again to himself, and he wildly kicked at his horse which was already covered from head to foot with sweat.
Only ten minutes before, Khashoji, starting from a Chinese encampment, had been reconnoitering with some of his fellow-soldiers in the vicinity of a hamlet beyond a river, and as they were crossing a field of already-yellowing giant millet, they came upon a troop of Japanese horsemen. The encounter was so sudden that both sides had scarcely time to raise their guns or sabres. The Chinese perceiving a number of caps and uniforms decorated with red-ribbed lines—which distinguish the Japanese soldiers—drew their sabres immediately, and instantly their horses were charging into the enemy’s line. Naturally, under such sudden circumstances, the thought of being killed never entered their heads. “The enemy!” or “Kill them!” was their only idea. Turning their horses suddenly roundabout, and grinding their teeth like angry wolves, they furiously charged the Japanese cavalry. The enemy must have felt the same impulse, for in an instant the Chinese found themselves surrounded with a host of terrible-looking faces. With them were intermingled numberless swords, flashing and hissing in every direction.
From that moment Khashoji lost all sense of time. He remembered strangely and clearly that the tall millet-stalks had swayed beneath his charging horse as if in a storm, and that red-hued sun was glaring down above their waving ears. But how long the noise of
