're alive?"

John's voice dropped a little, as he added the last words, but Lord
James Ivor walked to the brow of a low hill, called to somebody beyond,
and then walked back.

"It's a happy chance that I can tell you what you want to know," he
said. "Those two men have been serving in my own company, and they're
both alive and well. But they were lying on the grass there, dead to the
world, that is, sleeping, as if they were two of the original seven
sleepers."

Two figures appeared on the brow of the hill, gazed at first in a
puzzled manner at John and then, uttering shouts of welcome, rushed
toward him. Carstairs seized him by one hand and Wharton by the other.

"Not killed, I see," said Carstairs.

"Nor is he going to be killed," said Wharton.

"Now, where have you been?" asked Carstairs.

"Yes, where have you been?" asked Wharton.

"I've been taking a couple of pleasure trips with my friend, Lannes,"
replied John. "Between trips I was a prisoner of the Germans, and I've
seen a lot of the great battle. Has the British army suffered much?"

A shade flitted over the face of Carstairs as he replied:

"We haven't been shot up so much since Waterloo. It's been appalling.
For days and nights we've been fighting and marching. Whenever we
stopped even for a moment we fell on the ground and were asleep before
we touched it. Half the fellows I knew have been killed. I think as long
as I live I'll hear the drumming of those guns in my ears, and, confound
'em, I still hear 'em in reality now. If you turn your attention to it
you can hear the confounded business quite plainly! But what I do know,
Scott, is that we've been winning! I don't know where I am and I haven't
a clear idea of what I've been doing all the time, but as sure as we're
in France the victory is ours."

"But won by the French chiefly" John could not keep from saying.

"Quite true. Our own army is not large, but it has done as much per
man."

"And the moral support," added John. "The French have felt the presence
of a friend, a friend, too, who in six months will be ten times as
strong as he is now."

"Where is Lannes?" asked Wharton.

"He's got your job, Wharton," replied John with a smile. "He's Envoy
Extraordinary and Bearer of Messages concerning Life and Death between
the armies. As soon as he landed he went directly to the British
commander, and they're now conferring in a tent. That will never happen
to you. You will never be closeted wi