“What is it, Faversham?” asked his companion.

“Listen, Max,” said Geoffrey; and they heard a faint jingle.  The jingle became more distinct, another sound was added to it, the sound of a horse galloping over hard ground.  Both officers turned their faces away from the yellow entrenchment with its brown streak of gun, below them and looked towards a roofless white-walled farmhouse on the left, of which the rafters rose black against the sky like a gigantic gallows.  From behind that farmhouse an aide-de-camp galloped up to the fire.

“I want the officer in command of this battery,” he cried out and Geoffrey stood up.

“I am in command.”

The aide-de-camp looked at the subaltern in an extreme surprise.

“You!” he exclaimed.  “Since when?”

“Since yesterday,” answered Faversham.

“I doubt if the General knows you have been hit so hard,” the aide-de-camp continued.  “But my orders are explicit.  The officer in command is to take sixty men and march to-morrow morning into St. Denis.  He is to take possession of that quarter, he is to make a search for mines and bombs, and wait there until the German troops march in.”  There was to be no repetition, he explained, of a certain unfortunate affair when the Germans after occupying a surrendered fort had been blown to the four winds.  He concluded with the comforting information that there were 10,000 French soldiers under arms in St. Denis and that discretion was therefore a quality to be much exercised by Faversham during his day of search.  Thereupon he galloped back.

Faversham remained standing a few paces from the fire looking down towards Paris.  His companion petulantly tossed a branch upon the fire.

“Luck comes your way, my friend,” said he enviously.

Geoffrey looked up to the stars and down again to Paris which with its lights had the look of a reflected starlit firmament.  Individual lights were the separate stars and here and there a gash of fire, where a wide thoroughfare cleaved, made a sort of milky way.

“I wonder,” he answered slowly.

Max started up on his elbow and looked at his friend in perplexity.

“Why, you have sixty men and St. Denis to command.  To-morrow may bring you your opportunity;” and again with the same slowness, Geoffrey answered, “I wonder.”

“You joined us after Gravelotte,” continued Max, “Why?”

“My mother was German,” said Faversham, and turning suddenly back to the fire he dropped on the ground beside his companion.

“Tell me,” he said in a rare burst of confidence, “Do you think a battle is the real test of courage?  Here and there men run away to be sure.  But how many fight and fight no worse than the rest by reason of a sort of cowardice?  Fear of their companions in arms might dominate fear of the enemy.”

“No doubt,” said Max.  “And you infer?”

“That the only touchstone is a solitary peril.  When danger comes upon a man and there is no one to see whether he shirks—­when he has no friends to share his risks—­that I should think would be the time when fear would twist a man’s bowels.”