compound shadow thrown by the candles on the
white wall followed him back and forth, mocking him with huge blurred
gestures. "The Greek philosophers said it and the Indian sages. Our
descendants thousands of years from now will say it and wring their
hands as we do. Has not someone on earth the courage to act?..." The men
at the table turned towards him, watching his tall figure move back and
forth.

"We are slaves. We are blind. We are deaf. Why should we argue, we who
have no experience of different things to go on? It has always been the
same: man the slave of property or religion, of his own shadow.... First
we must burst our bonds, open our eyes, clear our ears. Now we know
nothing but what we are told by the rulers. Oh, the lies, the lies, the
lies, the lies that life is smothered in! We must strike once more for
freedom, for the sake of the dignity of man. Hopelessly, cynically,
ruthlessly we must rise and show at least that we are not taken in; that
we are slaves but not willing slaves. Oh, they have deceived us so many
times. We have been such dupes, we have been such dupes!"

"You are right," said the blonde Norman sullenly; "we have all been
dupes."

A sudden self-consciousness chilled them all to silence for a while.
Without wanting to, they strained their ears to hear the guns. There
they were, throbbing loud, unceasing, towards the north, like hasty
muffled drum-beating.

_Cease; drain not to its dregs the wine,
Of bitter Prophecy.
The world is weary of its past.
Oh, might it die or rest at last._

All through the talk snatches from _Hellas_ had been running through
Howe's head.

After a long pause he turned to Merrier and asked him how he had fared
in the attack.

"Oh, not so badly. I brought my skin back," said Merrier, laughing. "It
was a dull business. After waiting eight hours under gas bombardment we
got orders to advance, and so over we went with the barrage way ahead of
us. There was no resistance where we were. We took a lot of prisoners
and blew up some dugouts and I had the good luck to find a lot of German
chocolate. It came in handy, I can tell you, as no ravitaillement came
for two days. We just had biscuits and I toasted the biscuits and
chocolate together and had quite good meals, though I nearly died of
thirst afterwards.... We lost heavily, though, when they started
counter-attacking."

"An' no one of you were touched?"

"Luck.... But we lost many dear fr