lth to the world at large. And not a word was spoken; there was not a
sound to be heard but the crystalline chink and rattle of the coin as it
was received by those poor devils, dumfounded to see the responsibility
of such riches thrust on them when there was not a place in the city
where they could purchase a loaf of bread or a quart of wine.

When Jean and Maurice appeared before him the officer, who was holding
outstretched his hand filled, as usual, with louis, drew it back.

"Neither of you fellows is a sergeant. No one except sergeants is
entitled to receive the money." Then, in haste to be done with his task,
he changed his mind: "Never mind, though; here, you corporal, take this.
Step lively, now. Next man!"

And he dropped the gold coins into the _kepi_ that Jean held out to him.
The latter, oppressed by the magnitude of the amount, nearly six hundred
francs, insisted that Maurice should take one-half. No one could say
what might happen; they might be parted from each other.

They made the division in the garden, before the ambulance, and when
they had concluded their financial business they entered, having
recognized on the straw near the entrance the drummer-boy of their
company, Bastian, a fat, good-natured little fellow, who had had the
ill-luck to receive a spent ball in the groin about five o'clock the day
before, when the battle was ended. He had been dying by inches for the
last twelve hours.

In the dim, white light of morning, at that hour of awakening, the
sight of the ambulance sent a chill of horror through them. Three more
patients had died during the night, without anyone being aware of it,
and the attendants were hurriedly bearing away the corpses in order
to make room for others. Those who had been operated on the day before
opened wide their eyes in their somnolent, semi-conscious state, and
looked with dazed astonishment on that vast dormitory of suffering,
where the victims of the knife, only half-slaughtered, rested on their
straw. It was in vain that some attempts had been made the night before
to clean up the room after the bloody work of the operations; there were
great splotches of blood on the ill-swept floor; in a bucket of water
a great sponge was floating, stained with red, for all the world like a
human brain; a hand, its fingers crushed and broken, had been overlooked
and lay on the floor of the shed. It was the parings and trimmings of
the human butcher shop, the horrible was