tunnel of the northern Vosges Mountains, two hundred feet, perhaps,
beneath the surface of the ground. The sliding door on the left side of
our car was locked: on the other side jagged walls, dripping wet to the
touch, jutted so close that a thin man couldn't have walked between
them and the car. Everywhere pitch blackness, the blackness of the
tomb. The consumptive soldier pulled a candle from his kit, balanced
it in the straw, and over it warmed his hands. If that candle had
toppled over in the straw we wouldn't have had a rat's chance in the
fire. It was impossible to get out of our car or to communicate with
another except by tapping. The fellows in the next car must have
been considerably frightened, for after about an hour they began
yelling and pounding at the walls. All you could hear was a roaring
sound that caromed against the walls of the cavern. Smoke from the
engine drifted back to choke us. It hit the consumptive worst. The
poor fellow began blowing and coughing, then rolled feebly on his
back and gasped. During the worst of the smoke one of the soldiers
in the next car set up a rollicking song, and others followed his
example. We could hear the clank of beer bottles as they finished, the
echoes of the song reverberating loudly, then faintly, then louder
again up and down the length of that interminable vault. A draught of
air cleared the smoke away and it didn't bother us again. At four in
the morning we steamed out of the tunnel into the open. A little after
that I must have dozed off, for I woke with a start when the
consumptive stumbled over me.

"There you are," he said, throwing a bundle beside me; "I thought
you'd need it."

Noticing, when he lit his pipe at dawn, that we had no army blankets
and were pretty nearly frozen, this "barbarian" had jumped out of the