Henriette turned and gave one last look at her little house, whose floors fell in even as she gazed, sending myriads of little sparks whirling gayly upward on the air. And there, before her, prone at the wall's foot, she saw her husband's corpse, and in her despair and grief would fain have returned to him, but just then another crowd came up and surged around her, the bugles were sounding the signal to retire, she was borne away, she knew not how, among the retreating troops. Her faculty of self-guidance left her; she was as a bit of flotsam swept onward by the eddying human tide that streamed along the way. And that was all she could remember until she became herself again and found she was at Balan, among strangers, her head reclined upon a table in a kitchen, weeping.



V.

It was nearly ten o'clock up on the Plateau de l'Algerie, and still the men of Beaudoin's company were resting supine, among the cabbages, in the field whence they had not budged since early morning. The cross fire from the batteries on Hattoy and the peninsula of Iges was hotter than ever; it had just killed two more of their number, and there were no orders for them to advance. Were they to stay there and be shelled all day, without a chance to see anything of the fighting?

They were even denied the relief of discharging their chassepots. Captain Beaudoin had at last put his foot down and stopped the firing, that senseless fusillade against the little wood in front of them, which seemed entirely deserted by the Prussians. The heat was stifling; it seemed to them that they should roast, stretched there on the ground under the blazing sky.

Jean was alarmed, on turning to look at Maurice, to see that he had declined his head and was lying, with closed eyes, apparently inanimate, his cheek against the bare earth. He was very pale, there was no sign of life in his face.

"Hallo there! what's the matter?"

But Maurice was only sleeping. The mental strain, conjointly with his fatigue, had been too much for him, in spite of the dangers that menaced them at every moment. He awoke with a start and stared about him, and the peace that slumber had left in his wide-dilated eyes was immediately supplanted by a look of startled affright as it dawned on him where he was. He had not the remotest idea how long he had slept; all he knew was that the state from which he had been recalled to the horrors of the battlefield was one of blessed oblivion and tranquillity.

"Hallo! that's funny; I must have been asleep!" he murmured. "Ah! it has done me good."

It was true that he suffered less from that pressure about his temples and at his heart, that horrible constriction that seems as if it would crush one's bones. He chaffed Lapoulle, who had manifested much uneasiness since the disappearance of Chouteau and Loubet and spoke of going to look for them. A capital idea! so he might get away and hide behind a tree, and smoke a pipe! Pache thought that the surgeons had detained them at the ambulance, where there was a scarcity of sick-bearers. That was a job that he had no great fancy for, to go around under fire and collect the wounded! And haunted by a lingering superstition of the country where he was born, he added that it was unlucky to touch a corpse; it brought death.

"Shut up, confound you!" roared Lieutenant Rochas. "Who is going to die?"

Colonel de Vineuil, sitting his tall horse, turned his head and gave a smile, the first that had been seen on his face that morning. Then he resumed his statue-like attitude, waiting for orders as impassively as ever under the tumbling shells.

Maurice's attention was attracted to the sick-bearers, whose movements he watched with interest as they searched for wounded men among the depressions of the ground. At the end of a sunken road, and protected by a low ridge not far from their position, a flying ambulance of first aid had been established, and its emissaries had begun to explore the plateau. A tent was quickly erected, while from the hospital van the attendants extracted the necessary supplies; compresses, bandages, linen, and the few indispensable instruments required for the hasty dressings they gave before dispatching the patients to Sedan, which they did as rapidly as they could secure wagons, the supply of which was limited. There was an assistant surgeon in charge, with two subordinates of inferior rank under him. In all the army none showed more gallantry and received less acknowledgment than the litter-bearers. They could be seen all over the field in their gray uniform, with the distinctive red badge on their cap and on their arm, courageously risking their lives and unhurriedly pushing forward through the thickest of the fire to the spots where men had been seen to fall. At times they would creep on hands and knees: would always take advantage of a hedge or ditch, or any shelter that was afforded by the conformation of the ground, never exposing themselves unnecessarily out of bravado. When at last they reached the fallen men their painful task commenced, which was made more difficult and protracted by the fact that many of the subjects had fainted, and it was hard to tell whether they were alive or dead. Some lay face downward with their mouths in a pool of blood, in danger of suffocating, others had bitten the ground until their throats were choked with dry earth, others, where a shell had fallen among a group, were a confused, intertwined heap of mangled limbs and crushed trunks. With infinite care and patience the bearers would go through the tangled mass, separating the living from the dead, arranging their limbs and raising the head to give them air, cleansing the face as well as they could with the means at their command. Each of them carried a bucket of cool water, which he had to use very savingly. And Maurice could see them thus engaged, often for minutes at a time, kneeling by some man whom they were trying to resuscitate, waiting for him to show some sign of life.

He watched one of them, some fifty yards away to the left, working over the wound of a little soldier from the sleeve of whose tunic a thin stream of blood was trickling, drop by drop. The man of the red cross discovered the source of the hemorrhage and finally checked it by compressing the artery. In urgent cases, like that of the little soldier, they rendered these partial attentions, locating fractures, bandaging and immobilizing the limbs so as to reduce the danger of transportation. And the transportation, even, was an affair that called for a great deal of judgment and ingenuity; they assisted those who could walk, and carried others, either in their arms, like little children, or pickaback when the nature of the hurt allowed it; at other times they united in groups of two, three, or four, according to the requirements of the case, and made a chair by joining their hands, or carried the patient off by his legs and shoulders in a recumbent posture. In addition to the stretchers provided by the medical department there were all sorts of temporary makeshifts, such as the stretchers improvised from knapsack straps and a couple of muskets. And in every direction on the unsheltered, shell-swept plain they could be seen, singly or in groups, hastening with their dismal loads to the rear, their heads bowed and picking their steps, an admirable spectacle of prudent heroism.

Maurice saw a pair on his right, a thin, puny little fellow lugging a burly sergeant, with both legs broken, suspended from his neck; the sight reminded the young man of an ant, toiling under a burden many times larger than itself; and even as he watched them a shell burst directly in their path and they were lost to view. When the smoke cleared away the sergeant was seen lying on his back, having received no further injury, while the bearer lay beside him, disemboweled. And another came up, another toiling ant, who, when he had turned his dead comrade on his back and examined him, took the sergeant up and made off with his load.

It gave Maurice a chance to read Lapoulle a lesson.

"I say, if you like the business, why don't you go and give that man a lift!"

For some little time the batteries at Saint-Menges had been thundering as if determined to surpass all previous efforts, and Captain Beaudoin, who was still tramping nervously up and down before his company line, at last stepped up to the colonel. It was a pity, he said, to waste the men's morale in that way and keep their minds on the stretch for hours and hours.

"I can't help it; I have no orders," the colonel stoically replied.

They had another glimpse of General Douay as he flew by at a gallop, followed by his staff. He had just had an interview with General de Wimpffen, who had ridden up to entreat him to hold his ground, which he thought he could promise to do, but only so long as the Calvary of Illy, on his right, held out; Illy once taken, he would be responsible for nothing; their defeat would be inevitable. General de Wimpffen averred that the 1st corps would look out for the position at Illy, and indeed a regiment of zouaves was presently seen to occupy the Calvary, so that General Douay, his anxiety being relieved on that score, sent Dumont's division to the assistance of the 12th corps, which was then being hard pushed. Scarcely fifteen minutes later, however, as he was returning from the left, whither he had ridden to see how affairs were looking, he was surprised, raising his eyes to the Calvary, to see it was unoccupied; there was not a zouave to be seen there, they had abandoned the plateau that was no longer tenable by reason of the terrific fire from the batteries at Fleigneux. With a despairing presentiment of impending disaster he was spurring as fast as he could to the right, when he encountered Dumont's division, flying in disorder, broken and tangled in inextricable confusion with the debris of the 1st corps. The latter, which, after its retrograde movement, had never been able to regain possession of the posts it had occupied in the morning, leaving Daigny in the hands of the XIIth Saxon corps and Givonne to the Prussian Guards, had been compelled to retreat in a northerly direction across the wood of Garenne, harassed by the batteries that the enemy had posted on every summit from one end of the valley to the other. The terrible circle of fire and flame was contracting; a portion of the Guards had continued their march on Illy, moving from east to west and turning the eminences, while from west to east, in the rear of the XIth corps, now masters of Saint-Menges, the Vth, moving steadily onward, had passed Fleigneux and with insolent temerity was constantly pushing its batteries more and more to the front, and so contemptuous were they of the ignorance and impotence of the French that they did not even wait for the infantry to come up to support their guns. It was midday; the entire horizon was aflame, concentrating its destructive fire on the 7th and 1st corps.

