when,
after more than an hour spent in the most desperate fighting of the day,
the French at last began to retire from the entrenchments which they had
defended so gallantly up to now, the infantry being protected in their
retreat by the murderous mitrailleuses that had so disunited the ranks
of their stubborn foes, the hoarse growl of their discharge being yet
heard in the distance long after the louder and sharper reports of the
guns and howitzers had generally ceased.

The evening was now closing in, and soon darkness reigned around, the
prevailing gloom being only broken by the fiery path of some bombshell
winging its parabolic flight through the air, or the long tongue of fire
darting forth from the mouth of a stray cannon; while, in the sky above,
the lurid smoke-clouds of burning houses joined with the shades of night
in casting a pall over the scene of hideous carnage which the bright day
had witnessed, hiding it for ever save from the memories of those who
were there and had shared its horrors.

The battle of Gravelotte was lost and won; but, to the Germans, the
victory was almost akin to a defeat, no less than five-and-twenty
thousand of the best troops of the "Fatherland" being either killed or
wounded!

Fritz escaped scathless through all the perils of the day, in spite,
too, of his risking his life most unnecessarily on many occasions in
order to see the progress of the fight when his battalion was not in
action; but his favourite comrade, the veteran soldier who had fought at
Sadowa, received a bullet in his chest, and his life-blood was gradually
ebbing away when Fritz, kneeling at his side, asked him if he could do
anything for him.

"Ah, no," answered the poor fellow; "nobody can do anything for me now!
I told you, comrade, to wait till you saw what real war was like.
Himmel! Sadowa and '66 were child's play to this here, with the fire of
the chassepot and that infernal mitrailleuse! Hurrah, though we've
won!" shouted out the veteran in a paroxysm of patriotism; and then,
joining in with the chorus of "Die Wacht am Rhein," which a Prussian
corps was singing as they marched by, he thus sobbed out his last breath
and so died!

"His was a patriot soldier's end," said Fritz, as he closed his eyes and
covered over his face reverently with his pocket-handkerchief.

"Yes, so it was," chimed in the others sententiously. "It is good so to
die!"

CHAPTER FOUR.

AFTER THE BATTLE.

During the he