shadows she came--straight across the meadow and the
moonlight. It was Nanette, ma'am'selle. We knew it on the instant. She had
a way of carrying the head and a step one could not forget. It was she the
sniper had been after. One side of her face was crimson, the other side
white and beautiful. But she did not seem to know, and the first look I
had told me she had gone quite mad.

"I could feel Bertrand Fauchet stiffen by my side; I could feel him reach
out for my Rosalie and grip it fast. Then he began a low or crooning call.
He dared not call out loud--he dared not move to give our troops away! It
was to be a surprise attack. So all he could do was to wait and call
softly as to a little child, 'Nanette cherie, allons, allons!'

"There had been a skirmish in the meadow two days before; we had given way
and the handful of dead we had left behind were still unburied. I think
Nanette had heard that the Chasseurs Alpins had come and she had stolen
out to find her lover. She came slowly, so slowly, and frail as a shadow
herself. As she passed each corpse she knelt beside it and sang the
foolish little berceuse that Poitou mothers sing to their babies. We could
hear the humming far away, and as she came nearer we could hear the words.
Ma'am'selle knows them, perhaps?

"'Ah! Ah! papillon, marie-toi--
Helas, mon maitre, je n'ai pas de quoi,
La dans ma bergeri-e
J'ai cent moutons; ca s'ra pour faire les noces de papillon.'"

[Illustration: "The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad"]

The soldier crooned the song through to himself as if under the spell of
the story he was telling. Then he went on. "She sang it through each time,
patting the blue coats, pushing back the caps of those who still wore
them, looking hard into each dead face. But she would always turn away
with the little shake of the head, so triste, ma'am'selle. And all the
time the man beside me calling out his heart in a whisper--'Nanette--
Nanette--allons, cherie!'

"She was not twenty yards away, the arms of Bertrand Fauchet were reaching
out to take her, when, pouf! the sniper barked again and Nanette went down
like a pale cornflower before the reaper. And all the time we laid there,
waiting for the moon to set. When we charge we charge like devils. We
swept Tourteron clean of the Boches; _and we take no prisoners!_ For that
night every man remember the one thing, they love their captain and they
see what he has seen. But before th