Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/460

 sloped suddenly and again appeared as a white ribbon on the horizon line between two rows of trees and burned houses. The pale morning light with its hazy mist was sheltering them from the enemy's fire. On a sunny day, the arrival of their automobile would have been saluted with a shell. "That is war," he concluded. "One is always near to death without seeing it."

The two recalled the warning of the general with whom they had dined the day before: "Be very careful! The war of the trenches is treacherous."

In the sweep of plains unrolled before them, not a man was visible. It seemed like a country Sunday, when the farmers are in their homes, and the land scene lying in silent meditation. Some shapeless objects could be seen in the fields, like agricultural implements deserted for a day of rest. Perhaps they were broken automobiles, or artillery carriages destroyed by the force of their volleys.

"This way," said the officer, who had added four soldiers to the party to carry the various bags and packages which Desnoyers had brought out on the roof of the automobile.

They proceeded in a single file the length of a wall of blackened bricks, down a steep hill. After a few steps the surface of the ground was about to their knees; further on, up to their waists, and thus they disappeared within the earth, seeing above their heads, only a narrow strip of sky. They were now under the open field, having left behind them the mass of ruins that hid the entrance of the road. They were advancing in an absurd way, as though they scorned direct lines—in zig-zags, in curves, in angles. Other pathways, no less complicated, branched off from this ditch which was the central avenue of an immense subterranean cavity. They walked … and walked … and walked. A quarter of an hour went by, a half, an entire hour. Lacour and his friend