RAINA. Ugh! But I don't believe the first man is a coward. I
believe he is a hero!

MAN (goodhumoredly). That's what you'd have said if you'd seen
the first man in the charge to-day.

RAINA (breathless). Ah, I knew it! Tell me--tell me about him.

MAN. He did it like an operatic tenor--a regular handsome
fellow, with flashing eyes and lovely moustache, shouting a
war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills. We
nearly burst with laughter at him; but when the sergeant ran up
as white as a sheet, and told us they'd sent us the wrong
cartridges, and that we couldn't fire a shot for the next ten
minutes, we laughed at the other side of our mouths. I never
felt so sick in my life, though I've been in one or two very
tight places. And I hadn't even a revolver cartridge--nothing
but chocolate. We'd no bayonets--nothing. Of course, they just
cut us to bits. And there was Don Quixote flourishing like a
drum major, thinking he'd done the cleverest thing ever known,
whereas he ought to be courtmartialled for it. Of all the fools
ever let loose on a field of battle, that man must be the very
maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide--only the
pistol missed fire, that's all.

RAINA (deeply wounded, but steadfastly loyal to her ideals).
Indeed! Would you know him again if you saw him?

MAN. Shall I ever forget him. (She again goes to the chest of
drawers. He watches her with a vague hope that she may have