And again the darkness casts up shapes ... they run up and reel about like drunken men ... they fall over and pick themselves up anew ... they race forward through the night in zigzags, until they at last collapse exhausted, and lie still under our very eyes and make an end of it....
And at length some one comes crawling toward us ... he is crawling up on all fours ... he is dragging something behind him with his body, and all the time he is whining like a sick dog, and is howling shrilly in long-drawn tones ... he is still crawling along I fast—and when he has reached us we see—I and the blood stands still in our hearts—they are his entrails hanging out of his body ... his belly has been ripped up from below ... he is crawling, he is crawling up on his entrails ... he is coming ... the entrails are coming ... horror breaks out from every pore ... for hardly three paces away from me he lies still ... and then ... May God forgive me!... he raises himself slowly on his hands ... he succeeds for a moment ... and looks ... Merciful God!... he looks at me, and refuses to let my eyes go again ... I can see nothing except these great, death-stricken eyes.... Merciful God! ... his eyes, those eyes! Those are a mother's eyes looking down on me unspeakably ... that is a son of his mother lying there before us butchered.... I will break out of my fastness.... I will throw myself on him, sobbing, and kiss his face, and bathe his anguish away in my tears.... I will do it! I will! ... and cannot stir myself from my rigid tension.... Then the monstrous strain relaxes—his arms give way ... he falls forward on his face and sinks down on his tortured body. His hands twitch once more ... then he lies still and kisses Mother Earth, who has slain her children so horribly....
I am done ... my hands are trembling.... Then all of a sudden, a voice behind us begins to sing ... solemnly—long-drawn.... "Now thank we all our God" ... that is Madness singing there ... we are all next door to madness.... I look round, and see gray, distorted faces, and blazing, startled eye-balls.... And suddenly the singing voice changes to a loud, impudent burst of laughter....
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" The laugh is full of horror, and mingles with the dying whine beyond.... The laugh grows ever louder, and ever wilder, and laughs in triumph at the naked, pitiful dying, littering the ground.
"Drummers! Strike up!" shouts the voice.
"Uncover for prayer!"
We recognize him; he is a reservist belonging to some pious sect. A sergeant has seized him, and tries to hold him ... the captain has run up, but the madman tears himself away and runs ahead of them to a rifle-pit ... he stands aloft, a black, wild silhouette against the pale sky, and spreads out his arms in blessing over the sick night ... he stands there like a rapt priest, and raves, and is blessing the mangled darkness. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
Then arms seize him from behind and pull him down ... they drag him to the ground.... "Our Father" he howls aloud, and strikes and kicks out all round him, and goes on praying from his raging body until at length breath fails him ... they have tied him hand and foot, and have gagged him....
But now the Thing-that-Couldn't happens—that none the less was bound to happen.
And when the voice calls out it comes over me as if I had lived it all once before....