to my family when you can. I am sure they mean to
shoot me." Then he dropped exhausted. The Germans hailed a passing
vehicle, and made him and another old man, who had fallen out, follow in
it. Presently they arrive at Lizy-sur-Ourcq, through which thousands of
German troops are now passing, bound not for Paris, but for Soissons and
the Aisne, and in the blackest of tempers. Here, after twenty-four more
hours of suffering and starvation, the Cure is brought before a
court-martial of German officers sitting in a barn. He is once more
charged with signalling from the church to the French Army. He again
denies the charge, and reminds his judges of what he had done for the
German wounded, to whose gratitude he appeals. Then four German soldiers
give some sort of evidence, founded either on malice or mistake. There
are no witnesses for the defence, no further inquiry. The president of
the court-martial says, in bad French, to the other hostages who stand
by: "The Cure has lied--he is a spy--_il sera juge_."

What did he mean--and what happened afterwards? The French witnesses of
the scene who survived understood the officer's words to mean that the
Cure would be shot. With tears, they bade him farewell, as he sat
crouched in a corner of the barn guarded by two German soldiers. He was
never seen again by French eyes; and the probability is that he was shot
immediately after the scene in the barn.

Then the miserable march of the other old men began again. They are
dragged along in the wake of the retreating Germans. The day is very
hot, the roads are crowded with troops and lorries. They are hustled and
hurried, and their feeble strength is rapidly exhausted. The older ones
beg that they may be left to die; the younger help them as much as they
can. When anyone falls out, he is kicked and beaten till he gets up
again. And all the time the passing troops mock and insult them. At
last, near Coulombs, after a march of two hours and a half, a man of
seventy-three, called Jourdaine, falls. His guards rush upon him, with
blows and kicks. In vain. He has no strength to rise, and his murderers
finish him with a ball in the head and one in the side, and bury him
hastily in a field a few metres off.

The weary march goes on all day. When it ends, another old
man--seventy-nine years old--"le pere Milliardet"--can do no more. The
next morning he staggered to his feet at the order to move, but fell
almost immediately. Then a soldier wit