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After that, on the 16th, was the battle of Rezonville; all our corps were at last across the stream, although, owing to the confusion that prevailed at the junction of the Mars-la-Tour and Etain roads, which the Prussians had gained possession of early in the morning by a brilliant movement of their cavalry and artillery, the 3d and 4th corps were hindered in their march and unable to get up; a slow, dragging, confused battle, which, up to two o'clock, Bazaine, with only a handful of men opposed to him, should have won, but which he wound up by losing, thanks to his inexplicable fear of being cut off from Metz; a battle of immense extent, spreading over leagues of hill and plain, where the French, attacked in front and flank, seemed willing to do almost anything except advance, affording the enemy time to concentrate and to all appearances co-operating with them to ensure the success of the Prussian plan, which was to force their withdrawal to the other side of the river.
They reached Etain, and turned the sharp corner in the street lined with hollow houses, passed under a tunnel of thick camouflage, leafy as an arbour, mouldy as the rags upon a corpse, and came on the first pill-boxes of the Hindenburg line. Another twelve miles and the twin towers of Verdun appeared over the brow of a hill. "I thought it but dust!" exclaimed the Russian.
There's Gremilly lying near the railway, and farther along still, beyond Ormes, is Cincery, and south of it Etain, while immediately beyond are the heights of Douaumont, with Vaux closely adjacent." Peering through their loopholes, Jules and Henri spent a useful and interesting half-hour in watching the scene before them.
"Play you," said he. "I will not play without a stake," said the king. "What will the stake be?" said Midir. "All one to me," said Eochaid. "If you win," said Midir, "I will give you fifty broad-chested horses with slim swift feet." "And if you win," said Eochaid Airem, sure of victory, "I will give you whatever you demand." Midir won that game, and demanded Etain the queen.
Here the Germans had a salient which was long and quite narrow. The point of this salient was at St. Mihiel, the other side of the Meuse. This point was well protected by the artillery at Camp des Romains, which controlled the section for ten miles in any direction. To the north of the salient there was a railroad from Etain to Metz. There was another line twenty miles to the south.
We slept at Chatel, and the next day we were at Etain, the day following at Dannevoux, where I was lodged with a good patriot named Sebastian Perrin. He was a rich man, and wanted to know the details of everything. As a great number of battalions had followed the same route before us, he said, "In a month perhaps we shall see great things, all the troops are marching into Belgium.
An old infantry captain stationed near his aviation field at Etain, east of Verdun, prevailed upon this German pilot to take him on a flight. There was a new machine to test out and he told the captain to climb aboard. Foolishly he crossed the trench lines and, actuated by a desire to give his passenger an interesting trip, proceeded to fly over the French aviation headquarters.
In the time of the great Caesar, Eochaid Airem was high king of Ireland; and he had for his queen Etain, reborn then as a mortal, but a Danaan princess at one time, and the wife of Miidir. It was a fine evening in the summer, and Eochaid Airem was looking from the walls of Tara and admiring the beauty of the world.
Emer, Deirdre, Etain, Grainne may be said to have introduced into European literature new types of womanhood, quite unlike, in their sprightliness and humor, their passionate affection and heroic qualities, to anything found elsewhere.
Then suddenly there stood Midir in the midst of them: Midir the Proud; never had he seemed fairer than then. No man had seen him enter; none knew how he had come. And then it was but putting his spear in his left hand for him, and putting his right arm about the waist of Etain, and rising through the air with her, and vanishing through the roof.
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