s throat, he drooped his head, and seemed as
if he were going to die. It was only the affair of a moment to upset the
burning pile, to scatter the embers, and to cut the ropes that fastened
him.

Poor fellow! In what a terrible state we found him. The evening before,
he had had his left arm broken, and it seemed as if he had been badly
beaten since then, for his whole body was covered with wounds, bruises,
and blood. The flames had also begun their work on him, and he had two
large burns, one on his loins, and the other on his right thigh, and his
beard and his hair were scorched. Poor Piedelot!

Nobody knows the terrible rage we felt at this sight! We would have
rushed headlong at a hundred thousand Prussians. Our thirst for
vengeance was intense but the cowards had run away, leaving their crime
behind them. Where could we find them now? Meanwhile, however, the
captain's wife was looking after Piedelot, and dressing his wounds as
best she could, while the captain himself shook hands with him excitedly
and in a few minutes he came to himself.

"Good morning, captain, good morning, all of you," he said. "Ah! the
scoundrels, the wretches! Why twenty of them came to surprise us."

"Twenty, do you say?"

"Yes, there was a whole band of them, and that is why I disobeyed
orders, captain, and fired on them, for they would have killed you all,
so I preferred to stop them. That frightened them, and they did not
venture to go further than the cross-roads. They were such cowards. Four
of them shot at me at twenty yards, as if I had been a target, and then
they slashed me with their swords. My arm was broken so that I could
only use my bayonet with one hand."

"But why did you not call for help?"

"I took good care not to do that, for you would all have come, and you
would neither have been able to defend me nor yourselves, being only
five against twenty."

"You know that we should not have allowed you to have been taken, poor
old fellow."

"I preferred to die by myself, don't you see! I did not want to bring
you there, for it would have been a mere ambush."

"Well, we will not talk about it any more. Do you feel rather easier?"

"No, I am suffocating. I know that I cannot live much longer. The
brutes! They tied me to a tree, and beat me till I felt half dead, and
then they shook my broken arm, but I did not make a sound. I would
rather have bitten my tongue out than have called out before them....
Now I can say what