Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/360

 rors of war. Decidedly this one enemy was a good man, anyway.

Because of his conclusion, the millionaire smiled indulgently when the Commandant, leaving the table, came toward him—after delivering his letter and a bulky package to a soldier to take to the battalion post-office in the village.

"It is for my family," he explained. "I do not let a day pass without sending them a letter. Theirs are so precious to me!… I am also sending them a few remembrances."

Desnoyers was on the point of protesting.… But with a shrug of indifference, he concluded to keep silence as if he did not object. The Commandant continued talking of the sweet Augusta and their children while the invisible tempest kept on thundering beyond the serene twilight horizon. Each time the cannonading was more intense.

"The battle," continued Blumhardt. "Always a battle!… Surely it is the last and we are going to win. Within the week, we shall be entering Paris.… But how many will never see it! So many dead!… I understand that to-morrow we shall not be here. All the Reserves are to combine with the attack so as to overcome the last resistance.… If only I do not fall!" …

Thoughts of the possibility of death the following day contracted his forehead in a scowl of hatred. A deep, vertical line was parting his eyebrows. He frowned ferociously at Desnoyers as though making him responsible for his death and the trouble of his family. For a few moments Don Marcelo could hardly recognize this man, transformed by warlike passions, as the sweet-natured and friendly Blumhardt of a little while before.

The sun was beginning to set when a sub-officer, the one of the Social-Democracy, came running in search of