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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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As another officer sped his horse after the first messenger, the general beamed upon the earth like a sun. In his eyes was a desire to chant a paean. He kept repeating, "They 've held 'em, by heavens!" His excitement made his horse plunge, and he merrily kicked and swore at it. He held a little carnival of joy on horseback. CHAPTER VII. THE youth cringed as if discovered in a crime. By heavens, they had won after all! The im- becile line had remained and become victors. He could hear cheering. He lifted himself upon his toes and looked in the direction of the fight. A yellow fog lay wal- lowing on the treetops. From beneath it came the clatter of musketry. Hoarse cries told of an advance. He turned away amazed and angry. He felt that he had been wronged. He had fled, he told himself, because annihila- tion approached. He had done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece of the army. He had considered the time, he said, to be one in which it was the duty of every little piece to res- cue itself if possible. Later the officers could fit the little pieces together again, and make a battle front. If none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the flurry of death at such 75 a time, why, then, where would be the army? It was all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and commendable rules. His ac- tions had been sagacious things. They had been |
