The Downfall: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The crush was so great as the column of prisoners was leaving Torcy
that Maurice, who had stopped a moment to buy some tobacco, was parted
from Jean, and with all his efforts was unable thereafter to catch up
with his regiment through the dense masses of men that filled the
road. When he at last reached the bridge that spans the canal which
intersects the peninsula of Iges at its base, he found himself in a
mixed company of chasseurs d'Afrique and troops of the infanterie de
marine.

There were two pieces of artillery stationed at the bridge, their
muzzles turned upon the interior of the peninsula; it was a place easy
of access, but from which exit would seem to be attended with some
difficulties. Immediately beyond the canal was a comfortable house,
where the Prussians had established a post, commanded by a captain,
upon which devolved the duty of receiving and guarding the prisoners.
The formalities observed were not excessive; they merely counted the
men, as if they had been sheep, as they came streaming in a huddle
across the bridge, without troubling themselves overmuch about
uniforms or organizations, after which the prisoners were free of the
fields and at liberty to select their dwelling-place wherever chance
and the road they were on might direct.

The first thing that Maurice did was to address a question to a
Bavarian officer, who was seated astride upon a chair, enjoying a
tranquil smoke.

"The 106th of the line, sir, can you tell me where I shall find it?"

Either the officer was unlike most German officers and did not
understand French, or thought it a good joke to mystify a poor devil
of a soldier. He smiled and raised his hand, indicating by his motion
that the other was to keep following the road he was pursuing.

Although Maurice had spent a good part of his life in the neighborhood
he had never before been on the peninsula; he proceeded to explore his
new surroundings, as a mariner might do when cast by a tempest on the
shore of a desolate island. He first skirted the Tour a Glaire, a very
handsome country-place, whose small park, situated as it was on the
bank of the Meuse, possessed a peculiarly attractive charm. After that
the road ran parallel with the river, of which the sluggish current
flowed on the right hand at the foot of high, steep banks. The way
from there was a gradually ascending one, until it wound around the
gentle eminence that occupied the central portion of the peninsula,
and there were abandoned quarries there and excavations in the ground,
in which a network of narrow paths had their termination. A little
further on was a mill, seated on the border of the stream. Then the
road curved and pursued a descending course until it entered the
village of Iges, which was built on the hillside and connected by
a ferry with the further shore, just opposite the rope-walk at
Saint-Albert. Last of all came meadows and cultivated fields, a broad
expanse of level, treeless country, around which the river swept in a
wide, circling bend. In vain had Maurice scrutinized every inch of
uneven ground on the hillside; all he could distinguish there was
cavalry and artillery, preparing their quarters for the night. He made
further inquiries, applying among others to a corporal of chasseurs
d'Afrique, who could give him no information. The prospect for finding
his regiment looked bad; night was coming down, and, leg-weary and
disheartened, he seated himself for a moment on a stone by the
wayside.

As he sat there, abandoning himself to the sensation of loneliness and
despair that crept over him, he beheld before him, across the Meuse,
the accursed fields where he had fought the day but one before. Bitter
memories rose to his mind, in the fading light of that day of gloom
and rain, as he surveyed the saturated, miry expanse of country that
rose from the river's bank and was lost on the horizon. The defile of
Saint-Albert, the narrow road by which the Prussians had gained their
rear, ran along the bend of the stream as far as the white cliffs of
the quarries of Montimont. The summits of the trees in the wood of la
Falizette rose in rounded, fleecy masses over the rising ground
of Seugnon. Directly before his eyes, a little to the left, was
Saint-Menges, the road from which descended by a gentle slope and
ended at the ferry; there, too, were the mamelon of Hattoy in the
center, and Illy, in the far distance, in the background, and
Fleigneux, almost hidden in its shallow vale, and Floing, less remote,
on the right. He recognized the plateau where he had spent
interminable hours among the cabbages, and the eminences that the
reserve artillery had struggled so gallantly to hold, where he had
seen Honore meet his death on his dismounted gun. And it was as if the
baleful scene were again before him with all its abominations,
steeping his mind in horror and disgust, until he was sick at heart.

The reflection that soon it would be quite dark and it would not do to
loiter there, however, caused him to resume his researches. He said to
himself that perhaps the regiment was encamped somewhere beyond the
village on the low ground, but the only ones he encountered there were
some prowlers, and he decided to make the circuit of the peninsula,
following the bend of the stream. As he was passing through a field of
potatoes he was sufficiently thoughtful to dig a few of the tubers and
put them in his pockets; they were not ripe, but he had nothing
better, for Jean, as luck would have it, had insisted on carrying both
the two loaves of bread that Delaherche had given them when they left
his house. He was somewhat surprised at the number of horses he met
with, roaming about the uncultivated lands, that fell off in an easy
descent from the central elevation to the Meuse, in the direction of
Donchery. Why should they have brought all those animals with them?
how were they to be fed? And now it was night in earnest, and quite
dark, when he came to a small piece of woods on the water's brink, in
which he was surprised to find the cent-gardes of the Emperor's
escort, providing for their creature comforts and drying themselves
before roaring fires. These gentlemen, who had a separate encampment
to themselves, had comfortable tents; their kettles were boiling
merrily, there was a milch cow tied to a tree. It did not take Maurice
long to see that he was not regarded with favor in that quarter, poor
devil of an infantryman that he was, with his ragged, mud-stained
uniform. They graciously accorded him permission to roast his potatoes
in the ashes of their fires, however, and he withdrew to the shelter
of a tree, some hundred yards away, to eat them. It was no longer
raining; the sky was clear, the stars were shining brilliantly in the
dark blue vault. He saw that he should have to spend the night in the
open air and defer his researches until the morrow. He was so utterly
used up that he could go no further; the trees would afford him some
protection in case it came on to rain again.

The strangeness of his situation, however, and the thought of his vast
prison house, open to the winds of heaven, would not let him sleep. It
had been an extremely clever move on the part of the Prussians to
select that place of confinement for the eighty thousand men who
constituted the remnant of the army of Chalons. The peninsula was
approximately three miles long by one wide, affording abundant space
for the broken fragments of the vanquished host, and Maurice could not
fail to observe that it was surrounded on every side by water, the
bend of the Meuse encircling it on the north, east and west, while on
the south, at the base, connecting the two arms of the loop at the
point where they drew together most closely, was the canal. Here alone
was an outlet, the bridge, that was defended by two guns; wherefore it
may be seen that the guarding of the camp was a comparatively easy
task, notwithstanding its great extent. He had already taken note of
the chain of sentries on the farther bank, a soldier being stationed
by the waterside at every fifty paces, with orders to fire on any man
who should attempt to escape by swimming. In the rear the different
posts were connected by patrols of uhlans, while further in the
distance, scattered over the broad fields, were the dark lines of the
Prussian regiments; a threefold living, moving wall, immuring the
captive army.

