eath, with no possibility of achieving any
useful result, solely for the glory of France and the French army. And
Maurice, whose thoughts turned to Prosper, was a witness of the terrible
spectacle.

What between the messages that were given him to carry and their
answers, Prosper had been kept busy since daybreak spurring up and down
the plateau of Illy. The cavalrymen had been awakened at peep of dawn,
man by man, without sound of trumpet, and to make their morning coffee
had devised the ingenious expedient of screening their fires with a
greatcoat so as not to attract the attention of the enemy. Then there
came a period when they were left entirely to themselves, with nothing
to occupy them; they seemed to be forgotten by their commanders. They
could hear the sound of the cannonading, could descry the puffs of
smoke, could see the distant movements of the infantry, but were utterly
ignorant of the battle, its importance, and its results. Prosper, as far
as he was concerned, was suffering from want of sleep. The cumulative
fatigue induced by many nights of broken rest, the invincible somnolency
caused by the easy gait of his mount, made life a burden. He dreamed
dreams and saw visions; now he was sleeping comfortably in a bed between
clean sheets, now snoring on the bare ground among sharpened flints.
For minutes at a time he would actually be sound asleep in his saddle,
a lifeless clod, his steed's intelligence answering for both. Under such
circumstances comrades had often tumbled from their seats upon the road.
They were so fagged that when they slept the trumpets no longer awakened
them; the only way to rouse them from their lethargy and get them on
their feet was to kick them soundly.

"But what are they going to do, what are they going to do with us?"
Prosper kept saying to himself. It was the only thing he could think of
to keep himself awake.

For six hours the cannon had been thundering. As they climbed a hill two
comrades, riding at his side, had been struck down by a shell, and as
they rode onward seven or eight others had bit the dust, pierced by
rifle-balls that came no one could say whence. It was becoming tiresome,
that slow parade, as useless as it was dangerous, up and down the
battlefield. At last--it was about one o'clock--he learned that it
had been decided they were to be killed off in a somewhat more decent
manner. Margueritte's entire division, comprising three regiments of
chasseurs d'Afrique