The master's wife was standing a step or two from the door of her house. The window was open and the lamplight, shining through, fell on her spare figure. Few people were asleep in Beaufays that first night that red-eyed War stalked abroad. "I hear footsteps that bear a message," she said, peering into the darkness as they approached. "It is I, Madame, Horace Monroe," the boy answered. "You carry news of disaster and triumph on your shoulders," she declaimed, "disaster that has been, triumph that is to come." "I--I don't know, Madame," the boy replied, hesitatingly, surprised and a little afraid of this oracular form of address. "Show her your capture!" ejaculated the hunchback, in a hard fierce whisper. Horace stepped forward into the oblong of light shed by the lamp shining through the open window. The woman advanced swiftly and looked down at the bird, which, pinned under the boy's arm, snapped at her viciously. She looked long and movelessly. "The Eagle of Germany!" she said at last, "hungry and exhausted, vanquished and a captive in Belgium." "The left wing is withered," put in Croquier, but she did not seem to hear. "Your news?" she asked, not turning to the boy but staring fixedly at the eagle, which glared at her evilly. "M. Maubin is safe, Madame," the boy began, with a blunt desire to give good news first. "Yes," she said, "as yet. But he will not return." Horace jumped at this repetition of the master's prophecy. "Deschamps--" "I warned them that the lad would suffer. He is dead?" "No, Madame, but he was struck by a splinter of shell, and--" the words stuck in his throat. "Yes?" she queried, gently. "The doctor says he will be totally blind, Madame!" The bird croaked harshly, as though with a laugh of evil satisfaction. It never took its eyes from the woman nor did she relax her gaze upon the bird. "So," she said, "he is blind, my husband has gone to his death, and you, an American, return safe, bearing a captive." The woman's figure stiffened, as though in a trance. The hunchback clenched the boy's arm in a grip so powerful that he had difficulty in repressing a cry. "Listen to every word," warned Croquier. Even the bird ceased struggling against his bonds, only the rumble of the cannonade and the irregular crashes of the replying guns ripping apart the stillness. "It is much," the woman said at last, in a faraway voice, "for the Fates to show on the first day of the war. Look you," she continued, "the signs are clear. "Our own dear Belgium will suffer, will suffer so terribly that for many years to come she will grope among the nations as one that has been blinded, but not as one that has lost courage or is mortally hurt. France will suffer, even unto death, but her spirit will be undefeated to the last. Germany shall come fluttering down to ruin only when a young America throws herself upon a famished and half-exhausted Germany."