"Virgie!" her father cried, frantic at the sight. With a great leap he was at her side, forcing her down to the ground and covering her with his body.
The trooper's head sank back and his eyes began to dull.
"May God bless ye, little one," he murmured. "Heaven—Mary—!" His lips gave out one long, shuddering sigh. His body grew slack and his chin fell. Trooper Harry O'Connell had fought his last fight—had passed to his final review.
One look at the boyish face so suddenly gone gray and bloodless and Gary caught Virgie up in his arms. "Come dear, you can't help him any more," and with a crouching run they were back once more in the shelter of the wall.
And now the shriek of the shells and the whine of the bullets came shriller than before. All around them the twigs were dropping, while the acrid powder smoke rolled in through the trees and burnt their eyes and throats. Again came men in blue retreating and among them an officer on horseback, wheeling his animal madly around among them and shouting encouragement as he tried to face them to the front. "Keep at it, men," Morrison was crying, half mad with rage. "One decent stand and we can hold them. Give it to them hard. Stand, I tell you. Stand!"
All around him, however, men were falling and those who were left began to waver. "Steady, men! Don't flinch," came the shout again. "Ah-hah, you would, would you? Coward!"
Morrison's sword held flatwise, thudded down on the back of a man who had flung away his gun. "Get back in the fight, you dog! Get back!"
He whipped out his revolver and pointed it till the gun had been snatched up, then fired all its chambers at the oncoming hordes in gray.
"One more stand," he yelled. "One more—"
Beside him the color sergeant gave a moan and bent in the middle like a hinge. Another slackening of his body and the stricken bearer of the flag plunged from his saddle, the colors trailing in the dust.