“Es ist vollbracht,” I said.
“Es ist vollbracht,” he replied.
And with a military salute, he turned, and, a suggestion of sadness in the stoop of his shoulders, made his way up the companion ladder.
THE END.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Two days later, in the train for Copenhagen, I gave up my seat willingly to a little boy with a face of great intellectuality, who was obviously in a very delicate state of health. This was accepted gratefully for the lad by the two Danish gentlemen who had him in charge. They told me that he was the son of Herr Duncker, Professor of Philosophy in the Berlin University, and one of the leaders of the Spartacusbund; that they were taking him to Copenhagen, where his elder brother already was, partly because he was suffering from malnutrition, but principally for safety, neither his father nor mother expecting to survive the Revolution. A sister of eighteen or nineteen stays with her parents. The boy’s guardians also informed me that the lad, who was only nine years old, already wrote verse which would not be discreditable to a young man, and that his brother had in a few months become the chief scholar in the Copenhagen school.
BALLADS OF BATTLE
AND
WORK-A-DAY WARRIORS
By Lieut. JOSEPH LEE