e accountant's
abode. The operatives had all fled, taking to the woods and making for
the Belgian frontier, and there was no one left to guard the property
but the woman concierge, Francoise Quittard by name, the widow of a
mason; and she also, beside herself with terror, would have gone with
the others had it not been for her ten-year-old boy Charles, who was so
ill with typhoid fever that he could not be moved.

"I say," Delaherche continued, "do you hear that? It is a promising
beginning. Our best course is to get back to Sedan as soon as possible."

Weiss's promise to his wife, that he would leave Bazeilles at the first
sign of danger, had been given in perfect good faith, and he had fully
intended to keep it; but as yet there was only an artillery duel at long
range, and the aim could not be accurate enough to do much damage in the
uncertain, misty light of early morning.

"Wait a bit, confound it!" he replied. "There is no hurry."

Delaherche, too, was curious to see what would happen; his curiosity
made him valiant. He had been so interested in the preparations for
defending the place that he had not slept a wink. General Lebrun,
commanding the 12th corps, had received notice that he would be
attacked at daybreak, and had kept his men occupied during the night in
strengthening the defenses of Bazeilles, which he had instructions to
hold in spite of everything. Barricades had been thrown up across the
Douzy road, and all the smaller streets; small parties of soldiers had
been thrown into the houses by way of garrison; every narrow lane,
every garden had become a fortress, and since three o'clock the troops,
awakened from their slumbers without beat of drum or call of bugle in
the inky blackness, had been at their posts, their chassepots freshly
greased and cartridge boxes filled with the obligatory ninety rounds of
ammunition. It followed that when the enemy opened their fire no one was
taken unprepared, and the French batteries, posted to the rear between
Balan and Bazeilles, immediately commenced to answer, rather with the
idea of showing they were awake than for any other purpose, for in the
dense fog that enveloped everything the practice was of the wildest.

"The dyehouse will be well defended," said Delaherche. "I have a whole
section in it. Come and see."

It was true; forty and odd men of the infanterie de marine had been
posted there under the command of a lieutenant, a tall, light-haired
young fell