“Captain Ransome,” the general cried impetuously, but with something in his voice that was almost entreaty, “if you can say anything to put a better light upon your incomprehensible conduct I beg you will do so.”

Having recovered his temper this generous soldier sought for something to justify his naturally sympathetic attitude toward a brave man in the imminence of a dishonorable death.

“Where is Lieutenant Price?” the captain said.

That officer stood forward, his dark saturnine face looking somewhat forbidding under a bloody handkerchief bound about his brow.  He understood the summons and needed no invitation to speak.  He did not look at the captain, but addressed the general: 

“During the engagement I discovered the state of affairs, and apprised the commander of the battery.  I ventured to urge that the firing cease.  I was insulted and ordered to my post.”

“Do you know anything of the orders under which I was acting?” asked the captain.

“Of any orders under which the commander of the battery was acting,” the lieutenant continued, still addressing the general, “I know nothing.”

Captain Ransome felt his world sink away from his feet.  In those cruel words he heard the murmur of the centuries breaking upon the shore of eternity.  He heard the voice of doom; it said, in cold, mechanical, and measured tones:  “Ready, aim, fire!” and he felt the bullets tear his heart to shreds.  He heard the sound of the earth upon his coffin and (if the good God was so merciful) the song of a bird above his forgotten grave.  Quietly detaching his sabre from its supports, he handed it up to the provost-marshal.

ONE OFFICER, ONE MAN

Captain Graffenreid stood at the head of his company.  The regiment was not engaged.  It formed a part of the front line-of-battle, which stretched away to the right with a visible length of nearly two miles through the open ground.  The left flank was veiled by woods; to the right also the line was lost to sight, but it extended many miles.  A hundred yards in rear was a second line; behind this, the reserve brigades and divisions in column.  Batteries of artillery occupied the spaces between and crowned the low hills.  Groups of horsemen—­generals with their staffs and escorts, and field officers of regiments behind the colors—­broke the regularity of the lines and columns.  Numbers of these figures of interest had field-glasses at their eyes and sat motionless, stolidly scanning the country in front; others came and went at a slow canter, bearing orders.  There were squads of stretcher-bearers, ambulances, wagon-trains with ammunition, and officers’ servants in rear of all—­of all that was visible—­for still in rear of these, along the roads, extended for many miles all that vast multitude of non-combatants who with their various impedimenta are assigned to the inglorious but important duty of supplying the fighters’ many needs.