Then General Douay, while the German artillery was thus preparing the way for the decisive movement that should make them masters of the Calvary, resolved to make one last desperate attempt to regain possession of the hill. He dispatched his orders, and throwing himself in person among the fugitives of Dumont's division, succeeded in forming a column which he sent forward to the plateau. It held its ground for a few minutes, but the bullets whistled so thick, the naked, treeless fields were swept by such a tornado of shot and shell, that it was not long before the panic broke out afresh, sweeping the men adown the slopes, rolling them up as straws are whirled before the wind. And the general, unwilling to abandon his project, ordered up other regiments.

A staff officer galloped by, shouting to Colonel de Vineuil as he passed an order that was lost in the universal uproar. Hearing, the colonel was erect in his stirrups in an instant, his face aglow with the gladness of battle, and pointing to the Calvary with a grand movement of his sword:

"Our turn has come at last, boys!" he shouted. "Forward!"

A thrill of enthusiasm ran through the ranks at the brief address, and the regiment put itself in motion. Beaudoin's company was among the first to get on its feet, which it did to the accompaniment of much good-natured chaff, the men declaring they were so rusty they could not move; the gravel must have penetrated their joints. The fire was so hot, however, that by the time they had advanced a few feet they were glad to avail themselves of the protection of a shelter trench that lay in their path, along which they crept in an undignified posture, bent almost double.

"Now, young fellow, look out for yourself!" Jean said to Maurice; "we're in for it. Don't let 'em see so much as the end of your nose, for if you do they will surely snip it off, and keep a sharp lookout for your legs and arms unless you have more than you care to keep. Those who come out of this with a whole skin will be lucky."

Maurice did not hear him very distinctly; the words were lost in the all-pervading clamor that buzzed and hummed in the young man's ears. He could not have told now whether he was afraid or not; he went forward because the others did, borne along with them in their headlong rush, without distinct volition of his own; his sole desire was to have the affair ended as soon as possible. So true was it that he was a mere drop in the on-pouring torrent that when the leading files came to the end of the trench and began to waver at the prospect of climbing the exposed slope that lay before them, he immediately felt himself seized by a sensation of panic, and was ready to turn and fly. It was simply an uncontrollable instinct, a revolt of the muscles, obedient to every passing breath.

Some of the men had already faced about when the colonel came hurrying up.

"Steady there, my children. You won't cause me this great sorrow; you won't behave like cowards. Remember, the 106th has never turned its back upon the enemy; will you be the first to disgrace our flag?"

And he spurred his charger across the path of the fugitives, addressing them individually, speaking to them, of their country, in a voice that trembled with emotion.

Lieutenant Rochas was so moved by his words that he gave way to an ungovernable fit of anger, raising his sword and belaboring the men with the flat as if it had been a club.

"You dirty loafers, I'll see whether you will go up there or not! I'll kick you up! About face! and I'll break the jaw of the first man that refuses to obey!"

But such an extreme measure as kicking a regiment into action was repugnant to the colonel.

"No, no, lieutenant; they will follow me. Won't you, my children? You won't let your old colonel fight it out alone with the Prussians! Up there lies the way; forward!"

He turned his horse and left the trench, and they did all follow, to a man, for he would have been considered the lowest of the low who could have abandoned their leader after that brave, kind speech. He was the only one, however, who, while crossing the open fields, erect on his tall horse, was cool and unconcerned; the men scattered, advancing in open order and availing themselves of every shelter afforded by the ground. The land sloped upward; there were fully five hundred yards of stubble and beet fields between them and the Calvary, and in place of the correctly aligned columns that the spectator sees advancing when a charge is ordered in field maneuvers, all that was to be seen was a loose array of men with rounded backs, singly or in small groups, hugging the ground, now crawling warily a little way on hands and knees, now dashing forward for the next cover, like huge insects fighting their way upward to the crest by dint of agility and address. The enemy's batteries seemed to have become aware of the movement; their fire was so rapid that the reports of the guns were blended in one continuous roar. Five men were killed, a lieutenant was cut in two.

Maurice and Jean had considered themselves fortunate that their way led along a hedge behind which they could push forward unseen, but the man immediately in front of them was shot through the temples and fell back dead in their arms; they had to cast him down at one side. By this time, however, the casualties had ceased to excite attention; they were too numerous. A man went by, uttering frightful shrieks and pressing his hands upon his protruding entrails; they beheld a horse dragging himself along with both thighs broken, and these anguishing sights, these horrors of the battlefield, affected them no longer. They were suffering from the intolerable heat, the noonday sun that beat upon their backs and burned like hot coals.

"How thirsty I am!" Maurice murmured. "My throat is like an ash barrel. Don't you notice that smell of something scorching, a smell like burning woolen?"

Jean nodded. "It was just the same at Solferino; perhaps it is the smell that always goes with war. But hold, I have a little brandy left; we'll have a sup."

And they paused behind the hedge a moment and raised the flask to their lips, but the brandy, instead of relieving their thirst, burned their stomach. It irritated them, that nasty taste of burnt rags in their mouths. Moreover they perceived that their strength was commencing to fail for want of sustenance and would have liked to take a bite from the half loaf that Maurice had in his knapsack, but it would not do to stop and breakfast there under fire, and then they had to keep up with their comrades. There was a steady stream of men coming up behind them along the hedge who pressed them forward, and so, doggedly bending their backs to the task before them, they resumed their course. Presently they made their final rush and reached the crest. They were on the plateau, at the very foot of the Calvary, the old weather-beaten cross that stood between two stunted lindens.

"Good for our side!" exclaimed Jean; "here we are! But the next thing is to remain here!"

He was right; it was not the pleasantest place in the world to be in, as Lapoulle remarked in a doleful tone that excited the laughter of the company. They all lay down again, in a field of stubble, and for all that three men were killed in quick succession. It was pandemonium let loose up there on the heights; the projectiles from Saint-Menges, Fleigneux, and Givonne fell in such numbers that the ground fairly seemed to smoke, as it does at times under a heavy shower of rain. It was clear that the position could not be maintained unless artillery was dispatched at once to the support of the troops who had been sent on such a hopeless undertaking. General Douay, it was said, had given instructions to bring up two batteries of the reserve artillery, and the men were every moment turning their heads, watching anxiously for the guns that did not come.

"It is absurd, ridiculous!" declared Beaudoin, who was again fidgeting up and down before the company. "Who ever heard of placing a regiment in the air like this and giving it no support!" Then, observing a slight depression on their left, he turned to Rochas: "Don't you think, Lieutenant, that the company would be safer there?"

Rochas stood stock still and shrugged his shoulders. "It is six of one and half a dozen of the other, Captain. My opinion is that we will do better to stay where we are."

Then the captain, whose principles were opposed to swearing, forgot himself.

"But, good God! there won't a man of us escape! We can't allow the men to be murdered like this!"

And he determined to investigate for himself the advantages of the position he had mentioned, but had scarcely taken ten steps when he was lost to sight in the smoke of an exploding shell; a splinter of the projectile had fractured his right leg. He fell upon his back, emitting a shrill cry of alarm, like a woman's.

"He might have known as much," Rochas muttered. "There's no use his making such a fuss over it; when the dose is fixed for one, he has to take it."

Some members of the company had risen to their feet on seeing their captain fall, and as he continued to call lustily for assistance, Jean finally ran to him, immediately followed by Maurice.

"Friends, friends, for Heaven's sake do not leave me here; carry me to the ambulance!"

"Dame, Captain, I don't know that we shall be able to get so far, but we can try."

As they were discussing how they could best take hold to raise him they perceived, behind the hedge that had sheltered them on their way up, two stretcher-bearers who seemed to be waiting for something to do, and finally, after protracted signaling, induced them to draw near. All would be well if they could only get the wounded man to the ambulance without accident, but the way was long and the iron hail more pitiless than ever.

The bearers had tightly bandaged the injured limb in order to keep the bones in position and were about to bear the captain off the field on what children call a "chair," formed by joining their hands and slipping an arm of the patient over each of their necks, when Colonel de Vineuil, who had heard of the accident, came up, spurring his horse. He manifested much emotion, for he had known the young man ever since his graduation from Saint-Cyr.

"Cheer up, my poor boy; have courage. You are in no danger; the doctors will save your leg."

The captain's face wore an expression of resignation, as if he had summoned up all his courage to bear his misfortune manfully.

"No, my dear Colonel; I feel it is all up with me, and I would rather have it so. The only thing that distresses me is the waiting for the inevitable end."

The bearers carried him away, and were fortunate enough to reach the hedge in safety, behind which they trotted swiftly away with their burden. The colonel's eyes followed them anxiously, and when he saw them reach the clump of trees where the ambulance was stationed a look of deep relief rose to his face.

"But you, Colonel," Maurice suddenly exclaimed, "you are wounded too!"

He had perceived blood dripping from the colonel's left boot. A projectile of some description had carried away the heel of the foot-covering and forced the steel shank into the flesh.

M. de Vineuil bent over his saddle and glanced unconcernedly at the member, in which the sensation at that time must have been far from pleasurable.

"Yes, yes," he replied, "it is a little remembrance that I received a while ago. A mere scratch, that don't prevent me from sitting my horse—" And he added, as he turned to resume his position to the rear of his regiment: "As long as a man can stick on his horse he's all right."

At last the two batteries of reserve artillery came up. Their arrival was an immense relief to the anxiously expectant men, as if the guns were to be a rampart of protection to them and at the same time demolish the hostile batteries that were thundering against them from every side. And then, too, it was in itself an exhilarating spectacle to see the magnificent order they preserved as they came dashing up, each gun followed by its caisson, the drivers seated on the near horse and holding the off horse by the bridle, the cannoneers bolt upright on the chests, the chiefs of detachment riding in their proper position on the flank. Distances were preserved as accurately as if they were on parade, and all the time they were tearing across the fields at headlong speed, with the roar and crash of a hurricane.

Maurice, who had lain down again, arose and said to Jean in great excitement:

"Look! over there on the left, that is Honore's battery. I can recognize the men."

Jean gave him a back-handed blow that brought him down to his recumbent position.

"Lie down, will you! and make believe dead!"

But they were both deeply interested in watching the maneuvers of the battery, and never once removed their eyes from it; it cheered their heart to witness the cool and intrepid activity of those men, who, they hoped, might yet bring victory to them.

The battery had wheeled into position on a bare summit to the left, where it brought up all standing; then, quick as a flash, the cannoneers leaped from the chests and unhooked the limbers, and the drivers, leaving the gun in position, drove fifteen yards to the rear, where they wheeled again so as to bring team and limber face to the enemy and there remained, motionless as statues. In less time than it takes to tell it the guns were in place, with the proper intervals between them, distributed into three sections of two guns each, each section commanded by a lieutenant, and over the whole a captain, a long maypole of a man, who made a terribly conspicuous landmark on the plateau. And this captain, having first made a brief calculation, was heard to shout:

"Sight for sixteen hundred yards!"

Their fire was to be directed upon a Prussian battery, screened by some bushes, to the left of Fleigneux, the shells from which were rendering the position of the Calvary untenable.

"Honore's piece, you see," Maurice began again, whose excitement was such that he could not keep still, "Honore's piece is in the center section. There he is now, bending over to speak to the gunner; you remember Louis, the gunner, don't you? the little fellow with whom we had a drink at Vouziers? And that fellow in the rear, who sits so straight on his handsome chestnut, is Adolphe, the driver—"

First came the gun with its chief and six cannoneers, then the limber with its four horses ridden by two men, beyond that the caisson with its six horses and three drivers, still further to the rear were the prolonge, forge, and battery wagon; and this array of men, horses and materiel extended to the rear in a straight unbroken line of more than a hundred yards in length; to say nothing of the spare caisson and the men and beasts who were to fill the places of those removed by casualties, who were stationed at one side, as much as possible out of the enemy's line of fire.

And now Honore was attending to the loading of his gun. The two men whose duty it was to fetch the cartridge and the projectile returned from the caisson, where the corporal and the artificer were stationed; two other cannoneers, standing at the muzzle of the piece, slipped into the bore the cartridge, a charge of powder in an envelope of serge, and gently drove it home with the rammer, then in like manner introduced the shell, the studs of which creaked faintly in the spirals of the rifling. When the primer was inserted in the vent and all was in readiness, Honore thought he would like to point the gun himself for the first shot, and throwing himself in a semi-recumbent posture on the trail, working with one hand the screw that regulated the elevation, with the other he signaled continually to the gunner, who, standing behind him, moved the piece by imperceptible degrees to right or left with the assistance of the lever.

"That ought to be about right," he said as he arose.

The captain came up, and stooping until his long body was bent almost double, verified the elevation. At each gun stood the assistant gunner, waiting to pull the lanyard that should ignite the fulminate by means of a serrated wire. And the orders were given in succession, deliberately, by number:

"Number one, Fire! Number two, Fire!"

Six reports were heard, the guns recoiled, and while they were being brought back to position the chiefs of detachment observed the effect of the shots and found that the range was short. They made the necessary correction and the evolution was repeated, in exactly the same manner as before; and it was that cool precision, that mechanical routine of duty, without agitation and without haste, that did so much to maintain the morale of the men. They were a little family, united by the tie of a common occupation, grouped around the gun, which they loved and reverenced as if it had been a living thing; it was the object of all their care and attention, to it all else was subservient, men, horses, caisson, everything. Thence also arose the spirit of unity and cohesion that animated the battery at large, making all its members work together for the common glory and the common good, like a well-regulated household.

The 106th had cheered lustily at the completion of the first round; they were going to make those bloody Prussian guns shut their mouths at last! but their elation was succeeded by dismay when it was seen that the projectiles fell short, many of them bursting in the air and never reaching the bushes that served to mask the enemy's artillery.

"Honore," Maurice continued, "says that all the other pieces are popguns and that his old girl is the only one that is good for anything. Ah, his old girl! He talks as if she were his wife and there were not another like her in the world! Just notice how jealously he watches her and makes the men clean her off! I suppose he is afraid she will overheat herself and take cold!"

He continued rattling on in this pleasant vein to Jean, both of them cheered and encouraged by the cool bravery with which the artillerymen served their guns; but the Prussian batteries, after firing three rounds, had now got the range, which, too long at the beginning, they had at last ciphered down to such a fine point that their shells were landed invariably among the French pieces, while the latter, notwithstanding the efforts that were made to increase their range, still continued to place their projectiles short of the enemy's position. One of Honore's cannoneers was killed while loading the piece; the others pushed the body out of their way, and the service went on with the same methodical precision, with neither more nor less haste. In the midst of the projectiles that fell and burst continually the same unvarying rhythmical movements went on uninterruptedly about the gun; the cartridge and shell were introduced, the gun was pointed, the lanyard pulled, the carriage brought back to place; and all with such undeviating regularity that the men might have been taken for automatons, devoid of sight and hearing.

What impressed Maurice, however, more than anything else, was the attitude of the drivers, sitting straight and stiff in their saddles fifteen yards to the rear, face to the enemy. There was Adolphe, the broad-chested, with his big blond mustache across his rubicund face; and who shall tell the amount of courage a man must have to enable him to sit without winking and watch the shells coming toward him, and he not allowed even to twirl his thumbs by way of diversion! The men who served the guns had something to occupy their minds, while the drivers, condemned to immobility, had death constantly before their eyes, and plenty of leisure to speculate on probabilities. They were made to face the battlefield because, had they turned their backs to it, the coward that so often lurks at the bottom of man's nature might have got the better of them and swept away man and beast. It is the unseen danger that makes dastards of us; that which we can see we brave. The army has no more gallant set of men in its ranks than the drivers in their obscure position.

Another man had been killed, two horses of a caisson had been disemboweled, and the enemy kept up such a murderous fire that there was a prospect of the entire battery being knocked to pieces should they persist in holding that position longer. It was time to take some step to baffle that tremendous fire, notwithstanding the danger there was in moving, and the captain unhesitatingly gave orders to bring up the limbers.

The risky maneuver was executed with lightning speed; the drivers came up at a gallop, wheeled their limber into position in rear of the gun, when the cannoneers raised the trail of the piece and hooked on. The movement, however, collecting as it did, momentarily, men and horses on the battery front in something of a huddle, created a certain degree of confusion, of which the enemy took advantage by increasing the rapidity of their fire; three more men dropped. The teams darted away at breakneck speed, describing an arc of a circle among the fields, and the battery took up its new position some fifty or sixty yards more to the right, on a gentle eminence that was situated on the other flank of the 106th. The pieces were unlimbered, the drivers resumed their station at the rear, face to the enemy, and the firing was reopened; and so little time was lost between leaving their old post and taking up the new that the earth had barely ceased to tremble under the concussion.

Maurice uttered a cry of dismay, when, after three attempts, the Prussians had again got their range; the first shell landed squarely on Honore's gun. The artilleryman rushed forward, and with a trembling hand felt to ascertain what damage had been done his pet; a great wedge had been chipped from the bronze muzzle. But it was not disabled, and the work went on as before, after they had removed from beneath the wheels the body of another cannoneer, with whose blood the entire carriage was besplashed.

"It was not little Louis; I am glad of that," said Maurice, continuing to think aloud. "There he is now, pointing his gun; he must be wounded, though, for he is only using his left arm. Ah, he is a brave lad, is little Louis; and how well he and Adolphe get on together, in spite of their little tiffs, only provided the gunner, the man who serves on foot, shows a proper amount of respect for the driver, the man who rides a horse, notwithstanding that the latter is by far the more ignorant of the two. Now that they are under fire, though, Louis is as good a man as Adolphe—"

Jean, who had been watching events in silence, gave utterance to a distressful cry:

"They will have to give it up! No troops in the world could stand such a fire."

Within the space of five minutes the second position had become as untenable as was the first; the projectiles kept falling with the same persistency, the same deadly precision. A shell dismounted a gun, fracturing the chase, killing a lieutenant and two men. Not one of the enemy's shots failed to reach, and at each discharge they secured a still greater accuracy of range, so that if the battery should remain there another five minutes they would not have a gun or a man left. The crushing fire threatened to wipe them all out of existence.

