I knew you would be glad to hear, and now, with your permission, Captain Colton, I'll go." "Take narrow, transverse trench, leading south.

Good of you to see us," said the captain of the Strangers.
The Alsatian shook hands with John and disappeared in the cut which led a long distance from the front.

Colton extinguished the torch and the two sat a little while in the darkness.

Although vast armies faced one another along a front of four hundred miles, little could be heard where John and his captain sat, save the sighing of the wind and the faint sound made by the steady fall of the snow, which was heaping up at their feet.
Not a light shone in the trench.

John knew that innumerable sentinels were on guard, striving to see and hear, but a million or two million men lay buried alive there, while the snow drifted down continually.