rn, follow and report at the
arsenal in Lorient. Fall out! March!"

The poacher backed out to the rear of the rank, turned on his heel,
and strode away towards the coast, clinched fists swinging by his
side.

There were not many names on the roll, and the call was quickly
finished. And now the infantry drummers raised their sticks high in
the air, there was a sharp click, a crash, and the square echoed.

"March!" cried the officer; and, drummers ahead, the long single rank
shuffled into fours, and the column started, enveloped in a throng of
women and children.

"Good-bye!" sobbed the women. "We will pray!"

"Good-bye! Pray!"

The crowd pressed on into the dusk. Far up the darkening road the
white coiffes of the women glimmered; the drum-roll softened to a
distant humming.

The children, who did not understand, had gathered around a hunchback,
the exempt cripple of the roll-call.

"Ho! Fois!" I heard him say to the crowd of wondering little ones,
"if I were not exempt I'd teach these Prussians to dance the
farandole to my biniou! Oui, dame! And perhaps I'll do it yet, spite
of the crooked back I was not born with--as everybody knows! Oui,
dame! Everybody knows I was born as straight as the next man!"

The children gaped, listening to the distant drumming, now almost
inaudible.

The cripple rose, lighted a lantern, and walked slowly out toward the
cliffs, carrying himself with that uncanny dignity peculiar to
hunchbacks. And as he walked he sang, in his thin, sharp voice, the
air of "The Three Captains":

"J'ai eu dans son coeur la plac' la plus belle,
La plac' la plus belle.
J'ai passe trois ans, trois ans avec elle,
Trois ans avec elle.
J'ai eu trois enfants qui sont capitaines,
Qui sont capitaines.
L'un est a Bordeaux, l'autre a la Rochelle,
L'autre a la Rochelle.
Le troisieme ici, caressent les belles,
Caressent les belles."

Far out across the shadowy cliffs I heard his lingering, strident
chant, and caught the spark of his lantern; then silence and darkness
fell over the deserted square; the awed children, fingers interlocked,
crept homeward through the dusk; there was no sound save the rippling
wash of the river along the quay of stone.

Tired, a trifle sad, thinking perhaps of those home letters which had
come to all save me, I leaned against the rive