But what a Heaven-sent
draught it seemed! It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen as
yet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have been
the case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the wine was warming
and reviving to the wounded man, and he looked across with something like
a throb of pity to where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of pain
and weariness from crossing his lips.
"Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you?" asked Ulrich
suddenly; "there is good wine in it, and one may as well be as
comfortable as one can. Let us drink, even if to-night one of us dies."
"No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood caked round my
eyes," said Georg, "and in any case I don't drink wine with an enemy."
Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the weary
screeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming and growing in his
brain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked across at
the man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion. In the
pain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred
seemed to be dying down.
"Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first.
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