terminable files of trucks. At other times
machine-guns, big guns dragged by tractors, and provision cars with
pyramids of sacks and boxes, blocked their road.

On all sides were thousands and thousands of soldiers of different
colors and races. The captain recalled the great invasions of
history--Xerxes, Alexander, Genghis-Khan, all the leaders of men who
had made their advance carrying villages _en masse_ behind their
horses, transforming the servants of the earth into fighters. There
lacked only the soldierly women, the swarms of children, to complete
exactly the resemblance to the martial exoduses of the past.

In half an hour more he was able to embrace his nephew, who was with
two other volunteers, an Andulasian and a South American,--the three
united by brotherhood of birth and by their continual familiarity with
death.

Ferragut took them to the canteen of a trader established near the
cantonment. The customers were seated under a sail-cloth awning before
boxes that had contained munitions and were converted into office
tables. This discomfort was surpassed by the prices. In no Palace Hotel
would drink have cost such an extraordinary sum.

In a few moments the sailor felt a fraternal affection for these three
youths to whom he gave the nickname of the "Three Musketeers," He
wished to treat them to the very best which the canteen afforded, so
the proprietor produced a bottle of champagne or rather ptisan from
Rheims, presenting it as though it were an elixir fabricated of gold.

The amber liquid, bubbling in the glasses, seemed to bring the three
youths back to their former existence. Boiled by the sun and the
inclemency of the weather, habituated to the hard life of war, they had
almost forgotten the softness and luxuriant conveniences of former
years.

Ulysses examined them attentively. In the course of the campaign they
had grown with youth's last rapid growth. Their arms were sticking out
to an ungainly degree from the sleeves of their coats, already too
short for them. The rude gymnastic exercise of the marches, with the
management of the shovel, had broadened their wrists and calloused
their hands.

The memory of his own son surged up in his memory. If only he could see
him thus, made into a soldier like his cousin! See him enduring all the
hardships of military existence ... but living!

In order not to be too greatly moved, he drank and paid close attention
to what the three youths were saying.