ng to peer into the valley, where all was still and noiseless!
As well as I could judge, our little party was nearest to the front; and
although a small clump to the left of the road offered a safe shelter
still nearer the enemy, I could not ascertain if it were occupied.

Not a word was now spoken. All save the corporal looked eagerly towards
the enemy; he was watching for the signal, and knelt down with his drawn
sword at his side. The deathlike stillness of the moment, so unlike the
prelude to every movement in cavalry combat; the painful expectation
which made minutes like years themselves; the small number of the party,
so dissimilar to the closely crowded squadrons I was used to; but,
more than all, the want of a horse,--that most stirring of all the
excitements to heroism and daring,--unnerved me; and if my heart were
to have been interrogated, I sadly fear it would have brought little
corroboration to the song of the voltigeurs, which attributed so many
features of superiority to their arm of the service above the rest of
the army.

A thousand and thousand times did I wish to be at the head of a cavalry
charge up that narrow road in face of those guns; ay, though the
mitraille should sweep the earth, there was that in the onward torrent
of the horseman's course that left no room for fear. But this cold and
stealthy approach, this weary watching, I could not bear.

"See, see," whispered the corporal, as he pointed with his finger
towards the clump to the left of the road, "how beautifully done! there
goes another."

As he spoke, I could perceive the dark shadow of something moving close
to the ground, and finally concealing itself in the brushwood, beneath
which now above twenty men lay hid. At the same instant a deep rolling
sound like far-off thunder was heard; and then louder still, but less
deep in volume, the rattling crash of musketry. At first the discharges
were more prolonged, and succeeded one another more rapidly; but
gradually the firing became less regular; then after an interval swelled
more fully again, and once more relaxed.

"Listen!" said the corporal; "can't you hear the cheering? There again;
the skirmishers are falling back,--the fire is too heavy for them."

"Which, the Prussians?"

"To be sure, the Prussians. Hark! there was a volley; that was no
tirailleur discharge; the columns are advancing. Down, men, down!"
whispered he, as, excited by the sounds of musketry, some three or four