vultures, unless salvaged
by our army. Right on this ground we saved many such, Monsieur; _Mon
Dieu!_ but how our army did weep over them!"

Jeb had already seen enough to bring this recital well within the focus
of truth, and as the wagons wound slowly forward he further saw to what
depth of hatred and cold malice the mind of that "High Command"
descended. Burned villages and hamlets might have been expected, as
conflagrations spring from bursting shells, yet even his inexperienced
eye detected a very sharp distinction between ruins wrought by military
operations and the vandalism caused by unbridled, bestial passions. For
nowhere upon this barren outlook had a house been left standing--all was
a mass of tumbled brick and stone and clay and twisted timbers, licked
by flames or crumbled by explosions scientifically placed by German
engineers; nay, nor was there even a barn, nor an agricultural implement
with which some palsied peasant woman might in time reclaim her land.
Iron of plows, of harrows, of cultivators, lay in piles amidst the
ashes of their frames; spokes of wagon and cart wheels had been hacked
to splinters, and harness cut into useless bits. Wells had been fouled
by chucking in their own dead, or stable refuse. In the orchards every
tree stood girdled, the immature fruit wrinkled amidst withered leaves.
Never again, unless French nurserymen sped here hastily to bridge from
bark to bark, or graft onto the old stumps,--as they had elsewhere
attempted with varying promise--would these slopes of arboriculture put
forth buds; neither would the poplars, planes, mulberries, willows--all
had been granted citizenship to this newly created German Empire, "the
empire of death."

"Where are those whom you did not salvage--I mean the girls? Are they
still in the German lines?" Jeb asked.

"Not if they have found a way to die," his comrade answered in a
whisper. "The Belshazzar feast of those Prussian swine, Monsieur, is the
Calvary of every maid who does not find a swifter way to God--but the
debauched officers know that, and keep them closely guarded. Oh," he
cried, "our hearts give thanks that your country is coming to help us
avenge these things! All along we have said that if the American spirit
of decency and fairness--so well known and loved by us--could but see
even the little which you have seen, your armies would be pouring to our
aid!--just as your wonderful nurses have come!"

Jeb felt a rush of self-rig