The Prisoners
From the French of Guy de Maupassant.
HERE was no sound in the forest except the slight rustle of the snow as it fell upon the trees. It had been falling, small and fine, since mid-day; it powdered the branches with a frosty moss, cast a silver veil over the dead leaves in the hollow, and spread upon the pathways a great, soft, white carpet that thickened the immeasurable silence amid this ocean of trees.
Before the door of the keeper's lodge stood a bare-armed young woman, chopping wood with an axe upon a stone. She was tall, thin and strong—a child of the forest, a daughter and wife of gamekeepers.
"Come in, Berthine."
A voice called from within the house: "Come in, Berthine; we are alone tonight, and it is getting dark. There may be Prussians or wolves about."
She who was chopping wood replied by splitting another block; her bosom rose and fell with the heavy blows, each time she lifted her arm.
"I have finished, mother. I'm here, I'm here. There's nothing to be frightened at; it isn't dark yet."
Then she brought in her fagots and her logs, and piled them up at the chimney-side, went out again to close the shutters—enormous shutters of solid oak—and then, when she again came in, pushed the heavy bolts of the door.
Her mother was spinning by the fire, a wrinkled old woman who had grown timorous with age.
"I don't like father to be out," said she. "Two women have no strength."
The younger answered: "Oh, I could very well kill a wolf or a Prussian, I can tell you." And she turned her eyes to a large revolver, hanging over the fire-place. Her husband had been put into the army at the beginning of the Prussian invasion, and the two women had remained alone with her father, the old gamekeeper, Nicholas Pichou, who had obstinately refused to leave his home and go into the town.
The nearest town was Rethel, an old fortress perched on a rock. It was a patriotic place, and the towns-people had resolved to resist the invaders, to close their gates and stand siege, according to the traditions of the city. Twice before, under Henry IV. and under Louis XIV., the inhabitants of Rethel had won fame by heroic defences. They would do the
