at the moment, and stung to fury by such mirth on
the part of one of his men, by such a sign of insubordination, smote
him across the face, little realizing that the one he struck was the
same man, that very prisoner, whom he had struck not so long before,
and whom he would willingly have executed.

"Come along!" Henri managed to whisper to his chum. "Better to be
taken for Germans than to be discovered in our disguises. Let's get
hold of rifles and take our post at some loophole. Those were French
shouts we heard, and it may be that we shall have an opportunity of
joining our people."

"And in any case one needn't fire into our fellows," responded Jules,
his face still smarting from the blow that Max had dealt him. "But
listen, Henri; if I get a chance I'll kill that fellow. Better still,
if I get a chance I'll capture the brute, and carry him back to our
lines, where he can be tried for offering violence to prisoners.
Crikey! How wobbly a fellow feels! My feet are too big and too clumsy
for anything."

It was a sorry band which obeyed the peremptory order of the bullying
German. Men staggered across the littered floor of that hall, steering
their way between fallen blocks of masonry and wounded men damaged by
the explosion of Henri's making. Passing through the exit, they
clambered over the bodies of the fallen Germans who lay thickly at the
foot of the stairway, and across the bodies, too, of many a gallant
Frenchman. Then, directed by the bullying Max, they climbed the
stairway or went along the gallery, and presently were manning the
embrasures through which the guns of the fortress of Douaumont--when it
was indeed a fortress--commanded the surrounding country. Flashes
could be seen through those embrasures--flashes close at hand, and
others farther distant--while the air was torn and rent by the crash of
distant guns, by the detonation of exploding shells, and by the sharp
snap and rattle of musketry. There were yells, too--shouts of terror
from the Brandenburgers, now being driven back towards the fortress,
and the bellows of excited and triumphant men wresting ground from them.

"Keep an eye round you," Henri told Jules, for the two were posted at
one embrasure, and no one else was in the chamber. "What's to prevent
a fellow lowering himself from this point and joining our fellows? A
rope is what is wanted, but it's a plaguey thing to find in such a
place and at such a moment. Hold on here, Ju