The Downfall: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

That morning Maurice and Jean listened for the last time to the gay,
ringing notes of the French bugles, and now they were on their way to
Pont-a-Mousson, marching in the ranks of the convoy of prisoners,
which was guarded front and rear by platoons of Prussian infantry,
while a file of men with fixed bayonets flanked the column on either
side. Whenever they came to a German post they heard only the
lugubrious, ear-piercing strains of the Prussian trumpets.

Maurice was glad to observe that the column took the left-hand road
and would pass through Sedan; perhaps he would have an opportunity of
seeing his sister Henriette. All the pleasure, however, that he had
experienced at his release from that foul cesspool where he had spent
nine days of agony was dashed to the ground and destroyed during the
three-mile march from the peninsula of Iges to the city. It was but
another form of his old distress to behold that array of prisoners,
shuffling timorously through the dust of the road, like a flock of
sheep with the dog at their heels. There is no spectacle in all the
world more pitiful than that of a column of vanquished troops being
marched off into captivity under guard of their conquerors, without
arms, their empty hands hanging idly at their sides; and these men,
clad in rags and tatters, besmeared with the filth in which they had
lain for more than a week, gaunt and wasted after their long fast,
were more like vagabonds than soldiers; they resembled loathsome,
horribly dirty tramps, whom the gendarmes would have picked up along
the highways and consigned to the lockup. As they passed through the
Faubourg of Torcy, where men paused on the sidewalks and women came to
their doors to regard them with mournful, compassionate interest, the
blush of shame rose to Maurice's cheek, he hung his head and a bitter
taste came to his mouth.

Jean, whose epidermis was thicker and mind more practical, thought
only of their stupidity in not having brought off with them a loaf of
bread apiece. In the hurry of their abrupt departure they had even
gone off without breakfasting, and hunger soon made its presence felt
by the nerveless sensation in their legs. Others among the prisoners
appeared to be in the same boat, for they held out money, begging the
people of the place to sell them something to eat. There was one, an
extremely tall man, apparently very ill, who displayed a gold piece,
extending it above the heads of the soldiers of the escort; and he was
almost frantic that he could purchase nothing. Just at that time Jean,
who had been keeping his eyes open, perceived a bakery a short
distance ahead, before which were piled a dozen loaves of bread; he
immediately got his money ready and, as the column passed, tossed the
baker a five-franc piece and endeavored to secure two of the loaves;
then, when the Prussian who was marching at his side pushed him back
roughly into the ranks, he protested, demanding that he be allowed to
recover his money from the baker. But at that juncture the captain
commanding the detachment, a short, bald-headed man with a brutal
expression of face, came hastening up; he raised his revolver over
Jean's head as if about to strike him with the butt, declaring with an
oath that he would brain the first man that dared to lift a finger.
And the rest of the captives continued to shamble on, stirring up the
dust of the road with their shuffling feet, with eyes averted and
shoulders bowed, cowed and abjectly submissive as a drove of cattle.

"Oh! how good it would seem to slap the fellow's face just once!"
murmured Maurice, as if he meant it. "How I should like to let him
have just one from the shoulder, and drive his teeth down his dirty
throat!"

And during the remainder of their march he could not endure to look on
that captain, with his ugly, supercilious face.

They had entered Sedan and were crossing the Pont de Meuse, and the
scenes of violence and brutality became more numerous than ever. A
woman darted forward and would have embraced a boyish young sergeant
--likely she was his mother--and was repulsed with a blow from a
musket-butt that felled her to the ground. On the Place Turenne the
guards hustled and maltreated some citizens because they cast
provisions to the prisoners. In the Grande Rue one of the convoy fell
in endeavoring to secure a bottle that a lady extended to him, and was
assisted to his feet with kicks. For a week now Sedan had witnessed
the saddening spectacle of the defeated driven like cattle through its
streets, and seemed no more accustomed to it than at the beginning;
each time a fresh detachment passed the city was stirred to its very
depths by a movement of pity and indignation.

Jean had recovered his equanimity; his thoughts, like Maurice's,
reverted to Henriette, and the idea occurred to him that they might
see Delaherche somewhere among the throng. He gave his friend a nudge
of the elbow.

"Keep your eyes open if we pass through their street presently, will
you?"

They had scarce more than struck into the Rue Maqua, indeed, when they
became aware of several pairs of eyes turned on the column from one of
the tall windows of the factory, and as they drew nearer recognized
Delaherche and his wife Gilberte, their elbows resting on the railing
of the balcony, and behind them the tall, rigid form of old Madame
Delaherche. They had a supply of bread with them, and the manufacturer
was tossing the loaves down into the hands that were upstretched with
tremulous eagerness to receive them. Maurice saw at once that his
sister was not there, while Jean anxiously watched the flying loaves,
fearing there might none be left for them. They both had raised their
arms and were waving them frantically above their head, shouting
meanwhile with all the force of their lungs:

"Here we are! This way, this way!"

The Delaherches seemed delighted to see them in the midst of their
surprise. Their faces, pallid with emotion, suddenly brightened, and
they displayed by the warmth of their gestures the pleasure they
experienced in the encounter. There was one solitary loaf left, which
Gilberte insisted on throwing with her own hands, and pitched it into
Jean's extended arms in such a charmingly awkward way that she gave a
winsome laugh at her own expense. Maurice, unable to stop on account
of the pressure from the rear, turned his head and shouted, in a tone
of anxious inquiry:

"And Henriette? Henriette?"

