anks!"

We closed our ranks like sheep, treading on the dead, stupefied, and
continuing firing. Until then, the enemy had only sent us bullets; a dull
explosion was heard and a shell carried off five of our men. A battery
which must have been opposite us and which we could not see, had just
opened fire. The shells struck into the middle of us, almost at one spot,
making a sanguinary gap which we closed unceasingly with the obstinacy of
ferocious brutes.

"Close the ranks, close the ranks!" the colonel coldly repeated.

We were giving the cannon human flesh. Each time a soldier was struck
down, I was taking a step nearer death, I was approaching the spot where
the shells were falling heavily, crushing the men whose turn had come to
die. The corpses were forming heaps in that place, and soon the shells
would strike into nothing more than a mound of mangled flesh; shreds of
limbs flew about at each fresh discharge. We could no longer close the
ranks.

The soldiers yelled, the chiefs themselves were moved.

"With the bayonet, with the bayonet!"

And amidst a shower of bullets the battalion rushed in fury towards the
shells. The veil of smoke was torn asunder; we perceived the enemy's
battery flaming red, which was firing at us from the mouths of all its
pieces, on the summit of a hillock. But the dash forward had commenced,
the shells stopped the dead only.

I ran beside Colonel Montrevert, whose horse had just been killed, and who
was fighting like a simple soldier. Suddenly I was struck down; it seemed
to me as if my breast opened and my shoulder was taken away. A frightful
wind passed over my face.

And I fell. The colonel fell beside me. I felt myself dying. I thought of
those I loved, and fainted whilst searching with a withering hand for my
uncle Lazare's letter.

When I came to myself again I was lying on my side in the dust. I was
annihilated by profound stupor. I gazed before me with my eyes wide open
without seeing anything; it seemed to me that I had lost my limbs, and
that my brain was empty. I did not suffer, for life seemed to have
departed from my flesh.

The rays of a hot implacable sun fell upon my face like molten lead. I did
not feel it. Life returned to me little by little; my limbs became
lighter, my shoulder alone remained crushed beneath an enormous weight.
Then, with the instinct of a wounded animal, I wanted to sit up. I uttered
a cry of pain, and fell back upon the ground.

But I live