Page:Angels of Mons second edition.pdf/48

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THE ANGELS OF MONS

take a row of beanstalks for all the saints in the calendar."

There is also to be considered the testimony of an officer, which I give with all reserve, since I am not personally aware of his identity. But this officer is reported to have written an account of his experiences during the Retreat—an account of soldiers marching blindly through the night, half dead with weariness, more than half asleep, and troubled by appearances as of monstrous men advancing towards them; of chairs "and lights and things" in the middle of the road. These soldiers were illuded, but they were not deluded; they knew that they were hallucinated, that their senses, worn out by fatigue, were being deceived.

These, then, are the documents and quasi-documents open for our consideration in weighing the evidence of the lance-corporal and the lieutenant-colonel.

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