One was a black of the Twenty-fourth, and his face was washed with fear, And his breath came quick, and his bowels were sick, as he thought of the knife-blades near. Then steady his hand swung to his belt, and back to the bolt again, And he loaded and fired, as a well-drilled man, and counted his dead to ten. And, “Man,” he said, “in ole Kaintuck a mammy she prays foh me; An’ Ah laks to lib lak yo’ laks to lib, but ouah end it am plain to see. Ouah colah an’ blood it ain’t de same, but we sets to de same old boahd, An’ if we diffah in skin an’ blood, w’y, we pass dat up to de Lawd. “Ouah colah an’ blood it ain’t de same, but de flag dat covahs us bofe―― It nevah has changed on de colah line, an’ dey didn’t colah ouah oafe; Yo’ go yo’ route to de gates o’ Gawd an’ I shell trabel mine―― An’ we shell see, when we reach His knee, how He’s drawin’ de colah line. “Doan’ fink Ah’m fightin’ foh de lub o’ yo’ or de breed that yo’ laks to brag―― Ah’m fightin’ foh mammy in ole Kaintuck, an’ lub o’ mah kentry’s flag; Yo’ watch dem niggahs along yo’ front, an’ Ah’ll attend to mine, An’ we’ll go up to de Gates o’ Gawd to settle de colah line.” Two men they stood them back to back, and the white man called to the chief: “He’s answered the call of the color line, and his answer will bring you grief. We don’t declare as brothers-in-blood, or the burden of friendship drag, But we do unite on a color line, and our color’s our country’s flag.” Two men lay dead in the jungle path, and their faces stared at the sky; And out in the bush on each man’s front the Moros were piled waist high. And when the warriors they went in to mutilate the dead. They found them lying back to back, but white and black were red! “How strange it is,” the chief he cried, “these men should together go; They did not love each other’s kind――in blood they differed so. For one was black and one was white, and yet they chose to die Because they served a single flag; in honor they shall lie. “What gods they worshipped I know not――what gods I do not care―― They fought me well, and for their flag, and they shall have a prayer. For be he white, or be he black, his flag be what it may―― All honor to him who dies for that――my men, kneel down and pray.” Two mounds they stand in a jungle path; they buried them back to back; And the wondering Moros tell the tale of the white man and the black. Oh, the warlike Moros pass that way to kneel in silent prayer, And ask their gods for the spirit of the men they buried there!