lds of
battle and rescue me."

"You certainly give me plenty of opportunities," laughed Lannes.

"What's been happening? I fancy that a lot of water has flowed under the
bridges of the Marne since I left you."

"We continue to gain," replied Lannes, with quiet satisfaction. "We
press the German armies back everywhere. Our supreme chief is a silent
man, but he has delivered a master stroke. We've emerged from the very
gulf of defeat and despair to the heights of victory. We're not only
driving the Germans across the Marne, but we're driving them further.
Moreover, their armies are cut apart, and one is fighting for its
existence, just as the French and English were fighting for theirs in
that terrible retreat from Mons and Charleroi."

"It's glorious, but we mustn't be too sanguine, Lannes. The powers that
overcome the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires will not forget for a
hundred years that they had a war."

"You're not telling me any news, Monsieur Jean the Scott. I've been in
Germany often, and like you I've seen what they have and what they are.
We're only beginning."

"Where are you going now, Philip?"

"Toward the end of our line. I've some dispatches for the commander of
the British force. Your friends, Carstairs and Wharton, are there, and
you may see them. But I understand that the Strangers are to remain with
the French, so you, Carstairs and Wharton will have to consider
yourselves Frenchmen and stay under our banner."

"That's all right. I hope we'll be under the command of General
Vaugirard. Do you know anything of him?"

"Not today, but he was alive yesterday. Take the glasses now, John, will
you, and be my eyes as you have been before. One needs to watch the
heavens all the time."

John took Lannes' powerful glasses, and objects invisible before leaped
into view.

"I see two or three rivers, a dozen villages, and troops," he said. "The
troops are to the west, and although they are this side of the Marne, I
should judge that they are ours."

"Ours undoubtedly," said Lannes, glancing the way John's glasses
pointed. "Not less than a hundred thousand of our men have crossed the
Marne at that point, and more will soon be coming. It's a part of the
great wedge thrust forward by our chief. But keep your eye on the air,
John. What do you see there?"

"Nothing that's near. In the east I barely catch seven or eight black
dots that I take to be German aeroplanes, but they seem to be content
with