they try to take
me."

I dared not think what I was going to do.

We were almost dressed, and I was hoping to escape in the darkness
without being recognized, when suddenly there was a knock at the door
and a shout, "Open."

We were obliged to open it.

An infantry officer, wet through by the rain, with his great blue cloak
thrown over his epaulettes, followed by an old sergeant with a lantern,
came in.

We recognized them as Frenchmen, and the officer asked brusquely,
"Where do you come from?"

"From Mont-St.-Jean, lieutenant," I replied.

"From what regiment are you?"

"From the Sixth light infantry," I answered.

He looked at the number on my shako, which was lying on the table, and
at the same time I saw that his number was also the Sixth.

"From which battalion are you?" said he, knitting his brows.

"The third."

Buche, pale as ashes, did not say a word. The officer looked at our
guns and knapsacks and cartridge-boxes behind the bed in the corner.

"You have deserted," said he.

"No, lieutenant, we left, the last ones, at eight o'clock, from
Mont-St.-Jean."

"Go downstairs, we will see if that is true."

We went downstairs. The officer followed us, and the sergeant went
before with his lantern.

The great hall below was full of officers of the 12th mounted
chasseurs, and of the 6th light infantry. The commandant of the 4th
battalion of the 6th was promenading up and down, smoking a little
wooden pipe. They were all of them wet through and covered with mud.

The officers said a few words to the commandant, who stopped, and fixed
his black eyes upon us, while his crooked nose turned down into his
gray mustache.

His manner was not very gentle as he asked us half a dozen questions
about our departure from Ligny, the road to Quatre-Bras, and the
battle. He winked and compressed his lips. The others walked up and
down dragging their sabres without listening to us. At last the
commandant said, "Sergeant, these men will join the second company; go!"

He took his pipe again from the edge of the mantel, and we went out
with the sergeant, happy enough to get off so easily, for they might
have shot us as deserters before the enemy.

We followed the sergeant for two hundred paces to the other end of the
village to a shed. Fires had been lighted farther on in the fields;
men were sleeping under the shed, leaning against the doors of the
stables, and the posts.

A fine rain was falling and