ood. The captain's wife began to grow
impatient. What could he be doing? Why did he not call us? Did the shot
that we had heard proceed from an enemy, and had he killed or wounded our
leader, her husband? They did not know what to think, but I myself
fancied either that he was dead or that his enterprise was successful;
and I was merely anxious and curious to know what he had done.

Suddenly we heard the sound of his trumpet, and we were much surprised
that instead of coming from below, as we had expected, it came from the
village behind us. What did that mean? It was a mystery to us, but the
same idea struck us all, that he had been killed, and that the Prussians
were blowing the trumpet to draw us into an ambush. We therefore returned
to the cottage, keeping a careful lookout with our fingers on the
trigger, and hiding under the branches; but his wife, in spite of our
entreaties, rushed on, leaping like a tigress. She thought that she had
to avenge her husband, and had fixed the bayonet to her rifle, and we
lost sight of her at the moment that we heard the trumpet again; and, a
few moments later, we heard her calling out to us:

"Come on! come on! He is alive! It is he!"

We hastened on, and saw the captain smoking his pipe at the entrance of
the village, but strangely enough, he was on horseback.

"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 an 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 sugarplum in his stomach, and
then, before the others could come out, I jumped on the horse and was off
like a shot. Eight or ten of them followed me, I think; but I took the
crossroads 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 on
the crossroads; 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 b