A ray of gratitude and pleasure illumined momentarily the sad, pale face.
"I knew," he said--"I knew that if I came here you'd make me feel at home. Otherwise I should have gone on my way."
"That would have been kind of you, I must say," cried the host---"what did we enter into our covenant of blood for, and swear to be true till death after our first battle, don't you remember? In the church at ... where was it? I never can pronounce the name of the cursed hole!"
"The hole was Dannigkow," answered the young stranger addressed as "lieutenant."
"Ah, yes, that's it!" the host went on. "And do you imagine we went through that little ceremony with the sole purpose of letting you avoid us in future? Was it for that we chose you for our commanding officer, and blindly followed you into the thickest of the fight? No, Baumgart, there's no cement like blood and powder. So the devil take it, man, you must promise to stay with us a bit, now we've got you----"
"Don't talk nonsense, old fellow, it is impossible," the lieutenant replied, and blew thoughtfully on the purple mirror of his wine. But his friend was not to be silenced.
"You needn't be frightened," he continued, "that we shall plague you with curious questions. From the first we got into the way of looking on you as a sort of mystery. When we others used to lie by the bivouac fire and talk of our homes and parents, our sweethearts and sisters, your lips were resolutely sealed as they are now. And if one of us plucked up courage to ask you where you came from, and what you had been before the war, you always got up and walked away. We gave up questioning you at last, and thought to ourselves, 'He has gone through a furnace, may be, that has spoilt his life, and what concern is that of ours?' You were a good comrade, all of us can testify to that, and what is more, the most fearless, the bravest.... Ah, well, the fact is, that you had only to tell one of us to cut off his right hand, and he'd have done it without a murmur. Isn't it true, lads?"
An exclamation of assent went round the table.
"For mercy's sake, say no more," said the young lieutenant. "I don't know which way to look because of all this undeserved praise."
"Wait, I've more to say yet," the master of the house insisted on continuing. "Once we were really almost angry with you. You know why that was. During the armistice, shortly before we joined forces with the Lithuanians under Platen and Bülow, you were in the guard-room one evening, when you suddenly made a clean breast of it and announced that you must go away. You said, 'Don't ask me the reason, lads. But believe me, I can't help myself. The Landwehr wants officers. I know it is not much of an honour to leave the Jägers, for the Landwehr; but I'm going to do it, all the same.' Those were your very words, weren't they, Baumgart?"