That group of horsemen is our commander, his staff and escort.  He is facing the distant crest, holding his field-glass against his eyes with both hands, his elbows needlessly elevated.  It is a fashion; it seems to dignify the act; we are all addicted to it.  Suddenly he lowers the glass and says a few words to those about him.  Two or three aides detach themselves from the group and canter away into the woods, along the lines in each direction.  We did not hear his words, but we know them:  “Tell General X. to send forward the skirmish line.”  Those of us who have been out of place resume our positions; the men resting at ease straighten themselves and the ranks are re-formed without a command.  Some of us staff officers dismount and look at our saddle girths; those already on the ground remount.

Galloping rapidly along in the edge of the open ground comes a young officer on a snow-white horse.  His saddle blanket is scarlet.  What a fool!  No one who has ever been in action but remembers how naturally every rifle turns toward the man on a white horse; no one but has observed how a bit of red enrages the bull of battle.  That such colors are fashionable in military life must be accepted as the most astonishing of all the phenomena of human vanity.  They would seem to have been devised to increase the death-rate.

This young officer is in full uniform, as if on parade.  He is all agleam with bullion—­a blue-and-gold edition of the Poetry of War.  A wave of derisive laughter runs abreast of him all along the line.  But how handsome he is!—­with what careless grace he sits his horse!

He reins up within a respectful distance of the corps commander and salutes.  The old soldier nods familiarly; he evidently knows him.  A brief colloquy between them is going on; the young man seems to be preferring some request which the elder one is indisposed to grant.  Let us ride a little nearer.  Ah! too late—­it is ended.  The young officer salutes again, wheels his horse, and rides straight toward the crest of the hill!

A thin line of skirmishers, the men deployed at six paces or so apart, now pushes from the wood into the open.  The commander speaks to his bugler, who claps his instrument to his lips. Tra-la-la!  Tra-la-la! The skirmishers halt in their tracks.

Meantime the young horseman has advanced a hundred yards.  He is riding at a walk, straight up the long slope, with never a turn of the head.  How glorious!  Gods! what would we not give to be in his place—­with his soul!  He does not draw his sabre; his right hand hangs easily at his side.  The breeze catches the plume in his hat and flutters it smartly.  The sunshine rests upon his shoulder-straps, lovingly, like a visible benediction.  Straight on he rides.  Ten thousand pairs of eyes are fixed upon him with an intensity that he can hardly fail to feel; ten thousand hearts keep quick time to the inaudible hoof-beats of his snowy steed.  He is not alone—­he draws all souls after him.  But we remember that we laughed!  On and on, straight for the hedge-lined wall, he rides.  Not a look backward.  O, if he would but turn—­if he could but see the love, the adoration, the atonement!