[89] [89] "Monsieur Rollo uses double tires on a wet soil," she explained. "Monsieur Rollo will now bring his signal lamp outside the house," the Commandant said curtly. "He will signal the enemy that our reinforcements and ammunition have arrived, and that an attack to-night will be hopeless. He may choose to signal wrongly. In that case, you men will shoot him on the instant that firing begins at Pervyse." The soldiers nodded. They marched Rollo to the field, and thrust his signal lamp into his hands. "One moment," he said. He turned to Mrs. Bracher. "Where is the American girl to-night?" he asked. "At Pervyse, of course," replied the nurse, "where she always is. The very place where you wanted to bring your men through and kill us all." "I had forgotten," he said. "If Mademoiselle Hilda is at Pervyse, then I [90]signal, as you suggest"—he turned to the Commandant—"but not because you order it—you and your little pop-guns." [90] Mrs. Bracher sniffed scornfully. "One last bluff of a bluffer, as Hilda would say," she muttered. The soldiers stood in circle in the mud of the field, the tall green-clad figure in their midst. Rollo turned on the blinding flash that stabbed through the night. He held it high above his head, and at that level moved it three times from left to right. Then he swung the light in full circles, till it became a pinwheel of flame. Four miles away by the sea to the north, a white light shot up into the sky, rose twice like a fountain, and was followed by a starlight that fed out a green radiance. "The attack is postponed," he said. THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN The German lay on a stretcher in the straw of the first dressing-station. His legs had been torn by shot. He was in pain. He looked into the faces of the men about him, the French doctors and dressers, the Belgian infantry. The lantern light was white and yellow on their faces. He drew out from the inner pocket of his mouse-colored coat a packet of letters, and from the packet the picture of a stout
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