Maurice, in his sleeplessness, lay gazing with wide-open eyes into the
blackness of the night, illuminated here and there by the smoldering
watch-fires; the motionless forms of the sentinels were dimly visible
beyond the pale ribbon of the Meuse. Erect they stood, duskier spots
against the dusky shadows, beneath the faint light of the twinkling
stars, and at regular intervals their guttural call came to his ears,
a menacing watch-cry that was drowned in the hoarse murmur of the
river in the distance. At sound of those unmelodious phrases in a
foreign tongue, rising on the still air of a starlit night in the
sunny land of France, the vision of the past again rose before him:
all that he had beheld in memory an hour before, the plateau of Illy
cumbered still with dead, the accursed country round about Sedan that
had been the scene of such dire disaster; and resting on the ground in
that cool, damp corner of a wood, his head pillowed on a root, he
again yielded to the feeling of despair that had overwhelmed him the
day before while lying on Delaherche's sofa. And that which,
intensifying the suffering of his wounded pride, now harassed and
tortured him, was the question of the morrow, the feverish longing to
know how deep had been their fall, how great the wreck and ruin
sustained by their world of yesterday. The Emperor had surrendered his
sword to King William; was not, therefore, the abominable war ended?
But he recalled the remark he had heard made by two of the Bavarians
of the guard who had escorted the prisoners to Iges: "We're all in
France, we're all bound for Paris!" In his semi-somnolent, dreamy
state the vision of what was to be suddenly rose before his eyes: the
empire overturned and swept away amid a howl of universal execration,
the republic proclaimed with an outburst of patriotic fervor, while
the legend of '92 would incite men to emulate the glorious past, and,
flocking to the standards, drive from the country's soil the hated
foreigner with armies of brave volunteers. He reflected confusedly
upon all the aspects of the case, and speculations followed one
another in swift succession through his poor wearied brain: the harsh
terms imposed by the victors, the bitterness of defeat, the
determination of the vanquished to resist even to the last drop of
blood, the fate of those eighty thousand men, his companions, who were
to be captives for weeks, months, years, perhaps, first on the
peninsula and afterward in German fortresses. The foundations were
giving way, and everything was going down, down to the bottomless
depths of perdition.

The call of the sentinels, now loud, now low, seemed to sound more
faintly in his ears and to be receding in the distance, when suddenly,
as he turned on his hard couch, a shot rent the deep silence. A hollow
groan rose on the calm air of night, there was a splashing in the
water, the brief struggle of one who sinks to rise no more. It was
some poor wretch who had attempted to escape by swimming the Meuse and
had received a bullet in his brain.

The next morning Maurice was up and stirring with the sun. The sky was
cloudless; he was desirous to rejoin Jean and his other comrades of
the company with the least possible delay. For a moment he had an idea
of going to see what there was in the interior of the peninsula, then
resolved he would first complete its circuit. And on reaching the
canal his eyes were greeted with the sight of the 106th--or rather
what was left of it--a thousand men, encamped along the river bank
among some waste lands, with no protection save a row of slender
poplars. If he had only turned to the left the night before instead of
pursuing a straight course he could have been with his regiment at
once. And he noticed that almost all the line regiments were collected
along that part of the bank that extends from the Tour a Glaire to the
Chateau of Villette--another bourgeois country place, situated more in
the direction of Donchery and surrounded by a few hovels--all of them
having selected their bivouac near the bridge, sole issue from their
prison, as sheep will instinctively huddle together close to the door
of their fold, knowing that sooner or later it will be opened for
them.

Jean uttered a cry of pleasure. "Ah, so it's you, at last! I had begun
to think you were in the river."

He was there with what remained of the squad, Pache and Lapoulle,
Loubet and Chouteau. The last named had slept under doorways in Sedan
until the attention of the Prussian provost guard had finally restored
them to their regiment. The corporal, moreover, was the only surviving
officer of the company, death having taken away Sergeant Sapin,
Lieutenant Rochas and Captain Beaudoin, and although the victors had
abolished distinction of rank among the prisoners, deciding that
obedience was due to the German officers alone, the four men had,
nevertheless, rallied to him, knowing him to be a leader of prudence
and experience, upon whom they could rely in circumstances of
difficulty. Thus it was that peace and harmony reigned among them that
morning, notwithstanding the stupidity of some and the evil designs of
others. In the first place, the night before he had found them a place
to sleep in that was comparatively dry, where they had stretched
themselves on the ground, the only thing they had left in the way of
protection from the weather being the half of a shelter-tent. After
that he had managed to secure some wood and a kettle, in which Loubet
made coffee for them, the comforting warmth of which had fortified
their stomachs. The rain had ceased, the day gave promise of being
bright and warm, they had a small supply of biscuit and bacon left,
and then, as Chouteau said, it was a comfort to have no orders to
obey, to have their fill of loafing. They were prisoners, it was true,
but there was plenty of room to move about. Moreover, they would be
away from there in two or three days. Under these circumstances the
day, which was Sunday, the 4th, passed pleasantly enough.

Maurice, whose courage had returned to him now that he was with the
comrades once more, found nothing to annoy him except the Prussian
bands, which played all the afternoon beyond the canal. Toward evening
there was vocal music, and the men sang in chorus. They could be seen
outside the chain of sentries, walking to and fro in little groups and
singing solemn melodies in a loud, ringing voice in honor of the
Sabbath.

"Confound those bands!" Maurice at last impatiently exclaimed. "They
will drive me wild!"

Jean, whose nerves were less susceptible, shrugged his shoulders.

"_Dame_! they have reason to feel good; and then perhaps they think it
affords us pleasure. It hasn't been such a bad day; don't let's find
fault."

As night approached, however, the rain began to fall again. Some of
the men had taken possession of what few unoccupied houses there were
on the peninsula, others were provided with tents that they erected,
but by far the greater number, without shelter of any sort, destitute
of blankets even, were compelled to pass the night in the open air,
exposed to the pouring rain.

About one o'clock Maurice, who had been sleeping soundly as a result
of his fatigue, awoke and found himself in the middle of a miniature
lake. The trenches, swollen by the heavy downpour, had overflowed and
inundated the ground where he lay. Chouteau's and Loubet's wrath
vented itself in a volley of maledictions, while Pache shook Lapoulle,
who, unmindful of his ducking, slept through it all as if he was never
to wake again. Then Jean, remembering the row of poplars on the bank
of the canal, collected his little band and ran thither for shelter;
and there they passed the remainder of that wretched night, crouching
with their backs to the trees, their legs doubled under them, so as to
expose as little of their persons as might be to the big drops.

