'Tell that to another.' 'I shall,' replied Yakob calmly. 'And who showed them the way?' 'Who?' said Yakob. 'Who showed them the way over here? Or did they find it on the map?' 'Yes, on the map,' assented Yakob, as though he were quite convinced. 'Well, who did?' said the soldier, wagging his head. 'Who?' repeated Yakob like an echo. 'I suppose it wasn't I?' said the soldier. 'I?' asked Yakob. The other three soldiers approached inquisitively to where Yakob was crouching. 'A nice mess you've made,' one of them said, pointing to the wounded who were arriving across the fields. 'Do you understand?' Yakob fixed his eyes on the soldiers' boots, and would not look in that, direction. But he could not understand what it all meant...all this noise, and the firing that ran from hill to hill. 'Nice mess this you've made, old man.' 'Yes.' 'You!' Yakob looked up at them, and had the sensation of being deep down at the bottom of a well instead of crouching at their feet. 'That is a lie, a lie, a lie!' he cried, beating his chest; his hair stood on end. The soldiers sat down in a row on the stones. They were young, cold, tired. 'But now they'll play the deuce with you.' 'Why?' said Yakob softly, glancing sideways at them. 'You're an old ass,' remarked one of them. 'But,' he began again, 'I was sitting, looking at the snow....' He had a great longing to talk to them, they looked as if they would understand, although they were so young. 'I was sitting...give me some fire...do you come from these parts yourselves?' They did not answer. He thought of his cottage, the bread and sausage, the black horse at the cross-roads. 'They beat me,' he sobbed, covering his face with his rags. The soldiers shrugged their shoulders: 'Why did you let them?' 'O...O...O!' cried the old man. But tears would no longer wash away a conviction which was taking possession of him, searing his soul as the flames seared the pines. 'Why did you let them? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' No, he was not ashamed of himself for that. But that he had shown them the way...the way they had come by...what did it all mean? All his tears would not wash away this conviction: that he had shown them the way...the way they had come by. Guns were thundering from the hills, the village was burning, the mill was burning...a black mass of people was surrounding him. More and more wounded came in from the fields, covered with grey mud. The flying sparks from the mill fell at his feet. A detachment of soldiers was returning. 'Get up, old man,' cried his guard; 'we're off!' Yakob jumped to his feet, hitched up his trousers, and went off perplexed, under cover of four bayonets that seemed to carry a piece of sky between them like a starred canopy.