Page:The King in Yellow (1895).djvu/225

Rh finally called an officer. “You belong to the 60th,” growled the corporal looking at the number on his képi.”

“We have no use for Franc-tireurs,” added the officer, catching sight of his black trowsers.”

“I wish to volunteer in place of a comrade,” said Trent, and the officer shrugged his shoulders and passed on.

Nobody paid much attention to him, one or two merely glancing at his trowsers. The road was deep with slush and mud ploughed and torn by wheels and hoofs. A soldier in front of him wrenched his foot in an icy rut and dragged himself to the edge of the embankment groaning. The plain on either side of them was gray with melting snow. Here and there behind dismantled hedge-rows stood wagons, bearing white flags with red crosses. Sometimes the driver was a priest in rusty hat and gown, sometimes a crippled Mobile. Once they passed a wagon driven by a Sister of Charity. Silent empty houses with great rents in their walls, and every window blank, huddled along the road. Further on, within the zone of danger, nothing of human habitation remained except here and there a pile of frozen bricks or a blackened cellar choked with snow.

For some time Trent had been annoyed by the man behind him who kept treading on his heels. Convinced at last that it was intentional he turned to remonstrate and found himself face to face with a fellow-student from the Beaux Arts. Trent stared.

“I thought you were in the hospital!”

The other shook his head, pointing to his bandaged jaw.