cupboard filled with linen,
and were turning over everything with our bayonets, when an old woman
came out from behind a table, which hid the passage to the cellar. She
sobbed and exclaimed:

"My God, my God! have mercy upon us."

The house had been pillaged early in the morning; they had taken away
the horses, the master had disappeared and the servants had fled.

In spite of our fury the sight of the poor old woman made us ashamed of
ourselves, and I said to her:

"Do not be afraid, we are not monsters, only give us some bread, we are
starving."

She was sitting on an old chair with her withered hands crossed over
her knee, and she said:

"I no longer have any, they have taken all. My God! all! all!"

Her gray hair was hanging down over her face, and I felt like weeping
for her and for ourselves. "Well!" I said, "we must look for
ourselves, Buche." We went into all the rooms and the stables, there
was nothing to be seen, everything had been stolen and broken.

I was going out, when in the shadow behind the old door, I saw
something whitish against the wall. I stopped, and stretched out my
hand. It was a linen bag with a strap, I took it down, trembling in my
hurry. Buche looked at me--the bag was heavy--I opened it, there were
two great black radishes, half of a small loaf of bread, dry and hard
as stone, a large pair of shears for trimming hedges, and quite in the
bottom some onions and some gray salt in a paper.

On seeing these we made an exclamation of joy, but the fear of seeing
the others come in, made us run out in the rear, far into the
rye-field, skulking and hiding like thieves.

We had regained all our strength, and we went and sat down on the edge
of a little brook. Buche said:

"Look here! I must have my part."

"Yes,--half of all," I replied. "You let me drink from your bottle, I
will divide with you."

Then he was calm again. I cut the bread in two with my sabre and said:
"Choose, Jean; that is your radish, and there are half the onions, and
we will share the salt between us." We ate the bread without soaking
it in the water, we ate our radishes, our onions and the salt. We
should have kept on eating still, if we had had more to eat, but yet we
were satisfied.

We knelt down with our hands in the water and we drank.

"Now let us go," said Buche, "and leave the bag."

In spite of our weary legs, which were ready to give out, we went on
again toward the left; while on the