How he found himself face to face with a big, blond Bavarian, whose blue eyes danced with a kind of bloodshot fire as he swung the butt of his rifle like a club about his head, there is no way of telling. It was one of those instances which war supplies by the million in which world-rancors, race-rancors, and the suppressed irritations of thousands of years sum themselves up in the hearts of two men who have no personal quarrel and who have never set eyes on each other before. It was like an unescapable destiny. The American broker and the peasant-actor of Oberammergau had been projected toward each other by an irresistible fate. Behind each were all the generations of rivalry and covetousness and savagery and sin that had sent him forth. Neither was moved by his own impulse. Each was but an instrument of the passions of the past. Lester was not sure whether or not he saw double--whether or not there were two Bavarians swinging the butts of their rifles, or only one. Those who told the story afterward were in similar doubt. Some declared for two; some for one only; some saw three or four in that corner of the trench. In any case Lester had found his man; and no emotion he had ever known was half so sweet as this anguish of pain to get him. Those who told the story afterward laughed as they pictured Lester dancing this way and that to avoid the descending club and slip his bayonet in under it. He dodged, they said, as if he were on springs. Time and time again the Bavarian seemed about to sweep him with a blow to the other end of the trench--but no! Lester was prancing as nimbly as ever, watchful, alert, his aim always at the heart. No one could tell how long this went on, for all observation was crazed. The only thing known for certain was that in the end Lester got his weapon in--and in--and in--to the hilt--to the heart--and that if he had had time to go through the thick body he would have done it. He didn't have time, and it was here that the testimony was in conflict. One man paid that the Bavarian was able to deal a last blow with superhuman strength. Another declared that a second Bavarian dealt it. Of those who came back some supported one of these assertions, and some the other; but there was no difference of opinion at all on the point that Lester's skull was cracked with a sound like that of a breaking egg-shell. His body and his opponent's lay tumbled together in a fierce embrace--the one with a surprised horror in the wide-open blue eyes, while the other--but they only said of Lester that his face was "all bashed in." CHAPTER III Lester's face was "all bashed in," but Lester himself didn't know it. The last thing he remembered was the queer, soft, mushy feeling as his bayonet pierced the Bavarian's uniform and entered his body. His next sensation was that of an emotion, a confused emotion, of sorrow, pity, or disgust.