as they passed?  And he pictured to himself the cattle cars into which they would be crowded for transportation, the discomforts and humiliations they would have to suffer on the journey, the dismal life in German fortresses under the leaden, wintry sky.  No, no; he would have none of it; better to take the risk of leaving his bones by the roadside on French soil than go and rot off yonder, for months and months, perhaps, in the dark depths of a casemate.

“Listen,” he said below his breath to Jean, who was walking at his side; “we will wait until we come to a wood; then we’ll break through the guards and run for it among the trees.  The Belgian frontier is not far away; we shall have no trouble in finding someone to guide us to it.”

Jean, accustomed as he was to look at things coolly and calculate chances, put his veto on the mad scheme, although he, too, in his revolt, was beginning to meditate the possibilities of an escape.

“Have you taken leave of your senses! the guard will fire on us, and we shall both be killed.”

But Maurice replied there was a chance the soldiers might not hit them, and then, after all, if their aim should prove true, it would not matter so very much.

“Very well!” rejoined Jean, “but what is going to become of us afterward, dressed in uniform as we are?  You know perfectly well that the country is swarming in every direction with Prussian troops; we could not go far unless we had other clothes to put on.  No, no, my lad, it’s too risky; I’ll not let you attempt such an insane project.”

And he took the young man’s arm and held it pressed against his side, as if they were mutually sustaining each other, continuing meanwhile to chide and soothe him in a tone that was at once rough and affectionate.

Just then the sound of a whispered conversation close behind them caused them to turn and look around.  It was Chouteau and Loubet, who had left the peninsula of Iges that morning at the same time as they, and whom they had managed to steer clear of until the present moment.  Now the two worthies were close at their heels, and Chouteau must have overheard Maurice’s words, his plan for escaping through the mazes of a forest, for he had adopted it on his own behalf.  His breath was hot upon their neck as he murmured: 

“Say, comrades, count us in on that.  That’s a capital idea of yours, to skip the ranch.  Some of the boys have gone already, and sure we’re not going to be such fools as to let those bloody pigs drag us away like dogs into their infernal country.  What do you say, eh?  Shall we four make a break for liberty?”

Maurice’s excitement was rising to fever-heat again; Jean turned and said to the tempter: 

“If you are so anxious to get away, why don’t you go? there’s nothing to prevent you.  What are you up to, any way?”

He flinched a little before the corporal’s direct glance, and allowed the true motive of his proposal to escape him.