“May I ask you,” continued the doctor, “on what you base your judgment?” The officers looked at one another, as if they had been caught unawares. “Why!” said one of them, “he never told us he was a Jew.” “But----” “Oh! I have definite evidence,” said a captain: “he went to Mass several times with me.” “But, hang it!” said M. Gilbert to this obtuse soldier, “that proves nothing. Why! I go myself to Mass sometimes.... It’s true,” he added, “I’m not a Jew. As for Limberg: to-day I saw one of his intimate friends, who informed me that the lieutenant held the Jewish faith.” Another pause intervened. The soldiers had piled arms in the avenue. All present seemed perplexed and hesitating. The two priests had not looked at one another yet, and seemed to be examining the uniform of the officers with the greatest care. At that moment two stretcher-bearers came out of the tent carrying the coffin draped with the French colours. They took three paces forward, and the priest and the rabbi found themselves suddenly one on each side of the corpse. “Gentlemen,” said the doctor, in a voice a prophet would use when thinking of Solomon--“gentlemen, because of the uncertainty, I have decided that Lieutenant Limberg shall be buried according to the rites both of the Roman Catholic and of the Hebrew Church. There will then be no possibility of a mistake being made; at most, one superfluous service. We know that God recognises his own. These gentlemen will proceed in turn. I believe I am doing a wise and just thing.” The officers nodded their heads, without betraying what they thought. The two priests, for the first time, looked at one another. They looked at each other over the coffin, and bowed as if they had only just arrived. Moved by the same impulse, they both affected a curious smile; but their eyes had no share in it. They confronted each other like two members of a family who have a feud of centuries behind them, and who meet in the presence of a man of the world. Between them, the stake was, not a soul, but a box containing a stiff body, distorted by a death-agony of ten days--a box wrapped in a symbolic shroud which a light breeze ruffled. The two priests looked at one another with interest for one long moment. On one side, the country priest, with an ungainly peasant build: on the other the cultured and cosmopolitan rabbi, with the sophisticated smile, old as the Bible. “Really,” whispered Augustus in my ear--“really, Bénezech has done it often enough in his time; he might let the other have a chance.” “You be quiet!” said M. Gilbert, who had overheard him. “You are a fool to talk like that. This is no laughing matter.” Bénezech was just very slightly shrugging his shoulders; he lowered his eyes and stammered: “Monsieur, if Lieutenant Limberg was really of the Hebrew faith, I would prefer to withdraw.” “Do as you think best, Bénezech,” said M. Gilbert.