mp of feet on the road which led from Beaumont to
Vacherauville, and, as the two drew nearer to that village, they could
hear columns of men approaching along the road from Samogneux. A lull
in the terrific bombardment, which had now been going on continuously
since the 19th February, allowed them even to hear the voices of the
Kaiser's soldiers as they closed in upon the French positions--upon
that base-line to which we have referred, the line of the Meuse, beyond
which lay the Verdun salient.

"There's not a doubt about it," said Henri in a whisper, as he and
Jules shrank into a hole behind a bush and waited for a column of
troops to pass along the road, "the enemy is preparing for an attack in
force to-morrow, via Vacherauville; and, with what we have already seen
in the wood, and what we hear now, we have information of the utmost
importance. There must have been hundreds of men in the wood."

"Thousands!" Jules corrected him. "Thousands of them! And there are
thousands here, too, marching along this road. Listen, now, to those
guns being hauled behind the troops. One can only guess that there are
many of them by the noise they make, and it surprises me that our men
on the far side of the river haven't heard the sounds and opened fire
upon the enemy. Wait! What's that?"

The "that" to which Jules referred proved to be a detachment of German
troops from the road along which they had been marching, and presently
figures could be seen stealing across the grass, steadily streaming
past, between them and their friends, struggling forward to take up a
position for an attack on the morrow. Orders were given in low gruff
tones by officers accompanying those men, while now and again there
came the click of accoutrements and the metallic ring of
entrenching-tools carried with the parties. Nor was that all; for
presently, when the stream of figures had poured past for some minutes,
till hundreds had gone by, in fact, and the last of the column had
halted, there came to the ears of Henri and his friend the dull blow of
picks, the scrape of spades against flints and stones, and the rattle
of earth as it was thrown out of an excavation.

"Digging trenches--digging themselves in! Preparing for our
counter-attack to-morrow! And digging themselves in between us and our
positions! Now, that's very awkward!" reflected Henri.

"Beastly awkward!" agreed Jules. "But there's one thing about it--it's
dark, and, seeing th