Noon found Bingley still at large and across a big valley, now almost empty of troops. He was forced to cross one more ridge to command the battle-picture. This required a further hour, and he sat down to rest upon the shoulder of a lofty, thickly timbered hill which overlooked the city for which the nations met--a huge, sprawled Chinese town, lost for moments at a time in the smoke-fog. The river behind was obscured entirely; still, the placing of the whole battle array was cleared to him in a moment. All his mapping and brooding had helped him marvelously to this quick grasp of the field. He wished that he could cable the picture of the city, the river, the railroad, the hills, just as he saw them now--so that London might also see through Bingley eyes. As for the rest--Nodzu’s great thundering guns and his phantom armies moving below in the white powder-reek--he could write that.... “But I’ve got to get a strip of real action--I’ve got to see the little beasts go,” he muttered at length. “It’s a long chance, but I’ve got to get a touch of the blood-end--to do it right. It is as necessary as the lay of the land.” And down he went, forgetting fear and passing time, even during certain moments, forgetting the outer world that would cry, “Bingley! Bingley!” when he was through.... Deeper and deeper he sank into the white mist of smoke which five minutes before had been torn by flame and riven with rifle crashes. It was a moment of lull between Nodzu’s infantry charges. A land current of air cleared the low distance. The southern line of intrenched Russian infantry looked less than a mile away. Behind them, the land was pitted and upheaved with defenses to the very wall of the city, having the look, as Bingley observed, as the wind swiftly cleared away the smoke, of the skin of a small-pox convalescent. There was no sign of life in the Russian works, but his quick eye marked that shrapnel was emplaced on the higher mounds.... Had he lived a thousand years for the single purpose of viewing a battle--hundreds of acres of embattled thousands straining in unbridled devilment; a valley soaked and strewn with life essences, yet swarming with more raw material for murder--he could not have judged his advent better. It was the thirtieth of August--the day that Nodzu and Oku began their un-Christly sacrifices to hold Kuropatkin in the city and in front, while Kuroki flanked. Suddenly--it was like a tornado, prairie fire, and stampede rolled into one--Nodzu of the pastelle-brush beard called up his swarm from thicket, hummock, gulley, ditch, from the very earth, and launched it forward against the first blank ridge of the Russians. This brown cyclone tore over Bingley of the _Thames_ and across the ruffled valley. The “Horse-killer” sat in awe. There was not yet a shot. The Russian trenches had the look of desertion.