Two panting dogs, with red tongues hanging out, and
splayed feet clawing the road, tugging a heavy-laden cart while the
master pushed behind and the woman pulled in the shafts. Strange,
antique vehicles crammed with passengers. Couples and groups and
sometimes larger companies of foot-travellers. Now and then a
solitary man or woman, old and shabby, bundle on back, eyes on the
road, plodding through the mud and the mist, under the high archway
of yellowing leaves.
[Illustration: All were fugitives, anxious to be gone, ... and
making no more speed than a creeping snail's pace of unutterable
fatigue.]
All these distinct pictures I saw, yet it was all one vision--a
vision of humanity with its dumb companions in flight--infinitely
slow, painful, pitiful flight!
I saw no tears, I heard no cries of complaint. But beneath the
numb and patient haste on all those dazed faces I saw a question.
_"What have we done? Why has this thing come upon us and our
children?"_
Somewhere I heard a trumpet blown. The brazen spikes on the helmets
of a little troop of German soldiers flashed for an instant, far
down the sloppy road.
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