But the earth continued to quiver
with the thunder of artillery, and John felt the waves of air pulsing in
his ears. Now and then searchlights burned in a white blaze across the
hills. Fields, trees and houses would stand out for a moment, and then
be gone absolutely.
John's vivid imagination turned the whole into a storm at night. The
artillery was the thunder and the flare of the searchlights was the
lightning. His mind created, for a little while, the illusion that the
combat had passed out of the hands of man and that nature was at work.
He and Fleury ceased to talk and he walked on, thinking little of his
destination. He had no sense of weariness, nor of any physical need at
all.
Von Arnheim rode up by his side and said:
"You'll not have to walk much further, Mr. Scott. A camp of ours is just
beyond a brook, not more than a few hundred yards away, and the
prisoners will stay there for the night. I'm sorry to find you among
the French fighting against us. We Germans expected American sympathy.
There is so much German blood in the United States."
"But, as I told Captain von Boehlen, we're a republic, and we're
democrats. In many of the big ideas there's a gulf between us and
Germany so wide that it can never be bridged. This war has made clear
the enormous difference."
Von Arnheim sighed.
"And yet, as a people, we like each other personally," he said.
"That's so, but as nations we diverge absolutely."
"Perhaps, I can't dispute it.
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