"No, the worst."

Lieutenant Fevrier was puzzled. When dangers were to be encountered,
when audacity was needed, one requires the best soldiers. That was
obvious, unless the mission meant annihilation. That thought came to
Fevrier, and remembering the cafés and the officers dishonouring their
uniforms, he drew himself up proudly and saluted. Already he saw his
dead body recovered from the enemy, and borne to the grave beneath a
tricolour. He heard the lamentations of his friends, and the firing
of the platoon. He saw General Montaudon in tears. He was shaken with
emotion. But Jarras's next words fell upon him like cold water.

"You will parade your fifty men unarmed. You will march out of the
lines, and to-morrow morning as soon as it is light enough for the
Prussians to see you come unarmed you will desert to them. There are
too many mouths to feed in Metz[A]."

[Footnote A: See the Daily News War Correspondence, 1870.]

The Lieutenant had it on his lips to shout, "Then why not lead us out
to die?" But he kept silence. He could have flung his kepi in the
General's face; but he saluted. He went out again into the streets
and among the lighted cafés and reeled like a drunken man, thinking
confusedly of many things; that he had a mother in Paris who might
hear of his desertion before she heard of its explanation; that it was
right to claim obedience but _lâche_ to exact dishonour--but chiefly
and above all that if he had been wise, and had made light of his
duty, and had come up to Metz to re-arrange the campaign with dominoes
on the marble-tables, he would not have been specially selected for
ignominy. It was true, it needed an obedient officer to desert! And