s, came trailing in, hunting
for their commands; all that long train of the halt, the lame, and the
disaffected that we have seen scattered along the roads.

As soon as Jean discovered where his regiment lay he went in quest
of Lieutenant Rochas to make his report. He found him, together with
Captain Beaudoin, in earnest consultation with the colonel at the
door of a small inn, all of them anxiously waiting to see what tidings
roll-call would give them as to the whereabouts of their missing men.
The moment the corporal opened his mouth to address the lieutenant,
Colonel Vineuil, who heard what the subject was, called him up and
compelled him to tell the whole story. On his long, yellow face, where
the intensely black eyes looked blacker still contrasted with the thick
snow-white hair and the long, drooping mustache, there was an expression
of patient, silent sorrow, and as the narrative proceeded, how the
miserable wretches deserted their colors, threw away arms and knapsacks,
and wandered off like vagabonds, grief and shame traced two new furrows
on his blanched cheeks.

"Colonel," exclaimed Captain Beaudoin, in his incisive voice, not
waiting for his superior to give an opinion, "it will best to shoot half
a dozen of those wretches."

And the lieutenant nodded his head approvingly. But the colonel's
despondent look expressed his powerlessness.

"There are too many of them. Nearly seven hundred! how are we to go to
work, whom are we to select? And then you don't know it, but the general
is opposed. He wants to be a father to his men, says he never punished a
soldier all the time he was in Africa. No, no; we shall have to overlook
it. I can do nothing. It is dreadful."

The captain echoed: "Yes, it is dreadful. It means destruction for us
all."

Jean was walking off, having said all he had to say, when he heard Major
Bouroche, whom he had not seen where he was standing in the doorway
of the inn, growl in a smothered voice: "No more punishment, an end
to discipline, the army gone to the dogs! Before a week is over the
scoundrels will be ripe for kicking their officers out of camp, while
if a few of them had been made an example of on the spot it might have
brought the remainder to their senses."

No one was punished. Some officers of the rear-guard that was protecting
the trains had been thoughtful enough to collect the muskets and
knapsacks scattered along the road. They were almost all recovered, and
by daybre