nd to danger. We no longer had any resemblance to men,
some had lost their shakos, others had their clothes nearly torn off;
the blood ran from their fingers and down their sides, and at every
discharge of musketry the shot from the hill struck the paving stones,
pounding them to dust around us.

I looked about me, but I could not see either Buche or Zebede or any
others of our company, the marshal had disappeared also. Our rage
redoubled; and as the timbers went back and forth, we grew furious to
find that the door would not come down, when suddenly we heard shouts
of "Vive l'Empereur" from the court, accompanied with a most horrible
uproar. Every one knew that our troops had gained an entrance into the
enclosure. We dropped the timbers, and seizing our guns we sprang
through the breaches into the garden to find where the others had
entered. It was in the rear of the house through a door opening into
the barn. We rushed through one after the other like a pack of wolves.

The interior of this old structure, with its lofts full of hay and
straw, and its stables covered with thatch, looked like a bloody nest
which had been attacked by a sparrow-hawk.

On a great dung-heap in the middle of the court, our men were
bayoneting the Germans who were yelling and swearing savagely.

I was running hap-hazard through this butchery, when I heard some one
call, "Joseph, Joseph!" I looked round, thinking, "That is Buche
calling me." In a moment I saw him at the door of a woodshed, crossing
bayonets with five or six of our men.

I caught sight of Zebede at that same instant, as our company was in
that corner, and rushing to Buche's assistance, I shouted, "Zebede!"
Parting the combatants, I asked Buche what was the matter.

"They want to murder my prisoners!" said he. I joined him, and the
others began to load their muskets to shoot us. They were voltigeurs
from another battalion.

At that moment Zebede came up with several men from our company, and
without knowing how the matter stood, he seized the most brutal one by
the throat and exclaimed, "My name is Zebede, sergeant of the Sixth
light infantry. When this affair is settled, we will have a mutual
explanation."

Then they went away, and Zebede asked:

"What is all this, Joseph?"

I told him we had some prisoners. He turned pale with anger against
us, but when he went into the wood-shed he saw an old major, who
presented him the guard of his sabre in silence,