m every one about the
artillery.'"

I took it on myself to question this person.

"What are you doing? What do you want? Why are you accompanying the
army?"

"He stammered out some words in some unintelligible dialect. He was,
indeed, a strange being, with narrow shoulders, a sly look, and such an
agitated air in my presence that I really no longer doubted that he was
a spy. He seemed very aged and feeble. He kept looking at me from under
his eyes with a humble, stupid, crafty air.

"The men all round us exclaimed.

"'To the wall! To the wall!'

"I said to the gendarmes:

"'Will you be responsible for the prisoner?'

"I had not ceased speaking when a terrible shove threw me on my back,
and in a second I saw the man seized by the furious soldiers, thrown
down, struck, dragged along the side of the road, and flung against a
tree. He fell in the snow, nearly dead already.

"And immediately they shot him. The soldiers fired at him, reloaded
their guns, fired again with the desperate energy of brutes. They fought
with each other to have a shot at him, filed off in front of the corpse,
and kept on firing at him, as people at a funeral keep sprinkling holy
water in front of a coffin.

"But suddenly a cry arose of 'The Prussians! the Prussians!'

"And all along the horizon I heard the great noise of this
panic-stricken army in full flight.

"A panic, the result of these shots fired at this vagabond, had filled
his very executioners with terror; and, without realizing that they were
themselves the originators of the scare, they fled and disappeared in
the darkness.

"I remained alone with the corpse, except for the two gendarmes whose
duty compelled them to stay with me.

"They lifted up the riddled mass of bruised and bleeding flesh.

"'He must be searched,' I said. And I handed them a box of taper matches
which I had in my pocket. One of the soldiers had another box. I was
standing between the two.

"The gendarme who was examining the body announced:

"'Clothed in a blue blouse, a white shirt, trousers, and a pair of
shoes.'

"The first match went out; we lighted a second. The man continued, as he
turned out his pockets:

"'A horn-handled pocketknife, check handkerchief, a snuffbox, a bit of
pack thread, a piece of bread.'

"The second match went out; we lighted a third. The gendarme, after
having felt the corpse for a long time, said:

"'That is all.'

"I said:

"'Strip him. We shall perhaps f