ows!"

Bouroche had just finished placing a mattress on each of the three
tables, covering them carefully with oil-cloth, when the sound of
horses' hoofs was heard outside and the first ambulance wagon rolled
into the court. There were ten men in it, seated on the lateral benches,
only slightly wounded; two or three of them carrying their arm in a
sling, but the majority hurt about the head. They alighted with
but little assistance, and the inspection of their cases commenced
forthwith.

One of them, scarcely more than a boy, had been shot through the
shoulder, and as Henriette was tenderly assisting him to draw off his
greatcoat, an operation that elicited cries of pain, she took notice of
the number of his regiment.

"Why, you belong to the 106th! Are you in Captain Beaudoin's company?"

No, he belonged to Captain Bonnaud's company, but for all that he was
well acquainted with Corporal Macquart and felt pretty certain that his
squad had not been under fire as yet. The tidings, meager as they
were, sufficed to remove a great load from the young woman's heart: her
brother was alive and well; if now her husband would only return, as she
was expecting every moment he would do, her mind would be quite at rest.

At that moment, just as Henriette raised her head to listen to the
cannonade, which was then roaring with increased viciousness, she was
thunderstruck to see Delaherche standing only a few steps away in
the middle of a group of men, to whom he was telling the story of the
frightful dangers he had encountered in getting from Bazeilles to Sedan.
How did he happen to be there? She had not seen him come in. She darted
toward him.

"Is not my husband with you?"

But Delaherche, who was just then replying to the fond questions of his
wife and mother, was in no haste to answer.

"Wait, wait a moment." And resuming his narrative: "Twenty times between
Bazeilles and Balan I just missed being killed. It was a storm, a
regular hurricane, of shot and shell! And I saw the Emperor, too. Oh!
but he is a brave man!--And after leaving Balan I ran--"

Henriette shook him by the arm.

"My husband?"

"Weiss? why, he stayed behind there, Weiss did."

"What do you mean, behind there?"

"Why, yes; he picked up the musket of a dead soldier, and is fighting
away with the best of them."

"He is fighting, you say?--and why?"

"He must be out of his head, I think. He would not come with me, and of
course I had to leave him.