“THEY BEGAN CALMLY CARVING A PASSAGE THROUGH THE DENSE OBSTRUCTION”
Not one man who was there but will remember with what a fury of reprisal this childish insult filled our breasts. Amid shouts of execration the attack on the breach was renewed; but at that moment, above the hacking and swearing, a dark mass, rushing swiftly from the background, rose mighty in mid-air, and at one leap—grown historic—Helmont’s horse cleared spikes, soldiers, and bamboos, and landed serenely on the farther side. Then, galloping up to the derisive effigy, Helmont rapidly cut it loose, bringing down the enemy’s flag along with it, and, flinging the colors of Acheen across his revolver, he fired through them five swift barrels at the clustering turbans which were concentrating their aim on this unexpected target. Then, holding the image superbly aloft, he began backing his horse—all in one exquisite instant of time—and fell heavily, horse, rider, and effigy rolling together amid a sudden rush of blood. Before and behind rose a mingling yell as of wild beasts wounded. A little brown Amboinese, his clothes and limbs torn and ensanguined, ran forward, having fought his way first through the aperture, and flung himself as a screen across the prostrate officer. Only a moment longer and the whole lot of them, with faces distorted and uniforms disordered, came pouring over the field under a fierce increase of projectiles. They swept upward in the madness of the storm, the brief pandemonium of shouts, shrieks, and imprecations, the whirlwind of firing and fighting, in a mystery of dust and smoke. And a cheer, leaping high above that hell, leaping high with a human note of gladness, announced that the fort had been carried, that victory was won. Up with our own orange rag on the summit! Hark to the shrill blare of the bugle! Hurrah!
They disengaged Helmont from his dying charger and carried him away to the ambulance. In undressing him, cutting loose the clothes, the doctor came on his parcel of letters, and, a moment afterwards, on an old brown glove. The left hand still firmly clutched the hideously grinning doll. Popa would permit no one to force the fingers asunder—Popa, who, in spite of his shoulder-wound, had obtained leave that morning to get himself killed by the enemy if he could, and who certainly had done his best. The doctor gently put aside the relic and the opened letters. Gerard had still read them the night before. There had been one more, which he had read twice over, and had then burned carefully and ground to dust.
“Helmont,” cried the purple Colonel, hurriedly, stooping low by the young man’s unconscious ear. “Can’t you understand what I’m saying? I’ve only a moment. It’s the Military Cross. Gentlemen, surely that should call him to life again. Helmont, I swear, by the heavens above us, it’s bound to be the Military Cross!”
The Dowager looked up from her placid embroidery and smiled to Plush. Beyond the great gray window the sleepy twilight was softly sinking back into an unbroken veil of mist. “What a dull drab day it has been!” said the Dowager. “I wonder—” But she left her sentence unfinished. And the folds of the curtain hung dense. For an Angel of Mercy has drawn it across our horizon.