! See, Michelet, see, Brugneau: the dressings
have come away. Sergeant, Sergeant, the dressings are loosened."

He clapped his hands, possessed by a furtive joy; then he suddenly
became conscious, and with a deep furrow between his brows, he began to
give orders again.

"Not any tincture of iodine to-day, doctor. Take away those forceps,
doctor, take them away."

Meanwhile the implacable forceps did their work, the tincture of iodine
performed its chilly function; then Paga yelled:

"Quickly, quickly. Kiss me, kiss me."

With his arms thrown out like tentacles, he beat upon the air, and
seized haphazard upon the first blouse that passed. Then he would
embrace it frantically.

Thus it happened that he once showered kisses on Michelet's hands,
objects by no means suitable for such a demonstration. Michelet said,
laughing:

"Come, stop it; my hands are dirty."

And then poor Paga began to kiss Michelet's bare, hairy arms, saying
distractedly:

"If your hands are dirty, your arms are all right."

Alas, what has become of all those who, during days and nights of
patient labour, I saw gradually shaking off the dark empire of the night
and coming back again to joy? What has become of the smouldering faggot
which an ardent breath finally kindled into flame?

What became of you, precious lives, poor wonderful souls, for whom I
fought so many obscure great battles, and who went off again into the
realm of adventure?

You, Paga, little fellow, where are you? Do you remember the time when I
used to dress your two wounds alternately, and when you said to me with
great severity:

"The leg to-day, only the leg. It's not the day for the foot."

XI

Sergeant Lecolle is distinguished by a huge black beard, which fails to
give a ferocious expression to the gentlest face in the world.

He arrived the day little Delporte died, and scarcely had he emerged
from the dark sleep when, opening his eyes, he saw Delporte die.

I went to speak to him several times. He looked so exhausted, his black
beard was so mournful that I kept on telling him: "Sergeant, your wound
is not serious."

Each time he shook his head as if to say that he took but little
interest in the matter, and tried to close his eyes.

Lecolle is too nervous; he was not able to close his eyes, and he saw
Delporte dead, and he had been obliged to witness all Delporte's death
agony; for when one has a wound in the right shoulder, one can only lie
upon th