Delaherche replied with a long farrago, but his voice was inaudible in
the shuffling tramp of so many feet. He seemed to understand that the
young man had failed to catch his meaning, for he gesticulated like a
semaphore; there was one gesture in particular that he repeated
several times, extending his arm with a sweeping motion toward the
south, apparently intending to convey the idea of some point in the
remote distance: Off there, away off there. Already the head of the
column was wheeling into the Rue du Minil, the facade of the factory
was lost to sight, together with the kindly faces of the three
Delaherches; the last the two friends saw of them was the fluttering
of the white handkerchief with which Gilberte waved them a farewell.

"What did he say?" asked Jean.

Maurice, in a fever of anxiety, was still looking to the rear where
there was nothing to be seen. "I don't know; I could not understand
him; I shall have no peace of mind until I hear from her."

And the trailing, shambling line crept slowly onward, the Prussians
urging on the weary men with the brutality of conquerors; the column
left the city by the Minil gate in straggling, long-drawn array,
hastening their steps, like sheep at whose heels the dogs are
snapping.

When they passed through Bazeilles Jean and Maurice thought of Weiss,
and cast their eyes about in an effort to distinguish the site of the
little house that had been defended with such bravery. While they were
at Camp Misery they had heard the woeful tale of slaughter and
conflagration that had blotted the pretty village from existence, and
the abominations that they now beheld exceeded all they had dreamed of
or imagined. At the expiration of twelve days the ruins were smoking
still; the tottering walls had fallen in, there were not ten houses
standing. It afforded them some small comfort, however, to meet a
procession of carts and wheelbarrows loaded with Bavarian helmets and
muskets that had been collected after the conflict. That evidence of
the chastisement that had been inflicted on those murderers and
incendiaries went far toward mitigating the affliction of defeat.

The column was to halt at Douzy to give the men an opportunity to eat
breakfast. It was not without much suffering that they reached that
place; already the prisoners' strength was giving out, exhausted as
they were by their ten days of fasting. Those who the day before had
availed of the abundant supplies to gorge themselves were seized with
vertigo, their enfeebled legs refused to support their weight, and
their gluttony, far from restoring their lost strength, was a further
source of weakness to them. The consequence was that, when the train
was halted in a meadow to the left of the village, these poor
creatures flung themselves upon the ground with no desire to eat. Wine
was wanting; some charitable women who came, bringing a few bottles,
were driven off by the sentries. One of them in her affright fell and
sprained her ankle, and there ensued a painful scene of tears and
hysterics, during which the Prussians confiscated the bottles and
drank their contents amid jeers and insulting laughter. This tender
compassion of the peasants for the poor soldiers who were being led
away into captivity was manifested constantly along the route, while
it was said the harshness they displayed toward the generals amounted
almost to cruelty. At that same Douzy, only a few days previously, the
villagers had hooted and reviled a number of paroled officers who were
on their way to Pont-a-Mousson. The roads were not safe for general
officers; men wearing the blouse--escaped soldiers, or deserters, it
may be--fell on them with pitch-forks and endeavored to take their
life as traitors, credulously pinning their faith to that legend of
bargain and sale which, even twenty years later, was to continue to
shed its opprobrium upon those leaders who had commanded armies in
that campaign.

Maurice and Jean ate half their bread, and were so fortunate as to
have a mouthful of brandy with which to wash it down, thanks to the
kindness of a worthy old farmer. When the order was given to resume
their advance, however, the distress throughout the convoy was
extreme. They were to halt for the night at Mouzon, and although the
march was a short one, it seemed as if it would tax the men's strength
more severely than they could bear; they could not get on their feet
without giving utterance to cries of pain, so stiff did their tired
legs become the moment they stopped to rest. Many removed their shoes
to relieve their galled and bleeding feet. Dysentery continued to
rage; a man fell before they had gone half a mile, and they had to
prop him against a wall and leave him. A little further on two others
sank at the foot of a hedge, and it was night before an old woman came
along and picked them up. All were stumbling, tottering, and dragging
themselves along, supporting their forms with canes, which the
Prussians, perhaps in derision, had suffered them to cut at the margin
of a wood. They were a straggling array of tramps and beggars, covered
with sores, haggard, emaciated, and footsore; a sight to bring tears
to the eyes of the most stony-hearted. And the guards continued to be
as brutally strict as ever; those who for any purpose attempted to
leave the ranks were driven back with blows, and the platoon that
brought up the rear had orders to prod with their bayonets those who
hung back. A sergeant having refused to go further, the captain
summoned two of his men and instructed them to seize him, one by
either arm, and in this manner the wretched man was dragged over the
ground until he agreed to walk. And what made the whole thing more
bitter and harder to endure was the utter insignificance of that
little pimply-faced, bald-headed officer, so insufferably
consequential in his brutality, who took advantage of his knowledge of
French to vituperate the prisoners in it in curt, incisive words that
cut and stung like the lash of a whip.

"Oh!" Maurice furiously exclaimed, "to get the puppy in my hands and
drain him of his blood, drop by drop!"

