den in its shallow vale, and Floing, less remote, on the right. He
recognized the plateau where he had spent interminable hours among the
cabbages, and the eminences that the reserve artillery had struggled
so gallantly to hold, where he had seen Honore meet his death on his
dismounted gun. And it was as if the baleful scene were again before
him with all its abominations, steeping his mind in horror and disgust,
until he was sick at heart.

The reflection that soon it would be quite dark and it would not do to
loiter there, however, caused him to resume his researches. He said
to himself that perhaps the regiment was encamped somewhere beyond the
village on the low ground, but the only ones he encountered there were
some prowlers, and he decided to make the circuit of the peninsula,
following the bend of the stream. As he was passing through a field of
potatoes he was sufficiently thoughtful to dig a few of the tubers and
put them in his pockets; they were not ripe, but he had nothing better,
for Jean, as luck would have it, had insisted on carrying both the two
loaves of bread that Delaherche had given them when they left his house.
He was somewhat surprised at the number of horses he met with, roaming
about the uncultivated lands, that fell off in an easy descent from the
central elevation to the Meuse, in the direction of Donchery. Why should
they have brought all those animals with them? how were they to be fed?
And now it was night in earnest, and quite dark, when he came to a small
piece of woods on the water's brink, in which he was surprised to find
the cent-gardes of the Emperor's escort, providing for their creature
comforts and drying themselves before roaring fires. These gentlemen,
who had a separate encampment to themselves, had comfortable tents;
their kettles were boiling merrily, there was a milch cow tied to a
tree. It did not take Maurice long to see that he was not regarded with
favor in that quarter, poor devil of an infantryman that he was, with
his ragged, mud-stained uniform. They graciously accorded him permission
to roast his potatoes in the ashes of their fires, however, and he
withdrew to the shelter of a tree, some hundred yards away, to eat them.
It was no longer raining; the sky was clear, the stars were shining
brilliantly in the dark blue vault. He saw that he should have to spend
the night in the open air and defer his researches until the morrow.
He was so utterly used up that he could