France, of which
the mute, undeviating attention, forbidden by discipline alike to be
broken by sound of approval or dissent, had in it something that was
almost terrible, contrasted with the vivid eagerness in their eyes and
the strained absorption of their countenances; for they were in court,
and that court was the Council of War of their own southern camp.

The prisoner was arraigned on the heaviest charge that can be laid
against the soldier of any army, and yet, as the many eyes of the
military crowd turned on him where he stood surrounded by his guard,
his crime against his chief was forgotten, and they only
remembered--Zaraila.

Many of those present had seen him throughout that day of blood, at the
head of his decimated squadron, with the guidon held aloft above every
foe; to them that tall, slender form standing there, with a calm,
weary dignity, that had nothing of the passion of the mutinous or the
consciousness of the criminal in its serene repose, had shed upon it the
luster of a heroism that made them ready almost to weep like women that
the death of a mutineer should be the sole answer given by France to the
savior of her honor.

He preserved entire reticence in court. The instant the accusation had
been read to him, he had seen that his chief would not dare to couple
with it the proud, pure name he had dared to outrage; his most bitter
anxiety was thus at an end. For all the rest, he was tranquil.

No case could be clearer, briefer, less complex, more entirely incapable
of defense. The soldiers of the guard gave evidence as to the violence
and fury of the assault. The sentinel bore witness to having heard the
refusal to reply; a moment after, he had seen the attack made and the
blow given. The accuser merely stated that, meeting his sous-officier
out of the bounds of the cavalry camp, he had asked him where he had
been, and why he was there, and, on his commanding an answer, had been
assaulted in the manner described, with violence sufficient to have cost
his life had not the guard been so near at hand. When questioned as to
what motive he could assign for the act, he replied that he considered
his corporal had always incited evil feeling and mutinous conduct in
the squadrons, and had, he believed, that day attributed to himself his
failure to receive the Cross. The statement passed without contradiction
by the prisoner, who, to the interrogations and entreaties of his legal
defender, only replied