His powers of endurance were almost exhausted, but it was his rage
that he had to choke down, even more than his fatigue, that was cause
of his suffering. Everything exasperated him and set on edge his
tingling nerves; the harsh notes of the Prussian trumpets
particularly, which inspired him with a desire to scream each time he
heard them. He felt he should never reach the end of their cruel
journey without some outbreak that would bring down on him the utmost
severity of the guard. Even now, when traversing the smallest hamlets,
he suffered horribly and felt as if he should die with shame to behold
the eyes of the women fixed pityingly on him; what would it be when
they should enter Germany, and the populace of the great cities should
crowd the streets to laugh and jeer at them as they passed? And he
pictured to himself the cattle cars into which they would be crowded
for transportation, the discomforts and humiliations they would have
to suffer on the journey, the dismal life in German fortresses under
the leaden, wintry sky. No, no; he would have none of it; better to
take the risk of leaving his bones by the roadside on French soil than
go and rot off yonder, for months and months, perhaps, in the dark
depths of a casemate.

"Listen," he said below his breath to Jean, who was walking at his
side; "we will wait until we come to a wood; then we'll break through
the guards and run for it among the trees. The Belgian frontier is not
far away; we shall have no trouble in finding someone to guide us to
it."

Jean, accustomed as he was to look at things coolly and calculate
chances, put his veto on the mad scheme, although he, too, in his
revolt, was beginning to meditate the possibilities of an escape.

"Have you taken leave of your senses! the guard will fire on us, and
we shall both be killed."

But Maurice replied there was a chance the soldiers might not hit
them, and then, after all, if their aim should prove true, it would
not matter so very much.

"Very well!" rejoined Jean, "but what is going to become of us
afterward, dressed in uniform as we are? You know perfectly well that
the country is swarming in every direction with Prussian troops; we
could not go far unless we had other clothes to put on. No, no, my
lad, it's too risky; I'll not let you attempt such an insane project."

And he took the young man's arm and held it pressed against his side,
as if they were mutually sustaining each other, continuing meanwhile
to chide and soothe him in a tone that was at once rough and
affectionate.

Just then the sound of a whispered conversation close behind them
caused them to turn and look around. It was Chouteau and Loubet, who
had left the peninsula of Iges that morning at the same time as they,
and whom they had managed to steer clear of until the present moment.
Now the two worthies were close at their heels, and Chouteau must have
overheard Maurice's words, his plan for escaping through the mazes of
a forest, for he had adopted it on his own behalf. His breath was hot
upon their neck as he murmured:

"Say, comrades, count us in on that. That's a capital idea of yours,
to skip the ranch. Some of the boys have gone already, and sure we're
not going to be such fools as to let those bloody pigs drag us away
like dogs into their infernal country. What do you say, eh? Shall we
four make a break for liberty?"

Maurice's excitement was rising to fever-heat again; Jean turned and
said to the tempter:

"If you are so anxious to get away, why don't you go? there's nothing
to prevent you. What are you up to, any way?"

He flinched a little before the corporal's direct glance, and allowed
the true motive of his proposal to escape him.

"_Dame_! it would be better that four should share the undertaking.
One or two of us might have a chance of getting off."

Then Jean, with an emphatic shake of the head, refused to have
anything whatever to do with the matter; he distrusted the gentleman,
he said, as he was afraid he would play them some of his dirty tricks.
He had to exert all his authority with Maurice to retain him on his
side, for at that very moment an opportunity presented itself for
attempting the enterprise; they were passing the border of a small but
very dense wood, separated from the road only by the width of a field
that was covered by a thick growth of underbrush. Why should they not
dash across that field and vanish in the thicket? was there not safety
for them in that direction?

Loubet had so far said nothing. His mind was made up, however, that he
was not going to Germany to run to seed in one of their dungeons, and
his nose, mobile as a hound's, was sniffing the atmosphere, his shifty
eyes were watching for the favorable moment. He would trust to his
legs and his mother wit, which had always helped him out of his
scrapes thus far. His decision was quickly made.

"Ah, _zut_! I've had enough of it; I'm off!"

He broke through the line of the escort, and with a single bound was
in the field, Chouteau following his example and running at his side.
Two of the Prussian soldiers immediately started in pursuit, but the
others seemed dazed, and it did not occur to them to send a ball after
the fugitives. The entire episode was so soon over that it was not
easy to note its different phases. Loubet dodged and doubled among the
bushes and it appeared as if he would certainly succeed in getting
off, while Chouteau, less nimble, was on the point of being captured,
but the latter, summoning up all his energies in a supreme burst of
speed, caught up with his comrade and dexterously tripped him; and
while the two Prussians were lumbering up to secure the fallen man,
the other darted into the wood and vanished. The guard, finally
remembering that they had muskets, fired a few ineffectual shots, and
there was some attempt made to search the thicket, which resulted in
nothing.

Meantime the two soldiers were pummeling poor Loubet, who had not
regained his feet. The captain came running up, beside himself with
anger, and talked of making an example, and with this encouragement
kicks and cuffs and blows from musket-butts continued to rain down
upon the wretched man with such fury that when at last they stood him
on his feet he was found to have an arm broken and his skull
fractured. A peasant came along, driving a cart, in which he was
placed, but he died before reaching Mouzon.

"You see," was all that Jean said to Maurice.

