He whispered accordingly some brief instructions to his men; he sent a message to the ten on the Servigny road, and when the Prussians marched on after their second halt, Lieutenant Fevrier and two Frenchmen fell in behind them.  The same procedure was followed at the next halt and at the next; so that when the Prussians reached the Frenchward end of Vaudere there were twenty-three Prussians and ten Frenchmen in the file.  To Fevrier’s thinking it was sufficiently comic.  There was something artistic about it too.

Fevrier was pleased, but he had not counted on the quick Prussian step to which his soldiers were unaccustomed.  At the fourth halt, the officer moved unsuspiciously first on one side of the street, then on the other, but gave no order to his men to fall out.  It seemed that he had forgotten, until he came suddenly running down the file and flashed his lantern into Fevrier’s face.  He had been secretly counting his men.

“The French,” he cried.  “Load!”

The one word quite compensated Fevrier for the detection.  The Germans had come down into Vaudere with their rifles unloaded, lest an accidental discharge should betray their neighbourhood to the French.

“Load!” cried the German.  And slipping back he tugged at the revolver in his belt.  But before he could draw it out, Fevrier dashed his bayonet through the lantern and hung it on the officer’s heart.  He whistled, and his other ten men came running down the street.

“Vorwarts,” shouted Fevrier, derisively.  “Immer Vorwarts.”

The Prussians surprised, and ignorant how many they had to face, fell back in disorder against a house-wall.  The French soldiers dashed at them in the darkness, engaging them so that not a man had the chance to load.

That little fight in the dark street between the white-ruined cottages made Fevrier’s blood dance.

“Courage!” he cried.  “The paraffin!”

The combatants were well matched, and it was hand-to-hand and bayonet-to-bayonet.  Fevrier loved his enemies at that moment.  It even occurred to him that it was worth while to have deserted.  After the sense of disgrace, the prospect of imprisonment and dishonour, it was all wonderful to him—­the feel of the thick coat yielding to the bayonet point, the fatigue of the beaten opponent, the vigour of the new one, the feeling of injury and unfairness when a Prussian he had wounded dropped in falling the butt of a rifle upon his toes.

Once he cried, “Voila pour la patrie!” but for the rest he fought in silence, as did the others, having other uses for their breath.  All that could be heard was a loud and laborious panting, as of wrestlers in a match, the clang of rifle crossing rifle, the rattle of bayonet guarding bayonet, and now and then a groan and a heavy fall.  One Prussian escaped and ran; but the ten who had been stationed on the Servigny road were now guarding the entrance from Noisseville.  Fevrier had no fears of him.  He pressed upon a new man, drove him against the wall, and the man shouted in despair: