“_Meine liebe_,” were the whispered words from white dry lips. He was thinking of the dear ones at home on the far-away German frontier, and the tongue of his fireside came back to him. We raised his head, and put water to his parched and feverish lips, and the soldier sank back upon his bier muttering the prayer that is the common heritage of Christendom: “_Unser Vater._” God grant his prayer passed upward with his soul. [Illustration: On the Line of Retreat.] Not a word did the Japanese soldiers understand, but wounds and death have a tongue that speaks to humanity, if not to men, and that the Japanese understand as well as any nation in the world. No woman could have been more gentle than the dark visaged warriors who motioned to the limping survivor of the fight to rest upon the ground. There he reclined, like an automoton, smoking the cigarette put into his hand, and uttering not a sound--the weary and hopeless figure of the soldier who has fought and lost. While we looked pitifully on this picture of war the scene around the fire had changed. The Russian officers had risen and saluted their captors, and had passed with their armed escort into the darkness. Another circle had taken their place. Prone upon the ground lay the body of a man, naked to the waist, and over him bent the surgeon, whose skilful hand staunched the red blood that welled from a gaping wound in the breast. The flickering light fell upon the white skin, and upon the crimson stain, and upon the drawn face. This is the realism of war--not its romance--as the heights about the Yalu testified that day.