Tom led the way on tiptoe through the passage where they had passed before, and into the main room where another lamp revealed a ghastly sight. The heavy shutters were closed and barred, just as Florette had closed them when she had brought the boys into the room. Upon the floor lay old Pierre, quite dead, with a cruel wound, as from some blunt instrument, upon his forehead. His whitish gray hair, which had made him look so noble and benignant, was stained with his own blood. Blood lay in a pool about his fine old head, and the old coat which he wore had been torn from him, showing the stump of the arm which he had so long ago given to his beloved France. Near him lay sprawled upon the floor a soldier in a gray uniform, also dead. A little bullet wound in his temple told the tale. Beside him was a black helmet with heavy brass chin gear. Archer picked it up with trembling hands. Across its front was a motto: "_Mitt Gott--und Vaterland_." The middle of it was obscured by the flaring German coat-of-arms. A pistol lay midway between the two bodies and part of an old engraved motto was still visible on that. Tom could make out the name Napoleon. "What d'you s'pose happened?" whispered Archer, aghast. Tom shook his head. "Come on," said he. "Let's look for the others." Taking the lamp, he led the way silently through the other rooms. On a couch in one of these was laid a soldier's uniform and a loose paper upon the floor showed that it had but lately been unwrapped. There was no sign of Florette or her mother, and Tom felt somewhat relieved at this, for he had feared to find them dead also. "What d'you think it means?" Archer asked again, as they returned to the room of death. "I suppose they came for her just like she said," Tom answered in a low tone. "Her father must have shot the soldier, and probably whoever killed the old man took her and her mother away." He looked down at the white, staring face of old Pierre and thought of how the old soldier had risen from his seat and had stood waiting with his fine military air at the moment of his own arrival at the shadowed and stricken home. He remembered how the old man had waited eagerly for his daughter to translate his and Archer's talk and of his humiliation at the shabby hospitality he must offer them. He took the helmet, a grim-looking thing, from the table where Archer had laid it, and read again, "Mitt Gott----" It seemed to Tom that this was all wrong--that God must surely be on the side of old Pierre, no matter what had happened.