The victim was to be buried that very morning, and as we wished to be present at the funeral, no time could be lost. When we arrived at the churchyard two men were already digging a narrow grave. The body, wrapped in a white sheet, was lying on a stretcher. There was no coffin. Soldiers should lie in the soil for which they have died. The red spot beneath his head grew larger little by little, and the blood that trickled down made a dazzling rill in the white sand. We approached him with a shrinking heart. With pious hands the grave-digger lifted up the sheet to show us the face of the dead man. An aquiline nose and a firm chin were still distinguishable. The rest of the features were clotted with blood and shapeless. Nearly choked with sobs, we could not help wondering from which wound the blood had flowed, when suddenly the truth flashed upon us, at a gesture of the old grave-digger, who pointed at what were, but the day before, the boy's eyes. His eyes! oh, you cowards! villains! They had not only beaten him to death, they had put his eyes out! He was defending himself like a brave soldier. He was alone against twenty, and they had murdered him. There on the white road, in the sunshine, they had committed their crime; the shades of night had fallen upon him before he descended to the tomb. Oh, vengeance! vengeance! We wept, we cried, and nothing could comfort us. We wept over the gallant soldier of France, who fell so near us; we wept over all the dead and wounded, and above all we wept--oh, narrowness of the human heart!--over the one soldier we loved, whose uncertain fate tortured our hearts. Oh, my Posy, my treasure, my love, my pride, have you not asked for a dangerous mission? Have you received your death-wound, outnumbered in some lonely corner? Have they...? the terrifying thought! ... oh, his eyes! ... his eyes!... It was beyond endurance. Crushed with grief, I fell senseless. When I came to myself the priest had said the usual prayers, and was gone. My companions stood up, shedding silent tears. The two villagers gloomily filled the grave, and the earth fell with a hollow sound on the poor body. One of the men broke off in the middle of his work, and told us of the scout's death. What he said confirmed what we had already heard. "Curse them!" he cried out, and, with a gesture of rage, seized his spade, and began again to fill the grave. But we had not done with emotion yet. "Do you know that the Germans took three hundred prisoners yesterday?" some one asked us. "You will see them pass on the road."