Then we turned another way, passing again through Seppois. Arab troops are quartered there, and we were held up by the sentinel, who wanted to see our papers. He was dark of color, delicate of hand, straight of nose, and wore his military coat buttoned by one of its top buttons in such a way that it fell with an effect of burnous. He couldn’t read French characters, so he called to another thin, small-handed, straight, coffee-colored man, who might have been his twin, who couldn’t read them, either, and finally they both threw up their slender hands, resembling those of some antique bronze of an adolescent, after which we passed on. And I told Sérin’s story of the Arab guard who held him up one dark night, in the trenches, but generously gave him the countersign, saying to him, “_Si tu ne dis pas tire-lire, tu ne passes pas!_” (“You can’t pass unless you say tire-lire!”) They’re cold, these Arabs, they’re gray with cold, and they don’t know why they fight, nor whom, but they follow their officer to the death, and, if he falls, lose heart under these gray skies with which Allah seems only remotely connected. And then we turned back and went through young woods where countless thousands, no, millions of shells were piled on shelflike receptacles, as one would pile bottles of wine on cellar shelves. Everywhere were the words “_Route interdite_,” “_Défense de passer_,” and we passed, until we came to Faverois, with its old, old church on the top of a tiny hill, over which the town spilled. The broad, low steps of the church were made of ancient tomb slabs, and, stooping, I saw, on one of them, half obliterated, “_in pace_,” and “16—.” There was much that was unspoiled, or more likely forgotten, in the interior. A suave-expressioned St.-Sebastian, with dimpled limbs, so evidently unfit for the arrows that transfixed them, and something yearning and earthly about his eyes, was above the Louis XV altar; quite unmistakably he was of the gay century. In another niche was an unknown saint, dressed like a personage of opera; three plumes were on his head and he wore a golden shirt of mail and high, fringed boots. At the side-altars were charming, very pure models of angels, and bow-knots and shells (I mean, for once, _sea_-shells). As we came out we noticed that the roof of the church was painted a silver-white and that of the old house nearby, with the round tower, was painted the same way, and other houses, too, and when we asked why they told us it shone like crystal at night and was to warn airplanes of their nearness to the Swiss frontier. A blue group of _poilus_ was standing on the crest of the street, looking at a newspaper. One cried out in a loud voice, “_Guillaume a ——_,” only one can’t write the word. And going up we saw the news of the Kaiser’s abdication in letters quite American in size.