ey would have killed you all, and I
preferred to stop them. That frightened them, and they did not venture to
go farther than the crossroads. They were such cowards. Four of them shot
at me at twenty yards, as if I had been a target, and then they slashed
me with their swords. My arm was broken, so that I could only use my
bayonet with one hand."

"But why did you not call for help?"

"I took good care not to do that, for you would all have come; and you
would neither have been able to defend me nor yourselves, being only five
against twenty."

"You know that we should not have allowed you to have been taken, poor
old fellow."

"I preferred to die by myself, don't you see! I did not want to bring you
here, for it would have been a mere ambush."

"Well, we will not talk about it any more. Do you feel rather easier?"

"No, I am suffocating. I know that I cannot live much longer. The brutes!
They tied me to a tree, and beat me till I was half dead, and then they
shook my broken arm; but I did not make a sound. I would rather have
bitten my tongue out than have called out before them. Now I can tell
what I am suffering and shed tears; it does one good. Thank you, my kind
friends."

"Poor Piedelot! But we will avenge you, you may be sure!"

"Yes, yes; I want you to do that. There is, in particular, a woman among
them who passes as the wife of the lancer whom the captain killed
yesterday. She is dressed like a lancer, and she tortured me the most
yesterday, and suggested burning me; and it was she who set fire to the
wood. Oh! the wretch, the brute! Ah! how I am suffering! My loins, my
arms!" and he fell back gasping and exhausted, writhing in his terrible
agony, while the captain's wife wiped the perspiration from his forehead,
and we all shed tears of grief and rage, as if we had been children. I
will not describe the end to you; he died half an hour later, previously
telling us in what direction the enemy had gone. When he was dead we gave
ourselves time to bury him, and then we set out in pursuit of them, with
our hearts full of fury and hatred.

"We will throw ourselves on the whole Prussian army, if it be necessary,"
the captain said; "but we will avenge Piedelot. We must catch those
scoundrels. Let us swear to die, rather than not to find them; and if I
am killed first, these are my orders: All the prisoners that you take are
to be shot immediately, and as for the lancer's wife, she is to be
tortured before