"Why not? Look!"
Marcassin sprang up once more. Lean and erect, he stood like a poplar, and raising both arms straight into the air, he yelled, "I believe only in the glory of France!"
Nothing else was left for him; he was but a conviction. Hardly had he spoken thus in the teeth of the invisible hurricane when he opened his arms, assumed the shape of a cross against the sky, spun round, and fell noisily into the middle of the trench and of our cries.
He had rolled onto his belly. We gathered round him. With a jerk he turned on to his back, his arms slackened, and his gaze drowned in his eyes. His blood began to spread around him, and we drew our great boots away, that we should not walk on that blood.
"He died like an idiot," said Margat in a choking voice; "but by God it's fine!"
He took off his cap, saluted awkwardly and stood with bowed head.
"Committing suicide for an idea, it's fine," mumbled Vidaine.
"It's fine, it's fine!" other voices said.
And these little words fluttered down like leaves and petals onto the body of the great dead soldier.
"Where's his cap, that he thought so much of?" groaned his orderly,
Aubeau, looking in all directions.