onner Blitzen!" the latter exclaimed, "it is well that we learned this
news, for we should have fared very ill if we had come upon horse and
foot together. The Poitou regiment! That is the one that we heard beat
back our charges so often at Freiburg, and they say the best regiment in
the French service. It is no use our going farther; we might well fall
into an ambush, and in these lanes they could shoot us down helplessly.
We will move on quietly until we get to a place where there is space
enough for us to dismount and bivouac. We could not have gone many more
miles, for if we did we should be a regiment without horses tomorrow
morning."

They proceeded very slowly and cautiously until, when they came upon an
open tract of ground, the colonel ordered them to dismount and sound the
trumpets. His regiment, like those of Turenne, had been broken up, and
he had but half a squadron with him. In an hour the whole regiment
was assembled; a few fires were lighted, but most of the men threw
themselves down by their horses and at once went off to sleep. The
colonel and his officers sat down at one of the fires, where Hector was
requested to join them.

"I suppose that your regiment took no part in the battle?"

"No, sir; we were some way from Marienthal, and I received orders only
after the day was lost, to join Marshal Turenne and his cavalry on
the Tauber. We arrived on the river just at sunset, having marched ten
leagues in eight hours. I regret bitterly that my regiment was not on
the field, for assuredly they would not have given way. Had they stood,
the rest of the infantry would have stood."

"And in that case you would now be the pursuers," the colonel broke in,
"for Turenne completely shattered our right wing. Well, sir, it is the
fortune of war, and we at least have the honour of having given your
marshal a defeat. He is a grand general, but we caught him napping
today."

"It was not his fault, sir. General Rosen and his officers insisted so
strongly that unless they were allowed to move off in search of forage,
the whole army would be disabled by the loss of their horses by hunger,
that he was almost forced to comply with their request."

"But, even so, he made a mistake," the colonel said. "If instead of
marching to meet us in front of Marienthal he had fallen back directly
he had the news of our coming, he could have been joined by all his
detached troops before we came up with him."

"He said as much to me