Again the captain's ringing voice was heard ordering up the limbers. The drivers dashed up at a gallop and wheeled their teams into place to allow the cannoneers to hook on the guns, but before Adolphe had time to get up Louis was struck by a fragment of shell that tore open his throat and broke his jaw; he fell across the trail of the carriage just as he was on the point of raising it. Adolphe was there instantly, and beholding his prostrate comrade weltering in his blood, jumped from his horse and was about to raise him to his saddle and bear him away. And at that moment, just as the battery was exposed flank to the enemy in the act of wheeling, offering a fair target, a crashing discharge came, and Adolphe reeled and fell to the ground, his chest crushed in, with arms wide extended. In his supreme convulsion he seized his comrade about the body, and thus they lay, locked in each other's arms in a last embrace, "married" even in death.

Notwithstanding the slaughtered horses and the confusion that that death-dealing discharge had caused among the men, the battery had rattled up the slope of a hillock and taken post a few yards from the spot where Jean and Maurice were lying. For the third time the guns were unlimbered, the drivers retired to the rear and faced the enemy, and the cannoneers, with a gallantry that nothing could daunt, at once reopened fire.

"It is as if the end of all things were at hand!" said Maurice, the sound of whose voice was lost in the uproar.

It seemed indeed as if heaven and earth were confounded in that hideous din. Great rocks were cleft asunder, the sun was hid from sight at times in clouds of sulphurous vapor. When the cataclysm was at its height the horses stood with drooping heads, trembling, dazed with terror. The captain's tall form was everywhere upon the eminence; suddenly he was seen no more; a shell had cut him clean in two, and he sank, as a ship's mast that is snapped off at the base.

But it was about Honore's gun, even more than the others, that the conflict raged, with cool efficiency and obstinate determination. The non-commissioned officer found it necessary to forget his chevrons for the time being and lend a hand in working the piece, for he had now but three cannoneers left; he pointed the gun and pulled the lanyard, while the others brought ammunition from the caisson, loaded, and handled the rammer and the sponge. He had sent for men and horses from the battery reserves that were kept to supply the places of those removed by casualties, but they were slow in coming, and in the meantime the survivors must do the work of the dead. It was a great discouragement to all that their projectiles ranged short and burst almost without exception in the air, inflicting no injury on the powerful batteries of the foe, the fire of which was so efficient. And suddenly Honore let slip an oath that was heard above the thunder of the battle; ill-luck, ill-luck, nothing but ill-luck! the right wheel of his piece was smashed! Tonnerre de Dieu! what a state she was in, the poor darling! stretched on her side with a broken paw, her nose buried in the ground, crippled and good for nothing! The sight brought big tears to his eyes, he laid his trembling hand upon the breech, as if the ardor of his love might avail to warm his dear mistress back to life. And the best gun of them all, the only one that had been able to drop a few shells among the enemy! Then suddenly he conceived a daring project, nothing less than to repair the injury there and then, under that terrible fire. Assisted by one of his men he ran back to the caisson and secured the spare wheel that was attached to the rear axle, and then commenced the most dangerous operation that can be executed on a battlefield. Fortunately the extra men and horses that he had sent for came up just then, and he had two cannoneers to lend him a hand.

For the third time, however, the strength of the battery was so reduced as practically to disable it. To push their heroic daring further would be madness; the order was given to abandon the position definitely.

"Make haste, comrades!" Honore exclaimed. "Even if she is fit for no further service we'll carry her off; those fellows shan't have her!"

To save the gun, even as men risk their life to save the flag; that was his idea. And he had not ceased to speak when he was stricken down as by a thunderbolt, his right arm torn from its socket, his left flank laid open. He had fallen upon his gun he loved so well, and lay there as if stretched on a bed of honor, with head erect, his unmutilated face turned toward the enemy, and bearing an expression of proud defiance that made him beautiful in death. From his torn jacket a letter had fallen to the ground and lay in the pool of blood that dribbled slowly from above.

The only lieutenant left alive shouted the order: "Bring up the limbers!"

A caisson had exploded with a roar that rent the skies. They were obliged to take the horses from another caisson in order to save a gun of which the team had been killed. And when, for the last time, the drivers had brought up their smoking horses and the guns had been limbered up, the whole battery flew away at a gallop and never stopped until they reached the edge of the wood of la Garenne, nearly twelve hundred yards away.

Maurice had seen the whole. He shivered with horror, and murmured mechanically, in a faint voice:

"Oh! poor fellow, poor fellow!"

In addition to this feeling of mental distress he had a horrible sensation of physical suffering, as if something was gnawing at his vitals. It was the animal portion of his nature asserting itself; he was at the end of his endurance, was ready to sink with hunger. His perceptions were dimmed, he was not even conscious of the dangerous position the regiment was in now it no longer was protected by the battery. It was more than likely that the enemy would not long delay to attack the plateau in force.

"Look here," he said to Jean, "I must eat—if I am to be killed for it the next minute, I must eat."

He opened his knapsack and, taking out the bread with shaking hands, set his teeth in it voraciously. The bullets were whistling above their heads, two shells exploded only a few yards away, but all was as naught to him in comparison with his craving hunger.

"Will you have some, Jean?"

The corporal was watching him with hungry eyes and a stupid expression on his face; his stomach was also twinging him.

"Yes, I don't care if I do; this suffering is more than I can stand."

They divided the loaf between them and each devoured his portion gluttonously, unmindful of what was going on about them so long as a crumb remained. And it was at that time that they saw their colonel for the last time, sitting his big horse, with his blood-stained boot. The regiment was surrounded on every side; already some of the companies had left the field. Then, unable longer to restrain their flight, with tears standing in his eyes and raising his sword above his head:

"My children," cried M. de Vineuil, "I commend you to the protection of God, who thus far has spared us all!"

He rode off down the hill, surrounded by a swarm of fugitives, and vanished from their sight.

Then, they knew not how, Maurice and Jean found themselves once more behind the hedge, with the remnant of their company. Some forty men at the outside were all that remained, with Lieutenant Rochas as their commander, and the regimental standard was with them; the subaltern who carried it had furled the silk about the staff in order to try to save it. They made their way along the hedge, as far as it extended, to a cluster of small trees upon a hillside, where Rochas made them halt and reopen fire. The men, dispersed in skirmishing order and sufficiently protected, could hold their ground, the more that an important calvary movement was in preparation on their right and regiments of infantry were being brought up to support it.

It was at that moment that Maurice comprehended the full scope of that mighty, irresistible turning movement that was now drawing near completion. That morning he had watched the Prussians debouching by the Saint-Albert pass and had seen their advanced guard pushed forward, first to Saint-Menges, then to Fleigneux, and now, behind the wood of la Garenne, he could hear the thunder of the artillery of the Guard, could behold other German uniforms arriving on the scene over the hills of Givonne. Yet a few moments, it might be, and the circle would be complete; the Guard would join hands with the Vth corps, surrounding the French army with a living wall, girdling them about with a belt of flaming artillery. It was with the resolve to make one supreme, desperate effort, to try to hew a passage through that advancing wall, that General Margueritte's division of the reserve cavalry was massing behind a protecting crest preparatory to charging. They were about to charge into the jaws of death, with no possibility of achieving any useful result, solely for the glory of France and the French army. And Maurice, whose thoughts turned to Prosper, was a witness of the terrible spectacle.

What between the messages that were given him to carry and their answers, Prosper had been kept busy since daybreak spurring up and down the plateau of Illy. The cavalrymen had been awakened at peep of dawn, man by man, without sound of trumpet, and to make their morning coffee had devised the ingenious expedient of screening their fires with a greatcoat so as not to attract the attention of the enemy. Then there came a period when they were left entirely to themselves, with nothing to occupy them; they seemed to be forgotten by their commanders. They could hear the sound of the cannonading, could descry the puffs of smoke, could see the distant movements of the infantry, but were utterly ignorant of the battle, its importance, and its results. Prosper, as far as he was concerned, was suffering from want of sleep. The cumulative fatigue induced by many nights of broken rest, the invincible somnolency caused by the easy gait of his mount, made life a burden. He dreamed dreams and saw visions; now he was sleeping comfortably in a bed between clean sheets, now snoring on the bare ground among sharpened flints. For minutes at a time he would actually be sound asleep in his saddle, a lifeless clod, his steed's intelligence answering for both. Under such circumstances comrades had often tumbled from their seats upon the road. They were so fagged that when they slept the trumpets no longer awakened them; the only way to rouse them from their lethargy and get them on their feet was to kick them soundly.

"But what are they going to do, what are they going to do with us?" Prosper kept saying to himself. It was the only thing he could think of to keep himself awake.

