He could not hope to capture that enemy; to alarm him would but send him
dashing to his camp with his fatal news. The duty of the soldier was
plain: the man must be shot dead from ambush - without warning, without
a moment's spiritual preparation, with never so much as an unspoken
prayer, he must be sent to his account. But no - there is a hope; he may
have discovered nothing; perhaps he is but admiring the sublimity of the
landscape. If permitted, he may turn and ride carelessly away in the
direction whence he came. Surely it will be possible to judge at the
instant of his withdrawing whether he knows. It may well be that his
fixity of attention - Druse turned his head and looked through the
deeps of air downward as from the surface of the bottom of a translucent
sea. He saw creeping across the green meadow a sinuous line of figures
of men and horses - some foolish commander was permitting the soldiers
of his escort to water their beasts in the open, in plain view from a
hundred summits!
Druse withdrew his eyes from the valley and fixed them again upon the
group of man and horse in the sky, and again it was through the sights
of his rifle.
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