“The gentleman has blown his candle out; good-night!” said a little, black, wizened zouave, who occupied the next bed.  “It’s vexatious, when one has the wherewithal to pay for wetting his whistle!”

He had his left foot done up in splints.  Nevertheless he managed to raise himself on his knees and elbows and in this posture crawl over to the dead man, whom he relieved of all his money, forcing open his hands, rummaging among his clothing and the folds of his capote.  When he got back to his place, noticing that he was observed, he simply said: 

“There’s no use letting the stuff be wasted, is there?”

Maurice, sick at heart in that atmosphere of human distress and suffering, had long since dragged Jean away.  As they passed out through the shed where the operations were performed they saw Bouroche preparing to amputate the leg of a poor little man of twenty, without chloroform, he having been unable to obtain a further supply of the anaesthetic.  And they fled, running, so as not to hear the poor boy’s shrieks.

Delaherche, who came in from the street just then, beckoned to them and shouted: 

“Come upstairs, come, quick! we are going to have breakfast.  The cook has succeeded in procuring some milk, and it is well she did, for we are all in great need of something to warm our stomachs.”  And notwithstanding his efforts to do so, he could not entirely repress his delight and exultation.  With a radiant countenance he added, lowering his voice:  “It is all right this time.  General de Wimpffen has set out again for the German headquarters to sign the capitulation.”

Ah, how much those words meant to him, what comfort there was in them, what relief! his horrid nightmare dispelled, his property saved from destruction, his daily life to be resumed, under changed conditions, it is true, but still it was to go on, it was not to cease!  It was little Rose who had told him of the occurrences of the morning at the Sous-Prefecture; the girl had come hastening through the streets, now somewhat less choked than they had been, to obtain a supply of bread from an aunt of hers who kept a baker’s shop in the quarter; it was striking nine o’clock.  As early as eight General de Wimpffen had convened another council of war, consisting of more than thirty generals, to whom he related the results that had been reached so far, the hard conditions imposed by the victorious foe, and his own fruitless efforts to secure a mitigation of them.  His emotion was such that his hands shook like a leaf, his eyes were suffused with tears.  He was still addressing the assemblage when a colonel of the German staff presented himself, on behalf of General von Moltke, to remind them that, unless a decision were arrived at by ten o’clock, their guns would open fire on the city of Sedan.  With this horrible alternative before them the council could do nothing save authorize the general to proceed once more to the Chateau of Bellevue and accept the terms of the victors.  He must have accomplished his mission by that time, and the entire French army were prisoners of war.