A hidden French battery in the wooded, rocky hills off to the west had for days kept up a deadly, unerring fire upon the German positions. Shift as he would, the commander could not escape the shells from those unseen, undiscovered guns. They followed him with uncanny precision. His own batteries had searched in vain, with thousands of shrieking shells, for the gadfly gunners. They could find him, but he could not find them. For every shell he wasted, they returned one that counted.
Three French scouts fell into his hands on the night of the 28th.
Two of them were still alive. He had them up before him at once.
"On one condition will I spare your lives," said he. And that condition had been pounded into their ears with unceasing violence, day and night, by officers high and low, since the hour of their capture. It was a very simple condition, declared the Germans. Only a stubborn fool would fail to take advantage of the opportunity offered. The exact position of that mysterious battery,—that was all the general demanded in return for his goodness in sparing their lives. He asked no more of them than a few, truthful words.
They had steadfastly refused to betray their countrymen.
François could not see his brother, but now and then he put out a timid hand to touch the shaking figure. He could not understand. Why was it not the other way about? Who was he to offer consolation to the big and strong?
"Courage," he would say, and then stare hard ahead into the blackness. "You are great and strong," he would add. "It is I who am weak and little, Louis. I am the little brother."
"You have not so much to live for as I," Louis would mutter, over and over again.
Their hour drew near. "Eat this," persuaded François, pressing upon Louis the hunk of bread their captors had tossed down to them.
"Eat? God! How can I eat?"
"Then drink. It is not cold, but—"