They reached the first of the fallen soldiers. Janice looked, shuddering. Then she said thinly: "He's breathing!"
He was. He was merely a boy. Twenty or thereabouts. He lay on his back, his eyes closed. His face was upturned like a dead man's. But his breast rose and fell rhythmically. He slept as if he were drugged.
But that was more incredible than if he'd been dead. Regiments of men fallen simultaneously asleep....
Coburn's flow of raging speech stopped short. He stared. He saw other fallen soldiers. Dozens of them. In coma-like slumber, the soldiers who had come to loot and murder lay like straws upon the ground. If they had been dead it would have been more believable. At least there are ways to kill men. But this ...
Dillon parted the group of villagers about him and came toward Coburn and Janice. He was frowning in a remarkably human fashion.
"Here's a mess!" he said irritably. "Those Bulgars came marching down out of the pass. The cavalry galloped on ahead and cut the villagers off so they couldn't run away. They started to loot the village. They weren't pleasant. Women began to scream, and there were shootings—all in a matter of minutes. And then the looters began to act strangely. They staggered around and sat down and went to sleep!"
He waved his hands in a helpless gesture, but Coburn was not deceived.
"The tanks arrived. And they stopped—and their crews went to sleep! Then the infantry appeared, staggering as it marched. The officers halted to see what was happening ahead, and the entire infantry dropped off to sleep right where it stood!
"It's bad! If it had happened a mile or so back ... The Greeks must have played a trick on them, but those cavalrymen raised the devil in the few minutes they were out of hand! They killed some villagers and then keeled over. And now the villagers aren't pleased. There was one man whose son was murdered, and he's been slitting the Bulgars' throats!"