nd descended towards the plain which stretches at
the foot of the Hill of Poivre, and, crossing the foot of the Cote de
Talou, reaches the River Meuse, they found themselves in the midst of a
veritable army of Germans--figures in field-grey could be seen in the
twilight beneath the trees, sitting on fallen branches or on the ground
waiting for orders. There were figures in the same colour to the right
and to the left of them in that ravine, and once, as the two halted
suddenly and crouched beneath an overhanging bush, they saw a German
soldier actually drinking from the stream within a few yards of them;
but a guttural voice above, a sharp command, sent the man scrambling up
the bank of the ravine to join his company. Then, as they boldly
advanced, the voices of German troops grew less distinct, and
presently, as the light increased in brightness and they gained the
very edge of the wood, it was to discover that they had passed through
the enemy's lines, and were, it appeared, alone once more and almost in
the open.

[Illustration: "THEY SAW A GERMAN SOLDIER ACTUALLY DRINKING FROM THE
STREAM WITHIN A FEW YARDS OF THEM"]

Creeping beneath a bush, the two now stared out in every direction,
while, taking a pencil from a pocket, and a tattered envelope also,
Henri roughly sketched in the situation before him; and, helped by the
unobstructed view he could obtain from the opening of the ravine,
marked spots in the near distance, where, beneath the shelter of other
trees, in folds of the ground, in a farm across the road, he could
discern enemy troops hiding.

"There must be thousands of them," he told Jules after a while,
"thousands of them; and look over there, to what I believe to be
Samogneux, where we were yesterday, and from which the German guns
literally blew us, watch the roads there and the edge of the Bois de
Caures--what do you see, Jules?"

"See!" exclaimed Jules; "almost hear them, you mean. Thousands of
Boches--literally thousands of them, Henri. What's that mean? They
are turning in this direction, and though it's hard to make it out
quite clearly, I should say that they are waiting for the dusk to fall,
fearing our guns across the river. It looks precisely what one would
expect it to be--an intended advance on Vacherauville--a descent on a
line directly from the north towards Verdun--the city for which they
are making."

Without a doubt the two French _poilus_, sheltering there beneath that
bush,