"He's the biggest man I ever knew," he said to himself as he followed the orderly who was leading him to Trevelyan.
He found Trevelyan stooping over the small rigid figure of a native baby, his hand still resting on the tiny wrist where the pulse had just stopped its slow beating.
Mackenzie came in and stood on the other side of the child, and Trevelyan raised his head. He showed no surprise at Mackenzie being there. In his face was all the unutterableness of the horror; in his voice was all the passionate protest, all the crushing dread, all the grief, that he had never shown before.
"It—is—awful!"
Mackenzie nodded.
"Yes," he said.
XV.
Three weeks later, when it seemed as though the battle had been won, Trevelyan got a hasty scrawl from Mackenzie.
It had been carried by a man of the regiment, who had ridden the ten miles on a dead run, and now stood exhausted before Trevelyan, his face twitching with the fright born of the tidings he had brought.
Trevelyan took the note in silence and he looked hard at the man's face before he opened the message. Then he bent his head and forced the paper open, still without comment.