semi-darkness existing there being made denser at once by the dust and
debris shot out by the explosion. Then figures raced across the hall,
the figures of Frenchmen, coming from some point beyond, where Jules
and his party had failed to discover them, while, quickly following
them, could be seen German infantry--men of the Brandenburg Corps.

"Up here, up here!" shouted Henri, dashing down the stairs at once, and
calling to the men running towards him. "Here are friends; come up the
stairs and join us."

In rapid succession those men dashed through the opening of the hall,
leapt up the stairs three at a time, and were dragged over the parapet
which the veteran _poilu_ had had erected. Then Henri retreated
slowly, and, having rejoined his friends, sat down, rifle in hand, to
see what would happen.

"Tell me," he asked one of the men who had just joined their ranks, and
who was gasping for breath near him, "what has happened?"

"What has happened? Ah! They have driven our folks back from the
fort, which is now isolated. We were holding on--I and perhaps a
hundred of my comrades--near the eastern end, and then the Germans,
having blasted the corner of the fort to pieces with that last shot,
charged from some trenches in which they were lying, within a hundred
metres perhaps, and burst their way into the place. We could not hold
on any longer. It was a case of flight, or death, or capture."

"And so you chose flight! Good!" said Henri. "We chose the same.
Here we are, snug in this place, with plenty of ammunition, and ready
and eager to continue fighting. If any of you men understand a
machine-gun, get to the one we have, at once, and man it; the rest, who
have no rifles, can assist in any way that appeals to them. Ah! Watch
those fellows. They are streaming into the hall. There are
fifty--more--perhaps a hundred of them."

There were indeed considerably more of the Brandenburgers to be seen
when the dust from that shattered wall had subsided. They came
streaming in to the darkened hall, dishevelled, their _Pickelhaubes_
gone in many cases, their rifles missing, their grey clothing now a
mass of caked mud, and their hands and faces of the same colour.
Shouting and bellowing their triumph, they massed in the room till an
officer made himself apparent.

"Those men? Those Frenchmen who passed before us?" he asked in the
arrogant manner of the Prussian; "you killed them--eh?"

"No! They went on ahead