum—­a dirge.  A generous enemy honored the fallen brave.