"Come," said Pückler, "place your uninjured arm in mine. It seems fate has destined us for each other, for it has ruined your right arm and my left arm; thus we can walk at least side by side, mutually supporting ourselves. I shall be your right hand, and you will lend me your left arm when I have to embrace anybody. But, it is true, no one will now care for our embrace; every one will mock and deride us, and try to read in the bloody handwriting on our foreheads: 'He is also one of the vanquished Prussians!'"
"Comrade, did you not tell me a little while ago, that it would be better for us to attend to our own affairs, before talking about other matters?"
"It is true; let us go!"
And, leaning on each other, the two officers left the house.
[CHAPTER II.]
THE GERMAN SONG.
It was a sunny morning in autumn; the two wounded officers were inhaling the bracing air in long draughts, and their eyes were wandering over the transparent sky and the picturesque landscape.
"And to think that my eyes would never more have seen all this, if you had not had mercy on me!" said Schill, with a grateful glance at his companion.
"Ah, my friend," sighed Pückler, mournfully, "we shall not always behold the sky and this beautiful, silent scene, but it may easily happen that we shall see much misery to-day, and that you will curse your eyes for being compelled to perceive it! Still you are right—it is better to live, even in anguish and distress, than to die in anguish and distress; for he who lives has still a future before him, and is able to strive in it for revenge and compensation for the past. Let us descry our immediate future from the hill yonder, and there decide on the direction we shall take."