The two friends cast a look in the direction of the wood that
sufficiently expressed their sentiments toward the scoundrel who had
gained his freedom by such base means, while their hearts were stirred
with feelings of deepest compassion for the poor devil whom he had
made his victim, a guzzler and a toper, who certainly did not amount
to much, but a merry, good-natured fellow all the same, and nobody's
fool. And that was always the way with those who kept bad company,
Jean moralizingly observed: they might be very fly, but sooner or
later a bigger rascal was sure to come along and make a meal of them.

Notwithstanding this terrible lesson Maurice, upon reaching Mouzon,
was still possessed by his unalterable determination to attempt an
escape. The prisoners were in such an exhausted condition when they
reached the place that the Prussians had to assist them to set up the
few tents that were placed at their disposal. The camp was formed near
the town, on low and marshy ground, and the worst of the business was
that another convoy having occupied the spot the day before, the field
was absolutely invisible under the superincumbent filth; it was no
better than a common cesspool, of unimaginable foulness. The sole
means the men had of self-protection was to scatter over the ground
some large flat stones, of which they were so fortunate as to find a
number in the vicinity. By way of compensation they had a somewhat
less hard time of it that evening; the strictness of their guardians
was relaxed a little once the captain had disappeared, doubtless to
seek the comforts of an inn. The sentries began by winking at the
irregularity of the proceeding when some children came along and
commenced to toss fruit, apples and pears, over their heads to the
prisoners; the next thing was they allowed the people of the
neighborhood to enter the lines, so that in a short time the camp was
swarming with impromptu merchants, men and women, offering for sale
bread, wine, cigars, even. Those who had money had no trouble in
supplying their needs so far as eating, drinking, and smoking were
concerned. A bustling animation prevailed in the dim twilight; it was
like a corner of the market place in a town where a fair is being
held.

But Maurice drew Jean behind their tent and again said to him in his
nervous, flighty way:

"I can't stand it; I shall make an effort to get away as soon as it is
dark. To-morrow our course will take us away from the frontier; it
will be too late."

"Very well, we'll try it," Jean replied, his powers of resistance
exhausted, his imagination, too, seduced by the pleasing idea of
freedom. "They can't do more than kill us."

After that he began to scrutinize more narrowly the venders who
surrounded him on every side. There were some among the comrades who
had succeeded in supplying themselves with blouse and trousers, and it
was reported that some of the charitable people of the place had
regular stocks of garments on hand, designed to assist prisoners in
escaping. And almost immediately his attention was attracted to a
pretty girl, a tall blonde of sixteen with a pair of magnificent eyes,
who had on her arm a basket containing three loaves of bread. She was
not crying her wares like the rest; an anxious, engaging smile played
on her red lips, her manner was hesitating. He looked her steadily in
the face; their glances met and for an instant remained confounded.
Then she came up, with the embarrassed smile of a girl unaccustomed to
such business.

"Do you wish to buy some bread?"

He made no reply, but questioned her by an imperceptible movement of
the eyelids. On her answering yes, by an affirmative nod of the head,
he asked in a very low tone of voice:

"There is clothing?"

"Yes, under the loaves."

Then she began to cry her merchandise aloud: "Bread! bread! who'll buy
my bread?" But when Maurice would have slipped a twenty-franc piece
into her fingers she drew back her hand abruptly and ran away, leaving
the basket with them. The last they saw of her was the happy, tender
look in her pretty eyes, as in the distance she turned and smiled on
them.

When they were in possession of the basket Jean and Maurice found
difficulties staring them in the face. They had strayed away from
their tent, and in their agitated condition felt they should never
succeed in finding it again. Where were they to bestow themselves? and
how effect their change of garments? It seemed to them that the eyes
of the entire assemblage were focused on the basket, which Jean
carried with an awkward air, as if it contained dynamite, and that its
contents must be plainly visible to everyone. It would not do to waste
time, however; they must be up and doing. They stepped into the first
vacant tent they came to, where each of them hurriedly slipped on a
pair of trousers and donned a blouse, having first deposited their
discarded uniforms in the basket, which they placed on the ground in a
dark corner of the tent and abandoned to its fate. There was a
circumstance that gave them no small uneasiness, however; they found
only one head-covering, a knitted woolen cap, which Jean insisted
Maurice should wear. The former, fearing his bare-headedness might
excite suspicion, was hanging about the precincts of the camp on the
lookout for a covering of some description, when it occurred to him to
purchase his hat from an extremely dirty old man who was selling
cigars.

"Brussels cigars, three sous apiece, two for five!"

Customs regulations were in abeyance since the battle of Sedan, and
the imports of Belgian merchandise had been greatly stimulated. The
old man had been making a handsome profit from his traffic, but that
did not prevent him from driving a sharp bargain when he understood
the reason why the two men wanted to buy his hat, a greasy old affair
of felt with a great hole in its crown. He finally consented to part
with it for two five-franc pieces, grumbling that he should certainly
have a cold in his head.

Then Jean had another idea, which was neither more nor less than to
buy out the old fellow's stock in trade, the two dozen cigars that
remained unsold. The bargain effected, he pulled his hat down over his
eyes and began to cry in the itinerant hawker's drawling tone:

"Here you are, Brussels cigars, two for three sous, two for three
sous!"

