ubois. "First we must fight the
lies. It is the lies that choke us."

* * * * *

It was very late. Howe and Tom Randolph were walking home under a cold
white moon already well sunk in the west; northward was a little
flickering glare above the tops of the low hills and a sound of firing
as of muffled drums beaten hastily.

"With people like that we needn't despair of civilisation," said Howe.

"With people who are young and aren't scared you can do lots."

"We must come over and see those fellows again. It's such a relief to be
able to talk."

"And they give you the idea that something's really going on in the
world, don't they?"

"Oh, it's wonderful! Think that the awakening may come soon."

"We might wake up to-morrow and ..."

"It's too important to joke about; don't be an ass, Tom."

They rolled up in their blankets in the silent barn and listened to the
drum-fire in the distance. Martin saw again, as he lay on his side with
his eyes closed, the group of men in blue uniforms, men with eager brown
faces and eyes gleaming with hope, and saw their full red lips moving as
they talked.

The candle threw the shadows of their heads, huge, fantastic, and of
their gesticulating arms on the white walls of the kitchen. And it
seemed to Martin Howe that all his friends were gathered in that room.

CHAPTER X

"They say you sell shoe-laces," said Martin, his eyes blinking in the
faint candlelight.

Crouched in the end of the dugout was a man with a brown skin like
wrinkled leather, and white eyebrows and moustaches. All about him were
piles of old boots, rotten with wear and mud, holding fantastically the
imprints of the toes and ankle-bones of the feet that had worn them. The
candle cast flitting shadows over them so that they seemed to move back
and forth faintly, as do the feet of wounded men laid out on the floor
of the dressing-station.

"I'm a cobbler by profession," said the man. He made a gesture with the
blade of his knife in the direction of a huge bundle of leather laces
that hung from a beam above his head. "I've done all those since
yesterday. I cut up old boots into laces."

"Helps out the five sous a bit," said Martin, laughing.

"This post is convenient for my trade," went on the cobbler, as he
picked out another boot to be cut into laces, and started hacking the
upper part off the worn sole. "At the little hut, where they pile up the
stiffs before they