One of the prisoners, understanding French, began to laugh as he translated this to his comrades, but Jeb peremptorily stopped all conversation. To let these fellows get an inch beyond the strictest discipline was to invite disaster. Yet now he could give orders through this interpreter, and soon the column was marching silently southward, its first three men each bearing on his shoulders a wan little victim from the "empire of death." The others followed obediently enough, while Jeb, in a position to enfilade the column--thus maintaining a command of each file--brought up the rear. From his attitude and voice the captives seemed to know that he was on a very dangerous tension, and that the slightest hesitation on their part would mean instant death. They had no desire to test his skill further than that one snap shot through their officer's brain. His first concern was to drive straight southward and get clear of the machine-gun redoubts, which he felt sure were being extended westward; and as the success of this plan hinged largely upon absolute silence, he had promised fourteen inches of bayonet to the first man who spoke, coughed, sneezed, or stubbed his toe. Moreover, he was recklessly prepared to execute this threat without a second's hesitation, fully realizing that if he would hold supremacy against such overpowering odds he must let his words and acts mesh with the nicety of machine gears, or his authority would vanish. From time to time, when the burden of this responsibility began to wear down his courage, and fear came creeping in at the sheer audacity of this undertaking, he would raise his eyes to the three little tots ahead--and feel every nerve grow steady. As a consequence, the men were thoroughly in hand, stepping with caution and showing every disposition to carry out his orders. In this way they covered perhaps a mile, reaching a ground of comparative safety where their silence might have relaxed without bringing about disaster. But Jeb would take no chance, and forced the column to proceed with the same scrupulous care. As he was skirting a group of the dead, that looked frightfully grotesque in the pale moonlight, a voice almost at his back sent terror to his soul--then joy. "Well, w'ot d'ye know about thot!" it said guardedly. "Tim!" he cried, instantly calling a halt. There could be no mistaking that voice, were it heard anywhere on earth. "Tim, where are you?" "If it ain't Jeb, may I be shot for a spy! B'ys, deliverance is come!" And the sergeant raised himself to a sitting position, while several forms about him also began to stir. "You blessed Irishman," said Jeb, delightedly, "if I could take my eyes off this bunch, darned if I wouldn't kiss you!" "Ye've brought better'n a kiss, lad--but ye can do thot yit, mind ye, if I see inither sun!" "Are you too badly hurt to be carried in?"