time they had wasted, and it terrified him;
in three days they had only accomplished the distance from Contreuve
to Vouziers, a scant two leagues. On the 25th the other corps, alleging
scarcity of supplies, had diverted their course to the north, while now,
on the 27th, here they were coming southward again to fight a battle
with an invisible enemy. Bordas' brigade had followed the 4th hussars
into the abandoned passes of the Argonne, and was supposed to have got
itself into trouble; the division had gone to its assistance, and that
had been succeeded by the corps, and that by the entire army, and
all those movements had amounted to nothing. Maurice trembled as he
reflected how pricelessly valuable was every hour, every minute, in
that mad project of joining forces with Bazaine, a project that could
be carried to a successful issue only by an officer of genius, with
seasoned troops under him, who should press forward to his end with the
resistless energy of a whirlwind, crushing every obstacle that lay in
his path.

"It is all up with us!" said he, as the whole truth flashed through
his mind, to Jean, who had given way to despair. Then as the corporal,
failing to catch his meaning, looked at him wonderingly, he went on in
an undertone, for his friend's ear alone, to speak of their commanders:

"They mean well, but they have no sense, that's certain--and no luck!
They know nothing; they foresee nothing; they have neither plans nor
ideas, nor happy intuitions. _Allons_! everything is against us; it is
all up!"

And by slow degrees that same feeling of discouragement that Maurice
had arrived at by a process of reasoning settled down upon the denser
intellects of the troops who lay there inactive, anxiously awaiting
to see what the end would be. Distrust, as a result of their truer
perception of the position they were in, was obscurely burrowing in
those darkened minds, and there was no man so ignorant as not to feel
a sense of injury at the ignorance and irresolution of their leaders,
although he might not have been able to express in distinct terms the
causes of his exasperation. In the name of Heaven, what were they doing
there, since the Prussians had not shown themselves? either let them
fight and have it over with, or else go off to some place where they
could get some sleep; they had had enough of that kind of work. Since
the departure of the second aide-de-camp, who had been dispatched in
quest of orders, this fe