goose, which the cure was scientifically carving, with a table napkin
round his neck, whirl about. We watched him doing it, without speaking
now, for we were interested in his attractive handiwork, and seized with
renewed appetite at the sight of that enormous golden-brown bird, whose
limbs fell one after another into the brown gravy at the bottom of the
dish. At that moment, in the midst of that greedy silence which kept us
all attentive, the distant report of a shot came in at the open window.

I started to my feet so quickly that my chair fell down behind me, and I
shouted: "To saddle, all of you! You, Marches, take two men and go and
see what it is. I shall expect you back here in five minutes." And while
the three riders went off at full gallop through the night, I got into
the saddle with my three remaining hussars, in front of the steps of the
villa, while the cure, the sister and the three old women showed their
frightened faces at the window.

We heard nothing more, except the barking of a dog in the distance. The
rain had ceased, and it was cold, very cold, and soon I heard the gallop
of a horse, of a single horse, coming back. It was Marchas, and I called
out to him: "Well?" "It is nothing; Francois has wounded an old peasant
who refused to answer his challenge: 'Who goes there?' and who continued
to advance in spite of the order to keep off; but they are bringing him
here, and we shall see what is the matter."

I gave orders for the horses to be put back in the stable, and I sent my
two soldiers to meet the others, and returned to the house. Then the
cure, Marchas, and I took a mattress into the room to lay the wounded man
on; the sister tore up a table napkin in order to make lint, while the
three frightened women remained huddled up in a corner.