e attitude in which he had received his
death-wound.

I was like one in some terrible dream, powerless and terror-stricken, as
I stood thus amid the slaughtered and the wounded.

'You are my prisoner,' said a gruff-looking old Groat grenadier, as
he snatched my sword from my hand by a smart blow on the wrist; and I
yielded without a word.

'Is it over?' said I; 'is it over?'

'Yes, _parbleu!_ I think it is,' said a comrade, whose cheek was hanging
down from a bayonet wound. 'There are not twenty of us remaining, and
they will do very little for the service of the "Great Republic'"

CHAPTER XXXVIII. A ROYALIST 'DE LA VIEILLE ROCHE'

On a hot and sultry day of June I found myself seated in a country cart,
and under the guard of two mounted dragoons, wending my way towards
Kuffstein, a Tyrol fortress, to which I was sentenced as a prisoner. A
weary journey was it; for in addition to my now sad thoughts I had to
contend against an attack of ague, which I had just caught, and which
was then raging like a plague in the Austrian camp. One solitary
reminiscence, and that far from a pleasant one, clings to this period.
We had halted on the outskirts of a little village called 'Broletto,'
for the siesta, and there, in a clump of olives, were quietly dozing
away the sultry hours, when the clatter of horsemen awoke us; and on
looking up, we saw a cavalry escort sweep past at a gallop. The corporal
who commanded our party hurried into the village to learn the news, and
soon returned with the tidings that 'a great victory had been gained
over the French, commanded by Bonaparte in person; that the army was in
full retreat; and this was the despatch an officer of Melas' staff was
now hastening to lay at the feet of the emperor.'

'I thought several times this morning,' said the corporal, 'that I heard
artillery; and so it seems I might, for we are not above twenty miles
from where the battle was fought.'

'And how is the place called?' asked I, in a tone sceptical enough to be
offensive.

'Marengo,' replied he; 'mayhap, the name will not escape your memory.'

How true was the surmise, but in how different a sense from what he
uttered it! But so it was; even as late as four o'clock the victory
was with the Austrians. Three separate envoys had left the field with
tidings of success; and it was only late at night that the general,
exhausted by a disastrous day, and almost broken-hearted, could write to
tell his master th