a figure of St. George in blue, with the motto, “Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius”—­“May St. George be a present help to the English.”  This soldier happened to know Latin and other useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the gray advancing mass—­three hundred yards away—­he uttered the pious vegetarian motto.  He went on firing to the end, and at last Bill on his right had to clout him cheerfully over the head to make him stop, pointing out as he did so that the King’s ammunition cost money and was not lightly to be wasted in drilling funny patterns into dead Germans.

For as the Latin scholar uttered his invocation he felt something between a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body.  The roar of the battle died down in his ears to a gentle murmur; instead of it, he says, he heard a great voice and a shout louder than a thunder-peal crying, “Array, array, array!”

His heart grew hot as a burning coal, it grew cold as ice within him, as it seemed to him that a tumult of voices answered to his summons.  He heard, or seemed to hear, thousands shouting:  “St. George!  St. George!”

“Ha!  Messire, ha! sweet Saint, grant us good deliverance!”

“St. George for merry England!”

“Harow!  Harow!  Monseigneur St. George, succor us!”

“Ha!  St. George!  Ha!  St. George! a long bow and a strong bow.”

“Heaven’s Knight, aid us!”

And as the soldier heard these voices he saw before him, beyond the trench, a long line of shapes, with a shining about them.  They were like men who drew the bow, and with another shout, their cloud of arrows flew singing and tingling through the air towards the German hosts.

The other men in the trench were firing all the while.  They had no hope; but they aimed just as if they had been shooting at Bisley.

Suddenly one of them lifted up his voice in the plainest English.

“Gawd help us!” he bellowed to the man next to him, “but we’re blooming marvels!  Look at those gray ... gentlemen, look at them!  D’ye see them?  They’re not going down in dozens nor in ’undreds; it’s thousands, it is.  Look! look! there’s a regiment gone while I’m talking to ye.”

“Shut it!” the other soldier bellowed, taking aim, “what are ye gassing about?”

But he gulped with astonishment even as he spoke, for, indeed, the gray men were falling by the thousands.  The English could hear the guttural scream of the German officers, the crackle of their revolvers as they shot the reluctant; and still line after line crashed to the earth.

All the while the Latin-bred soldier heard the cry: 

“Harow!  Harow!  Monseigneur, dear Saint, quick to our aid!  St. George help us!”

“High Chevalier, defend us!”

The singing arrows fled so swift and thick that they darkened the air, the heathen horde melted from before them.

“More machine guns!” Bill yelled to Tom.