And Berkley answered in his expressionless way that he did not suffer.
But the little Sister of Charity behind his back laid one finger across her lips and looked significantly at Colonel Arran; and when the colonel again rode to the head of the weary column his face seemed even graver and more careworn.
By late afternoon they were beyond sound of the cannonade, riding through a golden light between fields of stacked wheat.

Far behind in the valley they could see the bayonets of the Zouaves glistening; farther still the declining sun glimmered on the guns of the 10th battery.

Along a parallel road endless lines of waggons stretched from north to south, escorted by Egerton's Dragoons.
To Berkley the sunset world had become only an infernal pit of scarlet strung with raw nerves.

The terrible pain in his face and head almost made him lose consciousnesss.

Later he seemed to be drifting into a lurid sea of darkness, where he no longer felt his saddle or the movement of his horse; he scarcely saw the lanterns clustering, scarcely heard the increasing murmur around him, the racket of picket firing, the noise of many bewildered men, the cries of staff-officers directing divisions and brigades to their camping ground, the confused tumult which grew nearer, nearer, mounting like the ominous clamour of the sea as the regiment rode through Azalea under the July stars.
He might have fallen from his saddle; or somebody perhaps lifted him, for all he knew.