For six hours the cannon had been thundering. As they climbed a hill two comrades, riding at his side, had been struck down by a shell, and as they rode onward seven or eight others had bit the dust, pierced by rifle-balls that came no one could say whence. It was becoming tiresome, that slow parade, as useless as it was dangerous, up and down the battlefield. At last—it was about one o'clock—he learned that it had been decided they were to be killed off in a somewhat more decent manner. Margueritte's entire division, comprising three regiments of chasseurs d'Afrique, one of chasseurs de France, and one of hussars, had been drawn in and posted in a shallow valley a little to the south of the Calvary of Illy. The trumpets had sounded: "Dismount!" and then the officers' command ran down the line to tighten girths and look to packs.

Prosper alighted, stretched his cramped limbs, and gave Zephyr a friendly pat upon the neck. Poor Zephyr! he felt the degradation of the ignominious, heartbreaking service they were subjected to almost as keenly as his master; and not only that, but he had to carry a small arsenal of stores and implements of various kinds: the holsters stuffed with his master's linen and underclothing and the greatcoat rolled above, the stable suit, blouse, and overalls, and the sack containing brushes, currycomb, and other articles of equine toilet behind the saddle, the haversack with rations slung at his side, to say nothing of such trifles as side-lines and picket-pins, the watering bucket and the wooden basin. The cavalryman's tender heart was stirred by a feeling of compassion, as he tightened up the girth and looked to see that everything was secure in its place.

It was a trying moment. Prosper was no more a coward than the next man, but his mouth was intolerably dry and hot; he lit a cigarette in the hope that it would relieve the unpleasant sensation. When about to charge no man can assert with any degree of certainty that he will ride back again. The suspense lasted some five or six minutes; it was said that General Margueritte had ridden forward to reconnoiter the ground over which they were to charge; they were awaiting his return. The five regiments had been formed in three columns, each column having a depth of seven squadrons; enough to afford an ample meal to the hostile guns.

Presently the trumpets rang out: "To horse!" and this was succeeded almost immediately by the shrill summons: "Draw sabers!"

The colonel of each regiment had previously ridden out and taken his proper position, twenty-five yards to the front, the captains were all at their posts at the head of their squadrons. Then there was another period of anxious waiting, amid a silence heavy as that of death. Not a sound, not a breath, there, beneath the blazing sun; nothing, save the beating of those brave hearts. One order more, the supreme, the decisive one, and that mass, now so inert and motionless, would become a resistless tornado, sweeping all before it.

At that juncture, however, an officer appeared coming over the crest of the hill in front, wounded, and preserving his seat in the saddle only by the assistance of a man on either side. No one recognized him at first, but presently a deep, ominous murmur began to run from squadron to squadron, which quickly swelled into a furious uproar. It was General Margueritte, who had received a wound from which he died a few days later; a musket-ball had passed through both cheeks, carrying away a portion of the tongue and palate. He was incapable of speech, but waved his arm in the direction of the enemy. The fury of his men knew no bounds; their cries rose louder still upon the air.

"It is our general! Avenge him, avenge him!"

Then the colonel of the first regiment, raising aloft his saber, shouted in a voice of thunder:

"Charge!"

The trumpets sounded, the column broke into a trot and was away. Prosper was in the leading squadron, but almost at the extreme right of the right wing, a position of less danger than the center, upon which the enemy always naturally concentrate their hottest fire. When they had topped the summit of the Calvary and began to descend the slope beyond that led downward into the broad plain he had a distinct view, some two-thirds of a mile away, of the Prussian squares that were to be the object of their attack. Beside that vision all the rest was dim and confused before his eyes; he moved onward as one in a dream, with a strange ringing in his ears, a sensation of voidness in his mind that left him incapable of framing an idea. He was a part of the great engine that tore along, controlled by a superior will. The command ran along the line: "Keep touch of knees! Keep touch of knees!" in order to keep the men closed up and give their ranks the resistance and rigidity of a wall of granite, and as their trot became swifter and swifter and finally broke into a mad gallop, the chasseurs d'Afrique gave their wild Arab cry that excited their wiry steeds to the verge of frenzy. Onward they tore, faster and faster still, until their gallop was a race of unchained demons, their shouts the shrieks of souls in mortal agony; onward they plunged amid a storm of bullets that rattled on casque and breastplate, on buckle and scabbard, with a sound like hail; into the bosom of that hailstorm flashed that thunderbolt beneath which the earth shook and trembled, leaving behind it, as it passed, an odor of burned woolen and the exhalations of wild beasts.

At five hundred yards the line wavered an instant, then swirled and broke in a frightful eddy that brought Prosper to the ground. He clutched Zephyr by the mane and succeeded in recovering his seat. The center had given way, riddled, almost annihilated as it was by the musketry fire, while the two wings had wheeled and ridden back a little way to renew their formation. It was the foreseen, foredoomed destruction of the leading squadron. Disabled horses covered the ground, some quiet in death, but many struggling violently in their strong agony; and everywhere dismounted riders could be seen, running as fast as their short legs would let them, to capture themselves another mount. Many horses that had lost their master came galloping back to the squadron and took their place in line of their own accord, to rush with their comrades back into the fire again, as if there was some strange attraction for them in the smell of gunpowder. The charge was resumed; the second squadron went forward, like the first, at a constantly accelerated rate of speed, the men bending upon their horses' neck, holding the saber along the thigh, ready for use upon the enemy. Two hundred yards more were gained this time, amid the thunderous, deafening uproar, but again the center broke under the storm of bullets; men and horses went down in heaps, and the piled corpses made an insurmountable barrier for those who followed. Thus was the second squadron in its turn mown down, annihilated, leaving its task to be accomplished by those who came after.

When for the third time the men were called upon to charge and responded with invincible heroism, Prosper found that his companions were principally hussars and chasseurs de France. Regiments and squadrons, as organizations, had ceased to exist; their constituent elements were drops in the mighty wave that alternately broke and reared its crest again, to swallow up all that lay in its destructive path. He had long since lost distinct consciousness of what was going on around him, and suffered his movements to be guided by his mount, faithful Zephyr, who had received a wound in the ear that seemed to madden him. He was now in the center, where all about him horses were rearing, pawing the air, and falling backward; men were dismounted as if torn from their saddle by the blast of a tornado, while others, shot through some vital part, retained their seat and rode onward in the ranks with vacant, sightless eyes. And looking back over the additional two hundred yards that this effort had won for them, they could see the field of yellow stubble strewn thick with dead and dying. Some there were who had fallen headlong from their saddle and buried their face in the soft earth. Others had alighted on their back and were staring up into the sun with terror-stricken eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets. There was a handsome black horse, an officer's charger, that had been disemboweled, and was making frantic efforts to rise, his fore feet entangled in his entrails. Beneath the fire, that became constantly more murderous as they drew nearer, the survivors in the wings wheeled their horses and fell back to concentrate their strength for a fresh onset.

Finally it was the fourth squadron, which, on the fourth attempt, reached the Prussian lines. Prosper made play with his saber, hacking away at helmets and dark uniforms as well as he could distinguish them, for all was dim before him, as in a dense mist. Blood flowed in torrents; Zephyr's mouth was smeared with it, and to account for it he said to himself that the good horse must have been using his teeth on the Prussians. The clamor around him became so great that he could not hear his own voice, although his throat seemed splitting from the yells that issued from it. But behind the first Prussian line there was another, and then another, and then another still. Their gallant efforts went for nothing; those dense masses of men were like a tangled jungle that closed around the horses and riders who entered it and buried them in its rank growths. They might hew down those who were within reach of their sabers; others stood ready to take their place, the last squadrons were lost and swallowed up in their vast numbers. The firing, at point-blank range, was so furious that the men's clothing was ignited. Nothing could stand before it, all went down; and the work that it left unfinished was completed by bayonet and musket butt. Of the brave men who rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield, and the sole end achieved by that mad charge was to add another glorious page to history. And then Zephyr, struck by a musket-ball full in the chest, dropped in a heap, crushing beneath him Prosper's right thigh; and the pain was so acute that the young man fainted.

Maurice and Jean, who had watched the gallant effort with burning interest, uttered an exclamation of rage.

"Tonnerre de Dieu! what bravery wasted!"

And they resumed their firing from among the trees of the low hill where they were deployed in skirmishing order. Rochas himself had picked up an abandoned musket and was blazing away with the rest. But the plateau of Illy was lost to them by this time beyond hope of recovery; the Prussians were pouring in upon it from every quarter. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of two o'clock, and their great movement was accomplished; the Vth corps and the Guards had effected their junction, the investment of the French army was complete.

Jean was suddenly brought to the ground.

"I am done for," he murmured.

He had received what seemed to him like a smart blow of a hammer on the crown of his head, and his kepi lay behind him with a great furrow plowed through its top. At first he thought that the bullet had certainly penetrated the skull and laid bare the brain; his dread of finding a yawning orifice there was so great that for some seconds he dared not raise his hand to ascertain the truth. When finally he ventured, his fingers, on withdrawing them, were red with an abundant flow of blood, and the pain was so intense that he fainted.

