We were up next morning at five (Thursday, December 9th). I saw the dawn break, and I saw the sun rise, ushered over the mountains by the usual proclamation, in pink and mauve, that here was another day, another chance of discovering some of the great truths, which we ignore, as we crawl, cramped, within our three dimensions. Everything in Nature points to the sky except man, who keeps his eyes upon the ground. I stood for a precious moment of uplifting, then I returned to crawl, and creep, and stumble, during that day, in mud worse than any yet encountered. But I wanted to take a photograph of the starting of the column. The group of men, women, and pack ponies, all in flight--emblems of this transient life--outlined, in the frail light, against the dark mountains--emblems of eternity. I placed my whip, and gloves, upon the ground whilst I took the photo. In the meantime, a passing soldier picked them up, and walked off with them. One of our men saw this, and shouted threateningly, and the soldier, in response, aimed his rifle at us. Hunger, fatigue, and misery, made men short-tempered and desperate in these days. The soldier's thumb was already on the trigger, and, quick, as lightning, one of our men put up his gun; both were on the point of firing, in "self-defence." The thunder of Austrian guns, rapidly approaching, was in our ears, so I walked briskly up to the soldier, beckoning with one hand, behind my back, to our men to keep quiet, and, as I pointed to the mountains in the north, I said, in my best Serbian, "Plenty of shooting going on over there; not wanted here; gloves and whip mine; no use to you, Molim (please)." I held out my hand for them; he gave them to me, and walked off quietly. The loud firing near us all day, and news that a stiff battle was pending, put spurs into weary feet. The strain and effort of wading through mud, sometimes above the knees, during hour after hour of a twelve-hour day, made such a spur sometimes useful for safety. Along, and up, and down, mountain sides, and in woods, through mud lanes which never saw the sun, we scrambled till dusk. Then we outspanned on a grass slope, at the edge of a wood of firs and beech trees. During the night, all the stars of heaven, especially Orion, and the Pleiades, blinked at us, with superior unconcern; but I told them, as I fell asleep, that it was easy for them to look pure and bright; they hadn't been wading, knee deep, all day in Balkan mud. It put me in my place, as an earthworm, that they took no notice of our troubles, but I excused them, for, if the sun, moon, stars, and all the furniture of heaven, had tumbled, in sympathy, at our feet, they would only have been buried in the mud. CHAPTER XXXVIII