care; we will take care."

The quartermaster said no more, but seemed ashamed on my account. He
at length said:

"What would you have, young man? War is war. One cannot see himself
starving, with food at hand."

He was afraid I would report him; he would have remained with the
pillagers, but for the fear of being captured. I replied, to relieve
his mind:

"Those are probably good fellows, but the sight of a cup of wine makes
them forget everything."

At length, about ten o'clock at night, we saw the bivouac fires, on a
gloomy hill-side to the right of the village of Gauernitz, and of an
old castle from which a few lights also shone. Farther on, in the
plain, a great number of other fires were burning. The night was
clear, and as we approached the bivouac, the sentry challenged:

"Who goes there?"

"France!" replied the quartermaster.

My heart beat, as I thought that, in a few moments, I should again meet
my old comrades, if they were yet in the world.

Some men of the guard came forward from a sort of shed, half a
musket-shot from the village, to find out who we were. The commandant
of the post, a gray-haired sub-lieutenant, his arm in a sling under his
cloak, asked us whence we came, whither we were going, and whether we
had met any parties of Cossacks on our route. The quartermaster
answered his questions. The lieutenant informed us that Souham's
division had that morning left Gauernitz, and ordered us to follow him,
that he might examine our marching-papers; which we did in silence,
passing among the bivouac fires, around which men, covered with dried
mud, were sleeping, in groups of twenty. Not one moved.

We arrived at the officers' quarters. It was an old brick-kiln, with
an immense roof, resting on posts driven into the ground. A large fire
was burning in it, and the air was agreeably warm. Around it soldiers
were sleeping, with a contented look, their backs against the wall; the
flames lighted up their figures under the dark rafters. Near the posts
shone stacks of arms. I seem yet to see these things; I feel the
kindly warmth which penetrated me. I see my comrades, their clothes
smoking, a few paces from the kiln, where they were gravely waiting
until the officer should have finished reading the marching-papers, by
the dim, red light. One bronzed old veteran watched alone, seated on
the ground, and mending a shoe with a needle and thread.

The officer handed me back my paper first