The next day, and the day succeeding it, the weather was truly
detestable, what with the continual showers, that came down so
copiously and at such frequent intervals that the men's clothing had
not time to dry on their backs. They were threatened with famine, too;
there was not a biscuit left in camp, and the coffee and bacon were
exhausted. During those two days, Monday and Tuesday, they existed on
potatoes that they dug in the adjacent fields, and even those
vegetables had become so scarce toward the end of the second day that
those soldiers who had money paid as high as five sous apiece for
them. It was true that the bugles sounded the call for "distribution";
the corporal had nearly run his legs off trying to be the first to
reach a great shed near the Tour a Glaire, where it was reported that
rations of bread were to be issued, but on the occasion of a first
visit he had waited there three hours and gone away empty-handed, and
on a second had become involved in a quarrel with a Bavarian. It was
well known that the French officers were themselves in deep distress
and powerless to assist their men; had the German staff driven the
vanquished army out there in the mud and rain with the intention of
letting them starve to death? Not the first step seemed to have been
taken, not an effort had been made, to provide for the subsistence of
those eighty thousand men in that hell on earth that the soldiers
subsequently christened Camp Misery, a name that the bravest of them
could never hear mentioned in later days without a shudder.

On his return from his wearisome and fruitless expedition to the shed,
Jean forgot his usual placidity and gave way to anger.

"What do they mean by calling us up when there's nothing for us? I'll
be hanged if I'll put myself out for them another time!"

And yet, whenever there was a call, he hurried off again. It was
inhuman to sound the bugles thus, merely because regulations
prescribed certain calls at certain hours, and it had another effect
that was near breaking Maurice's heart. Every time that the trumpets
sounded the French horses, that were running free on the other side of
the canal, came rushing up and dashed into the water to rejoin their
squadron, as excited at the well-known sound as they would be at the
touch of the spur; but in their exhausted condition they were swept
away by the current and few attained the shore. It was a cruel sight
to see their struggles; they were drowned in great numbers, and their
bodies, decomposing and swelling in the hot sunshine, drifted on the
bosom of the canal. As for those of them that got to land, they seemed
as if stricken with sudden madness, galloping wildly off and hiding
among the waste places of the peninsula.

"More bones for the crows to pick!" sorrowfully said Maurice,
remembering the great droves of horses that he had encountered on a
previous occasion. "If we remain here a few days we shall all be
devouring one another. Poor brutes!"

The night between Tuesday and Wednesday was most terrible of all, and
Jean, who was beginning to feel seriously alarmed for Maurice's
feverish state, made him wrap himself in an old blanket that they had
purchased from a zouave for ten francs, while he, with no protection
save his water-soaked capote, cheerfully took the drenching of the
deluge which that night pelted down without cessation. Their position
under the poplars had become untenable; it was a streaming river of
mud, the water rested in deep puddles on the surface of the saturated
ground. What was worst of all was that they had to suffer on an empty
stomach, the evening meal of the six men having consisted of two beets
which they had been compelled to eat raw, having no dry wood to make a
fire with, and the sweet taste and refreshing coolness of the
vegetables had quickly been succeeded by an intolerable burning
sensation. Some cases of dysentery had appeared among the men, caused
by fatigue, improper food and the persistent humidity of the
atmosphere. More than ten times that night did Jean stretch forth his
hand to see that Maurice had not uncovered himself in the movements of
his slumber, and thus he kept watch and ward over his friend--his back
supported by the same tree-trunk, his legs in a pool of water--with
tenderness unspeakable. Since the day that on the plateau of Illy his
comrade had carried him off in his arms and saved him from the
Prussians he had repaid the debt a hundred-fold. He stopped not to
reason on it; it was the free gift of all his being, the total
forgetfulness of self for love of the other, the finest, most
delicate, grandest exhibition of friendship possible, and that, too,
in a peasant, whose lot had always been the lowly one of a tiller of
the soil and who had never risen far above the earth, who could not
find words to express what he felt, acting purely from instinct, in
all simplicity of soul. Many a time already he had taken the food from
his mouth, as the men of the squad were wont to say; now he would have
divested himself of his skin if with it he might have covered the
other, to protect his shoulders, to warm his feet. And in the midst of
the savage egoism that surrounded them, among that aggregation of
suffering humanity whose worst appetites were inflamed and intensified
by hunger, he perhaps owed it to his complete abnegation of self that
he had preserved thus far his tranquillity of mind and his vigorous
health, for he among them all, his great strength unimpaired, alone
maintained his composure and something like a level head.

After that distressful night Jean determined to carry into execution a
plan that he had been reflecting over since the day previous.

"See here, little one, we can get nothing to eat, and everyone seems
to have forgotten us here in this beastly hole; now unless we want to
die the death of dogs, it behooves us to stir about a bit. How are
your legs?"

The sun had come out again, fortunately, and Maurice was warmed and
comforted.

"Oh, my legs are all right!"

"Then we'll start off on an exploring expedition. We've money in our
pockets, and the deuce is in it if we can't find something to buy. And
we won't bother our heads about the others; they don't deserve it. Let
them take care of themselves."

The truth was that Loubet and Chouteau had disgusted him by their
trickiness and low selfishness, stealing whatever they could lay hands
on and never dividing with their comrades, while no good was to be got
out of Lapoulle, the brute, and Pache, the sniveling devotee.

The pair, therefore, Maurice and Jean, started out by the road along
the Meuse which the former had traversed once before, on the night of
his arrival. At the Tour a Glaire the park and dwelling-house
presented a sorrowful spectacle of pillage and devastation, the trim
lawns cut up and destroyed, the trees felled, the mansion dismantled.
A ragged, dirty crew of soldiers, with hollow cheeks and eyes
preternaturally bright from fever, had taken possession of the place
and were living like beasts in the filthy chambers, not daring to
leave their quarters for a moment lest someone else might come along
and occupy them. A little further on they passed the cavalry and
artillery, encamped on the hillsides, once so conspicuous by reason of
the neatness and jauntiness of their appearance, now run to seed like
all the rest, their organization gone, demoralized by that terrible,
torturing hunger that drove the horses wild and sent the men
straggling through the fields in plundering bands. Below them, to the
right, they beheld an apparently interminable line of artillerymen and
chasseurs d'Afrique defiling slowly before the mill; the miller was
selling them flour, measuring out two handfuls into their
handkerchiefs for a franc. The prospect of the long wait that lay
before them, should they take their place at the end of the line,
determined them to pass on, in the hope that some better opportunity
would present itself at the village of Iges; but great was their
consternation when they reached it to find the little place as bare
and empty as an Algerian village through which has passed a swarm of
locusts; not a crumb, not a fragment of anything eatable, neither
bread, nor meat, nor vegetables, the wretched inhabitants utterly
destitute. General Lebrun was said to be there, closeted with the
mayor. He had been endeavoring, ineffectually, to arrange for an issue
of bonds, redeemable at the close of the war, in order to facilitate
the victualing of the troops. Money had ceased to have any value when
there was nothing that it could purchase. The day before two francs
had been paid for a biscuit, seven francs for a bottle of wine, a
small glass of brandy was twenty sous, a pipeful of tobacco ten sous.
And now officers, sword in hand, had to stand guard before the
general's house and the neighboring hovels, for bands of marauders
were constantly passing, breaking down doors and stealing even the oil
from the lamps and drinking it.

