of a small inn, all of them anxiously waiting to see what tidings
roll-call would give them as to the whereabouts of their missing men.
The moment the corporal opened his mouth to address the lieutenant,
Colonel Vineuil, who heard what the subject was, called him up and
compelled him to tell the whole story. On his long, yellow face, where
the intensely black eyes looked blacker still contrasted with the
thick snow-white hair and the long, drooping mustache, there was an
expression of patient, silent sorrow, and as the narrative proceeded,
how the miserable wretches deserted their colors, threw away arms and
knapsacks, and wandered off like vagabonds, grief and shame traced two
new furrows on his blanched cheeks.

"Colonel," exclaimed Captain Beaudoin, in his incisive voice, not
waiting for his superior to give an opinion, "it will best to shoot
half a dozen of those wretches."

And the lieutenant nodded his head approvingly. But the colonel's
despondent look expressed his powerlessness.

"There are too many of them. Nearly seven hundred! how are we to go to
work, whom are we to select? And then you don't know it, but the
general is opposed. He wants to be a father to his men, says he never
punished a soldier all the time he was in Africa. No, no; we shall
have to overlook it. I can do nothing. It is dreadful."

The captain echoed: "Yes, it is dreadful. It means destruction for us
all."

Jean was walking off, having said all he had to say, when he heard
Major Bouroche, whom he had not seen where he was standing in the