far wall, and laid them in a row beside others already collected; then,
gathering up the wounded and carrying them outside, they returned
again, completing their task after some few minutes.

"Light up!" Max, that short and snappy German officer, commanded. "Get
a fire going, and let us resume the meal. One moment though! Have any
of you seen a sign of those Frenchmen--the two whom we were about to
shoot?"

"One there, sir," came the answer, while a bearer holding a torch lit
up that part of the hall by the wall against which Jules and his
fellow-prisoner had been stationed. "He's dead--a piece of masonry,
dislodged by the explosion, fell on him."

Max seized the torch from the man, and, striding forward, bent over the
figure of the _poilu_, and, turning the body with his foot--for this
German was an individual possessed of little feeling, indeed a
heartless wretch, a callous fellow--he placed the torch nearer, and
stared at the face of the Frenchman.

"Burr! Not my man! And no one has seen the other?"

"No one!"

"Then we will wait till morning and search the place. Now, let the men
turn to at their meal. Sergeant, wake me in an hour's time, when I
will go round and inspect the sentries."

Gradually the fire in the centre of the hall died down, while men
nodded as they sat on blocks of fallen masonry, or on forms which had
been dragged into the hall. Darkness slowly penetrated to every corner
of the place and almost hid the Germans. Then a figure stirred, one of
the dead sat up slowly and nudged another of the dead beside him. One
of the nodding figures seated upon a form on the far side of the fire
yawned, stretching his arms widely, kicked the ashes from the dying
embers with a heavy boot, and looked about him. Then his hair rose on
his head, while his eyes protruded in the most horrible manner.
Perspiration dropped from his forehead, his hands shook, and his limbs
trembled, as he gaped at those two dead figures sitting up and
regarding him closely.

"Dead men sit up and look at me! Dead men!" he spluttered, and slowly
rose to his feet.

There was a frozen look on the wretch's face now, and he kept his eyes
on those two figures as if he had no power to turn them away, as if,
like a serpent, they fascinated him. Then of a sudden he gave vent to
a loud scream and dashed from the hall, upsetting his comrades as he
did so.

"Down! Dead men again! Lower! What a business!" groaned Jules as he