Peering so constantly into the blackness wearies my eyes. Lights begin to dance before them; rings of flame begin to whirl vertiginously. I close my eyes for a moment. And when I open them again, I can see behind the beech two unmoving human beings, bending low in a listening attitude. I shake myself, look at my hands, at the wattles supporting the parapet, and then once more at the beech. I can see nothing now but beeches and leaves. "There are no Boches there," I tell Boulier. "You also have lost your head." I jump up over the front of the trench. The man calls me back. "Lieutenant! Lieutenant! Don't go! You are going to get yourself hurt!..." At the first step I stumble over the stump of a tree and almost fall. When I have regained my balance, I can see the two Germans behind the tree again. And on the instant I detect them, a conviction seizes me that they too have seen me. A storm of fear assails me. My heart seems to become empty of blood; my flesh grows icy cold and trembles violently. In desperation I get grip of myself, fighting back an impulse to cry out aloud or to take to my heels; the effort of will causes my nails to enter my palms. Drawing my revolver, I continue to advance. Instead, however, of moving without haste in complete self-possession, I rush blindly and furiously towards the right. Suddenly I find myself amid the undergrowth and stop. Turning, I find the beech immediately behind me so close that its roots protrude from the earth at my feet. I run fingers up and down the bark, stamp on the very spot where I thought I had seen the two Boches; I push on into the clearing, beating the bushes to right and left. I find nothing, nothing at all. And I the leader of those men, I to whom that night had been confided a portion of the front behind which lay France and its well-being, I had almost abandoned myself to a lunatic's frenzy. Panic had made of me a brute among brutes. I was grateful now for the darkness, which veiled me and my actions from the eyes of my soldiers. When I returned to the trench Boulier on the parapet extended his hand towards me. I jumped down beside him. I had nothing to say to him. A few minutes later a volley bursts out from the opposite lines, to which our men reply, and the fusillade starts again. This time the Boches fire lower. Every instant bullets bury themselves in the earth about us, striking sharply. I hear one of my corporals swear when a bullet smashes the upper part of his arm. I am master of myself again now. No longer are my senses subject to illusion; lucidly, one after the other, I check my impressions; all my confidence returns to me.