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There was a note of pride in his raspy voice when he spoke of the apparent fact that those who had used the buttress of the windmill for a fort must have held out until every man of them had been slain. In the eyes of a German such devotion to the dearly beloved Fatherland was only what might be expected.

When the captain rose from his hard seat, Amos for one terrible moment feared that the catastrophe he had dreaded was about to descend upon them, for he heard the second man make a remark that brought things directly home.

“Do you think our brave comrades could have found and buried all those who fell here, Captain, after first accounting for scores of the detested British?” was what he said.

Even as he spoke he bent down and tried to see under the pile of wreckage; and certainly both boys held their breath. But Fortune was kind to them, for it happened that the sun was under a cloud, and the man’s eyes could not penetrate the gloom that lay around them.

“Even if they did not, what does it matter?” remarked the commander. “A soldier needs no tomb. It is enough that he has done his duty toward his country and his emperor. If there should by chance be a body uncared for it will soon be buried just the same. Come, let us be going, Lieutenant Krueger. The horses will be all the fresher for this short halt. Twenty miles we should cover before sunset, and strike terror to thousands of French hearts with our passage through the land!”