ed before them to the
south and west: Sedan, almost at their feet, whose citadel they could
see overtopping the roofs, then Balan and Bazeilles, dimly seen through
the dun smoke-clouds that hung heavily in the motionless air, and
further in the distance the hills of the left bank, Liry, la Marfee, la
Croix-Piau. It was away toward the west, however, in the direction of
Donchery, that the prospect was most extensive. There the Meuse curved
horseshoe-wise, encircling the peninsula of Iges with a ribbon of pale
silver, and at the northern extremity of the loop was distinctly visible
the narrow road of the Saint-Albert pass, winding between the river bank
and a beetling, overhanging hill that was crowned with the little wood
of Seugnon, an offshoot of the forest of la Falizette. At the summit of
the hill, at the _carrefour_ of la Maison-Rouge, the road from Donchery
to Vrigne-aux-Bois debouched into the Mezieres pike.

"See, that is the road by which we might retreat on Mezieres."

Even as he spoke the first gun was fired from Saint-Menges. The fog
still hung over the bottom-lands in shreds and patches, and through
it they dimly descried a shadowy body of men moving through the
Saint-Albert defile.

"Ah, they are there," continued Maurice, instinctively lowering his
voice. "Too late, too late; they have intercepted us!"

It was not eight o'clock. The guns, which were thundering more fiercely
than ever in the direction of Bazeilles, now also began to make
themselves heard at the eastward, in the valley of la Givonne, which was
hid from view; it was the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony, debouching
from the Chevalier wood and attacking the 1st corps, in front of Daigny
village; and now that the XIth Prussian corps, moving on Floing, had
opened fire on General Douay's troops, the investment was complete at
every point of the great periphery of several leagues' extent, and the
action was general all along the line.

Maurice suddenly perceived the enormity of their blunder in not
retreating on Mezieres during the night; but as yet the consequences
were not clear to him; he could not foresee all the disaster that was
to result from that fatal error of judgment. Moved by some indefinable
instinct of danger, he looked with apprehension on the adjacent heights
that commanded the plateau de l'Algerie. If time had not been allowed
them to make good their retreat, why had they not backed up against the
frontier and occupied those