had escaped a few days before, always ending with, "We are going to kick
them across the frontier!" . . .

Their indignation broke forth afresh as they looked around at the
blasted towns--farms and single houses, all burned. Like skeletons
of prehistoric beasts, many steel frames twisted by the flames were
scattered over the plains. The brick chimneys of the factories were
either levelled to the ground or, pierced with the round holes made
by shells, were standing up like giant pastoral flutes forced into the
earth.

Near the ruined villages, the women were removing the earth and trying
to dig burial trenches, but their labor was almost useless because it
required an immense force to inter so many dead. "We are all going to
die after gaining the victory," mused the old man. "The plague is going
to break out among us."

The water of the river must also be contaminated by this contagion;
so when his thirst became intolerable he drank, in preference, from a
nearby pond. . . . But, alas, on raising his head, he saw some greenish
legs on the surface of the shallow water, the boots sunk in the muddy
banks. The head of the German was in the depths of the pool.

He had been trudging on for several hours when he stopped before a
ruined house which he believed that he recognized. Yes, it was the
tavern where he had lunched a few days ago on his way to the castle. He
forced his way in among the blackened walls where a persistent swarm of
flies came buzzing around him. The smell of decomposing flesh attracted
his attention; a leg which looked like a piece of charred cardboard was
wedged in the ruins. Looking at it bitterly he seemed to hear again the
old woman with her grandchildren clinging to her skirts--"Monsieur, why
are the people fleeing? War only concerns the soldiers. We countryfolk
have done no wrong to anybody, and we ought not to be afraid."

Half an hour later, on descending a hilly path, the traveller had the
most unexpected of encounters. He saw there a taxicab, an automobile
from Paris. The chauffeur was walking tranquilly around the vehicle as
if it were at the cab stand, and he promptly entered into conversation
with this gentleman who appeared to him as downcast and dirty as a
tramp, with half of his livid face discolored from a blow. He had
brought out here in his machine some Parisians who had wanted to see the
battlefield; they were reporters; and he was waiting there to take them
back at nightfall.

D