“At last the carts started. Slowly they were driven from the town. Through a long night journey we travelled till we came to a stand. I heard the men come round, and release the pins that hold a cart steady, and when these were loosened, the heap of corpses was shot out upon the ground.
“Once more upon the earth I lay with the dead around me, and I saw the carts making their slow journey returning to the town. The wheels sounded more and more distantly, till at last all was still.
“And the sky changed from grey dusk to the flush of dawn, then a long streak of red, and I lay watching it. And in that dawn my companion and I, rose up from among the dead bodies, and took our way across the plain.
“We exchanged no words; we had but the one thought between us—to leave the dead, to get away.
“And directing our steps across the open desert, we walked silently, the sand muffling our footsteps as we went.”
CHAPTER XV
But I hae dreamed a weary dream
Beyond the land of Skye;
I saw a dead man win a fight,
And I think that man was I.