fore him.

"Maltzimesk!" said the other, thanking him in Roumanian, and a thrill of
delight went through Maxim's frame.

The day following, Maxim was hit by a Japanese bullet, and there
happened to be no one beside him at the moment.

The shock drove all the soldier-speech out of his head. "Help, I am
killed!" he called out, and fell to the ground.

Struli was at his side like one sprung from the earth, he tore off his
Four-Corners, and made his comrade a bandage.

The wound turned out to be slight, for the bullet had passed through,
only grazing the flesh of the left arm. A few days later Maxim was back
in the company.

"I wanted to see you again, Struli," he said, greeting his comrade in
Roumanian.

A flash of brotherly affection and gratitude lighted Struli's Semitic
eyes, and he took the other into his arms, and pressed him to his heart.

They felt themselves to be "countrymen," of one and the same native
town.

Neither of them could have told exactly when their union of spirit had
been accomplished, but each one knew that he thanked God for having
brought him together with so near a compatriot in a strange land.

And when the battle of Mukden had made Maxim all but totally blind, and
deprived Struli of one foot, they started for home together, according
to the passage in the Midrash, "Two men with one pair of eyes and one
pair of feet between them." Maxim carried on his shoulders a wooden box,
which had now became a burden in common for them, and Struli limped a
little in front of him, leaning lightly against his companion, so as to
keep him in the smooth part of the road and out of other people's way.

Struli had become Maxim's eyes, and Maxim, Struli's feet; they were two
men grown into one, and they provided for themselves out of one pocket,
now empty of the last ruble.

They dragged themselves home. "A kasa, a kasa!" whispered Struli into
Maxim's ear, and the other turned on him his two glazed eyes looking
through a red haze, and set in swollen red lids.

A childlike smile played on his lips:

"A kasa, a kasa!" he repeated, also in a whisper.

Home appeared to their fancy as something holy, something consoling,
something that could atone and compensate for all they had suffered and
lost. They had seen such a home in their dreams.

But the nearer they came to it in reality, the more the dream faded.
They remembered that they were returning as conquered soldiers and
crippled men, that they had