than all, he wonders at himself. "What an extraordinary occurrence!" he
thinks. "I've killed millions of people, of all countries and nations,
without the least misgiving; and now, suddenly, one miserable soldier
comes and throws all my ideas into a tangle!"

Finally Napoleonder got up; but the confinement of his golden tent
seemed oppressive. He went out into the open air, mounted his horse, and
rode away to the place where he had shot to death the vexatious soldier.

"I've heard," he said to himself, "that when a dead man appears in a
vision, it is necessary to sprinkle earth on the eyes of the corpse;
then he'll lie quiet."

Napoleonder rides on. The moon is shining brightly, and the bodies of
the dead are lying on the battle-field in heaps. Everywhere he sees
corruption and smells corruption.

"And all these," he thought, "I have killed."

And, wonderful to say, it seems to him as if all the dead men have the
same face,--a young face with blue eyes, and blond hair, and the faint
shadow of a mustache,--and they all seem to be looking at him with
kindly, pitying eyes, and their bloodless lips move just a little as
they ask, without anger or reproach, "Why? Why?"

Napoleonder felt a dull, heavy pressure at his heart. He had not spirit
enough left to go to the little mound where the body of the dead soldier
lay, so he turned his horse and rode back to his tent; and every corpse
that he passed seemed to say, "Why? Why?"