Like the waters that wash off a dam pierced in but a single point,
even so did the running soldiers confuse and sweep away the regiment.
The Ashkadar men themselves were partly infected by the panic and
began to run they knew not why, apparently possessed by that
mysterious power which is transmitted from man to man and which pushes
one from behind and compels him to run farther and farther, aimlessly
and blindly.
The entire mass of men started down the slope, but having encountered
the battery with a crew yelling and waving their hands, it swerved
aside. Then as this mass ran into the regular line of soldiers, who
were rapidly coming to meet them, their rifles carried at charge, it
threw itself to one side, then to the other, then backwards and
forwards and finally scattered over the fields, filling the air with
mad outcries and disorderly shooting. It was at that very time that
the second platoon of the third squad strayed from its regiment and
its officers. Seventeen in all, instinctively keeping together, they
found themselves outside of the battle-field in a narrow loamy ravine
overgrown with dwarfish trees.
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