"Well, what of it?" snapped Graeme. "We knew that would happen, didn't we? You old corncrake you, what's the good of crying over it? Can't you see he's won the battle for us. Look there, look at Michael's force after him; see what a mob they are, bad as the lot they're pursuing. Thank ye, Roy, the goose is cooked and now we'll eat it—for I'm hungry." His teeth bared in a grin. "Come on, and God help Gabriel now."
* * * * *
The leading ranks of the enemy were now but a few hundred yards distant—ragged lines of weary, smoke-blackened men dragging painfully onward. Behind them thick, green-clad masses, all pressing forward to assured triumph, on towards those grimy figures, now opening on them with magazine.
On they came, cheering lustily, their ranks glittering with bayonet and waving sword, but even as victory's laurel seemed within their grip the god of battles averted his head, and Death sat grinning in their faces.
For the ridge in front was now echoing to the blast of bugles and the shrill tone of pipes, and at the summons the crouching khaki-clad figures rose up together and stood looking calmly down upon them. And as the green men halted, wondering what this might mean, with a shattering roar the hidden batteries of the reserve, silent so long, flamed into life, cleaving wide lanes in the crowd below, till their cheering ceased and died.
"Charge!" clanged the bugles again, and obeying, carrying the lines forward with them, the mass of the reserve came pouring over the hill, fresh and thirsty for battle—a solid phalanx bristling with sharp, gleaming bayonets.
For one moment, and for one only, the green men stood, wildly firing in the face of the approaching host, who paid no heed, but with one loud pealing shout of triumph rushed on, a living wave of steel, and rolled like a sea over the now terror-stricken masses. Away to the left, Michael and his men, toiling on in pursuit, heard the uproar, and as they took in its meaning stopped and hesitated.
"March to the guns" is the soldiers' motto all the world over, and here were guns thundering in their ears, comrades too in dire need of assistance. But ... yet ... bad as was the case, their own was nearly as desperate, for Roy and his men had done their work right well, and of Michael's eighty thousand barely ten thousand had been scraped together for pursuit.
While they stood debating, the cry of "Back!" arose from the rear: "Back! back! see the cavalry waiting for us," and straightway the groups, glad at heart, turned, and that same night were tramping hurriedly away whence they came.... Gabriel was abandoned to his fate. And the hand of that fate was heavy on Gabriel this Christmas evening, as he stood looking down with desperate eyes on what, only one short hour before, had been a jubilant army, but was now a shrieking, terrified herd of humanity.
Almost superhuman efforts had he and his staff made to turn the tide, to show a front, even to form a rear-guard, but in vain. With his own self-control had also gone his and his officers' hold over the army; by his own orders had the reins of discipline been abandoned, and, strive as he and they might now, they had passed from his hands never to be recovered. Plainly he could see now, so very plainly, the simple trap into which he had fallen; like some maddened bull in the arena he had rushed at the red flag held out, and fallen on the sword behind, and as he stood staring down on the welter below, a horror of despair came upon Gabriel and the will to live died. He raised his hand, fired, and fell.