From one extremity to the other of the wide plains, from which we were separated by the valley of the Grand Morin, those same long columns of dense black smoke rose lazily in the brilliant sunlight.  Into some determined spot the enemy was pouring a perfect rain of shot and shell, and the dust rising after each explosion formed a curtain that blotted out the rest of the landscape.  Below, the Senegalais had disappeared in ambush, but now and again the distant clattering of the mitrailleuse told us they were at their deadly work.  And to think, all this was happening on ground we had traveled over only a few hours since!  And I had been fool enough to go back to Rebais—­alone to recover my dog!

I shuddered as I got down.  What was the use of trying to hurry?  We couldn’t go any faster than the horses, and if we overworked them now we would have to rest longer later on.  So, urging our poor old nags, we trudged along the sun-baked roads between the high grown wheat fields of the Brie country.

Still another couple of hours and we had reached Choisy-en-Brie, found a stable for our animals, and we ourselves stretched out on our blankets beneath the friendly shadow of the big stone church.

I had finished luncheon and was just dozing off when a motor horn roused me from my lethargy.  A second later I recognized Maitre Baudoin and his wife, the latter holding their four-year-old daughter on her knees, her grandmother sitting alone in the back seat which was piled high with important documents, and their maid strapped to the steps of the car.

We set up a shout which stopped them.  “We stayed until a shell burst on the house next door, then we thought it was time to go,"’ explained Maitre Baudoin.

“What time did you leave Rebais?”

“Forty minutes ago.  You’d better be moving, too.”

“Sorry, but I can’t.  The horses must rest.”

“Well, don’t wait too long.  Adieu.”

“Adieu,” and they were off.

I returned to my blanket and again was just closing my eyes when the unexpected sound of Gregorian chant made me sit up.  Nearer and nearer it drew, louder and louder rose the priests’ voices, and then a much-befringed and flower-laden hearse, preceded by the clergy and followed by the mourners (the men in evening dress and the women in their Sunday clothes), rounded the corner, passed in front of us, and halted before the main door of the church.

I couldn’t help smiling.  The incongruity of this pompous enterrement de premiere classe, en musique, when the city was imminently menaced by a German bombardment, bordered on the pathetic and the ridiculous.  However, the family of the defunct did not think so, and their deceased parent was chanted to eternity with all the rites and ceremonies that his will had provided for.

Personally I was delighted at the idea of going to sleep to the sound of the organ, which pierced the thick granite walls and almost drowned the rumble of the cannon, to which we had now become so accustomed that we had ceased to be alarmed.