midday
ran from mouth to mouth , as the bay mare with her little Amazon rider , followed by the scarlet cloud of the Spahis , all ablaze like poppies in the sun , rose in sight , thrown out against the azure of the skies . What she had done had been told long before by an orderly , riding hard in the early night to take the news of the battle ; and the whole host was on watch for its darling -- the savior of the honor of France . Like wave rushing on wave of some tempestuous ocean , the men swept out to meet her in one great , surging tide of life , impetuous , passionate , idolatrous , exultant ; with all the vivid ardor , all the uncontrolled emotion , of natures south-born , sun-nurtured . They broke away from their midday rest as from their military toil , moved as by one swift breath of fire , and flung themselves out to meet her , the chorus of a thousand voices ringing in deafening vivas to the skies . She was enveloped in that vast sea of eager , furious lives ; in that dizzy tumult of vociferous cries and stretching hands and upturned faces . As her soldiers had done the night before , so these did now -- kissing her hands , her dress , her feet ; sending her name in thunder through the sunlit air ; lifting her from off her horse , and bearing her , in a score of stalwart arms , triumphant in their midst . She was theirs -- their own -- the Child of the Army , the Little One whose voice above their dying brethren had the sweetness of an angel 's song , and whose feet , in their hours of revelry , flew like the swift and dazzling flight of gold-winged orioles .