ning clothing, knapsacks, haversacks, all the
debris that was capable of harboring infection; but, for all that, the
surrounding fields continued to exhale sickening odors whenever
there came a day or two of warmer weather, so replete were they with
half-buried corpses, covered only with a few inches of loose earth. In
every direction the ground was dotted with graves; the soil cracked and
split in obedience to the forces acting beneath its surface, and from
the fissures thus formed the gases of putrefaction issued to poison
the living. In those more recent days, moreover, another center of
contamination had been discovered, the Meuse, although there had already
been removed from it the bodies of more than twelve hundred dead horses.
It was generally believed that there were no more human remains left
in the stream, until, one day, a _garde champetre_, looking attentively
down into the water where it was some six feet deep, discovered some
objects glimmering at the bottom, that at first he took for stones;
but they proved to be corpses of men, that had been mutilated in such
a manner as to prevent the gas from accumulating in the cavities of the
body and hence had been kept from rising to the surface. For near four
months they had been lying there in the water among the eel-grass. When
grappled for the irons brought them up in fragments, a head, an arm,
or a leg at a time; at times the force of the current would suffice to
detach a hand or foot and send it rolling down the stream. Great bubbles
of gas rose to the surface and burst, still further empoisoning the air.

"We shall get along well enough as long as the cold weather lasts,"
remarked Delaherche, "but as soon as the snow is off the ground we shall
have to go to work in earnest to abate the nuisance; if we don't we
shall be wanting graves for ourselves." And when his wife laughingly
asked him if he could not find some more agreeable subject to talk about
at the table, he concluded by saying: "Well, it will be a long time
before any of us will care to eat any fish out of the Meuse."

They had finished their repast, and the coffee was being poured, when
the maid came to the door and announced that M. de Gartlauben presented
his compliments and wanted to know if he might be allowed to see them
for a moment. There was a slight flutter of excitement, for it was
the first time he had ever presented himself at that hour of the day.
Delaherche, seeing in the circumstance