, an officer appeared coming over the crest of
the hill in front, wounded, and preserving his seat in the saddle only
by the assistance of a man on either side. No one recognized him at
first, but presently a deep, ominous murmur began to run from squadron
to squadron, which quickly swelled into a furious uproar. It was General
Margueritte, who had received a wound from which he died a few days
later; a musket-ball had passed through both cheeks, carrying away a
portion of the tongue and palate. He was incapable of speech, but waved
his arm in the direction of the enemy. The fury of his men knew no
bounds; their cries rose louder still upon the air.

"It is our general! Avenge him, avenge him!"

Then the colonel of the first regiment, raising aloft his saber, shouted
in a voice of thunder:

"Charge!"

The trumpets sounded, the column broke into a trot and was away. Prosper
was in the leading squadron, but almost at the extreme right of the
right wing, a position of less danger than the center, upon which the
enemy always naturally concentrate their hottest fire. When they had
topped the summit of the Calvary and began to descend the slope beyond
that led downward into the broad plain he had a distinct view, some
two-thirds of a mile away, of the Prussian squares that were to be the
object of their attack. Beside that vision all the rest was dim and
confused before his eyes; he moved onward as one in a dream, with a
strange ringing in his ears, a sensation of voidness in his mind that
left him incapable of framing an idea. He was a part of the great engine
that tore along, controlled by a superior will. The command ran along
the line: "Keep touch of knees! Keep touch of knees!" in order to keep
the men closed up and give their ranks the resistance and rigidity of
a wall of granite, and as their trot became swifter and swifter and
finally broke into a mad gallop, the chasseurs d'Afrique gave their wild
Arab cry that excited their wiry steeds to the verge of frenzy. Onward
they tore, faster and faster still, until their gallop was a race of
unchained demons, their shouts the shrieks of souls in mortal agony;
onward they plunged amid a storm of bullets that rattled on casque and
breastplate, on buckle and scabbard, with a sound like hail; into the
bosom of that hailstorm flashed that thunderbolt beneath which the earth
shook and trembled, leaving behind it, as it passed, an odor of burned
woolen and the exhalations of w