would be of no avail, "we will settle accounts to-night."

Maurice's feet hurt him abominably; the big, stiff shoes, to which he
was not accustomed, had chafed the flesh until the blood came. He was
not strong; his spinal column felt as if it were one long raw sore,
although the knapsack that had caused the suffering was no longer
there, and the weight of his piece, which he kept shifting from one
shoulder to the other, seemed as if it would drive all the breath from
his body. Great as his physical distress was, however, his moral agony
was greater still, for he was in the depths of one of those fits of
despair to which he was subject. At Paris the sum of his wrongdoing
had been merely the foolish outbreaks of "the other man," as he put
it, of his weak, boyish nature, capable of more serious delinquency
should he be subjected to temptation, but now, in this retreat that
was so like a rout, in which he was dragging himself along with weary
steps beneath a blazing sun, he felt all hope and courage vanishing
from his heart, he was but a beast in that belated, straggling herd
that filled the roads and fields. It was the reaction after the
terrible disasters at Wissembourg and Froeschwiller, the echo of the
thunder-clap that had burst in the remote distance, leagues and
leagues away, rattling at the heels of those panic-stricken men who
were flying before they had ever seen an enemy. What was there to hope
for now? Was it not all ended? They were beaten; all that was left
them was to lie down and die.

"It makes no difference," shouted Loubet, with the _blague_ of a child
of the Halles, "but this is not the Berlin road we are traveling, all
the same."

To Berlin! To Berlin! The cry rang in Maurice's ears, the yell of the