His back stiffened. He arose. I saw him splendid again. I drew back in the shadow, afraid that he would see the sweat that had broken out upon me, though the place was cold. Of course the idea, as I saw it, was to give the old-line troops the fight of their lives--to show the whole of Russia a martyrdom if necessary, thus revealing the temper of the revolutionists. Varsieff had been tempted to let them slip back into the Marshes to save their lives. * * * * * We were in the saddle side by side an hour later, and close to the front--the two big lines moving slowly and craftily together. Varsieff looked back at his precious boys, following willingly enough so far. "It's their white heads that kill me," he muttered. "They are like children, and that I should----" "They are all our children," I answered, sweeping my hand in a circle ahead where the troops of old Russia had filled in, waiting to deliver us to death. "Dear old Lange," he muttered, "I'm glad you know her----" I wondered what that had to do with his peasant children. Her spirit seemed a blend of his every thought and emotion.... We galloped along the fronts, talking to the different commanders. Some were students, in their teens, faces of boys who loved Varsieff with a love that yearned to die for him immediately, without words, a readiness to leap under his horse's feet.... In a kind of madness, all the mysteries of life seemed to unfold for me that morning, the spirit of Paula Mantone always near because I was so close to her lover. He talked to the different leaders quite careless if the peasant ranks listened. He told them that the outer world was watching--that new Russia, Poland, Finland, the new Europe, the new World--all depended upon _them_ now. He said they were chosen men--that he would never leave the field except in victory--that he was brother and father and lover to them--that the world would be better for this day. He talked like a man at a bar, or standing among the river-boats, or a father to his sons in the fields. We rode along the lines as they marched. Our horses lathered and dried and lathered again in the morning sun. I saw my comrade, Varsieff, giving up his soul to the peasants: "... I, too, have my farm that waits for me--my woman who waits for me--my country, my dream!... I build with you. I stand or fall with you!... We shall be better for this day, my children. This is a day for living men and comrades----" He filled me with a kind of white flame.