Their safety was now assured. He signaled Maurice to go on before. It
happened to the latter to discover an umbrella lying on the grass; he
picked it up and, as a few drops of rain began to fall just then,
opened it tranquilly as they were about to pass the line of sentries.

"Two for three sous, two for three sous, Brussels cigars!"

It took Jean less than two minutes to dispose of his stock of
merchandise. The men came crowding about him with chaff and laughter:
a reasonable fellow, that; he didn't rob poor chaps of their money!
The Prussians themselves were attracted by such unheard-of bargains,
and he was compelled to trade with them. He had all the time been
working his way toward the edge of the enceinte, and his last two
cigars went to a big sergeant with an immense beard, who could not
speak a word of French.

"Don't walk so fast, confound it!" Jean breathed in a whisper behind
Maurice's back. "You'll have them after us."

Their legs seemed inclined to run away with them, although they did
their best to strike a sober gait. It caused them a great effort to
pause a moment at a cross-roads, where a number of people were
collected before an inn. Some villagers were chatting peaceably with
German soldiers, and the two runaways made a pretense of listening,
and even hazarded a few observations on the weather and the
probability of the rain continuing during the night. They trembled
when they beheld a man, a fleshy gentleman, eying them attentively,
but as he smiled with an air of great good-nature they thought they
might venture to address him, asking in a whisper:

"Can you tell us if the road to Belgium is guarded, sir?"

"Yes, it is; but you will be safe if you cross this wood and afterward
cut across the fields, to the left."

Once they were in the wood, in the deep, dark silence of the
slumbering trees, where no sound reached their ears, where nothing
stirred and they believed their safety was assured them, they sank
into each other's arms in an uncontrollable impulse of emotion.
Maurice was sobbing violently, while big tears trickled slowly down
Jean's cheeks. It was the natural revulsion of their overtaxed
feelings after the long-protracted ordeal they had passed through, the
joy and delight of their mutual assurance that their troubles were at
an end, and that thenceforth suffering and they were to be strangers.
And united by the memory of what they had endured together in ties
closer than those of brotherhood, they clasped each other in a wild
embrace, and the kiss that they exchanged at that moment seemed to
them to possess a savor and a poignancy such as they had never
experienced before in all their life; a kiss such as they never could
receive from lips of woman, sealing their undying friendship, giving
additional confirmation to the certainty that thereafter their two
hearts would be but one, for all eternity.

When they had separated at last: "Little one," said Jean, in a
trembling voice, "it is well for us to be here, but we are not at the
end. We must look about a bit and try to find our bearings."

Maurice, although he had no acquaintance with that part of the
frontier, declared that all they had to do was to pursue a straight
course, whereon they resumed their way, moving among the trees in
Indian file with the greatest circumspection, until they reached
the edge of the thicket. There, mindful of the injunction of the
kind-hearted villager, they were about to turn to the left and take a
short cut across the fields, but on coming to a road, bordered with a
row of poplars on either side they beheld directly in their path the
watch-fire of a Prussian detachment. The bayonet of the sentry, pacing
his beat, gleamed in the ruddy light, the men were finishing their
soup and conversing; the fugitives stood not upon the order of their
going, but plunged into the recesses of the wood again, in mortal
terror lest they might be pursued. They thought they heard the sound
of voices, of footsteps on their trail, and thus for over an hour they
wandered at random among the copses, until all idea of locality was
obliterated from their brain; now racing like affrighted animals
through the underbrush, again brought up all standing, the cold sweat
trickling down their face, before a tree in which they beheld a
Prussian. And the end of it was that they again came out on the
poplar-bordered road not more than ten paces from the sentry, and
quite near the soldiers, who were toasting their toes in tranquil
comfort.

"Hang the luck!" grumbled Jean. "This must be an enchanted wood."

This time, however, they had been heard. The sound of snapping twigs
and rolling stones betrayed them. And as they did not answer the
challenge of the sentry, but made off at the double-quick, the men
seized their muskets and sent a shower of bullets crashing through the
thicket, into which the fugitives had plunged incontinently.

"_Nom de Dieu!_" ejaculated Jean, with a stifled cry of pain.

He had received something that felt like the cut of a whip in the calf
of his left leg, but the impact was so violent that it drove him up
against a tree.

"Are you hurt?" Maurice anxiously inquired.

"Yes, and in the leg, worse luck!"

They both stood holding their breath and listening, in dread
expectancy of hearing their pursuers clamoring at their heels; but the
firing had ceased and nothing stirred amid the intense stillness that
had again settled down upon the wood and the surrounding country. It
was evident that the Prussians had no inclination to beat up the
thicket.

Jean, who was doing his best to keep on his feet; forced back a groan.
Maurice sustained him with his arm.

"Can't you walk?"

"I should say not!" He gave way to a fit of rage, he, always so
self-contained. He clenched his fists, could have thumped himself.
"God in Heaven, if this is not hard luck! to have one's legs knocked
from under him at the very time he is most in need of them! It's too
bad, too bad, by my soul it is! Go on, you, and put yourself in
safety!"

But Maurice laughed quietly as he answered:

"That is silly talk!"