Three zouaves invited Maurice and Jean to join them. Five would do the
work more effectually than three.

"Come along. There are horses dying in plenty, and if we can but get
some dry wood--"

Then they fell to work on the miserable cabin of a poor peasant,
smashing the closet doors, tearing the thatch from the roof. Some
officers, who came up on a run, threatened them with their revolvers
and put them to flight.

Jean, who saw that the few villagers who had remained at Iges were no
better off than the soldiers, perceived he had made a mistake in
passing the mill without buying some flour.

"There may be some left; we had best go back."

But Maurice was so reduced from inanition and was beginning to suffer
so from fatigue that he left him behind in a sheltered nook among the
quarries, seated on a fragment of rock, his face turned upon the wide
horizon of Sedan. He, after waiting in line for two long hours,
finally returned with some flour wrapped in a piece of rag. And they
ate it uncooked, dipping it up in their hands, unable to devise any
other way. It was not so very bad; It had no particular flavor, only
the insipid taste of dough. Their breakfast, such as it was, did them
some good, however. They were even so fortunate as to discover a
little pool of rain-water, comparatively pure, in a hollow of a rock,
at which they quenched their thirst with great satisfaction.

But when Jean proposed that they should spend the remainder of the
afternoon there, Maurice negatived the motion with a great display of
violence.

"No, no; not here! I should be ill if I were to have that scene before
my eyes for any length of time--" With a hand that trembled he pointed
to the remote horizon, the hill of Hattoy, the plateaux of Floing and
Illy, the wood of la Garenne, those abhorred, detested fields of
slaughter and defeat. "While you were away just now I was obliged to
turn my back on it, else I should have broken out and howled with
rage. Yes, I should have howled like a dog tormented by boys--you
can't imagine how it hurts me; it drives me crazy!"

Jean looked at him in surprise; he could not understand that pride,
sensitive as a raw sore, that made defeat so bitter to him; he was
alarmed to behold in his eyes that wandering, flighty look that he had
seen there before. He affected to treat the matter lightly.

"Good! we'll seek another country; that's easy enough to do."

Then they wandered as long as daylight lasted, wherever the paths they
took conducted them. They visited the level portion of the peninsula
in the hope of finding more potatoes there, but the artillerymen had
obtained a plow and turned up the ground, and not a single potato had
escaped their sharp eyes. They retraced their steps, and again they
passed through throngs of listless, glassy-eyed, starving soldiers,
strewing the ground with their debilitated forms, falling by hundreds
in the bright sunshine from sheer exhaustion. They were themselves
many times overcome by fatigue and forced to sit down and rest; then
their deep-seated sensation of suffering would bring them to their
feet again and they would recommence their wandering, like animals
impelled by instinct to move on perpetually in quest of pasturage. It
seemed to them to last for years, and yet the moments sped by rapidly.
In the more inland region, over Donchery way, they received a fright
from the horses and sought the protection of a wall, where they
remained a long time, too exhausted to rise, watching with vague,
lack-luster eyes the wild course of the crazed beasts as they raced
athwart the red western sky where the sun was sinking.

As Maurice had foreseen, the thousands of horses that shared the
captivity of the army, and for which it was impossible to provide
forage, constituted a peril that grew greater day by day. At first
they had nibbled the vegetation and gnawed the bark off trees, then
had attacked the fences and whatever wooden structures they came
across, and now they seemed ready to devour one another. It was a
frequent occurrence to see one of them throw himself upon another and
tear out great tufts from his mane or tail, which he would grind
between his teeth, slavering meanwhile at the mouth profusely. But it
was at night that they became most terrible, as if they were visited
by visions of terror in the darkness. They collected in droves, and,
attracted by the straw, made furious rushes upon what few tents there
were, overturning and demolishing them. It was to no purpose that the
men built great fires to keep them away; the device only served to
madden them the more. Their shrill cries were so full of anguish, so
dreadful to the ear, that they might have been mistaken for the howls
of wild beasts. Were they driven away, they returned, more numerous
and fiercer than before. Scarce a moment passed but out in the
darkness could be heard the shriek of anguish of some unfortunate
soldier whom the crazed beasts had crushed in their wild stampede.

The sun was still above the horizon when Jean and Maurice, on their
way back to the camp, were astonished by meeting with the four men of
the squad, lurking in a ditch, apparently for no good purpose. Loubet
hailed them at once, and Chouteau constituted himself spokesman:

"We are considering ways and means for dining this evening. We shall
die if we go on this way; it is thirty-six hours since we have had
anything to put in our stomach--so, as there are horses plenty, and
horse-meat isn't such bad eating--"

"You'll join us, won't you, corporal?" said Loubet, interrupting,
"for, with such a big, strong animal to handle, the more of us there
are the better it will be. See, there is one, off yonder, that we've
been keeping an eye on for the last hour; that big bay that is in such
a bad way. He'll be all the easier to finish."

And he pointed to a horse that was dying of starvation, on the edge of
what had once been a field of beets. He had fallen on his flank, and
every now and then would raise his head and look about him pleadingly,
with a deep inhalation that sounded like a sigh.

"Ah, how long we have to wait!" grumbled Lapoulle, who was suffering
torment from his fierce appetite. "I'll go and kill him--shall I?"

But Loubet stopped him. Much obliged! and have the Prussians down on
them, who had given notice that death would be the penalty for killing
a horse, fearing that the carcass would breed a pestilence. They must
wait until it was dark. And that was the reason why the four men were
lurking in the ditch, waiting, with glistening, hungry eyes fixed on
the dying brute.

"Corporal," asked Pache, in a voice that faltered a little, "you have
lots of ideas in your head; couldn't you kill him painlessly?"

Jean refused the cruel task with a gesture of disgust. What, kill that
poor beast that was even then in its death agony! oh, no, no! His
first impulse had been to fly and take Maurice with him, that neither
of them might be concerned in the revolting butchery; but looking at
his companion and beholding him so pale and faint, he reproached
himself for such an excess of sensibility. What were animals created
for after all, _mon Dieu_, unless to afford sustenance to man! They
could not allow themselves to starve when there was food within reach.
And it rejoiced him to see Maurice cheer up a little at the prospect
of eating; he said in his easy, good-natured way:

"Faith, you're wrong there; I've no ideas in my head, and if he has
got to be killed without pain--"

"Oh! that's all one to me," interrupted Lapoulle. "I'll show you."

The two newcomers seated themselves in the ditch and joined the others
in their expectancy. Now and again one of the men would rise and make
certain that the horse was still there, its neck outstretched to catch
the cool exhalations of the Meuse and the last rays of the setting
sun, as if bidding farewell to life. And when at last twilight crept
slowly o'er the scene the six men were erect upon their feet,
impatient that night was so tardy in its coming, casting furtive,
frightened looks about them to see they were not observed.

"Ah, _zut_!" exclaimed Chouteau, "the time is come!"

