Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III DURING THE RETREAT THE sun had long been up. At first it had shot forth a few pale, straggling rays; then its whole light flamed out suddenly, and darkness vanished. For a time a cold, damp mist lay over the earth and besprinkled the grass as if with dew, its pearly drops glittering and flashing in the sunshine. But presently there came across the plain a hot, dry blast from the south, and in a moment the moisture disappeared, sucked up by the earth and the air. With bent head the missionary passed through the knot of men, who silently and phlegmatically made way for him. The field-comet did not stir for some moments; he gazed first after the old man, and then at the two officers, the younger of whom seemed, by his bearing, to excite in him undisguised surprise. Then he shook his head, threw his rifle over his shoulder, and said, as if he had just awakened from some unpleasant dream— " It's about time we were getting on." The men about him dispersed in silence, each going off to attend to his particular duties. By their gloomy expression and their repeated shakings of the head they showed that they felt themselves disillusioned. Not one of them could understand how the words that had just burst forth with such convincing warmth from the innermost recesses of a bleeding heart could possibly be turned aside with a sneer; and they began to feel, perhaps for the first time, that their foes possessed something which—more surely than their numerical superiority and their inexhaustible reinforcements—must decide the struggle in their favour. Silently and dejectedly they saddled their horses, yoked the oxen to the waggons, and made everything ready for starting. The two captured officers looked on coldly and superciliously as the men worked silently about th...