Just then Rochas gave the order to fall back. The Prussians had crept up on them and were only two or three hundred yards away; they were in danger of being captured.

"Be cool, don't hurry; face about and give 'em another shot. Rally behind that low wall that you see down there."

Maurice was in despair; he knew not what to do.

"We are not going to leave our corporal behind, are we, lieutenant?"

"What are we to do? he has turned up his toes."

"No, no! he is breathing still. Take him along!"

Rochas shrugged his shoulders as if to say they could not bother themselves for every man that dropped. A wounded man is esteemed of little value on the battlefield. Then Maurice addressed his supplications to Lapoulle and Pache.

"Come, give me a helping hand. I am not strong enough to carry him unassisted."

They were deaf to his entreaties; all they could hear was the voice that urged them to seek safety for themselves. The Prussians were now not more than a hundred yards from them; already they were on their hands and knees, crawling as fast as they could go toward the wall.

And Maurice, weeping tears of rage, thus left alone with his unconscious companion, raised him in his arms and endeavored to lug him away, but he found his puny strength unequal to the task, exhausted as he was by fatigue and the emotions of the day. At the first step he took he reeled and fell with his burden. If only he could catch sight of a stretcher-bearer! He strained his eyes, thought he had discovered one among the crowd of fugitives, and made frantic gestures of appeal; no one came, they were left behind, alone. Summoning up his strength with a determined effort of the will he seized Jean once more and succeeded in advancing some thirty paces, when a shell burst near them and he thought that all was ended, that he, too, was to die on the body of his comrade.

Slowly, cautiously, Maurice picked himself up. He felt his body, arms, and legs; nothing, not a scratch. Why should he not look out for himself and fly, alone? There was time left still; a few bounds would take him to the wall and he would be saved. His horrible sensation of fear returned and made him frantic. He was collecting his energies to break away and run, when a feeling stronger than death intervened and vanquished the base impulse. What, abandon Jean! he could not do it. It would be like mutilating his own being; the brotherly affection that had bourgeoned and grown between him and that rustic had struck its roots down into his life, too deep to be slain like that. The feeling went back to the earliest days, was perhaps as old as the world itself; it was as if there were but they two upon earth, of whom one could not forsake the other without forsaking himself, and being doomed thenceforth to an eternity of solitude. Molded of the same clay, quickened by the same spirit, duty imperiously commanded to save himself in saving his brother.

Had it not been for the crust of bread he ate an hour before under the Prussian shells Maurice could never have done what he did; how he did it he could never in subsequent days remember. He must have hoisted Jean upon his shoulders and crawled through the brush and brambles, falling a dozen times only to pick himself up and go on again, stumbling at every rut, at every pebble. His indomitable will sustained him, his dogged resolution would have enabled him to bear a mountain on his back. Behind the low wall he found Rochas and the few men that were left of the squad, firing away as stoutly as ever and defending the flag, which the subaltern held beneath his arm. It had not occurred to anyone to designate lines of retreat for the several army corps in case the day should go against them; owing to this want of foresight every general was at liberty to act as seemed to him best, and at this stage of the conflict they all found themselves being crowded back upon Sedan under the steady, unrelaxing pressure of the German armies. The second division of the 7th corps fell back in comparatively good order, while the remnants of the other divisions, mingled with the debris of the 1st corps, were already streaming into the city in terrible disorder, a roaring torrent of rage and fright that bore all, men and beasts, before it.

But to Maurice, at that moment, was granted the satisfaction of seeing Jean unclose his eyes, and as he was running to a stream that flowed near by, for water with which to bathe his friend's face, he was surprised, looking down on his right into a sheltered valley that lay between rugged slopes, to behold the same peasant whom he had seen that morning, still leisurely driving the plow through the furrow with the assistance of his big white horse. Why should he lose a day? Men might fight, but none the less the corn would keep on growing; and folks must live.



VI.

Up on his lofty terrace, whither he had betaken himself to watch how affairs were shaping, Delaherche at last became impatient and was seized with an uncontrollable desire for news. He could see that the enemy's shells were passing over the city and that the few projectiles which had fallen on the houses in the vicinity were only responses, made at long intervals, to the irregular and harmless fire from Fort Palatinat, but he could discern nothing of the battle, and his agitation was rising to fever heat; he experienced an imperious longing for intelligence, which was constantly stimulated by the reflection that his life and fortune would be in danger should the army be defeated. He found it impossible to remain there longer, and went downstairs, leaving behind him the telescope on its tripod, turned on the German batteries.

When he had descended, however, he lingered a moment, detained by the aspect of the central garden of the factory. It was near one o'clock, and the ambulance was crowded with wounded men; the wagons kept driving up to the entrance in an unbroken stream. The regular ambulance wagons of the medical department, two-wheeled and four-wheeled, were too few in number to meet the demand, and vehicles of every description from the artillery and other trains, prolonges, provision vans, everything on wheels that could be picked up on the battlefield, came rolling up with their ghastly loads; and later in the day even carrioles and market-gardeners' carts were pressed into the service and harnessed to horses that were found straying along the roads. Into these motley conveyances were huddled the men collected from the flying ambulances, where their hurts had received such hasty attention as could be afforded. It was a sight to move the most callous to behold the unloading of those poor wretches, some with a greenish pallor on their face, others suffused with the purple hue that denotes congestion; many were in a state of coma, others uttered piercing cries of anguish; some there were who, in their semi-conscious condition, yielded themselves to the arms of the attendants with a look of deepest terror in their eyes, while a few, the minute a hand was laid on them, died of the consequent shock. They continued to arrive in such numbers that soon every bed in the vast apartment would have its occupant, and Major Bouroche had given orders to make use of the straw that had been spread thickly upon the floor at one end. He and his assistants had thus far been able to attend to all the cases with reasonable promptness; he had requested Mme. Delaherche to furnish him with another table, with mattress and oilcloth cover, for the shed where he had established his operating room. The assistant would thrust a napkin saturated with chloroform to the patient's nostrils, the keen knife flashed in the air, there was the faint rasping of the saw, barely audible, the blood spurted in short, sharp jets that were checked immediately. As soon as one subject had been operated on another was brought in, and they followed one another in such quick succession that there was barely time to pass a sponge over the protecting oilcloth. At the extremity of the grass plot, screened from sight by a clump of lilac bushes, they had set up a kind of morgue whither they carried the bodies of the dead, which were removed from the beds without a moment's delay in order to make room for the living, and this receptacle also served to receive the amputated legs, and arms, whatever debris of flesh and bone remained upon the table.

Mme. Delaherche and Gilberte, seated at the foot of one of the great trees, found it hard work to keep pace with the demand for bandages. Bouroche, who happened to be passing, his face very red, his apron white no longer, threw a bundle of linen to Delaherche and shouted:

"Here! be doing something; make yourself useful!"

But the manufacturer objected. "Oh! excuse me; I must go and try to pick up some news. One can't tell whether his neck is safe or not." Then, touching his lips to his wife's hair: "My poor Gilberte, to think that a shell may burn us out of house and home at any moment! It is horrible."

She was very pale; she raised her head and glanced about her, shuddering as she did so. Then, involuntarily, her unextinguishable smile returned to her lips.

"Oh, horrible, indeed! and all those poor men that they are cutting and carving. I don't see how it is that I stay here without fainting."

Mme. Delaherche had watched her son as he kissed the young woman's hair. She made a movement as if to part them, thinking of that other man who must have kissed those tresses so short a time ago; then her old hands trembled, she murmured beneath her breath:

"What suffering all about us, mon Dieu! It makes one forget his own."

Delaherche left them, with the assurance that he would be away no longer than was necessary to ascertain the true condition of affairs. In the Rue Maqua he was surprised to observe the crowds of soldiers that were streaming into the city, without arms and in torn, dust-stained uniforms. It was in vain, however, that he endeavored to slake his thirst for news by questioning them; some answered with vacant, stupid looks that they knew nothing, while others told long rambling stories, with the maniacal gestures and whirling words of one bereft of reason. He therefore mechanically turned his steps again toward the Sous Prefecture as the likeliest quarter in which to look for information. As he was passing along the Place du College two guns, probably all that remained of some battery, came dashing up to the curb on a gallop, and were abandoned there. When at last he turned into the Grande Rue he had further evidence that the advanced guards of the fugitives were beginning to take possession, of the city; three dismounted hussars had seated themselves in a doorway and were sharing a loaf of bread; two others were walking their mounts up and down, leading them by the bridle, not knowing where to look for stabling for them; officers were hurrying to and fro distractedly, seemingly without any distinct purpose. On the Place Turenne a lieutenant counseled him not to loiter unnecessarily, for the shells had an unpleasant way of dropping there every now and then; indeed, a splinter had just demolished the railing about the statue of the great commander who overran the Palatinate. And as if to emphasize the officer's advice, while he was making fast time down the Rue de la Sous Prefecture he saw two projectiles explode, with a terrible crash, on the Pont de Meuse.

