ternoon haze--wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless
sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and
trousers thinly banded with orange braid. They looked at him
without speaking, almost without curiosity, fingering their
gunlocks, bayoneted rifles unslung.

"Your name?" said the man who had touched him on the shoulder.

He did not reply at once. One of the men began to laugh.

"He's the vicomte's nephew," said another; and, pointing at
Lorraine, who, now aroused, sat up on the moss beside Jack, he
continued: "And that is the little chatelaine of the Chateau de
Nesville." He took off his straight-visored cap.

The circle of gaunt, sallow faces grew friendly, and, as Lorraine
stood up, looking questioningly from one to the other, caps were
doffed, rifle-butts fell to the ground.

"Why, it's Monsieur Tricasse of the Saint-Lys Pompiers!" she
said. "Oh, and there is le Pere Passerat, and little Emile Brun!
Emile, my son, why are you not with your regiment?" The dark
faces lighted up; somebody snickered; Brun, the conscript of the
class of '71 who had been hauled by the heels from under his
mother's bed, looked confused and twiddled his thumbs.

One by one the franc-tireurs came shambling up to pay their
awkward respects to Lorraine and to Jack, while Tricasse pulled
his bristling mustache and clattered his sabre in its sheath
approvingly. When his men had acquitted themselves with all the
awkward sincerity of Lorraine peasants, he advanced with a superb
bow and flourish, lifting his cap from his gray head:

"In my quality of ex-pompier and commandant of the 'Terrors of
Morteyn'--my battalion"--here he made a sweeping gesture as
though briefly reviewing an army corps instead of a dozen
wolfish-eyed peasants--"I extend to our honoured and beloved
Chatelaine de Nesville, and to our honoured guest, Monsieur
Marche, the protection and safe-conduct of the 'Terrors of
Morteyn.'"

As he spoke his expression became exalted. He, Tricasse,
ex-pompier and exempt, was posing as the saviour of his province,
and he felt that, though German armies stretched in endless ranks
from the Loire to the Meuse, he, Tricasse, was the man of
destiny, the man of the place and the hour when beauty was in
distress.

Lorraine, her eyes dim with gentle tears, held out both slender
hands; Tricasse bent low and touched them with his grizzled
mustache. Then he straightened up, frowned at his men, and said
"Attention!" in a very