It was so grossly conventional that Coleman would
have understood that demoniac form of anger which sometimes
leads men to jab knives into warm bodies. Coleman from
cowardice tried to induce the dragoman to go ahead leading the
horse, and the dragoman from cowardice tried to induce
Coleman to go ahead leading the horse. Coleman of course
had to succumb. The dragoman was only good to walk behind
and tearfully whisper maledictions as he prodded the flanks of
their tranquil beast.
In the absolute black of the frequent forests, Coleman could
not see his feet and he often felt like a man walking forward to
fall at any moment down a thousand yards of chasm. He heard
whispers; he saw skulking figures, and these frights turned out to be the
voice of a little trickle of water or the effects of wind among the
leaves, but they were replaced by the same terrors in slightly
different forms.
Then the poignant thing interpolated. A volley crashed
ahead of them some half of a mile away and another volley
answered from a still nearer point. Swishing noises which the
correspondent had heard in the air he now know to have been
from the passing of bullets. He and the dragoman came stock
still. They heard three other volleys sounding with the abrupt
clamour of a hail of little stones upon a hollow surface. Coleman
and the dragoman came close together and looked into the
whites of each other's eyes. The ghastly horse at that moment
stretched down his neck and began placidly to pluck the grass
at the roadside.
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