“Then if I sleep and you distil my Double out of me, I suppose that you sleep too. In that case who distils your Double out of you, Lord Oro?”
He grew angry and answered:
“Ask no more questions, blind and ignorant as you are. It is your part not to examine, but to obey. Sleep now,” and again he waved his hand over me.
In an instant, as it seemed, we were standing in a grey old town that I judged from its appearance must be either in northern France or Belgium. It was much shattered by bombardment; the church, for instance, was a ruin; also many of the houses had been burnt. Now, however, no firing was going on for the town had been taken. The streets were full of armed men wearing the German uniform and helmet. We passed down them and were able to see into the houses. In some of these were German soldiers engaged in looting and in other things so horrible that even the unmoved Oro turned away his head.
We came to the marketplace. It was crowded with German troops, also with a great number of the inhabitants of the town, most of them elderly men and women with children, who had fallen into their power. The Germans, under the command of officers, were dragging the men from the arms of their wives and children to one side, and with rifle-butts beating back the screaming women. Among the men I noticed two or three priests who were doing their best to soothe their companions and even giving them absolution in hurried whispers.
At length the separation was effected, whereon at a hoarse word of command, a company of soldiers began to fire at the men and continued doing so until all had fallen. Then petty officers went among the slaughtered and with pistols blew out the brains of any who still moved.
“These butchers, you say, are Germans?” asked Oro of me.
“Yes,” I answered, sick with horror, for though I was in the mind and not in the body, I could feel as the mind does. Had I been in the body also, I should have fainted.
“Then we need not waste time in visiting their country. It is enough; let us go on.”
We passed out into the open land and came to a village. It was in the occupation of German cavalry. Two of them held a little girl of nine or ten, one by her body, the other by her right hand. An officer stood between them with a drawn sword fronting the terrified child. He was a horrible, coarse-faced man who looked to me as though he had been drinking.
“I’ll teach the young devil to show us the wrong road and let those French swine escape,” he shouted, and struck with the sword. The girl’s right hand fell to the ground.
“War as practised by the Germans!” remarked Oro. Then he stepped, or seemed to step up to the man and whispered, or seemed to whisper, in his ear.
I do not know what tongue or what spirit speech he used, or what he said, but the bloated-faced brute turned pale. Yes, he drew sick with fear.
“I think there are spirits in this place,” he said with a German oath. “I could have sworn that something told me that I was going to die. Mount!”
The Uhlans mounted and began to ride away.
“Watch,” said Oro.
As he spoke out of a dark cloud appeared an aeroplane. Its pilot saw the band of Germans beneath and dropped a bomb. The aim was good, for the missile exploded in the midst of them, causing a great cloud of dust from which arose the screams of men and horses.
“Come and see,” said Oro.
We were there. Out of the cloud of dust appeared one man galloping furiously. He was a young fellow who, as I noted, had turned his head away and hidden his eyes with his hand when the horror was done yonder. All the others were dead except the officer who had worked the deed. He was still living, but both his hands and one of his feet had been blown away. Presently he died, screaming to God for mercy.
We passed on and came to a barn with wide doors that swung a little in the wind, causing the rusted hinges to scream like a creature in pain. On each of these doors hung a dead man crucified. The hat of one of them lay upon the ground, and I knew from the shape of it that he was a Colonial soldier.
“Did you not tell me,” said Oro after surveying them, “that these Germans are of your Christian faith?”
“Yes; and the Name of God is always on their ruler’s lips.”
“Ah!” he said, “I am glad that I worship Fate. Bastin the priest need trouble me no more.”
“There is something behind Fate,” I said, quoting Bastin himself.
“Perhaps. So indeed I have always held, but after much study I cannot understand the manner of its working. Fate is enough for me.”
We went on and came to a flat country that was lined with ditches, all of them full of men, Germans on one side, English and French upon the other. A terrible bombardment shook the earth, the shells raining upon the ditches. Presently that from the English guns ceased and out of the trenches in front of them thousands of men were vomited, who ran forward through a hail of fire in which scores and hundreds fell, across an open piece of ground that was pitted with shell craters. They came to barbed wire defenses, or what remained of them, cut the wire with nippers and pulled up the posts. Then through the gaps they surged in, shouting and hurling hand grenades. They reached
