where the King stood, and every hand was raised to salute the soldier who died that we might live, chosen by fate for this honor which is in remembrance of that great army of comrades who went out with him to No Man's Land.
The King laid a wreath on this coffin and then stepped back again. Crowded behind the gun-carriage in one long vista was an immense column of men of all branches of the navy and army moving up slowly before coming to a halt, and behind again other men in civilian clothes and everywhere among them and above them flowers in the form of wreaths and crosses.
Then all was still, and the picture was complete, framing in that coffin where the steel hat and the King's sword lay upon the flag which draped it. The soul of the nation at its best, purified at this moment by this emotion, was there in silence about the dust of that unknown.
Guns were being fired somewhere in the distance. They were not loud, but like the distant thumping of guns on a misty day in Flanders when there was "nothing to report," though on such a day, perhaps, this man had died.
Presently there was a far-off wailing like the cry of a banshee. It was a siren giving the warning of silence in some place by the river.
The deep notes of Big Ben struck eleven and then the King turned quickly to a lever behind
