Their courage begins to fail! Every one is demoralised! Confinement weighs on their shoulders. The sky is black, hearts are heavy. There is not a star in the sky, not a gleam of hope in the soul! * * * * * Suddenly, piercing the darkness, a dazzling light has flashed out, flooding the camp with its brilliance. This light, cast by a gigantic lamp hung at the top of a raised pole, flickers, flares, wavers, then is finally fixed. At this signal, which all seem to wait for, the place round the kitchens is instantly deserted. Every one hurries to finish his meal and to hurry away; the life of the camp, fleeing from the darkness, is in a moment transported towards the part bathed in a warm brightness, under the incandescent globe, whose kindly light expels the shadows and, for the moment at least, drives sad thoughts away. The open space which stretches away under the violet lamp is some two hundred metres long. It is bordered by thin, leafless trees, their gaunt branches standing out, the colour of dead wood. It is shut in at both ends by the artificial means of protection which German ingenuity knows so well how to get together. To right and left are tents, their yellow canvas flapping in the wind; farther on stand out the more definite outlines of huts, now being built. At regular intervals there are drinking fountains with wooden shelters, at the present time used by prisoners to do their washing. Here is the Forum of the inhabitants of the camp; here is what they call their “Flea Market.” The coal fires that are crackling in the neighbourhood of the pole, deserted a few seconds ago, are now crowded, as if by enchantment, by a dense and noisy throng. Men arrive, running at full speed. Their haste recalls the madness of moths that on a summer’s evening hurl themselves blindly against the glass of a lamp. Greedily they dispute every inch of the lighted ground. From the earth, suddenly flooded with the violet light, a pale-faced populace seems to have sprung. Tables are set up, bending under the weight of goods of all kinds, piled up in a moment by active hands; gaming-tables are prepared, and already hawkers go about offering their provisions or their knick-knacks to all comers. There reigns the animation of a fair in a crowded quarter of a town. One meets Frenchmen with red or blue caps, Belgians with bright-coloured ones, Englishmen in khaki, Zouaves and Algerians in their turbans. In rivalry, one with another, the merchants, shouting in different languages, try by their own shrill cries to dominate the deafening noise of their competitors. It is the hour when the greater number of the Boches have gone to their barracks or home, leaving the prisoners to themselves. The camp, [Illustration: _Page 52._]