Objects were still discernible in the fields by the uncertain,
mysterious light "between dog and wolf," and Lapoulle went forward
first, followed by the five others. He had taken from the ditch a
large, rounded boulder, and, with it in his two brawny hands, rushing
upon the horse, commenced to batter at his skull as with a club. At
the second blow, however, the horse, stung by the pain, attempted to
get on his feet. Chouteau and Loubet had thrown themselves across his
legs and were endeavoring to hold him down, shouting to the others to
help them. The poor brute's cries were almost human in their accent of
terror and distress; he struggled desperately to shake off his
assailants, and would have broken them like a reed had he not been
half dead with inanition. The movements of his head prevented the
blows from taking effect; Lapoulle was unable to despatch him.

"_Nom de Dieu!_ how hard his bones are! Hold him, somebody, until I
finish him."

Jean and Maurice stood looking at the scene in silent horror; they
heard not Chouteau's appeals for assistance; were powerless to raise a
hand. And Pache, in a sudden outburst of piety and pity, dropped on
his knees, joined his hands, and began to mumble the prayers that are
repeated at the bedside of the dying.

"Merciful God, have pity on him. Let him, good Lord, depart in
peace--"

Again Lapoulle struck ineffectually, with no other effect than to
destroy an ear of the wretched creature, that threw back its head and
gave utterance to a loud, shrill scream.

"Hold on!" growled Chouteau; "this won't do; he'll get us all in the
lockup. We must end the matter. Hold him fast, Loubet."

He took from his pocket a penknife, a small affair of which the blade
was scarcely longer than a man's finger, and casting himself prone on
the animal's body and passing an arm about its neck, began to hack
away at the live flesh, cutting away great morsels, until he found and
severed the artery. He leaped quickly to one side; the blood spurted
forth in a torrent, as when the plug is removed from a fountain, while
the feet stirred feebly and convulsive movements ran along the skin,
succeeding one another like waves of the sea. It was near five minutes
before the horse was dead. His great eyes, dilated wide and filled
with melancholy and affright, were fixed upon the wan-visaged men who
stood waiting for him to die; then they grew dim and the light died
from out them.

"Merciful God," muttered Pache, still on his knees, "keep him in thy
holy protection--succor him, Lord, and grant him eternal rest."

Afterward, when the creature's movements had ceased, they were at a
loss to know where the best cut lay and how they were to get at it.
Loubet, who was something of a Jack-of-all-trades, showed them what
was to be done in order to secure the loin, but as he was a tyro at
the butchering business and, moreover, had only his small penknife to
work with, he quickly lost his way amid the warm, quivering flesh. And
Lapoulle, in his impatience, having attempted to be of assistance by
making an incision in the belly, for which there was no necessity
whatever, the scene of bloodshed became truly sickening. They wallowed
in the gore and entrails that covered the ground about them, like a
pack of ravening wolves collected around the carcass of their prey,
fleshing their keen fangs in it.

"I don't know what cut that may be," Loubet said at last, rising to
his feet with a huge lump of meat in his hands, "but by the time we've
eaten it, I don't believe any of us will be hungry."

Jean and Maurice had averted their eyes in horror from the disgusting
spectacle; still, however, the pangs of hunger were gnawing at their
vitals, and when the band slunk rapidly away, so as not to be caught
in the vicinity of the incriminating carcass, they followed it.
Chouteau had discovered three large beets, that had somehow been
overlooked by previous visitors to the field, and carried them off
with him. Loubet had loaded the meat on Lapoulle's shoulders so as to
have his own arms free, while Pache carried the kettle that belonged
to the squad, which they had brought with them on the chance of
finding something to cook in it. And the six men ran as if their lives
were at stake, never stopping to take breath, as if they heard the
pursuers at their heels.

Suddenly Loubet brought the others to a halt.

"It's idiotic to run like this; let's decide where we shall go to cook
the stuff."

Jean, who was beginning to recover his self-possession, proposed the
quarries. They were only three hundred yards distant, and in them were
secret recesses in abundance where they could kindle a fire without
being seen. When they reached the spot, however, difficulties of every
description presented themselves. First, there was the question of
wood; fortunately a laborer, who had been repairing the road, had gone
home and left his wheelbarrow behind him; Lapoulle quickly reduced it
to fragments with the heel of his boot. Then there was no water to be
had that was fit to drink; the hot sunshine had dried up all the pools
of rain-water. True there was a pump at the Tour a Glaire, but that
was too far away, and besides it was never accessible before midnight;
the men forming in long lines with their bowls and porringers, only
too happy when, after waiting for hours, they could escape from the
jam with their supply of the precious fluid unspilled. As for the few
wells in the neighborhood, they had been dry for the last two days,
and the bucket brought up nothing save mud and slime. Their sole
resource appeared to be the water of the Meuse, which was parted from
them by the road.

"I'll take the kettle and go and fill it," said Jean.

The others objected.

"No, no! We don't want to be poisoned; it is full of dead bodies!"

They spoke the truth. The Meuse was constantly bringing down corpses
of men and horses; they could be seen floating with the current at any
moment of the day, swollen and of a greenish hue, in the early stages
of decomposition. Often they were caught in the weeds and bushes on
the bank, where they remained to poison the atmosphere, swinging to
the tide with a gentle, tremulous motion that imparted to them a
semblance of life. Nearly every soldier who had drunk that abominable
water had suffered from nausea and colic, often succeeded afterward by
dysentery. It seemed as if they must make up their mind to use it,
however, as there was no other; Maurice explained that there would be
no danger in drinking it after it was boiled.

"Very well, then; I'll go," said Jean. And he started, taking Lapoulle
with him to carry the kettle.

By the time they got the kettle filled and on the fire it was quite
dark. Loubet had peeled the beets and thrown them into the water to
cook--a feast fit for the gods, he declared it would be--and fed the
fire with fragments of the wheelbarrow, for they were all suffering so
from hunger that they could have eaten the meat before the pot began
to boil. Their huge shadows danced fantastically in the firelight on
the rocky walls of the quarry. Then they found it impossible longer to
restrain their appetite, and threw themselves upon the unclean mess,
tearing the flesh with eager, trembling fingers and dividing it among
them, too impatient even to make use of the knife. But, famishing as
they were, their stomachs revolted; they felt the want of salt, they
could not swallow that tasteless, sickening broth, those chunks of
half-cooked, viscid meat that had a taste like clay. Some among them
had a fit of vomiting. Pache was very ill. Chouteau and Loubet heaped
maledictions on that infernal old nag, that had caused them such
trouble to get him to the pot and then given them the colic. Lapoulle
was the only one among them who ate abundantly, but he was in a very
bad way that night when, with his three comrades, he returned to their
resting-place under the poplars by the canal.

On their way back to camp Maurice, without uttering a word, took
advantage of the darkness to seize Jean by the arm and drag him into a
by-path. Their comrades inspired him with unconquerable disgust; he
thought he should like to go and sleep in the little wood where he had
spent his first night on the peninsula. It was a good idea, and Jean
commended it highly when he had laid himself down on the warm, dry
ground, under the shelter of the dense foliage. They remained there
until the sun was high in the heavens, and enjoyed a sound, refreshing
slumber, which restored to them something of their strength.

