Such visions come from God! no man sees them save he whose soul is great and whose heart is pure. Poor Bobby Clyffurde--lonely, heart-broken, desolate--saw the exquisite face that he would have loved to kiss--he saw it with the golden glow of evening upon the delicate cheeks, and with the lurid light of fire and battle upon the soft, fair hair. And the greatness of his love helped him to understand what life still held for him--the happiness of supreme sacrifice. All around him was death, but there was some life too: one or two poor, abandoned riderless horses were quietly picking bits of corn from between the piles of dead and dying men, or were standing, sniffing the air with dilated nostrils, and snorting with terror at the deafening noise. Bobby had steadied himself, neither his head nor his limbs were aching now--at any rate he had forgotten them--all that he remembered was what he saw, those black-coated Brunswickers who longed to fly and could not and who were being slaughtered like insects even as they stumbled and fled. And Bobby caught the bridle of one of these poor, terror-stricken beasts that stood snorting and sniffing not far away: he crawled up into the saddle, for his thigh was numb and one of his arms helpless. But once on horseback he could get along--over trampled corn and over the dead--on toward that hideous corner behind the farm of La Haye Sainte where desperate men were butchering others that were more desperate than they--in among that seething crowd of black coats and fur bonnets, of silver tassels and of brass eagles, into a whirlpool of swords and bayonets and gun-fire from the tirailleurs--for there he had seen the man whom Crystal loved--for whose sake she would eat out her heart with mourning and regret. In the deafening noise of shrieking and sighs and whizzing bullets and cries of agony he heard Crystal's voice telling him what to do. Already he had seen St. Genis struggling on his knees not fifty mètres away from the first line of tirailleurs, not a hundred from the advancing steel wall of fixed bayonets. Maurice had thrown back his head, in the hopelessness of his despair; the evening sun fell full upon his haggard, blood-stained face, upon his wide-open eyes filled with the terror of death. The next moment Bobby Clyffurde was by his side; all around him bullets were whizzing--all around him men sighed their last sigh of agony. He stooped over his saddle: "Can you pull yourself up?" he called. And with his one sound arm he caught Maurice by the elbow and helped him to struggle to his feet. The horse, dazed with terror, snorted at the smell of blood, but he did not move. Maurice, equally dazed, scrambled into the saddle--almost inert--a dead weight--a thing that impeded progress and movement; but the thing that Crystal loved above all things on earth and which Bobby knew he must wrest out of these devouring jaws of Death and lay--safe and sound--within the shelter of her arms. IV