He took his friend's arm and helped him along, for neither of them had
any desire to linger there. When, laboriously and by dint of heroic
effort, they had advanced some half-dozen paces further, they halted
again with renewed alarm at beholding before them a house, standing at
the margin of the wood, apparently a sort of farmhouse. Not a light
was visible at any of the windows, the open courtyard gate yawned upon
the dark and deserted dwelling. And when they plucked up their courage
a little and ventured to enter the courtyard, great was their surprise
to find a horse standing there with a saddle on his back, with nothing
to indicate the why or wherefore of his being there. Perhaps it was
the owner's intention to return, perhaps he was lying behind a bush
with a bullet in his brain. They never learned how it was.

But Maurice had conceived a new scheme, which appeared to afford him
great satisfaction.

"See here, the frontier is too far away; we should never succeed in
reaching it without a guide. What do you say to changing our plan and
going to Uncle Fouchard's, at Remilly? I am so well acquainted with
every inch of the road that I'm sure I could take you there with my
eyes bandaged. Don't you think it's a good idea, eh? I'll put you on
this horse, and I suppose Uncle Fouchard will grumble, but he'll take
us in."

Before starting he wished to take a look at the injured leg. There
were two orifices; the ball appeared to have entered the limb and
passed out, fracturing the tibia in its course. The flow of blood had
not been great; he did nothing more than bandage the upper part of the
calf tightly with his handkerchief.

"Do you fly, and leave me here," Jean said again.

"Hold your tongue; you are silly!"

When Jean was seated firmly in the saddle Maurice took the bridle and
they made a start. It was somewhere about eleven o'clock, and he hoped
to make the journey in three hours, even if they should be unable to
proceed faster than a walk. A difficulty that he had not thought of
until then, however, presented itself to his mind and for a moment
filled him with consternation: how were they to cross the Meuse in
order to get to the left bank? The bridge at Mouzon would certainly be
guarded. At last he remembered that there was a ferry lower down the
stream, at Villers, and trusting to luck to befriend him, he shaped
his course for that village, striking across the meadows and tilled
fields of the right bank. All went well enough at first; they had only
to dodge a cavalry patrol which forced them to hide in the shadow of a
wall and remain there half an hour. Then the rain began to come down
in earnest and his progress became more laborious, compelled as he was
to tramp through the sodden fields beside the horse, which fortunately
showed itself to be a fine specimen of the equine race, and perfectly
gentle. On reaching Villers he found that his trust in the blind
goddess, Fortune, had not been misplaced; the ferryman, who, at that
late hour, had just returned from setting a Bavarian officer across
the river, took them at once and landed them on the other shore
without delay or accident.

And it was not until they reached the village, where they narrowly
escaped falling into the clutches of the pickets who were stationed
along the entire length of the Remilly road, that their dangers and
hardships really commenced; again they were obliged to take to the
fields, feeling their way along blind paths and cart-tracks that could
scarcely be discerned in the darkness. The most trivial obstacle
sufficed to drive them a long way out of their course. They squeezed
through hedges, scrambled down and up the steep banks of ditches,
forced a passage for themselves through the densest thickets. Jean, in
whom a low fever had developed under the drizzling rain, had sunk down
crosswise on his saddle in a condition of semi-consciousness, holding
on with both hands by the horse's mane, while Maurice, who had slipped
the bridle over his right arm, had to steady him by the legs to keep
him from tumbling to the ground. For more than a league, for two long,
weary hours that seemed like an eternity, did they toil onward in this
fatiguing way; floundering, stumbling, slipping in such a manner that
it seemed at every moment as if men and beast must land together in a
heap at the bottom of some descent. The spectacle they presented was
one of utter, abject misery, besplashed with mud, the horse trembling
in every limb, the man upon his back a helpless mass, as if at his
last gasp, the other, wild-eyed and pale as death, keeping his feet
only by an effort of fraternal love. Day was breaking; it was not far
from five o'clock when at last they came to Remilly.

In the courtyard of his little farmhouse, which was situated at the
extremity of the pass of Harancourt, overlooking the village, Father
Fouchard was stowing away in his carriole the carcasses of two sheep
that he had slaughtered the day before. The sight of his nephew,
coming to him at that hour and in that sorry plight, caused him such
perturbation of spirit that, after the first explanatory words, he
roughly cried:

"You want me to take you in, you and your friend? and then settle
matters with the Prussians afterward, I suppose. I'm much obliged to
you, but no! I might as well die right straight off and have done with
it."

He did not go so far, however, as to prohibit Maurice and Prosper from
taking Jean from the horse and laying him on the great table in the
kitchen. Silvine ran and got the bolster from her bed and slipped it
beneath the head of the wounded man, who was still unconscious. But it
irritated the old fellow to see the man lying on his table; he
grumbled and fretted, saying that the kitchen was no place for him;
why did they not take him away to the hospital at once? since there
fortunately was a hospital at Remilly, near the church, in the old
schoolhouse; and there was a big room in it, with everything nice and
comfortable.

"To the hospital!" Maurice hotly replied, "and have the Prussians pack
him off to Germany as soon as he is well, for you know they treat all
the wounded as prisoners of war. Do you take me for a fool, uncle? I
did not bring him here to give him up."

Things were beginning to look dubious, the uncle was threatening to
pitch them out upon the road, when someone mentioned Henriette's name.

"What about Henriette?" inquired the young man.

