ut volunteers, and all of good family. When on
service it is pleasant not to be forced into intimacy with unpleasant
fellows. This Marchas was as sharp as possible, as cunning as a fox,
and as supple as a serpent. He could scent the Prussians as well as a
dog can scent a hare, could find victuals where we should have died of
hunger without him, and could obtain information from
everybody--information which was always reliable--with incredible
cleverness.

"In ten minutes he returned. 'All right,' he said; 'there have been no
Prussians here for three days. It is a sinister place, is this village.
I have been talking to a Sister of Mercy, who is attending to four or
five wounded men in an abandoned convent.'

"I ordered them to ride on, and we penetrated into the principal
street. On the right and left we could vaguely see roofless walls,
hardly visible in the profound darkness. Here and there a light was
burning in a room; some family had remained to keep its house standing
as long as they were able; a family of brave, or of poor, people. The
rain began to fall, a fine, icy-cold rain, which froze us before it
wetted us through, by merely touching our cloaks. The horses stumbled
against stones, against beams, against furniture. Marchas guided us,
going before us on foot, and leading his horse by the bridle.

"'Where are you taking us to?' I asked him. And he replied: 'I have a
place for us to lodge in, and a rare good one.' And soon we stopped
before a small house, evidently belonging to some person of the middle
class, completely shut up, built on to the street with a garden in the
rear.

"Marchas broke open the lock by means of a big stone, which he picked
up near the garden gate; then he mounted the steps, smashed in the
front door with his feet and shoulders, lighted a bit of wax candle,
which he was never without, and preceded us into the comfortable
apartments of some rich private individual, guiding us with admirable
assurance, just as if he had lived in this house which he now saw for
the first time.

"Two troopers remained outside to take care of our horses; then Marchas
said to stout Ponderel, who followed him: 'The stables must be on the
left; I saw that as we came in; go and put the animals up there, for we
do not want them,' and then turning to me he said: 'Give your orders,
confound it all!'

"Marchas always astonished me, and I replied with a laugh: 'I shall
post my sentinels at the country approach