When the bugles sounded through the cannon thunder and his squadron trotted out, Fear, on a paler horse than Death bestrides, cantered with him, knee to knee.

Fear's startled eyes looked into his through the jetted smoke of musketry, through the tumult of the horses and the trumpets; Fear made his voice light and thin, so that he scarcely heard it amid the fierce cheering of his comrades, the pounding of hoofs, the futile clattering of equipments.
It was all a swift and terrible nightmare to him--the squadrons breaking into a gallop, the woods suddenly belted with smoke, the thud and thwack of bullets pelting leather and living flesh, the frantic plunging of stricken horses, the lightning down-crash of riders hurled earthward at full speed, the brief glimpses of scarlet streaks under foot--of a horse's belly and agonised iron-shod feet, of a white face battered instantly into obliteration, of the ruddy smoke flowing with sparks amid which bugles rang above the clashing halt of maddened squadrons.
Then, through the rolling ocean of smoke, he saw officers and men trying to hack away and beat out the burning timbers--saw a reckless carbineer--his own tent-mate--dismount and run out across the planking which was already afire, saw him stumble and roll over as a bullet hit him, get to his knees blindly, trip and fall flat in the smoke.

Then Fear bellowed in Berkley's ear; but he had already clapped spurs to his horse, cantering out across the burning planking and straight into the smoke pall.
"Where are you, Burgess ?" he shouted.

The Fear of Death stiffened his lips as he reined up in the whirling spark-shot obscurity.
"Burgess--damn you--answer me, can't you!" he stammered, half strangled in the smoke, trying to master his terrified mount with rein and knee and heel.
Vaguely he heard comrades shouting for him to come back, heard shells exploding amid the smoke, wheeled his staggering horse, bent swiftly and grasped at an inanimate form in the smoke, missed, dismounted and clutched the senseless carbineer--his comrade--and once his valet.
[Illustration: "He dismounted and clutched the senseless carbineer."] Out of the fiery tunnel came tearing his terrified horse, riderless; out of the billowing, ruddy vapours reeled Berkley, dragging the carbineer.
It was the regiment cheering him that the Zouaves heard.
The fields were now swimming in bluish smoke; through it the Zouaves were reforming as they marched.

Little heaps of brilliant colour dotting the meadow were being lifted and carried off the field by comrades; a few dismounted carbineers ran hither and thither, shooting hopelessly crippled horses.