of the
peasant had been shot.

* * * * *

It was during the war of 1870. The Prussians were in occupation of the
entire country. General Faidherbe, with the Army of the North, was at
their head.

Now the Prussian staff had taken up its quarters in this farm-house. The
old peasant who owned it, Pere Milon Pierre, received them, and gave
them the best treatment he could.

For a whole month the German vanguard remained on the look-out in the
village. The French were posted ten leagues away without moving; and yet
each night, some of the Uhlans disappeared.

All the isolated scouts, those who were sent out on patrol, whenever
they started in groups of two or three, never came back.

They were picked up dead in the morning in a field, near a farm-yard, in
a ditch. Their horses even were found lying on the roads with their
throats cut by a saber-stroke. These murders seemed to have been
accomplished by the same men, who could not be discovered.

The country was terrorized. Peasants were shot on mere information,
women were imprisoned, attempts were made to obtain revelations from
children by fear.

But, one morning, Pere Milon was found stretched in his stable, with a
gash across his face.

Two Uhlans ripped open were seen lying three kilometers away from the
farm-house. One of them still grasped in his hand his blood-stained
weapon. He had fought and defended himself.

A council of war having been immediately constituted, in the open air,
in front of the farm-house, the old man was brought before it.

He was sixty-eight years old. He was small, thin, a little crooked, with
long hands resembling the claws of a crab. His faded hair, scanty and
slight, like the down on a young duck, allowed his scalp to be plainly
seen. The brown, crimpled skin of his neck showed the big veins which
sank under his jaws and reappeared at his temples. He was regarded in
the district as a miser and a hard man in business transactions.

He was placed standing between four soldiers in front of the kitchen
table, which had been carried out of the house for the purpose. Five
officers and the Colonel sat facing him. The Colonel was the first to
speak.

"Pere Milon," he said, in French, "since we came here, we have had
nothing to say of you but praise. You have always been obliging, and
even considerate towards us. But to-day a terrible accusation rests on
you, and the matter must be cleared up. How did yo