for the preservation of life, rather than its destruction, its supreme use will be in War. For the swift and easy removal of wounded from the field of battle, a fleet of Army Hospital Service Aeroplanes will one day be built and equipped and organized by every civilized Government, under the Rules of the Crimson Cross. Beautiful, beautiful!” The old man was quite excited, nodding his black velvet-capped, white-locked head as though he would have nodded it off, and blinking his bright eyes. “Sapristi!—I see them!” he cried. “They[Pg 3] will hover over the Field of Action like huge hawks, from time to time swooping upon the fallen and carrying them off in their talons. Superb! magnificent! colossal! If we had had air-men and air-machines at Balaklava in ’54, or at Magenta, or Solferino, or Gravelotte, or in Paris during the Siege!... Have the kindness, my Sister, to give me a pinch of snuff!”

[Pg 3]

The Sister fumbled in the pocket of the white flannel jacket—winter and summer, year in and year out, the old man went clothed from head to foot in white—and fed the thin, handsome old eagle-beak with pungent cheap mixture, out of a box that bore the portrait, set in blazing brilliants, of the Imperial Crowned Head whose gift it had been; as was recorded by the elaborate inscription engraved in the Russian character within its golden lid. The old man was particular that no dust of his favorite brown powder should soil the snowy silken mustache, waxed to fine points, that jutted above his long, mobile upper-lip, or the little imperial that was called by a much less elegant name when the birch-broom-bearded Reds heckled the President of the Third Republic for wearing the distinctive chin-tuft. After the pinch of snuff the old man became more placid. He had his chair slewed round to afford him a fresh point of view, and sat absorbed in the contemplation of which he never seemed to weary.

The sweet Spring day was dying. Vast brooding pinions of somber purple cloud already made twilight on the north horizon, where glooming ramparts topped by pallid peaks, and jagged sierras spiring up into slender minarets and aguilles, shone ghostly against the gloom. The horn of the herdsman sounded from the lower Alps, and neck-bells tinkled as the long lines of placid cows moved from the upper pastures in obedience to the call, breathing perfume of scented vetch and honeyed crimson clover, leaving froth of milk from trickling udders on the leaves and grasses as they went.

The sunset-hour being supper-time, the single street of Zeiden seemed deserted. You saw it as a hilly 

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