hand, then! Would time be given them to make their escape? And to all
it seemed that the roar of invasion was ringing in their ears, coming
nearer and nearer, the roar of the rushing torrent that, starting from
Mulhausen, had grown louder and more ominous as it advanced, and to
which every village that it encountered in its course contributed its
own alarm amid the sound of wailing and lamentation.

Maurice stumbled along as best he might, like a man walking in a
dream; his feet were bleeding, his shoulders sore with the weight of
gun and knapsack. He had ceased to think, he advanced automatically
into the vision of horrors that lay before his eyes; he had ceased to
be conscious even of the shuffling tramp of the comrades around him,
and the only thing that was not dim and unreal to his sense was Jean,
marching at his side and enduring the same fatigue and horrible
distress. It was lamentable to behold the villages they passed
through, a sight to make a man's heart bleed with anguish. No sooner
did the inhabitants catch sight of the troops retreating in disorderly
array, with haggard faces and bloodshot eyes, than they bestirred
themselves to hasten their flight. They who had been so confident only
a short half month ago, those men and women of Alsace, who smiled when
war was mentioned, certain that it would be fought out in Germany! And
now France was invaded, and it was among them, above their abodes, in
their fields, that the tempest was to burst, like one of those dread
cataclysms that lay waste a province in an hour when the lightnings
flash and the gates of heaven are opened! Carts were backed up against
doors and men tumbled their furniture into them in wild confusion,
careless of what they broke. From the upper windows the women threw
out a last mattress, or handed down the child's cradle, that they had
been near forgetting, whereon baby would be tucked in securely and
hoisted to the top of the load, where he reposed serenely among a