cried. "This is a beautiful confession--no sin yet.
Continue, Pierre."

"Well, then, after that we were fighting here and there, on the Aisne,
on the Ailette, everywhere. Always the same story--Germans rolling down
on us in flood, green-gray waves. But the foam on them was fire and
steel. The shells of the barrage swept us like hailstones. We waited,
waited in our trenches, till the green-gray mob was near enough. Then
the word came. _Sapristi!_ We let loose with mitrailleuse, rifle,
field-gun, everything that would throw death. It did not seem like
fighting with men. It was like trying to stop a monstrous thing, a
huge, terrible mass that was rushing on to overwhelm us. The waves
tumbled and broke before they reached us. Sometimes they fell flat.
Sometimes they turned and rushed the other way. It was wild, wild, like
a change of the wind and tide in a storm, everything torn and confused.
Then perhaps the word came to go over the top and at them. That was
furious. That was fighting with men, for sure--bayonet, revolver,
rifle-butt, knife, anything that would kill. Often I sickened at the
blood and the horror of it. But something inside of me shouted: 'Fight
on! It is for France. It is for "_L'Alouette_," thy farm; for thy wife,
thy little ones. Wilt thou let them be ruined by those beasts of
Boches? What are they doing here on French soil? Brigands, butchers,
Apaches! Drive them out; and if they will not go, kill them so they can
do no more shameful deeds. Fight on!' So I killed all I could."

The priest nodded his head grimly. "You were right, Pierre; your voice
spoke true. It was a dreadful duty that you were doing. The Gospel
tells us, if we are smitten on one cheek we must turn the other. But it
does not tell us to turn the cheek of a little child, of the woman we
love, of the country we belong to. No! that would be disgraceful,
wicked, un-Christian. It would be to betray the innocent! Continue, my
son."

"Well, then," Pierre went on, his voice deepening and his face growing
more tense, "then we were sent to Verdun. That was the hottest place of
all. It was at the top of the big German drive. The whole sea rushed
and fell on us--big guns, little guns, poison-gas, hand-grenades,
liquid fire, bayonets, knives, and trench-clubs. Fort after fort went
down. The whole pack of hell was loose and raging. I thought of that
crazy, chinless Crown Prince sitting in his safe little cottage hidden
in the woods somewhere--they