"Since yesterday," answered Faversham.

"I doubt if the General knows you have been hit so hard," the
aide-de-camp continued. "But my orders are explicit. The officer in
command is to take sixty men and march to-morrow morning into St.
Denis. He is to take possession of that quarter, he is to make a
search for mines and bombs, and wait there until the German troops
march in." There was to be no repetition, he explained, of a certain
unfortunate affair when the Germans after occupying a surrendered fort
had been blown to the four winds. He concluded with the comforting
information that there were 10,000 French soldiers under arms in St.
Denis and that discretion was therefore a quality to be much exercised
by Faversham during his day of search. Thereupon he galloped back.

Faversham remained standing a few paces from the fire looking down
towards Paris. His companion petulantly tossed a branch upon the fire.

"Luck comes your way, my friend," said he enviously.

Geoffrey looked up to the stars and down again to Paris which with
its lights had the look of a reflected starlit firmament. Individual
lights were the separate stars and here and there a gash of fire,
where a wide thoroughfare cleaved, made a sort of milky way.

"I wonder," he answered slowly.

Max started up on his elbow and looked at his friend in perplexity.

"Why, you have sixty men and St. Denis to command. To-morrow may bring