The balance of the day the pseudo-king rode back and forth along his
lines. Three of his staff were killed and two horses were shot from
beneath him, but from the moment that he appeared the Luthanian line
ceased to waver or fall back. The advanced trenches that they had
abandoned to the Austrians they took again at the point of the
bayonet. Charge after charge they repulsed, and all the time there
hovered above the enemy Lutha's sole aeroplane, watching, watching,
ever watching for the coming of the allies. Somewhere to the
northeast the Serbians were advancing toward Lustadt. Would they
come in time?
It was five o'clock in the morning of the second day, and though the
Luthanian line still held, Barney Custer knew that it could not hold
for long. The Austrian artillery fire, which had been rather wild
the preceding day, had now become of deadly accuracy. Each bursting
shell filled some part of the trenches with dead and wounded, and
though their places were taken by fresh men from the reserve, there
would soon be no reserve left to call upon.
At his left, in the rear, the American had massed the bulk of his
reserves, and at the foot of the heights north of the city and just
below the forts the major portion of the cavalry was drawn up in the
shelter of a little ravine. Barney's eyes were fixed upon the
soaring aeroplane.
In his hand was his watch.
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