had been passing for hours, when we
awoke and quietly pursued our journey.

XXII

Numbers of our comrades and of the wounded remained behind at
Gosselies, but the larger part of the army kept on their way, and about
nine o'clock we began to see the spires of Charleroi in the distance,
when suddenly we heard shouts, cries, complaints, and shots
intermingled, half a league before us.

The whole immense column of miserable wretches halted, shouting: "The
city closes its doors against us! we are stopped here!"

Consternation and despair were stamped on every face.

But a moment after, the news came that the convoys of provisions were
coming and that they would not distribute them.

"Let us fall upon them! Kill the rascals who are starving us! We are
betrayed!"

The most fearful and the most exhausted quickened their pace, and drew
their sabres or loaded their muskets.

It was plain that there would be a veritable butchery if the guards did
not give way. Buche himself shouted:

"They ought all to be murdered, we are betrayed. Come, Joseph, let us
be revenged."

But I held him back by the collar and exclaimed:

"No, Jean, no! We have had murders enough already, and we have escaped
all, and we do not want to be killed here by Frenchmen. Come!"

He struggled still, but at last I showed him a village on the left of
the road and said:

"Look! there is the road to Harberg, and there are houses like those at
Quatre Vents; let us go there and ask for bread; I have money, and we
shall certainly find some. That will be better than to attack the
convoys like a pack of wolves."

He allowed himself to be persuaded at last, and we set off once more
through the grain. If hunger had not urged us on, we should have sat
down on the side of the path at every step. But at the end of half an
hour, thanks to God, we reached a sort of farm-house; it was abandoned,
with the windows broken out, and the door wide open, and great heaps of
black earth lying about. We went in and shouted, "Is there no one
here?"

We knocked against the furniture with the butts of our muskets, but not
a soul answered. Our fury increased, because we saw several wretches,
following the route by which we had come, and we thought, "They are
coming to eat up our bread."

Ah! those who have never suffered these privations cannot comprehend
the fury which possessed us. It was horrible--horrible!

We had already broken open the door of a