After the battle of the Marne they had been sent to intercept the enemy on the side of Flanders.

There were not more than six thousand of them and, aided by a Belgian division, they had sustained the onrush of an entire army.

Their resistance had lasted for weeks:--a combat of barricades in the street, of struggles the length of the canal with the bloodiness of the ancient piratical forays.

The officers had shouted their orders with broken swords and bandaged heads.

The men had fought on without thinking of their wounds, covered with blood, until they fell down dead.
Caragol, hitherto little interested in military affairs, became most enthusiastic when relating this heroic struggle to Ferragut, simply because his new friends had taken part in it.
"Many died, Captain....