Finally the guns, as he spoke, coughed beyond ominous hills.  Contentedly the officer went on eating.  He suspected nothing of the thoughts his host and hostess were hiding.  At last he went upstairs to bed.

As fierce exertion is easy to the fevered, so they had spoken; and it wears them, so they were worn.  The old woman wept when the officer went out of hearing.  But old Herr Schnitzelhaaser picked up a big butcher’s knife. ``I will bear it no more,’’ he said.

His wife watched him in silence as he went away with his knife.  Out of the house he went and into the night.  Through the open door she saw nothing; all was dark; even the Schartzhaus, where all was gay to-night, stood dark for fear of aëroplanes.  The old woman waited in silence.

When Herr Schnitzelhaaser returned there was blood on his knife.

``What have you done?’’ the old woman asked him quite calmly. ``I have killed our pig,’’ he said.

She broke out then, all the more recklessly for the long restraint of the evening; the officer must have heard her.

``We are lost!  We are lost!’’ she cried. ``We may not kill our pig.  Hunger has made you mad.  You have ruined us.’’

``I will bear it no longer,’’ he said. ``I have killed our pig.’’

``But they will never let us eat it,’’ she cried. ``Oh, you have ruined us!’’

``If you did not dare to kill our pig,’’ he said, ``why did you not stop me when you saw me go?  You saw me go with the knife?’’

``I thought,’’ she said, ``you were going to kill the Kaiser.’’

A Deed of Mercy

As Hindenburg and the Kaiser came down, as we read, from Mont d’Hiver, during the recent offensive, they saw on the edge of a crater two wounded British soldiers.  The Kaiser ordered that they should be cared for:  their wounds were bound up and they were given brandy, and brought round from unconsciousness.  That is the German account of it, and it may well be true.  It was a kindly act.

Probably had it not been for this the two men would have died among those desolate craters; no one would have known, and no one could have been blamed for it.

The contrast of this spark of imperial kindness against the gloom of the background of the war that the Kaiser made is a pleasant thing to see, even though it illuminates for only a moment the savage darkness in which our days are plunged.  It was a kindness that probably will long be remembered to him.  Even we, his enemies, will remember it.  And who knows but that when most he needs it his reward for the act will be given him.

For Judas, they say, once in his youth, gave his cloak, out of compassion, to a shivering beggar, who sat shaken with ague, in rags, in bitter need.  And the years went by and Judas forgot his deed.  And long after, in Hell, Judas they say was given one day’s respite at the end of every year because of this one kindness he had done so long since in his youth.  And every year he goes, they say, for a day and cools himself among the Arctic bergs; once every year for century after century.