tion of Novi, he caught the gleam of Desaix's bayonets. Standing on
a knoll raised above the plain, he could see what was invisible to the
enemy.

He signed to a group of officers who were near him, awaiting orders;
behind stood orderlies holding their horses. The officers advanced.
Bonaparte pointed to the forest of bayonets, now glistening in the
sunlight, and said to one of the officers: "Gallop to those bayonets and
tell them to hasten. As for Desaix, tell him I am waiting for him here."

The officer galloped off. Bonaparte again turned his eyes to the
battlefield. The retreat continued; but Roland and his nine hundred
had stopped General Elsnitz and his column. The stone redoubt was
transformed into a volcano; it was belching fire from all four sides.
Then Bonaparte, addressing three officers, cried out: "One of you to the
centre; the other two to the wings! Say everywhere that the reserves are
at hand, and that we resume the offensive."

The three officers departed like arrows shot from a bow, their ways
parting in direct lines to their different destinations. Bonaparte
watched them for a few moments, and when he turned round he saw a rider
in a general's uniform approaching.

It was Desaix--Desaix, whom he had left in Egypt, and who that very
morning had said, laughing: "The bullets of Europe don't recognize me;
some ill-luck is surely impending over me."

One grasp of the hand was all that these two friends needed to reveal
their hearts.

Then Bonaparte stretched out his arm toward the battlefield.

A single glance told more than all the words in the world.

Twenty thousand men had gone into the fight that morning, and now
scarcely more than ten thousand were left within a radius of six
miles--only nine thousand infantry, one thousand cavalry, and ten cannon
still in condition for use. One quarter of the army was either dead or
wounded, another quarter was employed in removing the wounded; for the
First Consul would not suffer them to be abandoned. All of these forces,
save and excepting Roland and his nine hundred men, were retreating.

The vast space between the Bormida and the ground over which the army
was now retreating was covered with the dead bodies of men and horses,
dismounted cannon and shattered ammunition wagons. Here and there rose
columns of flame and smoke from the burning fields of grain.

Desaix took in these details at a glance.

"What do you think of the battle?" asked Bonaparte.