"The other," her voice resumed its tone of dull despair, "was killed but a little while ago by the man who looked in. Monsieur, we were very hungry and frightened, and she was crying; but I tried--oh, how I tried--to comfort her! Then in anger he came, and--and stuck her with the long knife on his gun. Oh, Monsieur," she whispered, clinging to him in a new terror, "I was glad for the darkness!"
A sob, arising from the very depths of Jeb's soul, burst from his lips. Scalding tears of rage and anguish streamed down his cheeks; and these must have touched her upturned face, for she raised a thin hand and patted him, whispering:
"You are very kind, Monsieur, to weep for her."
"My poor little child," he moaned, "my poor little child! Oh, what a plight they've left you in!--with only the dead, and worse than dead!"
The moon had cleared by now, bathing the ruined hamlet with a silvery sheen, although the place which sheltered them remained in darkness. But through a rift in the broken wall stole one narrow beam of light, and he moved slightly to let this fall upon her face--then just in time caught himself, else he would have given a cry of pain and fury.
Her eyes, horrified and shadowed by the cruelties she had witnessed, were turned to him; great, dark, hollow eyes which seemed to be looking directly through him to some confusion of thoughts beyond. Her face was pinched and blue with lack of nourishment, the skin stretched tightly over cheek bones which seemed about to push through; her lips were wax-like, dry and cracked, and her ears were almost transparent. But even more appalling than any of these was the utter despair, the absence of hope or desire of life, that had changed the bloom of youth to the decay of age. She might have been the wan ghost of a shrivelled old woman lying in his arms, instead of young flesh and blood!
This martyred child, who should be sleeping happily amidst dreams of dolls and play--what was the ghastly thing into which she had been made? The father, who with horse and plowshare should be summoned by the morning cock to yielding fields--where was that servant of the vineyard? The mother, who should be planning for the harvest which her capable hands would convert into winter comforts--what of her? A wee tot, whose sobbing should have been stilled by tender arms--did she understand the caress of steel? And the other two, whose minds had been snapped by horrors and privations--did their locked-in souls realize these things to be the result of military necessity?--or a nation's degeneracy!