I was thinking this, and had swung around on my chair, contrary to rules, when the guard rushed up to me with his bayonet, which he stuck under my nose, roaring at me in his horrible guttural tongue.

I looked down at the point of his bayonet, which was about a quarter of an inch from my tunic, and let my eyes travel slowly along its length, and then up his arm until they met his!

I thought of how the image of God had been defaced in this man, by his training and education.  It is a serious crime to destroy the king’s head on a piece of money; but what word is strong enough to characterize the crime of taking away the image of God from a human face!

The veins of his neck were swollen with rage; his eyes were red like a bull’s, and he chewed his lips like a chained bulldog.  But I was sorry for him beyond words—­he was such a pitiful, hate-cursed, horrible, squirming worm, when he might have been a man.  As I looked at him with this thought in my mind the red went from his eyes, his muscles relaxed, and he lowered his bayonet and growled something about “Englishe schwein” and went away.

“Poor devil,” I thought.  I watched him, walking away....  “Poor devil,... it is not his fault."...

Malvoisin came to the Strafe-Barrack a week after we did, and I could see that the guards had special instructions to watch him.

None of the ring-men were allowed to go out on the digging parties from the Strafe-Barrack, since Malvoisin had made his get-away in front of the guards, and for that reason, during the whole month we were there, we had no chance at all for exercise.

Malvoisin was thin and pale after his three weeks’ confinement in cells, but whenever I caught his eye he gave me a smile whose radiance no prison-cell could dim.  When he came into the room, every one knew it.  He had a presence which even the guards felt, I think.  We went out a week before him, and we smuggled out some post-cards which he had written to his friends and got them posted, but whether they got by the censor, I do not know.  The last I saw of him was the day he got out of Strafe-Barrack.  He walked by our hut, on the way to his Company.  He was thinner and paler still, but he walked as straight as ever, and his shoulders were thrown back and his head was high!  His French uniform was in tatters, and plastered with the obnoxious rings.  A guard walked on each side of him.  But no matter—­he swung gaily along, singing “La Marseillaise.”

I took my hat off as he went by, and stood uncovered until he disappeared behind one of the huts, for I knew I was looking at something more than a half-starved, pale, ragged little Frenchman.  It was not only little Malvoisin that had passed; it was the unconquerable spirit of France!

CHAPTER XII

BACK TO CAMP

After the monotony of the cells and the Strafe-Barrack, the camp seemed something like getting home for Christmas.  All the boys, McKelvey, Keith, Clarke, Johnston, Graham, Walker, Smith, Reid, Diplock, Palmer, Larkins, Gould, Salter, Mudge, and many others whom I did not know so well, gathered around us and wanted to know how we had fared, and the story of our attempt and subsequent punishment formed the topic of conversation for days.