voice was hushed. For as he looked at the minister the fashion of
his vesture was changed. The black robe seemed to melt away from him.
He was all in armour, if armour be made of starlight, of the rose of
dawn, and of sunset fires; and he lifted up a great sword of flame.

Full in the midst, his Cross of Red Triumphant Michael brandished,
And trampled the Apostate's pride.

The Monstrance

Then it fell out in the sacring of the Mass that right as the
priest heaved up the Host there came a beam redder than any rose and
smote upon it, and then it was changed bodily into the shape and
fashion of a Child having his arms stretched forth, as he had been
nailed upon the Tree.--Old Romance.

So far things were going very well indeed. The night was thick and
black and cloudy, and the German force had come three-quarters of their
way or more without an alarm. There was no challenge from the English
lines; and indeed the English were being kept busy by a high shell-fire
on their front. This had been the German plan; and it was coming off
admirably. Nobody thought that there was any danger on the left; and so
the Prussians, writhing on their stomachs over the ploughed field, were
drawing nearer and nearer to the wood. Once there they could establish
themselves comfortably and securely during what remained of the night;
and at dawn the English left would be hopelessly enfiladed--and there
would be another of those movements which people who really understand
military matters call "readjustments of our line."

The noise made by the men creeping and crawling over the fields was
drowned by the cannonade, from the English side as well as the German.
On the English centre and right things were indeed very brisk; the big
guns were thundering and shrieking and roaring, the machine-guns were
keeping up the very devil's racket; the flares and illuminating shells
were as good as the Crystal Palace in the old days, as the soldiers
said to one another. All this had been thought of and thought out on
the other side. The German force was beautifully organised. The men who
crept nearer and nearer to the wood carried quite a number of machine
guns in bits on their backs; others of them had small bags full of
sand; yet others big bags that were empty. When the wood was reached
the sand from the small bags was to be emptied into the big bags; the
machine-gun parts were to be put together, the guns mounted behind the
sandba