to it; what use is there in afflicting people when one is not certain?

"Honore," he murmured, "I don't know, I couldn't say."

She continued to press him with her questions, looking at him steadily.

"You did not see him, then?"

He waved his hands before him with a slow, uncertain motion and an
expressive shake of the head.

"How can you expect one to remember! There were such lots of things,
such lots of things. Look you, of all that d-----d battle, if I was to
die for it this minute, I could not tell you that much--no, not even the
place where I was. I believe men get to be no better than idiots, 'pon
my word I do!" And tossing off a glass of wine, he sat gloomily silent,
his vacant eyes turned inward on the dark recesses of his memory. "All
that I remember is that it was beginning to be dark when I recovered
consciousness. I went down while we were charging, and then the sun was
very high. I must have been lying there for hours, my right leg caught
under poor old Zephyr, who had received a piece of shell in the middle
of his chest. There was nothing to laugh at in my position, I can tell
you; the dead comrades lying around me in piles, not a living soul
in sight, and the certainty that I should have to kick the bucket too
unless someone came to put me on my legs again. Gently, gently, I tried
to free my leg, but it was no use; Zephyr's weight must have been fully
up to that of the five hundred thousand devils. He was warm still. I
patted him, I spoke to him, saying all the pretty things I could think
of, and here's a thing, do you see, that I shall never forget as long
as I live: he opened his eyes and made an effort to raise his poor old
head, which was resting on the ground beside my own. Then we had a talk
together: 'Poor old fellow,' says I, 'I don't want to say a word to hurt
your feelings, but you must want to see me croak with you, you hold me
down so hard.' Of course he didn't say he did; he couldn't, but for all
that I could read in his great sorrowful eyes how bad he felt to have
to part with me. And I can't say how the thing happened, whether he
intended it or whether it was part of the death struggle, but all at
once he gave himself a great shake that sent him rolling away to one
side. I was enabled to get on my feet once more, but ah! in what a
pickle; my leg was swollen and heavy as a leg of lead. Never mind, I
took Zephyr's head in my arms and kept on talking to him, telling him
all the kind tho