-black saddles.

Once--it was, I think, very near daybreak--I came out of a dream in
which I was swimming through oceans of water, drinking as I swam. The
carriage had stopped; I could not see the lancers, but presently I
heard them all talking in loud, angry voices. There appeared to be
some houses near by; I heard a dog barking, a great outcry of pigs and
feathered fowls, the noise of a scuffle, a trampling of heavy boots, a
shot!

Then the terrible voice of the Rittmeister: "Hang that man to his
barn gate! Pig of an assassin, I'll teach you to murder German
soldiers!"

A woman began to scream without ceasing.

"Burn that house!" bellowed the Rittmeister.

Through the prolonged screaming I heard the crash of window-glass;
presently a dull red light grew out of the gloom, brighter and
brighter. The screaming never ceased.

"Uhlans! Mount!" came the steady voice of the Rittmeister; the
carriage started. Almost at the word the darkness turned to flame;
against the raging furnace of a house on fire I saw the figure of a
man, inky black, hanging from the high cross-bar of the cow-yard gate,
and past him filed the shadowy horsemen, lances slanting backward from
their stirrups.

The last I remember was seeing the dead man's naked feet--for they
hanged him in his night-shirt--and the last I heard was that awful
screaming from the red shadows that flickered across the fields of
uncut wheat.

For presently my madness began again, and again I was bathed to the
mouth in cold, sweet waters, and I drank as I swam lazily in the
sunshine.

My next lucid interval came from pain almost unendurable. We were
fording a river in bright starlight; the carriage bumped across the
stones, water washed and slopped over the carriage floor. To right and
left, Prussian lancers were riding, and I saw the water boiling under
their horses and their long lances aslant the stars.

But there were more horsemen now, scores and scores of them, trampling
through the shallow river. And beyond I could see a line of cannon,
wallowing through the water, shadowy artillerymen clinging to forge
and caisson, mounted men astride straining teams, tall officers on
either flank, sitting their horses motionless in mid-stream.

The carriage stopped.

"Are you suffering?" came a low voice, close to my ear.

"Madame, could I have a little of that water?" I muttered.

Very gently she laid me back. I was entirely without power to move
below my waist, or