e
war would only begin again, they would have a hard job of it then: it
is not over! it is not over!" I was at times almost overcome with
wrath after hearing some tale of horror; and sometimes I thought to
myself, "Joseph, are you not losing your wits? These Russians are
defending their families, their homes, all that man holds most dear.
We hate them for defending themselves; we would have despised them had
they not done so."

But about this time an extraordinary event occurred.

You must know that my comrade, Zebede, was the son of the gravedigger
of Phalsbourg, and sometimes between ourselves we called him
"Gravedigger." This he took in good part from us; but one evening
after drill, as he was crossing the yard, a hussar cried out:

"Halloo, Gravedigger! help me to drag in these bundles of straw."

Zebede, turning about, replied:

"My name is not Gravedigger, and you can drag in your own straw. Do
you take me for a fool?"

Then the other cried in a still louder tone:

"Conscript, you had better come, or beware!"

Zebede, with his great hooked nose, his gray eyes and thin lips, never
bore too good a character for mildness. He went up to the hussar and
asked:

"What is that you say?"

"I tell you to take up those bundles of straw, and quickly, too. Do
you hear, conscript?"

He was quite an old man, with mustaches and red, bushy whiskers.
Zebede seized one of the latter, but received two blows in the face.
Nevertheless, a fist-full of the whisker remained in his grasp, and, as
the dispute had attracted a crowd to the spot, the hussar shook his
finger, saying:

"You will hear from me to-morrow, conscript."

"Very good," returned Zebede; "we shall see. You will probably hear
from me too, veteran."

He came immediately after to tell me all this, and I, knowing that he
had never handled a weapon more warlike than a pickaxe, could not help
trembling for him.

"Listen, Zebede," I said; "all that there now remains for you to do,
since you do not want to desert, is to ask pardon of this old fellow;
for those veterans all know some fearful tricks of fence which they
have brought from Egypt or Spain, or somewhere else. If you wish, I
will lend you a crown to pay for a bottle of wine to make up the
quarrel."

But he, knitting his brows, would hear none of this.

"Rather than beg his pardon," said he, "I would go and hang myself. I
laugh him and his comrades to scorn. If he has tricks of fence, I h