lood. Then, after some time, he sat down in a field
for a few minutes' rest, and he never got up again. Every man who sat
down was a dead man.

"Should we have left behind us those poor exhausted soldiers, who
fondly counted on being able to start afresh as soon as they had
somewhat refreshed their stiffened legs? Now, scarcely had they ceased
to move, and to make their almost frozen blood circulate in their
veins, than an unconquerable torpor congealed them, nailed them to
the ground, closed their eyes, and in one second collapsed this
overworked human mechanism. And they gradually sank down, their heads
falling towards their knees, without, however, quite tumbling over,
for their loins and their limbs lost their capacity for moving, and
became as hard as wood, impossible to bend or to set upright.

"And the rest of us, more robust, kept still straggling on, chilled to
the marrow of our bones, advancing by dint of forced movement through
that night, through that snow, through that cold and deadly country,
crushed by pain, by defeat, by despair, above all overcome by the
abominable sensation of abandonment, of the end, of death, of
nothingness.

"I saw two gendarmes holding by the arm a curious-looking little man,
old, beardless, of truly surprising aspect.

"They were looking out for an officer, believing that they had caught
a spy. The word 'spy' at once spread through the midst of the
stragglers, and they gathered in a group round the prisoner. A voice
exclaimed: 'He must be shot!' And all these soldiers who were falling
from utter prostration, only holding themselves on their feet by
leaning on their guns, felt all of a sudden that thrill of furious and
bestial anger which urges on a mob to massacre.

"I wanted to speak! I was at that time in command of a battalion; but
they no longer recognized the authority of their commanding officers;
they would have shot myself.

"One of the gendarmes said: 'He has been following us for the last
three days. He has been asking information from everyone about the
artillery.'

"I took it on myself to question this person.

"'What are you doing? What do you want? Why are you accompanying the
army?'

"He stammered out some words in some unintelligible dialect. He was,
indeed, a strange being, with narrow shoulders, a sly look, and such
an agitated air in my presence that I had no longer any real doubt
that he was a spy. He seemed very aged and feeble. He kept staring at