ose haversack was still his, and a crust of
bread in it: water was a priceless luxury, almost nowhere discoverable.
Prussian Generals roved about with their Staff-Officers, seeking to
re-form their Battalions; to little purpose. They had grown indignant,
in some instances, and were vociferously imperative and minatory; but in
the dark who needed mind them?--they went raving elsewhere, and, for the
first time, Prussian word-of-command saw itself futile. Pitch darkness,
bitter cold, ground trampled into mire. On Siptitz Hill there is nothing
that will burn: farther back, in the Domitsch Woods, are numerous fine
fires, to which Austrians and Prussians alike gather: "Peace and truce
between us; to-morrow morning we will see which are prisoners, which are
captors." So pass the wild hours, all hearts longing for the dawn, and
what decision it will bring.

Friedrich, at Elsnig, found every hut full of wounded, and their
surgeries, and miseries silent or loud. He himself took shelter in the
little Church; passed the night there. Busy about many things;--"using
the altar," it seems, "by way of writing-table [self or secretaries
kneeling, shall we fancy, on those new terms?], and the stairs of it as
seat." Of the final Ziethen-Lestwitz effort he would scarcely hear the
musketry or cannonade, being so far away from it. At what hour, or from
whom first, he learned that the Battle of Torgau had become Victory
in the night-time, I know not: the Anecdote-Books send him out in his
cloak, wandering up and down before daybreak; standing by the soldiers'
fires; and at length, among the Woods, in the faint incipiency of dawn,
meeting a Shadow which proves to be Ziethen himself in the body, with
embraces and congratulations:--evidently mythical, though dramatic.
Reach him the news soon did; and surely none could be welcomer.
Head-quarters change from the altar-steps in Elsnig Church to secular
rooms in Torgau. Ziethen has already sped forth on the skirts of Lacy;
whole Army follows next day; and, on the War-theatre it is, on the
sudden, a total change of scene. Conceivable to readers without the
details.

Hopes there were of getting back Dresden itself; but that, on closer
view, proved unattemptable. Daun kept his Plauen Chasm, his few
square miles of ground beyond; the rest of Saxony was Friedrich's, as
heretofore. Loudon had tried hard on Kosel for a week; storming once,
and a second time, very fiercely, Goltz being now near; but could m