he bag upwards.

And then commenced a struggle in that gallery, for, to do him credit,
as we have already done indeed, this German was a tenacious fighter.
Making frantic efforts to throw off Jules and Henri, and to toss the
bag into the room below, he staggered about the gallery with the two
Frenchmen hanging to him, and then, of a sudden breaking loose, he
dashed away from them. It looked, indeed, as though he would make good
his escape; but Jules raced after him, while Henri dipped his hand in
the bag before he moved, and then went rushing down the gallery,
shouting for the German to stop and deliver himself up as a prisoner.

A sharp crack, a flash in the darkness ahead of them, and the fleeting
vision of a man pointing a revolver at them followed, and then a swift
movement of Henri's hand. Bringing it back over his shoulder he
suddenly jerked the grenade forward, and hurled it at the German, the
flash which followed lighting up the gallery from end to end, while the
blast of the explosion drove the two Frenchmen backward. As for Max,
that sinister German who seemed to have dogged their footsteps from the
very commencement, from the days, indeed, when they were helpless
prisoners in Ruhleben, the bomb made short work of him--just as short
work as it would have made of those gallant Bretons. He was dead!
Hoist, indeed, by his own petard!

"And one isn't sorry!" Henri said, as the two of them returned and
descended the stairs to join the Bretons. "I'd sooner kill a roomful
of Germans than that one Frenchman should be hurt. And here, all that
we've done is to reverse the numbers. Come along, Jules, and let's get
out of the fort and back to an ambulance! My head's splitting, and we
shall both want rest before we can take a further part in the fighting."

No need to follow them back to that ambulance, nor to tell how those
two gallant young Frenchmen, now corporals, were soon promoted to the
rank of lieutenant when they returned to their regiment, and for weeks
and weeks saw fighting along the Verdun salient. As we write they are
still there; for German attacks surge all round the trenches on the
heights of the Meuse, and, though here and there the line has been
dented, Verdun, that sleepy old town down by the river, is still
French, still beyond the grasp of the Kaiser.

The ruthless War Lord who caused this terrific contest to break out,
who has deluged Europe and Asia and Africa with blood, and who has be