He was standing in front of the janitor's lodge, debating with himself whether it would be best to send in his card and try to interview one of the aides-de-camp, when he heard a girlish voice calling him by name.

"M. Delaherche! Come in here, quick; it is not safe out there."

It was Rose, his little operative, whose existence he had quite forgotten. She might be a useful ally in assisting him to gain access to headquarters; he entered the lodge and accepted her invitation to be seated.

"Just think, mamma is down sick with the worry and confusion; she can't leave her bed, so, you see, I have to attend to everything, for papa is with the National Guards up in the citadel. A little while ago the Emperor left the building—I suppose he wanted to let people see he is not a coward—and succeeded in getting as far as the bridge down at the end of the street. A shell alighted right in front of him; one of his equerries had his horse killed under him. And then he came back—he couldn't do anything else, could he, now?"

"You must have heard some talk of how the battle is going. What do they say, those gentlemen upstairs?"

She looked at him in surprise. Her pretty face was bright and smiling, with its fluffy golden hair and the clear, childish eyes of one who bestirred herself among her multifarious duties, in the midst of all those horrors, which she did not well understand.

"No, I know nothing. About midday I sent up a letter for Marshal MacMahon, but it could not be given him right away, because the Emperor was in the room. They were together nearly an hour, the Marshal lying on his bed, the Emperor close beside him seated on a chair. That much I know for certain, because I saw them when the door was opened."

"And then, what did they say to each other?"

She looked at him again, and could not help laughing.

"Why, I don't know; how could you expect me to? There's not a living soul knows what they said to each other."

She was right; he made an apologetic gesture in recognition of the stupidity of his question. But the thought of that fateful conversation haunted him; the interest there was in it for him who could have heard it! What decision had they arrived at?

"And now," Rose added, "the Emperor is back in his cabinet again, where he is having a conference with two generals who have just come in from the battlefield." She checked herself, casting a glance at the main entrance of the building. "See! there is one of them, now—and there comes the other."

He hurried from the room, and in the two generals recognized Ducrot and Douay, whose horses were standing before the door. He watched them climb into their saddles and gallop away. They had hastened into the city, each independently of the other, after the plateau of Illy had been captured by the enemy, to notify the Emperor that the battle was lost. They placed the entire situation distinctly before him; the army and Sedan were even then surrounded on every side; the result could not help but be disastrous.

For some minutes the Emperor continued silently to pace the floor of his cabinet, with the feeble, uncertain step of an invalid. There was none with him save an aide-de-camp, who stood by the door, erect and mute. And ever, to and fro, from the window to the fireplace, from the fireplace to the window, the sovereign tramped wearily, the inscrutable face now drawn and twitching spasmodically with a nervous tic. The back was bent, the shoulders bowed, as if the weight of his falling empire pressed on them more heavily, and the lifeless eyes, veiled by their heavy lids, told of the anguish of the fatalist who has played his last card against destiny and lost. Each time, however, that his walk brought him to the half-open window he gave a start and lingered there a second. And during one of those brief stoppages he faltered with trembling lips:

"Oh! those guns, those guns, that have been going since the morning!"

The thunder of the batteries on la Marfee and at Frenois seemed, indeed, to resound with more terrific violence there than elsewhere. It was one continuous, uninterrupted crash, that shook the windows, nay, the very walls themselves; an incessant uproar that exasperated the nerves by its persistency. And he could not banish the reflection from his mind that, as the struggle was now hopeless, further resistance would be criminal. What would avail more bloodshed, more maiming and mangling; why add more corpses to the dead that were already piled high upon that bloody field? They were vanquished, it was all ended; then why not stop the slaughter? The abomination of desolation raised its voice to heaven: let it cease.

The Emperor, again before the window, trembled and raised his hands to his ears, as if to shut out those reproachful voices.

"Oh, those guns, those guns! Will they never be silent!"

Perhaps the dreadful thought of his responsibilities arose before him, with the vision of all those thousands of bleeding forms with which his errors had cumbered the earth; perhaps, again, it was but the compassionate impulse of the tender-hearted dreamer, of the well-meaning man whose mind was stocked with humanitarian theories. At the moment when he beheld utter ruin staring him in the face, in that frightful whirlwind of destruction that broke him like a reed and scattered his fortunes in the dust, he could yet find tears for others. Almost crazed at the thought of the slaughter that was mercilessly going on so near him, he felt he had not strength to endure it longer; each report of that accursed cannonade seemed to pierce his heart and intensified a thousandfold his own private suffering.

"Oh, those guns, those guns! they must be silenced at once, at once!"

And that monarch who no longer had a throne, for he had delegated all his functions to the Empress regent, that chief without an army, since he had turned over the supreme command to Marshal Bazaine, now felt that he must once more take the reins in his hand and be the master. Since they left Chalons he had kept himself in the background, had issued no orders, content to be a nameless nullity without recognized position, a cumbrous burden carried about from place to place among the baggage of his troops, and it was only in their hour of defeat that the Emperor reasserted itself in him; the one order that he was yet to give, out of the pity of his sorrowing heart, was to raise the white flag on the citadel to request an armistice.

"Those guns, oh! those guns! Take a sheet, someone, a tablecloth, it matters not what! only hasten, hasten, and see that it is done!"

The aide-de-camp hurried from the room, and with unsteady steps the Emperor continued to pace his beat, back and forth, between the window and the fireplace, while still the batteries kept thundering, shaking the house from garret to foundation.

Delaherche was still chatting with Rose in the room below when a non-commissioned officer of the guard came running in and interrupted them.

"Mademoiselle, the house is in confusion, I cannot find a servant. Can you let me have something from your linen closet, a white cloth of some kind?"

"Will a napkin answer?"

"No, no, it would not be large enough. Half of a sheet, say."

Rose, eager to oblige, was already fumbling in her closet.

"I don't think I have any half-sheets. No, I don't see anything that looks as if it would serve your purpose. Oh, here is something; could you use a tablecloth?"

"A tablecloth! just the thing. Nothing could be better." And he added as he left the room: "It is to be used as a flag of truce, and hoisted on the citadel to let the enemy know we want to stop the fighting. Much obliged, mademoiselle."

Delaherche gave a little involuntary start of delight; they were to have a respite at last, then! Then he thought it might be unpatriotic to be joyful at such a time, and put on a long face again; but none the less his heart was very glad and he contemplated with much interest a colonel and captain, followed by the sergeant, as they hurriedly left the Sous-Prefecture. The colonel had the tablecloth, rolled in a bundle, beneath his arm. He thought he should like to follow them, and took leave of Rose, who was very proud that her napery was to be put to such use. It was then just striking two o'clock.

In front of the Hotel de Ville Delaherche was jostled by a disorderly mob of half-crazed soldiers who were pushing their way down from the Faubourg de la Cassine; he lost sight of the colonel, and abandoned his design of going to witness the raising of the white flag. He certainly would not be allowed to enter the citadel, and then again he had heard it reported that shells were falling on the college, and a new terror filled his mind; his factory might have been burned since he left it. All his feverish agitation returned to him and he started off on a run; the rapid motion was a relief to him. But the streets were blocked by groups of men, at every crossing he was delayed by some new obstacle. It was only when he reached the Rue Maqua and beheld the monumental facade of his house intact, no smoke or sign of fire about it, that his anxiety was allayed, and he heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. He entered, and from the doorway shouted to his mother and wife:

"It is all right! they are hoisting the white flag; the cannonade won't last much longer."

He said nothing more, for the appearance presented by the ambulance was truly horrifying.

In the vast drying-room, the wide door of which was standing open, not only was every bed occupied, but there was no more room upon the litter that had been shaken down on the floor at the end of the apartment. They were commencing to strew straw in the spaces between the beds, the wounded were crowded together so closely that they were in contact. Already there were more than two hundred patients there, and more were arriving constantly; through the lofty windows the pitiless white daylight streamed in upon that aggregation of suffering humanity. Now and then an unguarded movement elicited an involuntary cry of anguish. The death-rattle rose on the warm, damp air. Down the room a low, mournful wail, almost a lullaby, went on and ceased not. And all about was silence, intense, profound, the stolid resignation of despair, the solemn stillness of the death-chamber, broken only by the tread and whispers of the attendants. Rents in tattered, shell-torn uniforms disclosed gaping wounds, some of which had received a hasty dressing on the battlefield, while others were still raw and bleeding. There were feet, still incased in their coarse shoes, crushed into a mass like jelly; from knees and elbows, that were as if they had been smashed by a hammer, depended inert limbs. There were broken hands, and fingers almost severed, ready to drop, retained only by a strip of skin. Most numerous among the casualties were the fractures; the poor arms and legs, red and swollen, throbbed intolerably and were heavy as lead. But the most dangerous hurts were those in the abdomen, chest, and head. There were yawning fissures that laid open the entire flank, the knotted viscera were drawn into great hard lumps beneath the tight-drawn skin, while as the effect of certain wounds the patient frothed at the mouth and writhed like an epileptic. Here and there were cases where the lungs had been penetrated, the puncture now so minute as to permit no escape of blood, again a wide, deep orifice through which the red tide of life escaped in torrents; and the internal hemorrhages, those that were hid from sight, were the most terrible in their effects, prostrating their victim like a flash, making him black in the face and delirious. And finally the head, more than any other portion of the frame, gave evidence of hard treatment; a broken jaw, the mouth a pulp of teeth and bleeding tongue, an eye torn from its socket and exposed upon the cheek, a cloven skull that showed the palpitating brain beneath. Those in whose case the bullet had touched the brain or spinal marrow were already as dead men, sunk in the lethargy of coma, while the fractures and other less serious cases tossed restlessly on their pallets and beseechingly called for water to quench their thirst.

