d, but between Klein-Gorschen and Kaya terrible
cries arose, and I could hear the heavy rumbling of artillery, neighing
of horses, cries and shouts of drivers, and cracking of whips. Without
knowing why, I dragged myself to the wall, and scarcely had I done so,
when two sixteen pounders, each drawn by six horses, turned the corner
of the street. The artillery-men beat the horses with all their
strength, and the wheels rolled over the heaps of dead and wounded as
if they were going over straw. Now I knew whence came the cries I had
heard, and my hair stood on end with horror.

"Here!" cried the old man in German; "aim yonder, between those two
houses near the fountain."

The two guns were turned at once; the old man, his left arm in a sling,
cantered up the street, and I heard him say, in short, quick tones, to
the young officer as he passed where I lay:

"Tell the Emperor Alexander that I am at Kaya. The battle is won if I
am reinforced. Let them not discuss the matter, but send help at once.
Napoleon is coming, and in half an hour we will have him upon us with
his Guard. I will stand, let it cost what it may. But in God's name
do not lose a minute, and the victory is ours!"

The young man set off at a gallop, and at the same moment a voice near
me whispered:

"That old wretch is Bluecher. Ah, scoundrel! if I only had my gun!"

Turning my head, I saw an old sergeant, withered and thin, with long
wrinkles in his cheeks, sitting against the door of the house,
supporting himself with his hands on the ground, as with a pair of
crutches, for a ball had passed through him from side to side. His
yellow eyes followed the Prussian general; his hooked nose seemed to
droop like the beak of an eagle over his thick mustache, and his look
was fierce and proud.

"If I had my musket," he repeated, "I would show you whether the battle
is won."

We were the only two living beings among heaps of dead.

I thought that perhaps I should be buried in the morning with the
others, in the garden opposite us, and that I would never again see
Catharine; the tears ran down my cheeks, and I could not help murmuring:

"Now all is indeed ended!"

The sergeant gazed at me and, seeing that I was yet so young, said
kindly:

"What is the matter with you, conscript?"

"A ball in the shoulder, _mon sergeant_."

"In the shoulder! That is better than one through the body. You will
get over it."

And after a moment's thought he c