How he tried to get down, and where else he tried to go, will be made clear in time.

You and I must go to the war in the west.
War showed Count Richard entered into his birthright.

As a strategist he was superb, the best of his time.

What his eye took in his mind snapped up--like a steel gin.

And his eye was the true soldier's eye, comprehending by signs, investing with life what was tongueless else.
Over great stretches of barren country--that limitless land of France--he could see massed men on the move; creeping forward in snaky columns, spread fanwise from clump to woody clump; here camping snugly under the hill, there lining the river bluffs with winged death; checked here, helped there by a moraine--as well as you or I may foresee the conduct of a chess-board.