Another giant shell burst near them, and two more members of the staff fell from their cycles, dead before they touched the ground.  That convulsive shudder seized John again, but the crash of tremendous events was so rapid that fear and horror alike passed in an instant.  A piece of the same shell struck General Vaugirard’s car and put it out of action at once.  But the general leaped lightly to the ground, then swung his immense bulk across one of the riderless motor cycles and advanced with the surviving members of his staff.  Imperturbable, he still swept the field with his glasses.  Two aides were now sent to the right with messages, and a third, John himself, was despatched to the left on a similar errand.

It was John’s duty to tell a regiment to bear in further to the left and close up a vacant spot in the line.  He wheeled his cycle into a field, and then passed between rows of grapevines.  The regiment, its ranks much thinned, was now about a hundred yards away, but shell and bullets alike were sweeping the distance between.

Nevertheless, he rode on, his wheel bumping over the rough ground, until he heard a rushing sound, and then blank darkness enveloped him.  He fell one way, and the motor cycle fell another.

CHAPTER V

SEEN FROM ABOVE

John’s period of unconsciousness was brief.  The sweep of air from a gigantic shell, passing close, had taken his senses for a minute or two, but he leaped to his feet to find his motor cycle broken and puffing out its last breath, and himself among the dead and wounded in the wake of the army which was advancing rapidly.  The turmoil was so vast, and so much dust and burned gunpowder was floating about that he was not able to tell where the valiant Vaugirard with the remainder of his staff marched.  In front of him a regiment, cut up terribly, was advancing at a swift pace, and acting under the impulse of the moment he ran forward to join them.

When he overtook the regiment he saw that it had neither colonel, nor captains nor any other officers of high degree.  A little man, scarcely more than a youth, his head bare, his eyes snapping fire, one hand holding aloft a red cap on the point of a sword, had taken command and was urging the soldiers on with every fierce shout that he knew.  The men were responding.  Command seemed natural to him.  Here was a born leader in battle.  John knew him, and he knew that his own prophecy had been fulfilled.

“Geronimo!” he gasped.

But young Bougainville did not see him.  He was still shouting to the men whom he now led so well.  The point of the sword, doubtless taken from the hand of some fallen officer, had pierced the red cap which was slowly sinking down the blade, but he did not notice it.

John looked again for his commander, but not seeing him, and knowing how futile it was now to seek him in all the fiery crush, he resolved to stay with the young Apache.