Rifles slung, equipments flapping, the interminable files trudged by under the hanging dust, an endless, undulating blur of red and blue, an immense shuffling sound, almost melodious, and here and there a handsome, dusty horse pacing amid the steady torrent.
They occupied only half of the wide, military road; now and then a military automobile came screaming past them with a flash of crimson and gold in the tonneau, leaving on the retina a brilliant, glimmering impression that faded gradually.
On the road across the Récollette, wagons, motor trucks, and field artillery had been passing for hours; the barrier of dust had grown much loftier, hanging suspended and unchanging against the hills, completely obscuring them except for a blue summit here and there.
Fewer troops passed on this side of the river. A regiment of dragoon lancers rode by about one o’clock—slender, nervous, high-strung officers, with the horse-hair blowing around their shoulders from their silver helmets; the sturdy, bronzed young troopers riding with their lances swung slanting from the arm loops—and all with that still, fixed, enraptured expression of the eyes, as though under the spell of inward meditation, making their youthful features dreamy.
In some village through which they had passed, people had hung wreaths of leaves and flowers around their horses’ necks. They still hung there, wilting in the sun; some, unraveled and trailing, shed dying blossoms at every step.
From the garden wall where she sat knitting beside Ariadne, Philippa plucked and tossed rose after rose down into the ranks of the passing horsemen.
There was no pleasantry, no jesting, scarcely a smile on the girl’s lips or on theirs, but as each trooper caught the flung rose he turned his helmeted head and saluted, and rode on with the fresh flower touching his dusty lips.
And so they passed, squadron crowding on squadron, the solid trampling thunder shaking the earth. Not a trumpet note, not a whistle signal, not a voice, not a gilded sleeve upflung, not a slim saber lifted—only the steady, slanting torrent of lances and the running glitter of slung carbines, and a great flowing blaze of light from acres of helmets moving through the haze, as in a vision of pomp and pageantry of ancient days and brave.