feeling in his other limbs. His whole body had grown weightless. He
could not find his legs. Nothing was there that he could move. But there
was a burning and burrowing that came from somewhere in his brain,
scorched his forehead, and made his tongue swell into a heavy, choking
lump.

"Water!" he moaned. Was there no one there who could pour a drop of
moisture into the burning hollow of his mouth? No one at all? Then where
was Weixler? He must be near by. Or else--was it possible that Weixler
was wounded too? Marschner wanted to jump up and find out what had
happened to Weixler--he wanted to----

Like an overburdened steam-crane his left hand struggled toward his
head, and when he at last succeeded in pushing it under his neck, he
felt with a shudder that his skull offered no resistance and his hand
slid into a warm, soft mush, and his hair, pasty with coagulated blood,
stuck to his fingers like warm, moist felt.

"Dying!" went through him with a chill. To die there--all alone. And
Weixler? He had to find out what had happened to--happened to----

With a superhuman effort he propped his head up on his left hand high
enough to have a view of a few paces along the trench. Now he saw
Weixler, with his back turned, leaning on his right side against the
trench wall, standing there crookedly, his left hand pressed against his
body, his shoulders hunched as if he had a cramp. The captain raised
himself a little higher and saw the ground and a broad, dark shadow that
Weixler cast. Blood? He was bleeding? Or what? Surely that was blood. It
couldn't be anything but blood. And yet it stretched out so peculiarly
and drew itself like a thin, red thread up to Weixler, up to where his