“Ah!  Ah!” he said to us, “you see that there is something to be done here.  Here I am on horseback already.  I knocked over a uhlan yonder, and took his horse; I suppose they were guarding the wood, but it was by drinking and swilling in clover.  One of them, the sentry at the door, had not time to see me before I gave him a sugar plum in his stomach, and then, before the others could come out, I jumped on to the horse and was off like a shot.  Eight or ten of them followed me, I think, but I took the cross-roads through the woods; I have got scratched and torn a bit, but here I am, and now, my good fellows, attention, and take care!  Those brigands will not rest until they have caught us, and we must receive them with rifle bullets.  Come along; let us take up our posts!”

We set out.  One of us took up his position a good way from the village of the cross-roads; I was posted at the entrance of the main street, where the road from the level country enters the village, while the two others, the captain and his wife were in the middle of the village, near the church, whose tower served for an observatory and citadel.

We had not been in our places long before we heard a shot followed by another, and then two, then three.  The first was evidently a chassepot; one recognized it by the sharp report, which sounds like the crack of a whip, while the other three came from the lancers’ carbines.

The captain was furious.  He had given orders to the outpost to let the enemy pass and merely to follow them at a distance, if they marched towards the village, and to join me when they had gone well between the houses.  Then they were to appear suddenly, take the patrol between two fires, and not allow a single man to escape, for posted as we were, the six of us could have hemmed in ten Prussians, if needful.

“That confounded Piedelot has roused them,” the captain said, “and they will not venture to come on blindfold any longer.  And then I am quite sure that he has managed to get a shot into himself somewhere or other, for we hear nothing of him.  It serves him right; why did he not obey orders?” And then, after a moment, he grumbled in his beard:  “After all, I am sorry for the poor fellow, he is so brave and shoots so well!”

The captain was right in his conjectures.  We waited until evening, without seeing the uhlans:  they had retreated after the first attack, but unfortunately we had not seen Piedelot either.  Was he dead or a prisoner?  When night came, the captain proposed that we should go out and look for him, and so the three of us started.  At the cross-roads we found a broken rifle and some blood, while the ground was trampled down, but we did not find either a wounded man or a dead body, although we searched every thicket, and at midnight we returned without having discovered anything of our unfortunate comrade.

“It is very strange,” the captain growled.  “They must have killed him and thrown him into the bushes somewhere; they cannot possibly have taken him prisoner, as he would have called out for help.  I cannot understand it all.”  Just as he said that, bright, red flames shot up in the direction of the inn on the high road, which illuminated the sky.