roceed on his way. Presently they
came to a little valley, where the sights of horror abruptly ended.
The battle had evidently turned at this point and expended its force in
another direction, leaving this peaceful nook of nature untouched. The
trees were all uninjured; the carpet of velvety moss was undefiled by
blood. A little brook coursed merrily among the duckweed, the path that
ran along its bank was shaded by tall beeches. A penetrating charm, a
tender peacefulness pervaded the solitude of the lovely spot, where the
living waters gave up their coolness to the air and the leaves whispered
softly in the silence.

Prosper had stopped to let the donkey drink from the stream.

"Ah, how pleasant it is here!" he involuntarily exclaimed in his
delight.

Silvine cast an astonished look about her, as if wondering how it was
that she, too, could feel the influence of the peaceful scene.
Why should there be repose and happiness in that hidden nook, when
surrounding it on every side were sorrow and affliction? She made a
gesture of impatience.

"Quick, quick, let us be gone. Where is the spot? Where did you tell me
you saw Honore?"

And when, at some fifty paces from there, they at last came out on the
plateau of Illy, the level plain unrolled itself in its full extent
before their vision. It was the real, the true battlefield that they
beheld now, the bare fields stretching away to the horizon under the
wan, cheerless sky, whence showers were streaming down continually.
There were no piles of dead visible; all the Prussians must have been
buried by this time, for there was not a single one to be seen among
the corpses of the French that were scattered here and there, along the
roads and in the fields, as the conflict had swayed in one direction or
another. The first that they encountered was a sergeant, propped against
a hedge, a superb man, in the bloom of his youthful vigor; his face was
tranquil and a smile seemed to rest on his parted lips. A hundred paces
further on, however, they beheld another, lying across the road, who had
been mutilated most frightfully, his head almost entirely shot away, his
shoulders covered with great splotches of brain matter. Then, as they
advanced further into the field, after the single bodies, distributed
here and there, they came across little groups; they saw seven men
aligned in single rank, kneeling and with their muskets at the shoulder
in the position of aim, who had been hit a