ecessity for it. And thus commenced another period of
agonized, grumbling suspense.

When finally the preparations were all completed the 106th found
themselves posted in a field of stubble above the road, in a position
that commanded a view of the broad plain. The men had parted regretfully
with their arms, casting timorous looks behind them that showed they
were apprehensive of a night attack. Their faces were stern and set, and
silence reigned, only broken from time to time by some sullen murmur
of angry complaint. It was nearly nine o'clock, they had been there two
hours, and yet many of them, notwithstanding their terrible fatigue,
could not sleep; stretched on the bare ground, they would start and bend
their ears to catch the faintest sound that rose in the distance. They
had ceased to fight their torturing hunger; they would eat over yonder,
on the other bank, when they had passed the river; they would eat grass
if nothing else was to be found. The crowd at the bridge, however,
seemed to increase rather than diminish; the officers that General Douay
had stationed there came back to him every few minutes, always bringing
the same unwelcome report, that it would be hours and hours before any
relief could be expected. Finally the general determined to go down
to the bridge in person, and the men saw him on the bank, bestirring
himself and others and hurrying the passage of the troops.

Maurice, seated with Jean against a wall, pointed to the north, as he
had done before. "There is Sedan in the distance. And look! Bazeilles is
over yonder--and then comes Douzy, and then Carignan, more to the right.
We shall concentrate at Carignan, I feel sure we shall. Ah! there is
plenty of room, as you would see if it were daylight!"

And his sweeping gesture embraced the entire valley that lay beneath
them, enfolded in shadow. There was sufficient light remaining in the
sky that they could distinguish the pale gleam of the river where it ran
its course among the dusky meadows. The scattered trees made clumps of
denser shade, especially a row of poplars to the left, whose tops were
profiled on the horizon like the fantastic ornaments on some old castle
gateway. And in the background, behind Sedan, dotted with countless
little points of brilliant light, the shadows had mustered, denser and
darker, as if all the forests of the Ardennes had collected the inky
blackness of their secular oaks and cast it there.

Jean's gaze came bac