her own voice:

"It is nothing, it is nothing. Come, I am not afraid; no, no! I am not
afraid."

And it was the truth; she arose, and from that time walked amid the
storm of bullets with absolute indifference, like one whose soul is
parted from his body, who reasons not, who gives his life. She marched
straight onward, with head erect, no longer seeking to shelter herself,
and if she struck out at a swifter pace it was only that she might reach
her appointed end more quickly. The death-dealing missiles pattered on
the road before and behind her; twenty times they were near taking her
life; she never noticed them. At last she was at Bazeilles, and struck
diagonally across a field of lucerne in order to regain the road, the
main street that traversed the village. Just as she turned into it she
cast her eyes to the right, and there, some two hundred paces from
her, beheld her house in a blaze. The flames were invisible against the
bright sunlight; the roof had already fallen in in part, the windows
were belching dense clouds of black smoke. She could restrain herself no
longer, and ran with all her strength.

Ever since eight o'clock Weiss, abandoned by the retiring troops, had
been a self-made prisoner there. His return to Sedan had become an
impossibility, for the Bavarians, immediately upon the withdrawal of the
French, had swarmed down from the park of Montivilliers and occupied
the road. He was alone and defenseless, save for his musket and what few
cartridges were left him, when he beheld before his door a little band
of soldiers, ten in number, abandoned, like himself, and parted from
their comrades, looking about them for a place where they might defend
themselves and sell their lives dearly. He ran downstairs to admit them,
and thenceforth the house had a garrison, a lieutenant, corporal and
eight men, all bitterly inflamed against the enemy, and resolved never
to surrender.

"What, Laurent, you here!" he exclaimed, surprised to recognize among
the soldiers a tall, lean young man, who held in his hand a musket,
doubtless taken from some corpse.

Laurent was dressed in jacket and trousers of blue cloth; he was helper
to a gardener of the neighborhood, and had lately lost his mother and
his wife, both of whom had been carried off by the same insidious fever.

"And why shouldn't I be?" he replied. "All I have is my skin, and I'm
willing to give that. And then I am not such a bad shot, you know, and
it will be