iculated 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