right behind us, toward Charleroi,
the shouts and shots redoubled, and all along the road we could see
nothing but the men fighting, but they were already far away.

We looked back from time to time, and Buche said:

"Joseph, you did well to bring me away, had it not been for you, I
might have been stretched out over there by the road-side, killed by a
Frenchman. I was too hungry. But where shall we go now?"

I answered, "Follow me!"

We passed through a large and beautiful village, pillaged and abandoned
also.

Farther on we met some peasants, who scowled at us from the road-side.
We must have had ill-looking faces, especially Buche with his head
bound up, and his beard eight days old, thick and hard as the bristles
of a boar.

About one o'clock in the afternoon we re-crossed the Sambre, by the
bridge of Chatelet, but as the Prussians were still in pursuit we did
not halt there. I was quite at ease, thinking:

"If they are still pursuing us, they will follow the bulk of the army,
in order to take more prisoners and pick up the cannon, caissons, and
baggage."

This was the manner in which we were compelled to reason, we, who three
days before had made the world tremble.

I recollect that when we reached a small village about three o'clock in
the afternoon, we stopped at a blacksmith's shop to ask for water. The
country people immediately began to gather round, and the smith, a
large, dark man, asked us to go to the little inn, opposite, saying he
would join us and take a glass of beer with us.

Naturally enough this pleased us, for we were afraid of being arrested,
and we saw that these people were on our side.

I remembered that I had some money in my knapsack, and that now it
would be useful.

We went into the inn, which was only a little shop, with two small
windows on the street, and a round door opening in the middle, as is
common in our country villages.

When we were seated the room was so full of men and women, who had come
to hear the news, that we could hardly breathe.

The smith came. He had taken off his leather apron and put on a little
blue blouse, and we saw at once that he had five or six men with him.
They were the mayor and his assistant, and the municipal councillors of
the place.

They sat down on the benches opposite, and ordered the favorite sour
beer of the country for us to drink. Buche asked for some bread; the
innkeeper's wife brought us a whole loaf and a large piece