incline I would get down and throwing the reins over the neck of Betsy,
my bull dog, who occupied the seat beside me, I would give Cesar his
head and take my place with the boys behind. He seemed to be grateful.

Let it be said, however, that as our journey advanced the hoof, at first
so tender from much poulticing, became firmer and firmer, and instead of
increasing, the lameness rather grew less.

We crossed our little market town of Charly amid dead silence. Not a
light in a single window, not a sound anywhere. We seemed to be the
only souls astir, and the foolhardiness of this midnight departure when
everyone else was tucked up snug in his bed, angered me. I was seized
with a mad desire to turn about and go home.

Just then George asked me which direction I intended taking, and
remembering H.'s imperative "Go south," we turned sharp and headed for
the first bridge across the Marne.

High in front of me rose the dark wooded hills of Pavant, descending
abruptly to that narrow strip of fertile plain which borders the river
on both sides, but now half-veiled in a heavy blue mist. Below me the
swift current sped onward like a silver arrow, and before so impressive
a spectacle I could not help thinking how meager is the art of the scene
painter and dramatist which tries to depict a real battlefield. For
battlefield I felt this was, and my overstrained nerves no longer
holding my imagination in check, I could already see human forms
writhing in agony, and hear the moaning of souls on the brink of
Eternity. As though to vivify this hallucination, the dying moon
suddenly plunged behind a cloud, lighting the landscape but by strange
lugubrious streaks, and in the distance behind us a long low rumble