“He has bought it for himself, but he is not there now.”
“How I should have liked to see him. He was a fine officer and an excellent man. And now, Miss Cosin, will you mind going with me to another spot more interesting to me than even this, I mean the prisoners’ burial ground, where my body would now have been laid but for your dear brother and you?”
That last word would have made Alice willing to go anywhere, and she cheerfully consented to pay the rather doleful visit.
When they reached the portion of the field
where the interments had taken place, they let their horses nibble the grass, and silently surveyed the scanty mounds.
Tournier was lost in thought, and Alice watched him.
“Poor fellows, poor fellows,” he said at length: “how many of them I have known! Some of them were in my squadron. Nearly all young, or in the prime of life—all dead before their time, worn out or broken-hearted.”
“How many, do you think, are buried here?” asked Alice.
“Roughly speaking, I should say at least three or four hundred.”
“Will not the Government mark the spot, or at least raise some memorial to these brave men?”