still and raised his arm aloft, like the staff of a battle-flag. "Look
you, there has been a fight to-day, down yonder, and we are waiting
for the news. Well! I will tell you what the news is--I will tell you,
I! We have flogged the Prussians, flogged them until they didn't know
whether they were a-foot or a-horseback, flogged them to powder, so
that they had to be swept up in small pieces!"

At that moment there passed over the camp, beneath the somber heavens,
a loud, wailing cry. Was it the plaint of some nocturnal bird? Or was
it a mysterious voice, reaching them from some far-distant field of
carnage, ominous of disaster? The whole camp shuddered, lying there in
the shadows, and the strained, tense sensation of expectant anxiety
that hung, miasma-like, in the air became more strained, more
feverish, as they waited for telegrams that seemed as if they would
never come. In the distance, at the farmhouse, the candle that lighted
the dreary watches of the staff burned up more brightly, with an
erect, unflickering flame, as if it had been of wax instead of tallow.

But it was ten o'clock, and Gaude, rising to his feet from the ground
where he had been lost in the darkness, sounded taps, the first in all
the camp. Other bugles, far and near, took up the strain, and it
passed away in the distance with a dying, melancholy wail, as if the
angel of slumber had already brushed with his wings the weary men. And
Weiss, who had lingered there so late, embraced Maurice
affectionately; courage, and hope! he would kiss Henriette for her
brother and would have many things to tell uncle Fouchard when they
met. Then, just as he was turning to go, a rumor began to circulate,
accompanied by the wildest excitement. A great victory had been won by
Marshal MacMahon, so the report ran; the Crown Prince of Prussia a
prisoner, with twenty-five thousand men, the enemy's army repulsed and