y?"

"Yes; give me another drink. Ah!" cried he, in an excited tone, "they
can't stand before the cuirassiers of the Guard. _Sacrebleu!_ how proud
the Petit Caporal will be of this day!" Then, dropping his voice,
he muttered, "What care I who's proud? I have my billet, and must be
going."

"Not so, _mon enfant_; thou'lt have the cross for thy day's work. He
knows thee well; I saw him smile to-day when thou madest the salute in
passing."

"Didst thou that?" said the wounded man, with eagerness; "did he smile?
Ah, villain! how you can allure men to shed their heart's blood by a
smile! He knows me! That he ought, and, if he but knew how I lay here
now, he 'd send the best surgeon of his staff to look after me."

"That he would, and that he will; courage, and cheer up."

"No, no; I don't care for it now. I'll never go back to the regiment
again; I could n't do it!"

As he spoke the last words his voice became fainter and fainter, and
at last was lost in a hiccup; partly, as it seemed, from emotion, and
partly from bodily suffering.

"_Qui vive?_" cried his companion, as the clash of my sabre announced my
approach.

"An officer of the Eighth Hussars," said I, in a low voice, fearing to
disturb the wounded man, as he lay with his head sunk on his knees.

"Too late, Comrade! too late," said he, in a stifled tone; "the order of
route has come. I must away."

"A brave cuirassier of the Guard should never say so while he has a
chance left to serve his Emperor in another field of battle."

"Vive l'Empereur! vive l'Empereur!" shouted he, madly, as he lifted his
helmet and tried to wave it above his head. But the exertion brought on
a violent fit of coughing, which choked his utterance, while a torrent
of red blood gushed from his mouth, and deluged his neck and chest.

"Ah, _mon Dieu!_ that cry has been his death," said the other, wringing
his hands in utter misery.

"Where is he wounded?" said I, kneeling down beside the sick man, who
now lay, half on his face, upon the grass.

"In the chest, through the lung," whispered the other. "He doesn't know
the doctor saw him; it was he told me there was no hope. 'You may leave
him,' said he; 'an hour or two more are all that 's left him;' as if I
could leave a comrade we all loved. My poor fellow, it is a sad day for
the old Fourth when thou art taken from them!"

"Ha! was he of the Fourth, then?" said I, remembering the regiment.

"Yes, _parbleu!_ and though but a cor