elf to a contractor from Luxembourg, who had an arrangement
with the Prussians by virtue of which he was to gather the muskets from
the field of battle, the Germans fearing that should the scattered arms
be collected by the peasants of the frontier, they might be conveyed
into Belgium and thence find their way back to France. And so it was
that there was quite a flock of poor devils hunting for muskets and
earning their five sous, rummaging among the herbage, like the women who
may be seen in the meadows, bent nearly double, gathering dandelions.

"It's a dirty business," Prosper growled.

"What would you have! A chap must eat," the boy replied. "I am not
robbing anyone."

Then, as he did not belong to that neighborhood and could not give the
information that Prosper wanted, he pointed out a little farmhouse not
far away where he had seen some people stirring.

Prosper thanked him and was moving away to rejoin Silvine when he caught
sight of a chassepot, partially buried in a furrow. His first thought
was to say nothing of his discovery; then he turned about suddenly and
shouted, as if he could not help it:

"Hallo! here's one; that will make five sous more for you."

As they approached the farmhouse Silvine noticed other peasants engaged
with spades and picks in digging long trenches; but these men were
under the direct command of Prussian officers, who, with nothing more
formidable than a light walking-stick in their hands, stood by, stiff
and silent, and superintended the work. They had requisitioned the
inhabitants of all the villages of the vicinity in this manner, fearing
that decomposition might be hastened, owing to the rainy weather. Two
cart-loads of dead bodies were standing near, and a gang of men was
unloading them, laying the corpses side by side in close contiguity to
one another, not searching them, not even looking at their faces, while
two men followed after, equipped with great shovels, and covered the
row with a layer of earth, so thin that the ground had already begun to
crack beneath the showers. The work was so badly and hastily done that
before two weeks should have elapsed each of those fissures would be
breathing forth pestilence. Silvine could not resist the impulse to
pause at the brink of the trench and look at those pitiful corpses as
they were brought forward, one after another. She was possessed by a
horrible fear that in each fresh body the men brought from the cart she
might recog