The following day was Thursday, but they had ceased to note the days;
they were simply glad to observe that the weather seemed to be coming
off fine again. Jean overcame Maurice's repugnance and prevailed on
him to return to the canal, to see if their regiment was not to move
that day. Not a day passed now but detachments of prisoners, a
thousand to twelve hundred strong, were sent off to the fortresses in
Germany. The day but one before they had seen, drawn up in front of
the Prussian headquarters, a column of officers of various grades, who
were going to Pont-a-Mousson, there to take the railway. Everyone was
possessed with a wild, feverish longing to get away from that camp
where they had seen such suffering. Ah! if it but might be their turn!
And when they found the 106th still encamped on the bank of the canal,
in the inevitable disorder consequent upon such distress, their
courage failed them and they despaired.

Jean and Maurice that day thought they saw a prospect of obtaining
something to eat. All the morning a lively traffic had been going on
between the prisoners and the Bavarians on the other side of the
canal; the former would wrap their money in a handkerchief and toss it
across to the opposite shore, the latter would return the handkerchief
with a loaf of coarse brown bread, or a plug of their common, damp
tobacco. Even soldiers who had no money were not debarred from
participating in this commerce, employing, instead of currency, their
white uniform gloves, for which the Germans appeared to have a
weakness. For two hours packages were flying across the canal in its
entire length under this primitive system of exchanges. But when
Maurice dispatched his cravat with a five-franc piece tied in it to
the other bank, the Bavarian who was to return him a loaf of bread
gave it, whether from awkwardness or malice, such an ineffectual toss
that it fell in the water. The incident elicited shouts of laughter
from the Germans. Twice again Maurice repeated the experiment, and
twice his loaf went to feed the fishes. At last the Prussian officers,
attracted by the uproar, came running up and prohibited their men from
selling anything to the prisoners, threatening them with dire
penalties and punishments in case of disobedience. The traffic came to
a sudden end, and Jean had hard work to pacify Maurice, who shook his
fists at the scamps, shouting to them to give him back his five-franc
pieces.

This was another terrible day, notwithstanding the warm, bright
sunshine. Twice the bugle sounded and sent Jean hurrying off to the
shed whence rations were supposed to be issued, but on each occasion
he only got his toes trod on and his ribs racked in the crush. The
Prussians, whose organization was so wonderfully complete, continued
to manifest the same brutal inattention to the necessities of the
vanquished army. On the representations of Generals Douay and Lebrun,
they had indeed sent in a few sheep as well as some wagon-loads of
bread, but so little care was taken to guard them that the sheep were
carried off bodily and the wagons pillaged as soon as they reached the
bridge, the consequence of which was that the troops who were encamped
a hundred yards further on were no better off than before; it was only
the worst element, the plunderers and bummers, who benefited by the
provision trains. And thereon Jean, who, as he said, saw how the trick
was done, brought Maurice with him to the bridge to keep an eye on the
victuals.

It was four o'clock, and they had not had a morsel to eat all that
beautiful bright Thursday, when suddenly their eyes were gladdened by
the sight of Delaherche. A few among the citizens of Sedan had with
infinite difficulty obtained permission to visit the prisoners, to
whom they carried provisions, and Maurice had on several occasions
expressed his surprise at his failure to receive any tidings of his
sister. As soon as they recognized Delaherche in the distance,
carrying a large basket and with a loaf of bread under either arm,
they darted forward fast as their legs could carry them, but even thus
they were too late; a crowding, jostling mob closed in, and in the
confusion the dazed manufacturer was relieved of his basket and one of
his loaves, which vanished from his sight so expeditiously that he was
never able to tell the manner of their disappearance.

"Ah, my poor friends!" he stammered, utterly crestfallen in his
bewilderment and stupefaction, he who but a moment before had

come through the gate with a smile on his lips and an air of
good-fellowship, magnanimously forgetting his superior advantages in
his desire for popularity.

Jean had taken possession of the remaining loaf and saved it from the
hungry crew, and while he and Maurice, seated by the roadside, were
making great inroads in it, Delaherche opened his budget of news for
their benefit. His wife, the Lord be praised! was very well, but he
was greatly alarmed for the colonel, who had sunk into a condition of
deep prostration, although his mother continued to bear him company
from morning until night.

"And my sister?" Maurice inquired.

"Ah, yes! your sister; true. She insisted on coming with me; it was
she who brought the two loaves of bread. She had to remain over
yonder, though, on the other side of the canal; the sentries wouldn't
let her pass the gate. You know the Prussians have strictly prohibited
the presence of women in the peninsula."

Then he spoke of Henriette, and of her fruitless attempts to see her
brother and come to his assistance. Once in Sedan chance had brought
her face to face with Cousin Gunther, the man who was captain in the
Prussian Guards. He had passed her with his haughty, supercilious air,
pretending not to recognize her. She, also, with a sensation of
loathing, as if she were in the presence of one of her husband's
murderers, had hurried on with quickened steps; then, with a sudden
change of purpose for which she could not account, had turned back and
told him all the manner of Weiss's death, in harsh accents of
reproach. And he, thus learning how horribly a relative had met his
fate, had taken the matter coolly; it was the fortune of war; the same
thing might have happened to himself. His face, rendered stoically
impassive by the discipline of the soldier, had barely betrayed the
faintest evidence of interest. After that, when she informed him that
her brother was a prisoner and besought him to use his influence to
obtain for her an opportunity of seeing him, he had excused himself on
the ground that he was powerless in the matter; the instructions were
explicit and might not be disobeyed. He appeared to place the
regimental orderly book on a par with the Bible. She left him with the
clearly defined impression that he believed he was in the country for
the sole purpose of sitting in judgment on the French people, with all
the intolerance and arrogance of the hereditary enemy, swollen by his
personal hatred for the nation whom it had devolved on him to
chastise.

"And now," said Delaherche in conclusion, "you won't have to go to bed
supperless to-night; you have had a little something to eat. The worst
is that I am afraid I shall not be able to secure another pass."

He asked them if there was anything he could do for them outside, and
obligingly consented to take charge of some pencil-written letters
confided to him by other soldiers, for the Bavarians had more than
once been seen to laugh as they lighted their pipes with missives
which they had promised to forward. Then, when Jean and Maurice had
accompanied him to the gate, he exclaimed:

"Look! over yonder, there's Henriette! Don't you see her waving her
handkerchief?"

True enough, among the crowd beyond the line of sentinels they
distinguished a little, thin, pale face, a white dot that trembled in
the sunshine. Both were deeply affected, and, with moist eyes, raising
their hands above their head, answered her salutation by waving them
frantically in the air.

