u get the wound on
your face?"

The peasant gave no reply.

The Colonel went on:

"Your silence condemns you, Pere Milon. But I want you to answer me, do
you understand. Do you know who has killed the two Uhlans who were found
this morning near the cross-roads?"

The old man said in a clear voice:

"It was I!"

The Colonel, surprised, remained silent for a second, looking
steadfastly at the prisoner. Pere Milon maintained his impassive
demeanor, his air of rustic stupidity, with downcast eyes, as if he were
talking to his cure. There was only one thing that could reveal his
internal agitation, the way in which he slowly swallowed his saliva with
a visible effort, as if he were choking.

The old peasant's family--his son Jean, his daughter-in-law, and two
little children stood ten paces behind scared and dismayed.

The Colonel continued:

"Do you know also who killed all the scouts of our Army, whom we have
found every morning, for the past month, lying here and there in the
fields?"

The old man answered with the same brutal impassiveness:

"It was I!"

"It is you, then, that killed them all?"

"All of them--yes, it was I."

"You alone?"

"I alone."

"Tell me the way you managed to do it?"

This time the peasant appeared to be affected; the necessity of speaking
at some length incommoded him.

"I know myself. I did it the way I found easiest."

The Colonel proceeded:

"I warn you, you must tell me everything. You will do well, therefore,
to make up your mind about it at once. How did you begin it?"

The peasant cast an uneasy glance towards his family, who remained in a
listening attitude behind him. He hesitated for another second or so,
then all of a sudden, he came to a resolution on the matter.

"I came home one night about ten o'clock and the next day you were here.
You and your soldiers gave me fifty crowns for forage with a cow and two
sheep. Said I to myself: 'As long as I get twenty crowns out of them,
I'll sell them the value of it.' But then I had other things in my
heart, which I'll tell you about now. I came across one of your
cavalrymen smoking his pipe near my dike, just behind my barn. I went
and took my scythe off the hook, and I came back with short steps from
behind, while he lay there without hearing anything. And I cut off his
head with one stroke, like a feather, while he only said 'Oof!' You have
only to look at the bottom of the pond; you'll find him there in a
coa