to support my body.

She filled my cap with river water and held it while I drank. After I
had my fill she bathed my face, passing her wet hands through my hair
and over my eyes. The carriage moved on.

[Illustration: "TO RIGHT AND LEFT, PRUSSIAN LANCERS WERE RIDING"]

After a while she whispered.

"Are you awake?"

"Yes, madame."

"See the dawn--how red it is on the hills! There are vineyards there
on the heights,... and a castle,... and soldiers moving out across the
river meadows."

The rising sun was shining in my eyes as we came to a halt before
a small stone bridge over which a column of cavalry was
passing--Prussian hussars, by their crimson dolmans and little, flat
busbies.

Our Uhlan escort grouped themselves about us to watch the hussars
defile at a trot, and I saw the Rittmeister rigidly saluting their
standards as they bobbed past above a thicket of sabres.

"What are these Uhlans doing?" broke in a nasal voice behind us; an
officer, followed by two orderlies and a trumpeter, came galloping up
through the mud.

"Who's that--a dead Frenchman?" demanded the officer, leaning over
the edge of the carriage to give me a near-sighted stare. Then he saw
the Countess, stared at her, and touched the golden peak of his
helmet.

"At your service, madame," he said. "Is this officer dead?"

"Dying, general," said the Rittmeister, at salute.

"Then he will not require these men. Herr Rittmeister, I take your
Uhlans for my escort. Madame, you have my sympathy; can I be of
service?"

He spoke perfect French. The Countess looked up at him in a bewildered
way. "You cannot mean to abandon this dying man here?" she asked.

There was a silence, broken brusquely by the Rittmeister. "That
Frenchman did his duty!"

"Did he?" said the general, staring at the Countess.

"Very well; I want that carriage, but I won't take it. Give the
driver a white flag, and have him drive into the French lines. Herr
Rittmeister, give your orders! Madame, your most devoted!" And he
wheeled his beautiful horse and trotted off down the road, while the
Rittmeister hastily tied a handkerchief to a stick and tossed it up to
the speechless peasant on the box.

"Morsbronn is the nearest French post!" he said, in French. Then he
bent from his horse and looked down at me.

"You did your duty!" he snapped, and, barely saluting the Countess,
touched spurs to his mount and disappeared, followed at a gallop by
his mud-splashed Uhlans.