"We are fit. They have chosen us for the sacrifice. We'll prove ourselves." Then he thought of nothing else but duty all that day. The capture of the first wall opened the way to a second with a paved court beyond it, and beyond that lay a third, and a fourth, and a fifth; wall and court, wall and court, through which, and across which the American army forced its way by heaviest bombarding under heaviest fire, leaving a clean rear for the other armies to follow in. Only the sixth and last wall remained. General Chaffee's men had not failed. The flag of red, white, and blue had led steadily on 'mid a storm of shells and a deluge of bullets. One more onslaught and the last gates would burst wide open. Eagerly the American soldiers waited the command to finish the task. But it was not given. The leaders of the other armies had counseled together and prevailed against further advance, whether moved by military prudence or governed by jealousy of the ability of General Chaffee and the magnificent record of the American soldiers in the Orient, the privates could not know. Just as the command to retire was sounded Japanese coolies had run with scaling ladders to the last wall. It was the supreme moment for Thaine Aydelot. He was only a private, but in that instant all the old dominant Cavalier blood of the Thaines, all the old fearless independence of the Huguenot Aydelots, all the calm poise and courage of the Quaker Penningtons throbbed again in his every pulse-beat. He threw aside his soldier obligation and stood up a man, guided alone by the light within him. "It is a far cry from the green Kansas prairies to the heart of old China," he declared to himself. "Yet I'll go to the heart of that heart now, and I'll show it the Stars and Stripes of a free people, so help me God!" He turned and sped to the last wall, snatching the flag from a color-bearer as he ran. At the foot of the ladder the men holding it wavered a little. Thaine threw the flag up to a coolie who was already climbing. "Take it up. If I don't get up, wave it there if you die for it," he cried as he sprang up the ladder behind the color-bearer. The shots were thick about them as up and up they went until at last Thaine stood beside the indomitable little Japanese who had carried the American flag up the ladder. Below the Kansas boy lay the holy city of an ancient civilization in all its breadth of ingenuity and narrowness of spirit. Standing there, a target for every gun, waving the Star-Spangled Banner out over that old stronghold, he cried: