ing
through communication trenches that were veritable canals. And this is
the third year of the war.

The most interesting of the lot mentally was a young Socialist named
Hippolyte. He was a sous-lieutenant of the Engineers, and had quarters
of his own in the rear of the trenches, where one was always sure to
find books on social questions lying round in the hay. When the war
began he was just finishing his law course at the University of
Montpellier. A true son of the South, he was dark, short, but well
proportioned, with small hands and feet. The distinguishing features of
his countenance were his eyes and mouth--the eyes, eloquent, alert,
almost Italian; the mouth, full, firm, and dogmatic. The great orators
of the Midi must have resembled him in their youth. He was a Socialist
and a pacifist a outrance, continuing his dream of universal fraternity
in the midst of war. His work lay in building a tunnel under the
Germans, by which he hoped to blow part of the German trenches, Teutons
and all, sky-high.

The tunnei (sape) began in the third line, at a door hi the wall of the
trench strongly framed in wooden beams the size of railroad ties. At
occasional intervals along the passage the roof was reinforced by a
frame of these beams, so that the sape had the businesslike,
professional look of a gallery in a coal mine. Descending steeply to a
point twelve feet beyond the entrance, it then went at a gentle incline
under No Man's Land, and ended beneath the German trenches. It was the
original intention to blow up part of the German first line, but it
being one day discovered that the Germans were building a tunnel
parallel to the French one, it was decided to blow up the French safe so
that the explosion would spend its force underground, and cause the
walls of the German tunnel to cave in on its makers. I happened to see
the tunnel the morning of the day it was blown up. The French had
stopped working for fear of being overheard by the Germans. It was a
ticklish situation. Were the Germans aware of the French tunnel? If so,
they would blow up their own at once. Were they still continuing their
labor? The earth of the French might burst apart anyminute and rain down
again in a dreadful shower of clods, stones, and mangled bodies.

Alone, quiet, at the end of the passage under the German lines sat an
old poilu, the sentinel of the tunnel. He was an old coal miner of the
North. The light of a candle showed his quiet, bear