The following day was Friday, and it was then that Maurice felt that
his cup of horror was full to overflowing. After another night of
tranquil slumber in the little wood he was so fortunate as to secure
another meal, Jean having come across an old woman at the Chateau of
Villette who was selling bread at ten francs the pound. But that day
they witnessed a spectacle of which the horror remained imprinted on
their minds for many weeks and months.

The day before Chouteau had noticed that Pache had ceased complaining
and was going about with a careless, satisfied air, as a man might do
who had dined well. He immediately jumped at the conclusion that the
sly fox must have a concealed treasure somewhere, the more so that he
had seen him absent himself for near an hour that morning and come
back with a smile lurking on his face and his mouth filled with
unswallowed food. It must be that he had had a windfall, had probably
joined some marauding party and laid in a stock of provisions. And
Chouteau labored with Loubet and Lapoulle to stir up bad feeling
against the comrade, with the latter more particularly. _Hein!_ wasn't
he a dirty dog, if he had something to eat, not to go snacks with the
comrades! He ought to have a lesson that he would remember, for his
selfishness.

"To-night we'll keep a watch on him, don't you see. We'll learn
whether he dares to stuff himself on the sly, when so many poor devils
are starving all around him."

"Yes, yes, that's the talk! we'll follow him," Lapoulle angrily
declared. "We'll see about it!"

He doubled his fists; he was like a crazy man whenever the subject of
eating was mentioned in his presence. His enormous appetite caused him
to suffer more than the others; his torment at times was such that he
had been known to stuff his mouth with grass. For more than thirty-six
hours, since the night when they had supped on horseflesh and he had
contracted a terrible dysentery in consequence, he had been without
food, for he was so little able to look out for himself that,
notwithstanding his bovine strength, whenever he joined the others in
a marauding raid he never got his share of the booty. He would have
been willing to give his blood for a pound of bread.

As it was beginning to be dark Pache stealthily made his way to the
Tour a Glaire and slipped into the park, while the three others
cautiously followed him at a distance.

"It won't do to let him suspect anything," said Chouteau. "Be on your
guard in case he should look around."

But when he had advanced another hundred paces Pache evidently had no
idea there was anyone near, for he began to hurry forward at a swift
gait, not so much as casting a look behind. They had no difficulty in
tracking him to the adjacent quarries, where they fell on him as he
was in the act of removing two great flat stones, to take from the
cavity beneath part of a loaf of bread. It was the last of his store;
he had enough left for one more meal.

"You dirty, sniveling priest's whelp!" roared Lapoulle, "so that is
why you sneak away from us! Give me that; it's my share!"

Why should he give his bread? Weak and puny as he was, his slight form
dilated with anger, while he clutched the loaf against his bosom with
all the strength he could master. For he also was hungry.

"Let me alone. It's mine."

Then, at sight of Lapoulle's raised fist, he broke away and ran,
sliding down the steep banks of the quarries, making his way across
the bare fields in the direction of Donchery, the three others after
him in hot pursuit. He gained on them, however, being lighter than
they, and possessed by such overmastering fear, so determined to hold
on to what was his property, that his speed seemed to rival the wind.
He had already covered more than half a mile and was approaching the
little wood on the margin of the stream when he encountered Jean and
Maurice, who were on their way back to their resting-place for the
night. He addressed them an appealing, distressful cry as he passed;
while they, astounded by the wild hunt that went fleeting by, stood
motionless at the edge of a field, and thus it was that they beheld
the ensuing tragedy.

As luck would have it, Pache tripped over a stone and fell. In an
instant the others were on top of him--shouting, swearing, their
passion roused to such a pitch of frenzy that they were like wolves
that had run down their prey.

"Give me that," yelled Lapoulle, "or by G-d I'll kill you!"

And he had raised his fist again when Chouteau, taking from his pocket
the penknife with which he had slaughtered the horse and opening it,
placed it in his hand.

"Here, take it! the knife!"

But Jean meantime had come hurrying up, desirous to prevent the
mischief he saw brewing, losing his wits like the rest of them,
indiscreetly speaking of putting them all in the guardhouse; whereon
Loubet, with an ugly laugh, told him he must be a Prussian, since they
had no longer any commanders, and the Prussians were the only ones who
issued orders.

"_Nom de Dieu!_" Lapoulle repeated, "will you give me that?"

Despite the terror that blanched his cheeks Pache hugged the bread
more closely to his bosom, with the obstinacy of the peasant who never
cedes a jot or tittle of that which is his.

"No!"

Then in a second all was over; the brute drove the knife into the
other's throat with such violence that the wretched man did not even
utter a cry. His arms relaxed, the bread fell to the ground, into the
pool of blood that had spurted from the wound.

At sight of the imbecile, uncalled-for murder, Maurice, who had until
then been a silent spectator of the scene, appeared as if stricken by
a sudden fit of madness. He raved and gesticulated, shaking his fist
in the face of the three men and calling them murderers, assassins,
with a violence that shook his frame from head to foot. But Lapoulle
seemed not even to hear him. Squatted on the ground beside the corpse,
he was devouring the bloodstained bread, an expression of stupid
ferocity on his face, with a loud grinding of his great jaws, while
Chouteau and Loubet, seeing him thus terrible in the gratification of
his wild-beast appetite, did not even dare claim their portion.

By this time night had fallen, a pleasant night with a clear sky
thick-set with stars, and Maurice and Jean, who had regained the
shelter of their little wood, presently perceived Lapoulle wandering
up and down the river bank. The two others had vanished, had doubtless
returned to the encampment by the canal, their mind troubled by reason
of the corpse they left behind them. He, on the other hand, seemed to
dread going to rejoin the comrades. When he was more himself and his
brutish, sluggish intellect showed him the full extent of his crime,
he had evidently experienced a twinge of anguish that made motion a
necessity, and not daring to return to the interior of the peninsula,
where he would have to face the body of his victim, had sought the
bank of the stream, where he was now tramping to and fro with uneven,
faltering steps. What was going on within the recesses of that
darkened mind that guided the actions of that creature, so degraded as
to be scarce higher than the animal? Was it the awakening of remorse?
or only the fear lest his crime might be discovered? He could not
remain there; he paced his beat as a wild beast shambles up and down
its cage, with a sudden and ever-increasing longing to fly, a longing
that ached and pained like a physical hurt, from which he felt he
should die, could he do nothing to satisfy it. Quick, quick, he
must fly, must fly at once, from that prison where he had slain a
fellow-being. And yet, the coward in him, it may be, gaining the
supremacy, he threw himself on the ground, and for a long time lay
crouched among the herbage.

And Maurice said to Jean in his horror and disgust:

"See here, I cannot remain longer in this place; I tell you plainly I
should go mad. I am surprised that the physical part of me holds out
as it does; my bodily health is not so bad, but the mind is going;
yes! it is going, I am certain of it. If you leave me another day in
this hell I am lost. I beg you, let us go away, let us start at once!"

And he went on to propound the wildest schemes for getting away. They
would swim the Meuse, would cast themselves on the sentries and
strangle them with a cord he had in his pocket, or would beat out
their brains with rocks, or would buy them over with the money they
had left and don their uniform to pass through the Prussian lines.

