"At least a whole battalion, I'm told," answered the son, finishing his soup in short order.
"Then it's all over, of course. Just twenty-four hours too soon," sighed Engelmann softly as he watched the poodle, who at that moment was jumping about on the street playing with the gnawed bone.
Engelmann tried hard to control himself, but he did not dare turn his head, for he could hear low, suppressed sobbing behind him. Martha, the faithful companion of his busy life, sat at the table with her face buried in her hands, the tears rolling uninterruptedly down her cheeks, while her two daughters were trying their best to comfort her.
Old Engelmann opened the window and listened.
"Nothing to be heard yet; but they'll have to pass here to get to the waterworks," he said. Then he joined his family, and turning to his wife, said: "Courage, mother! Arthur will do his duty."
"But if anything should happen to him—" sobbed his wife.
"Then it will be for his country, and his death and that of his comrades will give us an example of the sacrifices we must all make until the last of the yellow race has been driven out."
The mother went on crying quietly, her handkerchief up to her eyes: "When was it to be? Tell me!" she cried.
"To-night," said the father, "and they would surely have been successful, for they could easily have overpowered the few men at the station and in the town. Listen, there are the Japs!"
From outside came the regular beat of the drums. Bum—bum—bum, bum, bum they went, and then the shrill squeaking of the fifes could also be heard.