She lumbered up, out of breath, to tell them she had seen soldiers approaching from the south. Since it was from that direction they came, these soldiers doubtlessly would be French soldiers; and, that being so, the dwellers in Courney need feel no fear of mistreatment at their hands. Nevertheless, always before, the coming of soldiers had meant fighting; so, without waiting to spy out their number or to gauge from their movements a hint of their possible intentions, she had hastened to spread the alarm. “I saw them quite plainly!” she cried out between pants for breath. “They have marched out of the woods yonder--the woods that bound the fields below where the highroad to Laon ran in the old days. And now they are spreading out across the field, to the right and the left. Infantry they are, I think--and they have a machine gun with them.” “How many, grandmother? How many of them are there?” It was the eyeless man who asked the question. He had straightened up from where he sat, and stood erect, with his arms groping before him and his nostrils dilated. “No great number,” answered the old woman; “perhaps two companies--perhaps a battalion. And as they came nearer to me they looked--they looked so queer!” “How? How? What do you mean by queer?” It was the blind man seeking to know. She dropped her burden of beetroots and threw out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Queer!” she repeated stupidly. “Their clothes now--their clothes seemed not to fit them. They are such queer-looking soldiers--for Frenchmen.” “Oh, if only the good God would give me back my eyes for one little hour!” cried the blind man impotently. Then, in a different voice, “What is that?” he said, and swung about, facing north. His ears, keener than theirs, as a blind man's ears are apt to be, had caught, above the babble of their excited voices, another sound. Scuttling, shuffling, half falling, the palsied man, moving at the best speed of which he was capable, rounded a heap of shattered grey masonry that had once been the village church, and made toward the clustered group of them. His jaws worked spasmodically. With one fluttering hand he pointed, over his left shoulder, behind him. He strove to speak words, but from his throat issued only clicking, slobbery grunts and gasps. “What is it now?” demanded the old woman. She clutched him, forcing him to a quaking standstill. He kept on gurgling and kept on pointing. “Soldiers? Are there more soldiers coming?” He nodded eagerly. “From the north?” He made signs of assent. “Frenchmen?” He shook his head until it seemed he would shake it off his shoulders. “Germans, then? From that way the Germans are coming, eh?”