Something rose in the throat of the two who gazed, and the younger one—the one who wrote Latin verse—bent down and laid his hand lightly, as if invoking a blessing on Florian's pale forehead. Then he turned with a start to his companion. "He is alive!"
The other in his turn touched the man's brow, then lifted the limp hand to feel his pulse. They knelt beside him and poured brandy down his throat. Then they worked over him for a long while, until a breath of life fluttered through the ashen lips, and the vague blue eyes opened and looked into theirs.
The Germans rose to their feet. The Belgian, when he had lain unconscious with his arm around their fallen comrade, had been to them a hero and a friend. Now, alive, with open eyes, he was their foe and their prisoner.
They spoke to him at first, not unkindly, in German; then, somewhat brusquely, in French; but he gave them no reply. His brain was benumbed and stupefied. He could not speak and he could not stand. So they lifted him and placed him on the stretcher.
"Poor devil!" murmured the younger man as he extended the two limp arms along the recumbent body and pointed out to his companion the right sleeve of the Belgian uniform sodden and stiff with the German soldier's blood.
"Poor devil! What have we saved him for? To send him to the hell of Wittemberg!..."
"Hard lines," murmured the other one.
"Gerechter Gott!" exclaimed the foolish fair-haired poet, "I wish we could give him a chance."
They gave him a chance.