e forest. Ah, it was easy enough last night
to find almost anything one wished. The fields and forest were full of
dead men."

"I provided myself in the same way, but I'm delighted to see you. I was
never before in my life so lonely. How chance seems to throw us together
so often!"

"And we've both profited by it. The coffee is boiling now, Mr. Scott.
I've a good German coffee pot and two cups that I took from the fallen.
God rest their souls, they'll need them no more, while we do."

"The battle goes on," said John, listening a moment at the window.

"Somewhere on the hundred mile line it has continued without a break of
an instant, and it may go on this way for a week or a month. Ah, it's a
fearful war, Mr. Scott, and we've seen only the beginning! But drink the
coffee now, while it's hot. And I've warmed too, some of the cold food
from the knapsacks. German sausage is good at any time."

"And just now it's heavenly. I'm glad we have such a plentiful supply of
sausage and bread, even if we did have to take it from the dead. I want
to tell you again how pleasant it is to see you here."

"I feel that way too. We're like comrades united. Now if we only had
your English friend Carstairs, your American friend Wharton, and Lannes
we'd be quite a family group."

"I fancy that we'll see Lannes before we do Carstairs and Wharton."

"I think so too. He'll certainly be hovering today somewhere over the
ground between the two armies--either to observe the Germans or more
likely to carry messages between the French generals. I tell you, Mr.
Scott, that Philip Lannes is perhaps the most wonderful young man in
Europe. In addition to his extraordinary ability in the air he has
courage, coolness, perception and quickness almost without equal.
There's something Napoleonic about him."

"You know he's descended from the family of the famous Marshal, Lannes,
not from Lannes himself, but from a close relative, and the blood's the
same. They say that blood will tell, and don't you think that the spirit
of the great Lannes may have reappeared in Philip?"

"It's altogether likely."

"I've been thinking a lot about Napoleon. There's a wonderful picture of
him as a young republican general in a room here. Perhaps it's the
conditions around us, but at times I am sure the heroic days of the
First Republic have returned to France. The spirit that animated Hoche
and Marceau and Kleber and Bonaparte, before he became spoiled, seems to
h