There is no pity in the pale moon. The cold, steady stars shine down on the upturned faces of the South's best and bravest. No craven blenching when the tattered Stars and Bars bear up in battle blast. And yet the starry flag crowns mountain and rock. It sweeps through blood-stained gorges and past battle-scarred defile. Onward, ever southward. The two giant swordsmen reel in this duel of desperation. Sherman and Johnston may not be withheld. The hour of fate is beginning to knell the doom of the cause. Southern mothers and wives have given up their unreturning brave as a costly sacrifice on the altar of Baal. Valois, once more in command, a colonel now, riding pale and desperate, before his men, sees their upturned glances. The dauntless ranks, filing by, touch his heroic heart. He fears, when Atlanta's refuge receives the beaten host, that the end is nigh. Bereft of news from his home, foreseeing the final collapse in Virginia, assured that the sea is lost to the South, the colonel's mood is daily sadder. His hungry eyes are wolfish in their steady glare. Only a soldier now. His flag is his altar of daily sacrifice. Port after port falls, foreign flatterers stand coldly aloof, empty magazines and idle fields are significant signs of the end. Useless cotton cannot be sent out or made available, priceless though it be. The rich western Mississippi is now closed as a supply line for the armies. The paper funds of the new nation are mere tokens of unpaid promises, never to be redeemed. Never to falter, not to shun the driving attacks of the pursuing horse or grappling foot, to watch his battle-flag glittering in the van, to lead, cheer, hope, inspire, and madly head his men, is the second nature of Valois. He has sworn not to see his flag dishonored. It never occurs to him to ask WHERE his creed came from. His blood thrills with the passionate devotion which blots out any sense of mere right and wrong. His motto is "For Dixie's Land to Death." CHAPTER XII. HOOD'S DAY.--PEACHTREE CREEK.--VALOIS' LAST TRUST.--DE GRESS' BATTERY.--DEAD ON THE FIELD OF HONOR.