And he learned that his sister had been an inmate of the house at
Remilly for the last two days; her affliction had weighed so heavily
on her that life at Sedan, where her existence had hitherto been a
happy one, was become a burden greater than she could bear. Chancing
to meet with Doctor Dalichamp of Raucourt, with whom she was
acquainted, her conversation with him had been the means of bringing
her to take up her abode with Father Fouchard, in whose house she had
a little bedroom, in order to devote herself entirely to the care of
the sufferers in the neighboring hospital. That alone, she said, would
serve to quiet her bitter memories. She paid her board and was the
means of introducing many small comforts into the life of the
farmhouse, which caused Father Fouchard to regard her with an eye of
favor. The weather was always fine with him, provided he was making
money.

"Ah! so my sister is here," said Maurice. "That must have been what M.
Delaherche wished to tell me, with his gestures that I could not
understand. Very well; if she is here, that settles it; we shall
remain."

Notwithstanding his fatigue he started off at once in quest of her at
the ambulance, where she had been on duty during the preceding night,
while the uncle cursed his luck that kept him from being off with the
carriole to sell his mutton among the neighboring villages, so long as
the confounded business that he had got mixed up in remained
unfinished.

When Maurice returned with Henriette they caught the old man making a
critical examination of the horse, that Prosper had led away to the
stable. The animal seemed to please him; he was knocked up, but showed
signs of strength and endurance. The young man laughed and told his
uncle he might have him as a gift if he fancied him, while Henriette,
taking her relative aside, assured him Jean should be no expense to
him; that she would take charge of him and nurse him, and he might
have the little room behind the cow-stables, where no Prussian would
ever think to look for him. And Father Fouchard, still wearing a very
sulky face and but half convinced that there was anything to be made
out of the affair, finally closed the discussion by jumping into his
carriole and driving off, leaving her at liberty to act as she
pleased.

It took Henriette but a few minutes, with the assistance of Silvine
and Prosper, to put the room in order; then she had Jean brought in
and they laid him on a cool, clean bed, he giving no sign of life
during the operation save to mutter some unintelligible words. He
opened his eyes and looked about him, but seemed not to be conscious
of anyone's presence in the room. Maurice, who was just beginning to
be aware how utterly prostrated he was by his fatigue, was drinking a
glass of wine and eating a bit of cold meat, left over from the
yesterday's dinner, when Doctor Dalichamp came in, as was his daily
custom previous to visiting the hospital, and the young man, in his
anxiety for his friend, mustered up his strength to follow him,
together with his sister, to the bedside of the patient.

The doctor was a short, thick-set man, with a big round head, on which
the hair, as well as the fringe of beard about his face, had long
since begun to be tinged with gray. The skin of his ruddy, mottled
face was tough and indurated as a peasant's, spending as he did most
of his time in the open air, always on the go to relieve the
sufferings of his fellow-creatures; while the large, bright eyes, the
massive nose, indicative of obstinacy, and the benignant if somewhat
sensual mouth bore witness to the lifelong charities and good works of
the honest country doctor; a little brusque at times, not a man of
genius, but whom many years of practice in his profession had made an
excellent healer.

When he had examined Jean, still in a comatose state, he murmured:

"I am very much afraid that amputation will be necessary."

The words produced a painful impression on Maurice and Henriette.
Presently, however, he added:

"Perhaps we may be able to save the leg, but it will require the
utmost care and attention, and will take a very long time. For the
moment his physical and mental depression is such that the only thing
to do is to let him sleep. To-morrow we shall know more."

Then, having applied a dressing to the wound, he turned to Maurice,
whom he had known in bygone days, when he was a boy.

"And you, my good fellow, would be better off in bed than sitting
there."

The young man continued to gaze before him into vacancy, as if he had
not heard. In the confused hallucination that was due to his fatigue
he developed a kind of delirium, a supersensitive nervous excitation
that embraced all he had suffered in mind and body since the beginning
of the campaign. The spectacle of his friend's wretched state, his own
condition, scarce less pitiful, defeated, his hands tied, good for
nothing, the reflection that all those heroic efforts had culminated
in such disaster, all combined to incite him to frantic rebellion
against destiny. At last he spoke.

"It is not ended; no, no! we have not seen the end, and I must go
away. Since _he_ must lie there on his back for weeks, for months,
perhaps, I cannot stay; I must go, I must go at once. You will assist
me, won't you, doctor? you will supply me with the means to escape and
get back to Paris?"

Pale and trembling, Henriette threw her arms about him and caught him
to her bosom.

"What words are those you speak? enfeebled as you are, after all the
suffering you have endured! but think not I shall let you go; you
shall stay here with me! Have you not paid the debt you owe your
country? and should you not think of me, too, whom you would leave to
loneliness? of me, who have nothing now in all the wide world save
you?"

Their tears flowed and were mingled. They held each other in a wild
tumultuous embrace, with that fond affection which, in twins, often
seems as if it antedated existence. But for all that his exaltation
did not subside, but assumed a higher pitch.

"I tell you I must go. Should I not go I feel I should die of grief
and shame. You can have no idea how my blood boils and seethes in my
veins at the thought of remaining here in idleness. I tell you that
this business is not going to end thus, that we must be avenged. On
whom, on what? Ah! that I cannot tell; but avenged we must and shall
be for such misfortune, in order that we may yet have courage to live
on!"

