ak the men were equipped again, the operation being conducted
very quietly, as if to hush the matter up as much as possible. Orders
were given to break camp at five o'clock, but reveille sounded at four
and the retreat to Belfort was hurriedly continued, for everyone was
certain that the Prussians were only two or three leagues away. Again
there was nothing to eat but dry biscuit, and as a consequence of their
brief, disturbed rest and the lack of something to warm their stomachs
the men were weak as cats. Any attempt to enforce discipline on the
march that morning was again rendered nugatory by the manner of their
departure.

The day was worse than its predecessor, inexpressibly gloomy and
disheartening. The aspect of the landscape had changed, they were now in
a rolling country where the roads they were always alternately climbing
and descending were bordered with woods of pine and hemlock, while the
narrow gorges were golden with tangled thickets of broom. But panic
and terror lay heavy on the fair land that slumbered there beneath the
bright sun of August, and had been hourly gathering strength since the
preceeding day. A fresh dispatch, bidding the mayors of communes warn
the people that they would do well to hide their valuables, had excited
universal consternation. The enemy was at hand, then! Would time be
given them to make their escape? And to all it seemed that the roar of
invasion was ringing in their ears, coming nearer and nearer, the roar
of the rushing torrent that, starting from Mulhausen, had grown louder
and more ominous as it advanced, and to which every village that it
encountered in its course contributed its own alarm amid the sound of
wailing and lamentation.

Maurice stumbled along as best he might, like a man walking in a dream;
his feet were bleeding, his shoulders sore with the weight of gun and
knapsack. He had ceased to think, he advanced automatically into
the vision of horrors that lay before his eyes; he had ceased to be
conscious even of the shuffling tramp of the comrades around him,
and the only thing that was not dim and unreal to his sense was
Jean, marching at his side and enduring the same fatigue and horrible
distress. It was lamentable to behold the villages they passed through,
a sight to make a man's heart bleed with anguish. No sooner did the
inhabitants catch sight of the troops retreating in disorderly array,
with haggard faces and bloodshot eyes, than they bestirred thems