Leaving the large room and passing out into the courtyard, the shed where the operations were going on presented another scene of horror. In the rush and hurry that had continued unabated since morning it was impossible to operate on every case that was brought in, so their attention had been confined to those urgent cases that imperatively demanded it. Whenever Bouroche's rapid judgment told him that amputation was necessary, he proceeded at once to perform it. In the same way he lost not a moment's time in probing the wound and extracting the projectile whenever it had lodged in some locality where it might do further mischief, as in the muscles of the neck, the region of the arm pit, the thigh joint, the ligaments of the knee and elbow. Severed arteries, too, had to be tied without delay. Other wounds were merely dressed by one of the hospital stewards under his direction and left to await developments. He had already with his own hand performed four amputations, the only rest that he allowed himself being to attend to some minor cases in the intervals between them, and was beginning to feel fatigue. There were but two tables, his own and another, presided over by one of his assistants; a sheet had been hung between them, to isolate the patients from each other. Although the sponge was kept constantly at work the tables were always red, and the buckets that were emptied over a bed of daisies a few steps away, the clear water in which a single tumbler of blood sufficed to redden, seemed to be buckets of unmixed blood, torrents of blood, inundating the gentle flowers of the parterre. Although the room was thoroughly ventilated a nauseating smell arose from the tables and their horrid burdens, mingled with the sweetly insipid odor of chloroform.

Delaherche, naturally a soft-hearted man, was in a quiver of compassionate emotion at the spectacle that lay before his eyes, when his attention was attracted by a landau that drove up to the door. It was a private carriage, but doubtless the ambulance attendants had found none other ready to their hand and had crowded their patients into it. There were eight of them, sitting on one another's knees, and as the last man alighted the manufacturer recognized Captain Beaudoin, and gave utterance to a cry of terror and surprise.

"Ah, my poor friend! Wait, I will call my mother and my wife."

They came running up, leaving the bandages to be rolled by servants. The attendants had already raised the captain and brought him into the room, and were about to lay him down upon a pile of straw when Delaherche noticed, lying on a bed, a soldier whose ashy face and staring eyes exhibited no sign of life.

"Look, is he not dead, that man?"

"That's so!" replied the attendant. "He may as well make room for someone else!"

He and one of his mates took the body by the arms and legs and carried it off to the morgue that had been extemporized behind the lilac bushes. A dozen corpses were already there in a row, stiff and stark, some drawn out to their full length as if in an attempt to rid themselves of the agony that racked them, others curled and twisted in every attitude of suffering. Some seemed to have left the world with a sneer on their faces, their eyes retroverted till naught was visible but the whites, the grinning lips parted over the glistening teeth, while in others, with faces unspeakably sorrowful, big tears still stood on the cheeks. One, a mere boy, short and slight, half whose face had been shot away by a cannon-ball, had his two hands clasped convulsively above his heart, and in them a woman's photograph, one of those pale, blurred pictures that are made in the quarters of the poor, bedabbled with his blood. And at the feet of the dead had been thrown in a promiscuous pile the amputated arms and legs, the refuse of the knife and saw of the operating table, just as the butcher sweeps into a corner of his shop the offal, the worthless odds and ends of flesh and bone.

Gilberte shuddered as she looked on Captain Beaudoin. Good God! how pale he was, stretched out on his mattress, his face so white beneath the encrusting grime! And the thought that but a few short hours before he had held her in his arms, radiant in all his manly strength and beauty, sent a chill of terror to her heart. She kneeled beside him.

"What a terrible misfortune, my friend! But it won't amount to anything, will it?" And she drew her handkerchief from her pocket and began mechanically to wipe his face, for she could not bear to look at it thus soiled with powder, sweat, and clay. It seemed to her, too, that she would be helping him by cleansing him a little. "Will it? it is only your leg that is hurt; it won't amount to anything."

The captain made an effort to rouse himself from his semi-conscious state, and opened his eyes. He recognized his friends and greeted them with a faint smile.

"Yes, it is only the leg. I was not even aware of being hit; I thought I had made a misstep and fallen—" He spoke with great difficulty. "Oh! I am so thirsty!"

Mme. Delaherche, who was standing at the other side of the mattress, looking down compassionately on the young man, hastily left the room. She returned with a glass and a carafe of water into which a little cognac had been poured, and when the captain had greedily swallowed the contents of the glass, she distributed what remained in the carafe among the occupants of the adjacent beds, who begged with trembling outstretched hands and tearful voices for a drop. A zouave, for whom there was none left, sobbed like a child in his disappointment.

Delaherche was meantime trying to gain the major's ear to see if he could not prevail on him to take up the captain's case out of its regular turn. Bouroche came into the room just then, with his blood-stained apron and lion's mane hanging in confusion about his perspiring face, and the men raised their heads as he passed and endeavored to stop him, all clamoring at once for recognition and immediate attention: "This way, major! It's my turn, major!" Faltering words of entreaty went up to him, trembling hands clutched at his garments, but he, wrapped up in the work that lay before him and puffing with his laborious exertions, continued to plan and calculate and listened to none of them. He communed with himself aloud, counting them over with his finger and classifying them, assigning them their numbers; this one first, then that one, then that other fellow; one, two, three; the jaw, the arm, then the thigh; while the assistant who accompanied him on his round made himself all ears in his effort to memorize his directions.

"Major," said Delaherche, plucking him by the sleeve, "there is an officer over here, Captain Beaudoin—"

Bouroche interrupted him. "What, Beaudoin here! Ah, the poor devil!" And he crossed over at once to the side of the wounded man. A single glance, however, must have sufficed to show him that the case was a bad one, for he added in the same breath, without even stooping to examine the injured member: "Good! I will have them bring him to me at once, just as soon as I am through with the operation that is now in hand."

And he went back to the shed, followed by Delaherche, who would not lose sight of him for fear lest he might forget his promise.

The business that lay before him now was the rescision of a shoulder-joint in accordance with Lisfranc's method, which surgeons never fail to speak of as a "very pretty" operation, something neat and expeditious, barely occupying forty seconds in the performance. The patient was subjected to the influence of chloroform, while an assistant grasped the shoulder with both hands, the fingers under the armpit, the thumbs on top. Bouroche, brandishing the long, keen knife, cried: "Raise him!" seized the deltoid with his left hand and with a swift movement of the right cut through the flesh of the arm and severed the muscle; then, with a deft rearward cut, he disarticulated the joint at a single stroke, and presto! the arm fell on the table, taken off in three motions. The assistant slipped his thumbs over the brachial artery in such manner as to close it. "Let him down!" Bouroche could not restrain a little pleased laugh as he proceeded to secure the artery, for he had done it in thirty-five seconds. All that was left to do now was to bring a flap of skin down over the wound and stitch it, in appearance something like a flat epaulette. It was not only "pretty," but exciting, on account of the danger, for a man will pump all the blood out of his body in two minutes through the brachial, to say nothing of the risk there is in bringing a patient to a sitting posture when under the influence of anaesthetics.

Delaherche was white as a ghost; a thrill of horror ran down his back. He would have turned and fled, but time was not given him; the arm was already off. The soldier was a new recruit, a sturdy peasant lad; on emerging from his state of coma he beheld a hospital attendant carrying away the amputated limb to conceal it behind the lilacs. Giving a quick downward glance at his shoulder, he saw the bleeding stump and knew what had been done, whereon he became furiously angry.

"Ah, nom de Dieu! what have you been doing to me? It is a shame!"

Bouroche was too done up to make him an immediate answer, but presently, in his fatherly way:

"I acted for the best; I didn't want to see you kick the bucket, my boy. Besides, I asked you, and you told me to go ahead."

"I told you to go ahead! I did? How could I know what I was saying!" His anger subsided and he began to weep scalding tears. "What is going to become of me now?"

They carried him away and laid him on the straw, and gave the table and its covering a thorough cleansing; and the buckets of blood-red water that they threw out across the grass plot gave to the pale daisies a still deeper hue of crimson.