man-eating tigers or a herd of hungry wolves. I am not constitutionally timid and yet I repressed with difficulty a cry of despair.
As I looked in sheer horror and terror I thought I caught sight among the faces of a face that I knew. But surely I had never seen anything so frightful in my waking moments. Could I have dreamt of such a face, or could it be that amongst one's acquaintance an expression like that was to be found, only in an undeveloped stage? I can remember quite distinctly how that last thought flashed across my mind as I stood hesitating whether to run for bare life, or to wait for some further development of the situation. I think that nothing but the shame of manhood kept me from running away. Just then I suddenly perceived that the men were under some strange and very comprehensive system of drill. The man who seemed to be their leader held them, to all appearance, under very close control. And yet it seemed also as if their submission to his control were voluntary. It was like the way of a very perfect chorus with its conductor. Every glance of the leader's eye, every motion of his hand seemed to affect and direct them. But it did not seem as if there were anything absolutely compulsory about their obedience. They seemed not only to follow his