Doctor Dalichamp, who had been watching the scene with intense
interest, cautioned Henriette by signal to make no reply. Maurice
would doubtless be more rational after he should have slept; and sleep
he did, all that day and all the succeeding night, for more than
twenty hours, and never stirred hand or foot. When he awoke next
morning, however, he was as inflexible as ever in his determination to
go away. The fever had subsided; he was gloomy and restless, in haste
to withdraw himself from influences that he feared might weaken his
patriotic fervor. His sister, with many tears, made up her mind that
he must be allowed to have his way, and Doctor Dalichamp, when he came
to make his morning visit, promised to do what he could to facilitate
the young man's escape by turning over to him the papers of a hospital
attendant who had died recently at Raucourt. It was arranged that
Maurice should don the gray blouse with the red cross of Geneva on its
sleeve and pass through Belgium, thence to make his way as best he
might to Paris, access to which was as yet uninterrupted.

He did not leave the house that day, keeping himself out of sight and
waiting for night to come. He scarcely opened his mouth, although he
did make an attempt to enlist the new farm-hand in his enterprise.

"Say, Prosper, don't you feel as if you would like to go back and have
one more look at the Prussians?"

The ex-chasseur d'Afrique, who was eating a cheese sandwich, stopped
and held his knife suspended in the air.

"It don't strike me that it is worth while, from what we were allowed
to see of them before. Why should you wish me to go back there, when
the only use our generals can find for the cavalry is to send it in
after the battle is ended and let it be cut to pieces? No, faith, I'm
sick of the business, giving us such dirty work as that to do!" There
was silence between them for a moment; then he went on, doubtless to
quiet the reproaches of his conscience as a soldier: "And then the
work is too heavy here just now; the plowing is just commencing, and
then there'll be the fall sowing to be looked after. We must think of
the farm work, mustn't we? for fighting is well enough in its way, but
what would become of us if we should cease to till the ground? You see
how it is; I can't leave my work. Not that I am particularly in love
with Father Fouchard, for I doubt very strongly if I shall ever see
the color of his money, but the beasties are beginning to take to me,
and faith! when I was up there in the Old Field this morning, and gave
a look at that d----d Sedan lying yonder in the distance, you can't
tell how good it made me feel to be guiding my oxen and driving the
plow through the furrow, all alone in the bright sunshine."

As soon as it was fairly dark, Doctor Dalichamp came driving up in his
old gig. It was his intention to see Maurice to the frontier. Father
Fouchard, well pleased to be rid of one of his guests at least,
stepped out upon the road to watch and make sure there were none of
the enemy's patrols prowling in the neighborhood, while Silvine put a
few stitches in the blouse of the defunct ambulance man, on the sleeve
of which the red cross of the corps was prominently displayed. The
doctor, before taking his place in the vehicle, examined Jean's leg
anew, but could not as yet promise that he would be able to save it.
The patient was still in a profound lethargy, recognizing no one,
never opening his mouth to speak, and Maurice was about to leave him
without the comfort of a farewell, when, bending over to give him a
last embrace, he saw him open his eyes to their full extent; the lips
parted, and in a faint voice he said:

"You are going away?" And in reply to their astonished looks: "Yes, I
heard what you said, though I could not stir. Take the remainder of
the money, then. Put your hand in my trousers' pocket and take it."

Each of them had remaining nearly two hundred francs of the sum they
had received from the corps paymaster.

But Maurice protested. "The money!" he exclaimed. "Why, you have more
need of it than I, who have the use of both my legs. Two hundred
francs will be abundantly sufficient to see me to Paris, and to get
knocked in the head afterward won't cost me a penny. I thank you,
though, old fellow, all the same, and good-by and good-luck to you;
thanks, too, for having always been so good and thoughtful, for, had
it not been for you, I should certainly be lying now at the bottom of
some ditch, like a dead dog."

Jean made a deprecating gesture. "Hush. You owe me nothing; we are
quits. Would not the Prussians have gathered me in out there the other
day had you not picked me up and carried me off on your back? and
yesterday again you saved me from their clutches. Twice have I been
beholden to you for my life, and now I am in your debt. Ah, how
unhappy I shall be when I am no longer with you!" His voice trembled
and tears rose to his eyes. "Kiss me, dear boy!"

They embraced, and, as it had been in the wood the day before, that
kiss set the seal to the brotherhood of dangers braved in each other's
company, those few weeks of soldier's life in common that had served
to bind their hearts together with closer ties than years of ordinary
friendship could have done. Days of famine, sleepless nights, the
fatigue of the weary march, death ever present to their eyes, these
things made the foundation on which their affection rested. When two
hearts have thus by mutual gift bestowed themselves the one upon the
other and become fused and molten into one, is it possible ever to
sever the connection? But the kiss they had exchanged the day before,
among the darkling shadows of the forest, was replete with the joy of
their new-found safety and the hope that their escape awakened in
their bosom, while this was the kiss of parting, full of anguish and
doubt unutterable. Would they meet again some day? and how, under what
circumstances of sorrow or of gladness?

Doctor Dalichamp had clambered into his gig and was calling to
Maurice. The young man threw all his heart and soul into the embrace
he gave his sister Henriette, who, pale as death in her black mourning
garments, looked on his face in silence through her tears.

"He whom I leave to your care is my brother. Watch over him, love him
as I love him!"

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