zling rain,
while our soldiers were steaming like horses.

Rolunt got out. He asked the officers of the column after the Colonel.
They knew nothing of him; they had only just arrived from a long march.

At last we were permitted to proceed.

At the entrance of the next village, Bertha recognized a soldier of her
husband's regiment.

"Is your Colonel living?" she asked.

"Yes, yesterday he was still alive."

"And to-day?"

"Don't know. Haven't heard anything about him."

I felt confident that he was yet living. I could not think that the
strong, powerful man could be dead, and my hopefulness helped to
support Bertha. We reached the house from which the white flag with the
red cross was floating. I commanded my daughter to remain seated in the
wagon, and to inquire of no one until I returned. She gave me her
promise, but she could not keep her word, and it was indeed requiring
too much of her. She saw her husband's servant, and called to him, and
the lad said, "The Colonel is living, but--"

"But what?"

"He is very low."

We entered the house, and the first one we met was Annette.

"Be composed, Bertha! he lives. I came here immediately on receiving
the intelligence of his being wounded, that I might do all that was
possible for him," she said. She embraced her friend, and added, that
we could not see him: he could not bear the shock.

The Professor begged that he, at least, might be admitted. Annette
called the doctor, and he gave permission to the Professor to see the
wounded man.

Annette remained with us, and said, "The bullet has not yet been
found." The shot had entered the breast just above the heart, only
escaping it by a hair's-breadth.

The Colonel led his regiment independently and separated from the
Prussians, and it was a piece of jealousy, and the ambition to
distinguish himself, that caused him to press forward so recklessly and
thrust himself in danger's way. He had to march over a plain, to take a
battery planted on a height, and it was there that he was struck.

When he had fallen, and saw death before him, he exclaimed, "The Romans
were right; it is glorious to die for one's country. I want no other
grave; let me be buried with my soldiers." Then for a long while he was
unconscious.

After a little while Rolunt came to us, and said that the Colonel was
unable to speak, but by his glances had shown that he recognized him.

Bertha begged for the dress of a nurse, so that she could