One perfect piano had been left unmarred by all the destruction that had robbed the place of its instruments of pleasure. With elation and laughter the soldiers had discovered it, when the early fierceness of the attack had ebbed. Straightway they carried it to the home of the women. When the Commandant first saw it, soon after its arrival in their living-room, he beamed all over. "The Broadwood," he said. "How that brings back the memories! When I was a young man once in Ostend, I was one of eight to play with Paderewski, that great musician. Yes, together we played through an afternoon. And the instrument on which I played was a Broadwood. I cannot now ever see it, without remembering that day in the Kursaal, and how he led us with that fingering, that vigor. Do you know how he lifts his hand high over the keys and then drops suddenly upon them?" "Yes, I have seen it," said Hilda; "like the swoop of an eagle." "I do not know that bird," returned the Commandant, "but that is it. It is swift and strong. He comes out of a stricken country, too; that is why he can play." "I wonder, feeling that way, that you ever gave up your music," said Hilda. "Why didn't you go on with it?" "I had thought of it. But there was always something in me that called, and I went into the army. For years we have known this thing was coming. A man could not do otherwise than hold himself ready for that. And now it is left to you young people to go on--always the new harmony, that sings in the ears, and never comes into the notes." The Commandant, Commandant Jost, was perhaps the best of all their soldier friends. He was straight and sturdy, a pine-tree of a man in his early fifties. He was famous in Flanders for his picked command of 110, all of them brave as he was brave, ready to be wiped out because of their heart of courage. Often the strength of his fighting group was sapped, till one could count his men on the fingers of the hands. But always there were fresh fellows ready to go the road with him. He never ordered them into danger. He merely called for volunteers. When he went up against absurd odds, and was left for dead, his men returned for him, and brought him away for another day. His time hadn't come, he said. It was no use shooting him down, and clipping the bridge from his nose,--when his day came, he would be done for, but not ahead of that. This valiant Belgian soldier was a mystic of war.