Page:The Best continental short stories of and the yearbook of the continental short story 1924-25.pdf/81

 of the lovely, was merrily laughing on its way. For a moment, the universe ceased to be insane, and if we two were mad, we were quite the opposite of everything else. What we had heard, though, was enough to make one mad. I no longer cut the sergeant short, and in spite of myself I abandoned my spirit to a wave of beatitude which flowed toward us from the peaceful autumnal sun. The sergeant was sitting facing me, his look become soft and gentle, and from his beard, as from a forest, a little elf seemed to escape, waving its cap joyously and crying, “Peacel Peace! Peace!”

Below, there among the hills, ran the thin white ribbon traced by the road, and on the road were moving outlines like those one sees in nurseries.

“When I get home, I say, I shall always be seeing this cascade and this road, but I shall never be able to tell any one how beautiful it was when peace came marching down the road, with the cascade running to meet her.”

“Ah, you are right. It is inexpressible. It is Oh, thunder! Come along, let’s join our comrades! They surely know more than we do about it!”

We took the road at a good pace. Our thoughts helped our legs along. We ceased to halt when we reached those little rocky seats. As we went along, we lifted our canteens to our lips. Whenever we met any soldiers, the sergeant threw to them, as we hastened by, his radiant vision of peace.

“Look that way, do you see?” he cried, suddenly, pointing to something well above us. “What did I tell you? Look, look, there it is, sure enough, the white flag!”

I could see nothing but what seemed whitish smoke, but perhaps it was really the white flag.

“Jesus and Mary, old fellow, there it is, there it is!”

The only thing which worried us was the road, which we found just like the military road of the night before. There was something new about it, though, after all, for along this road peace was approaching and we were the only ones who would see it come.

Suddenly, the air above us was covered with a resounding dome-like canopy. Against a big rock jutting out over the