“The two balls that I have in here, and the sabre cut on my shoulder,—­but you know how and where I received them—­to be brief, I sank from my horse onto the grass in the afternoon, and not until the following morning was I found by the ambulance corps and carried to the hospital.  There they brought me to life again.  In the interim—­which lasted for the half of a day and one whole night—­I was certainly not alive like one of you, or any other two-legged creature endowed with five senses.”

With these words his penetrating eyes glanced from Karl to Kurt; the girls caught hold of one another’s hands and one could plainly read in their expressions that they considered it rash to be in such close proximity to a person who had erstwhile been dead.  It was fortunate for them that the resuscitated colonel was so good, and that there was no doubt about his actual existence, which was proved by his voice and the smoke that he puffed into the air during every pause.

“Yes, children,” he began anew, “a great wonder was worked on me, an old man.  This long body here lay on the bloody ground among groaning men, dying horses, broken gun-carriages, ammunition wagons, exploded bombshells, and discarded weapons; but my soul—­I cannot have been too hardened a sinner in this world—­my soul was permitted to soar to Heaven.  One, two, three, as fast as you can say, ‘That is an apple,’ or ’The fair Ina has a pretty doll in her lap,’ and it had arrived.  And now—­I can see it in your eyes—­you would like to know how it seems in Heaven, and God knows I cannot blame you, for it is beautiful, marvellously beautiful, only unfortunately I am not allowed even to attempt its description.  That must ever remain a mystery to the living because—­but that is no matter, and evil would befall me if I were to chatter.”

At this point the colonel was interrupted by many expressions of disappointment, but he was resolute, and continued in a peremptory tone: 

“That will do.  Description indeed is forbidden to me; but there are certain of my experiences about which I may tell you.  So listen!  That Hell lies underneath Heaven you have doubtless heard from some one or other.  Naturally the holy dead see and hear nothing of the pains of the lost, for that would entirely spoil the joys of Paradise for them; but now and then—­I believe once a year—­it is given to the blessed to look down into Hell.  There is, however, one condition in particular attached to this privilege.  When the dome which conceals Hell from the sight of the angels is opened, it is for the relief of the condemned.  God in his mercy has decreed that the saints shall look down into the abyss in order to tell St. Peter if they see among the damned any one from whom they have received any benefit, or of whom they have even heard any good.  If the keeper of Heaven’s gate is pleased with the generous action which the lost soul performed while on earth, he has the power of shortening the time of punishment, or can even pardon it altogether, and bid it enter into Paradise.