very near us, quite close to us. The next day towards noon we
saw them both come back, the General and Mme. General. And in what a
condition! Panting, frightened, forbidding, with clothes white with
dust, and hands and faces black with powder. The General was wounded in
the left hand, he had twisted around his wrist a handkerchief bathed in
blood.

"Does your arm hurt you?" Mme. General said to him.

"It stings a little, that's all."

"Are they following us?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Listen! There are noises, shouts."

"Look out of the window without showing yourself."

"The red trousers! They are here!"

"Lock and bolt the door. Get the revolvers and load them. I can't on
account of my arm. This wound is a bore."

"You are so pale!"

"Yes; I am losing blood--a good deal of blood."

"They are coming up the stairs!"

"Into the alcove--let us go into the alcove, on the dresses."

"Here they are!"

"Give me the revolver."

The door gave way violently under the hammering of the butts of the
guns. A shower of bullets fell on us and around us. The General, with a
single movement, fell heavily at full length on the bed of silk, muslin,
and laces that we made for him. Three or four men with red trousers
threw themselves on Mme. General, who fought, bit, and screamed,
"Assassins! assassins!"

A soldier tore away the bell-cord, firmly tied her hands, and carried
her away like a bundle. She continued to repeat, in a strangled voice,
"Assassins! assassins!" The soldiers approached the alcove and looked at
the General. "As to him," they said, "he's done for; he doesn't need
anything more. Let's be off."

They left us, and we remained there for two days, crushed beneath that
corpse and covered with blood. Finally, at the end of those two days, a
man arrived who was called a Commissioner, and who wore a tricolored
scarf around his waist. "This corpse has been forgotten," he said. "Take
it away."

They tried to lift the body, but with fingers stiffened by death the
General held my big cherry satin butterfly. They had nearly to break his
fingers to get it out.

Meantime the Commissioner examined and searched curiously among that
brilliant heap of rags on which the General had died. My waist appeared
to catch his eye. "Here is a mark," he said to one of his men--"a mark
inside the waist, with the name and number of the maker. We can learn
where these dresses came from. Wrap this waist in a newspaper and I'll
take