deploying again into line the soldiers passed on. Presently we came to
the hut made of the old wardrobe. We approached. In five of the six
compartments was an old man sleeping--sleeping so soundly that even the
glare of the lanterns did not wake them, Old and grim and grizzled they
looked, with their gaunt, wrinkled, bronzed faces and their white
moustaches.

The officer called out harshly and loudly a word of command, and in an
instant each one of them was on his feet before us and standing at
'attention!'

'What do you here?'

'We sleep,' was the answer.

'Where are the other chiffoniers?' asked the commissary.

'Gone to work.'

'And you?'

'We are on guard!'

'Peste!' laughed the officer grimly, as he looked at the old men one
after the other in the face and added with cool deliberate cruelty:
'Asleep on duty! Is this the manner of the Old Guard? No wonder, then, a
Waterloo!'

By the gleam of the lantern I saw the grim old faces grow deadly pale,
and almost shuddered at the look in the eyes of the old men as the laugh