"My dear boy, be silent!" Jean sadly answered; "it frightens me to
hear you talk so wildly. Is there any reason in what you say, are any
of your plans feasible? Wait; to-morrow we'll see about it. Be
silent!"

He, although his heart, no less than his friend's, was wrung by the
horrors that surrounded them on every side, had preserved his mental
balance amid the debilitating effects of famine, among the grisly
visions of that existence than which none could approach more nearly
the depth of human misery. And as his companion's frenzy continued to
increase and he talked of casting himself into the Meuse, he was
obliged to restrain him, even to the point of using violence, scolding
and supplicating, tears standing in his eyes. Then suddenly he said:

"See! look there!"

A splash was heard coming from the river, and they saw it was
Lapoulle, who had finally decided to attempt to escape by the stream,
first removing his capote in order that it might not hinder his
movements; and his white shirt made a spot of brightness that was
distinctly visible upon the dusky bosom of the moving water. He was
swimming up-stream with a leisurely movement, doubtless on the lookout
for a place where he might land with safety, while on the opposite
shore there was no difficulty in discerning the shadowy forms of the
sentries, erect and motionless in the semi-obscurity. There came a
sudden flash that tore the black veil of night, a report that went
with bellowing echoes and spent itself among the rocks of Montimont.
The water boiled and bubbled for an instant, as it does under the wild
efforts of an unpracticed oarsman. And that was all; Lapoulle's body,
the white spot on the dusky stream, floated away, lifeless, upon the
tide.

The next day, which was Saturday, Jean aroused Maurice as soon as it
was day and they returned to the camp of the 106th, with the hope that
they might move that day, but there were no orders; it seemed as
though the regiment's existence were forgotten. Many of the troops had
been sent away, the peninsula was being depopulated, and sickness was
terribly prevalent among those who were left behind. For eight long
days disease had been germinating in that hell on earth; the rains had
ceased, but the blazing, scorching sunlight had only wrought a change
of evils. The excessive heat completed the exhaustion of the men and
gave to the numerous cases of dysentery an alarmingly epidemic
character. The excreta of that army of sick poisoned the air with
their noxious emanations. No one could approach the Meuse or the
canal, owing to the overpowering stench that rose from the bodies of
drowned soldiers and horses that lay festering among the weeds. And
the horses, that dropped in the fields from inanition, were
decomposing so rapidly and forming such a fruitful source of
pestilence that the Prussians, commencing to be alarmed on their own
account, had provided picks and shovels and forced the prisoners to
bury them.

That day, however, was the last on which they suffered from famine. As
their numbers were so greatly reduced and provisions kept pouring in
from every quarter, they passed at a single bound from the extreme of
destitution to the most abundant plenty. Bread, meat, and wine, even,
were to be had without stint; eating went on from morning till night,
until they were ready to drop. Darkness descended, and they were
eating still; in some quarters the gorging was continued until the
next morning. To many it proved fatal.

That whole day Jean made it his sole business to keep watch over
Maurice, who he saw was ripe for some rash action. He had been
drinking; he spoke of his intention of cuffing a Prussian officer in
order that he might be sent away. And at night Jean, having discovered
an unoccupied corner in the cellar of one of the outbuildings at the
Tour a Glaire, thought it advisable to go and sleep there with his
companion, thinking that a good night's rest would do him good, but it
turned out to be the worst night in all their experience, a night of
terror during which neither of them closed an eye. The cellar was
inhabited by other soldiers; lying in the same corner were two who
were dying of dysentery, and as soon as it was fairly dark they
commenced to relieve their sufferings by moans and inarticulate cries,
a hideous death-rattle that went on uninterruptedly until morning.
These sounds finally became so horrific there in the intense darkness,
that the others who were resting there, wishing to sleep, allowed
their anger to get the better of them and shouted to the dying men to
be silent. They did not hear; the rattle went on, drowning all other
sounds, while from without came the drunken clamor of those who were
eating and drinking still, with insatiable appetite.

Then commenced for Maurice a period of agony unspeakable. He would
have fled from the awful sounds that brought the cold sweat of anguish
in great drops to his brow, but when he arose and attempted to grope
his way out he trod on the limbs of those extended there, and finally
fell to the ground, a living man immured there in the darkness with
the dying. He made no further effort to escape from this last trial.
The entire frightful disaster arose before his mind, from the time of
their departure from Rheims to the crushing defeat of Sedan. It seemed
to him that in that night, in the inky blackness of that cellar, where
the groans of two dying soldiers drove sleep from the eyelids of their
comrades, the ordeal of the army of Chalons had reached its climax. At
each of the stations of its passion the army of despair, the expiatory
band, driven forward to the sacrifice, had spent its life-blood in
atonement for the faults of others; and now, unhonored amid disaster,
covered with contumely, it was enduring martyrdom in that cruel
scourging, the severity of which it had done nothing to deserve. He
felt it was too much; he was heartsick with rage and grief, hungering
for justice, burning with a fierce desire to be avenged on destiny.

When daylight appeared one of the soldiers was dead, the other was
lingering on in protracted agony.

"Come along, little one," Jean gently said; "we'll go and get a breath
of fresh air; it will do us good."

But when the pair emerged into the pure, warm morning air and,
pursuing the river bank, were near the village of Iges, Maurice grew
flightier still, and extending his hand toward the vast expanse of
sunlit battlefield, the plateau of Illy in front of them, Saint-Menges
to the left, the wood of la Garenne to the right, he cried:

"No, I cannot, I cannot bear to look on it! The sight pierces my heart
and drives me mad. Take me away, oh! take me away, at once, at once!"

It was Sunday once more; the bells were pealing from the steeples of
Sedan, while the music of a German military band floated on the air in
the distance. There were still no orders for their regiment to move,
and Jean, alarmed to see Maurice's deliriousness increasing,
determined to attempt the execution of a plan that he had been
maturing in his mind for the last twenty-four hours. On the road
before the tents of the Prussians another regiment, the 5th of the
line, was drawn up in readiness for departure. Great confusion
prevailed in the column, and an officer, whose knowledge of the French
language was imperfect, had been unable to complete the roster of the
prisoners. Then the two friends, having first torn from their uniform
coat the collar and buttons in order that the number might not betray
their identity, quietly took their place in the ranks and soon had the
satisfaction of crossing the bridge and leaving the chain of sentries
behind them. The same idea must have presented itself to Loubet and
Chouteau, for they caught sight of them somewhat further to the rear,
peering anxiously about them with the guilty eyes of murderers.

Ah, what comfort there was for them in that first blissful moment!
Outside their prison the sunlight was brighter, the air more bracing;
it was like a resurrection, a bright renewal of all their hopes.
Whatever evil fortune might have in store for them, they dreaded it
not; they snapped their fingers at it in their delight at having seen
the last of the horrors of Camp Misery.

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