“You are alone.”

Fevrier now distinguished that the voice came from the right-hand corner of the room, and that it was faint.

“I have fifty men with me.  We are deserters,” he blurted out, “and unarmed.”

There followed silence, and a long silence.  Then the voice spoke again, but in French, and the French of a native.

“My friend, your voice is not the voice of a deserter.  There is too much humiliation in it.  Come to my bedside here.  I spoke in German, expecting Germans.  But I am the cure of Vaudere.  Why are you deserters?”

Fevrier had expected a scornful order to marshal his men as prisoners.  The extraordinary gentleness of the cure’s voice almost overcame him.  He walked across to the bedside and told his story.  The cure basely heard him out.

“It is right to obey,” said he, “but here you can obey and disobey.  You can relieve Metz of your appetites, my friend, but you need not desert.”  The cure reached up, and drawing Fevrier down, laid a hand upon his head.  “I consecrate you to the service of your country.  Do you understand?”

Fevrier leaned his mouth towards the cure’s ear.

“The Prussians are coming to-night to burn the village.”

“Yes, they came at dusk.”

Just at the moment, in fact, when Fevrier had been summoned to Metz, the Prussians had crept down into Vaudere and had been scared back to their repli by a false alarm.

“But they will come back you may be sure,” said the cure, and raising himself upon his elbow he said in a voice of suspense “Listen!”

Fevrier went to the window and opened it.  It faced the hill-side, but no sounds came through it beyond the natural murmurs of the night.  The cure sank back.

“After the fight here, there were dead soldiers in the streets—­French soldiers and so French chassepots.  Ah, my friend, the Prussians have found out which is the better rifle—­the chassepot or the needle gun.  After your retreat they came down the hill for those chassepots.  They could not find one.  They searched every house, they came here and questioned me.  Finally they caught one of the villagers hiding in a field, and he was afraid and he told where the rifles had been buried.  The Prussians dug for them and the hole was empty.  They believe they are still hidden somewhere in the village; they fancy, too, that there are secret stores of food; so they mean to burn the houses to the ground.  They did not know that I was here this afternoon.  I would have come into the French lines had it been possible, but I am tied here to my bed.  No doubt God had sent you to me—­you and your fifty men.  You need not desert.  You can make your last stand here for France.”

“And perish,” cried Fevrier, caught up from the depths of his humiliation, “as Frenchmen should, arms in hand.”  Then his voice dropped again.  “But we have no arms.”

The cure shook the lieutenant’s arm gently.