to-morrow morning at the latest. Be prepared, and remember that the
106th has never retreated before the enemy."

The little speech was received with loud hurrahs; everyone, in the
prevailing suspense and discouragement, preferred to "take the wipe of
the dish-clout" and have done with it. Rifles were examined to see
that they were in good order, belts were refilled with cartridges. As
they had eaten their soup that morning, the men were obliged to
content themselves with biscuits and coffee. An order was promulgated
that there was to be no sleeping. The grand-guards were out nearly a
mile to the front, and a chain of sentinels at frequent intervals
extended down to the Aisne. The officers were seated in little groups
about the camp-fires, and beside a low wall at the left of the road
the fitful blaze occasionally flared up and rescued from the darkness
the gold embroideries and bedizened uniforms of the Commander-in-Chief
and his staff, flitting to and fro like phantoms, watching the road
and listening for the tramp of horses in the mortal anxiety they were
in as to the fate of the third division.

It was about one o'clock in the morning when it came Maurice's turn to
take his post as sentry at the edge of an orchard of plum-trees,
between the road and the river. The night was black as ink, and as
soon as his comrades left him and he found himself alone in the deep
silence of the sleeping fields he was conscious of a sensation of fear
creeping over him, a feeling of abject terror such as he had never
known before and which he trembled with rage and shame at his
inability to conquer. He turned his head to cheer himself by a sight
of the camp-fires, but they were hidden from him by a wood; there was
naught behind him but an unfathomable sea of blackness; all that he
could discern was a few distant lights still dimly burning in