owing what to do, and quite
unable to make up my mind to abandon that man and girl like that, when
suddenly one of the soldiers, a Parisian, whom they had nicknamed
_Pratique_, said:

"'Come, comrades, we must carry the young lady, otherwise we shall not
show ourselves Frenchmen, confound it!'

"I really believe that I swore with pleasure, and said: 'That is very
good of you, my children, and I will take my share of the burden.'

"We could indistinctly see the trees of a little wood on the left,
through the darkness, and several men went into it, and soon came back
with a bundle of branches twisted into a litter.

"'Who will lend his cloak? It is for a pretty girl, comrades,' Pratique
said, and ten cloaks were thrown to him. In a moment, the girl was
lying, warm and comfortable, among them, and was raised upon six
shoulders. I placed myself at their head, on the right, and very pleased
I was with my charge.

"We started off much more briskly, as if we had been having a drink of
wine, and I even heard a few jokes. A woman is quite enough to electrify
Frenchmen, you see. The soldiers, who were reanimated and warm, had
almost reformed their ranks, and an old _franc-tireur_[16] I who was
following the litter, waiting for his turn to replace the first of his
comrades who might give in, said to one of his neighbors, loud enough
for me to hear:

[Footnote 16: Self-constituted volunteers, in the Franco-German war of
1870-71, whom the Germans often made short work of, when
caught.--TRANSLATOR.]

"'I am not a young man, now; but by ----, there is nothing like the
women to make you feel queer from head to foot!'"

"We went on, almost without stopping, until three o'clock in the
morning, when suddenly our scouts fell back again, and soon the whole
detachment showed nothing but a vague shadow on the ground, as the men
lay on the snow, and I gave my orders in a low voice, and heard the
harsh, metallic sound of the cocking of rifles. For there, in the middle
of the plain, some strange object was moving about. It might have been
taken for some enormous animal running about, which unfolded itself like
a serpent, or came together into a coil, suddenly went quickly to the
right or left, stopped, and then went on again. But presently that
wandering shape came near, and I saw a dozen lancers, one behind the
other, who were trying to find their way, which they had lost."

"They were so near by that time, that I could hear the pant