General Feraud, with one shot expended, was getting cautious.  Peeping round the tree, General D’Hubert could not see him at all.  This ignorance of the foe’s whereabouts carried with it a sense of insecurity.  General D’Hubert felt himself abominably exposed on his flank and rear.  Again something white fluttered in his sight.  Ha!  The enemy was still on his front, then.  He had feared a turning movement.  But apparently General Feraud was not thinking of it.  General D’Hubert saw him pass without special haste from one tree to another in the straight line of approach.  With great firmness of mind General D’Hubert stayed his hand.  Too far yet.  He knew he was no marksman.  His must be a waiting game—­to kill.

Wishing to take advantage of the greater thickness of the trunk, he sank down to the ground.  Extended at full length, head on to his enemy, he had his person completely protected.  Exposing himself would not do now, because the other was too near by this time.  A conviction that Feraud would presently do something rash was like balm to General D’Hubert’s soul.  But to keep his chin raised off the ground was irksome, and not much use either.  He peeped round, exposing a fraction of his head with dread, but really with little risk.  His enemy, as a matter of fact, did not expect to see anything of him so far down as that.  General D’Hubert caught a fleeting view of General Feraud shifting trees again with deliberate caution.  “He despises my shooting,” he thought, displaying that insight into the mind of his antagonist which is of such great help in winning battles.  He was confirmed in his tactics of immobility.  “If I could only watch my rear as well as my front!” he thought anxiously, longing for the impossible.

It required some force of character to lay his pistols down; but, on a sudden impulse, General D’Hubert did this very gently—­one on each side of him.  In the army he had been looked upon as a bit of a dandy because he used to shave and put on a clean shirt on the days of battle.  As a matter of fact, he had always been very careful of his personal appearance.  In a man of nearly forty, in love with a young and charming girl, this praiseworthy self-respect may run to such little weaknesses as, for instance, being provided with an elegant little leather folding-case containing a small ivory comb, and fitted with a piece of looking-glass on the outside.  General D’Hubert, his hands being free, felt in his breeches’ pockets for that implement of innocent vanity excusable in the possessor of long, silky moustaches.  He drew it out, and then with the utmost coolness and promptitude turned himself over on his back.  In this new attitude, his head a little raised, holding the little looking-glass just clear of his tree, he squinted into it with his left eye, while the right kept a direct watch on the rear of his position.  Thus was proved Napoleon’s saying, that “for a French soldier, the word impossible does not exist.”  He had the right tree nearly filling the field of his little mirror.