e French are pushing across the Saar by
means of pontoons; the three bridges are also being
rapidly repaired.

"Reports vary, but it is probable that the losses on the
German side will number four officers and seventy-nine
men killed--wounded unknown. The French lost six
officers and eighty men killed; wounded list not
completed.

"The Emperor was present with the Prince Imperial."

Leaving his pad on the table and his riding-crop and gloves over
it, he gathered up the loose leaves of his telegram and hastened
across the street to the telegraph office. For the moment the
instrument was idle, and the operator took his despatch, read it
aloud to the censor, an officer of artillery, who vised it and
nodded.

"A longer despatch is to follow--can I have the wires again in
half an hour?" asked Jack.

Both operator and censor laughed and said, "No promises,
monsieur; come and see." And Jack hastened back to the garden of
the hotel and sat down once more under the trees, scarcely
glancing at the old officer beside him. Again he wrote:

"The truth is that the whole affair was scarcely more
than a skirmish. A handful of the 2d Battalion of
Fusilliers, a squadron or two of Uhlans, and a battery
of Prussian artillery have for days faced and held in
check a whole French division. When they were attacked
they tranquilly turned a bold front to the French, made
a devil of a racket with their cannon, and slipped
across the frontier with trifling loss. If the French
are going to celebrate this as a victory, Europe will
laugh--"

He paused, frowning and biting his pencil. Presently he noticed
that several troopers of the Hundred-Guards were watching him
from the street; sentinels of the same corps were patrolling the
garden, their long, bayoneted carbines over their steel-bound
shoulders. At the same moment his eyes fell upon the old officer
beside him. The officer raised his head.

It was the Emperor, Napoleon III.

XI

"KEEP THY FAITH"

Jack was startled, and he instinctively stood up very straight,
as he always did when surprised.

Under the Emperor's crimson kepi, heavy with gold, the old, old
eyes, half closed, peered at him, as a drowsy buzzard watches the
sky, with filmy, changeless gaze. His face was the colour of
clay, the loose folds of the cheeks hung pallid over a heavy
chin; his lips were hidden beneath a mustache and imperial