hem; as fast as they were killed more
kept popping up. What kind of a d-----d war was it, anyway, where they
were able to collect ten men against their opponent's one, where they
never showed their face until evening, after blazing away at you all
day with their artillery until you didn't know on which end you were
standing? Aghast and confounded, having failed so far to acquire the
first idea of the rationale of the campaign, he was dimly conscious of
the existence of some mysterious, superior method which he could not
comprehend, against which he ceased to struggle, although in his dogged
stubbornness he kept repeating mechanically:

"Courage, my children! victory is before us!"

Meanwhile he had stooped and clutched the flag. That was his last, his
only thought, to save the flag, retreating again, if necessary, so that
it might not be defiled by contact with Prussian hands. But the staff,
although it was broken, became entangled in his legs; he narrowly
escaped falling. The bullets whistled past him, he felt that death
was near; he stripped the silk from the staff and tore it into shreds,
striving to destroy it utterly. And then it was that, stricken at
once in the neck, chest, and legs, he sank to earth amid the bright
tri-colored rags, as if they had been his pall. He survived a moment
yet, gazing before him with fixed, dilated eyes, reading, perhaps, in
the vision he beheld on the horizon the stern lesson that War conveys,
the cruel, vital struggle that is to be accepted not otherwise than
gravely, reverently, as immutable law. Then a slight tremor ran through
his frame, and darkness succeeded to his infantine bewilderment; he
passed away, like some poor dumb, lowly creature of a day, a joyous
insect that mighty, impassive Nature, in her relentless fatality, has
caught and crushed. In him died all a legend.

When the Prussians began to draw near Jean and Maurice had retreated,
retiring from tree to tree, face to the enemy, and always, as far as
possible, keeping Henriette behind them. They did not give over firing,
discharging their pieces and then falling back to seek a fresh cover.
Maurice knew where there was a little wicket in the wall at the upper
part of the park, and they were so fortunate as to find it unfastened.
With lighter hearts when they had left it behind them, they found
themselves in a narrow by-road that wound between two high walls, but
after following it for some distance the sound of firing