amining the country with their field
glasses, or talking in knots. Some appeared disheartened, others furious
at the backward flight that had been going on since the day before.
The majority appeared calm, with the passivity of obedience. The battle
front was immense; who could foresee the outcome? . . . There they were
in full retreat, but in other places, perhaps, their comrades might be
advancing with decided gains. Until the very last moment, no soldier
knows certainly the fate of the struggle. What was most grieving this
detachment was the fact that it was all the time getting further away
from Paris.

Don Marcelo's eye was caught by a sparkling circle of glass, a monocle
fixed upon him with aggressive insistence. A lank lieutenant with the
corseted waist of the officers that he had seen in Berlin, a genuine
Junker, was a few feet away, sword in hand behind his men, like a
wrathful and glowering shepherd.

"What are you doing here?" he said gruffly.

Desnoyers explained that he was the owner of the castle. "French?"
continued the lieutenant. "Yes, French." . . . The official scowled in
hostile meditation, feeling the necessity of saying something against
the enemy. The shouts and antics of his companions-at-arms put a summary
end to his reflections. They were all staring upward, and the old man
followed their gaze.

For an hour past, there had been streaking through the air frightful
roarings enveloped in yellowish vapors, strips of cloud which seemed
to contain wheels revolving with frenzied rotation. They were the
projectiles of the heavy German artillery which, fired from various
distances, threw their great shells over the castle. Certainly that
could not be what was interesting the officials!

He half shut his eyes in order to see better, and finally near the
edge of a cloud, he distinguished a species of mosquito flashing in
the sunlight. Between brief intervals of silence, could be heard the
distant, faint buzz announcing its presence. The officers nodded their
heads. "Franzosen!" Desnoyers thought so, too. He could not believe that
the enemy's two black crosses were between those wings. Instead he saw
with his mind's eye, two tricolored rings like the circular spots which
color the fluttering wings of butterflies.

This explained the agitation of the Germans. The French air-bird
remained motionless for a few seconds over the castle, regardless of
the white bubbles exploding underneath and around it.