"I really believe that I swore with pleasure. 'That is very good of you,
my children,' I said; 'and I will take my share of the burden.'

"We could indistinctly see, through the darkness, the trees of a little
wood on the left. Several of the men went into it, and soon came back
with a bundle of branches made into a litter.

"'Who will lend his cape? It is for a pretty girl, comrades,' Pratique
said, and ten cloaks were thrown to him. In a moment the girl was lying,
warm and comfortable, among them, and was raised upon six shoulders. I
placed myself at their head, on the right, well pleased with my position.

"We started off much more briskly, as if we had had a drink of wine, and
I even heard some jokes. A woman is quite enough to electrify Frenchmen,
you see. The soldiers, who had become cheerful and warm, had almost
reformed their ranks, and an old 'franc-tireur' who was following the
litter, waiting for his turn to replace the first of his comrades who
might give out, said to one of his neighbors, loud enough for me to hear:
"'I am not a young man now, but by---, there is nothing like the
women to put courage into you!'

"We went on, almost without stopping, until three o'clock in the morning,
when suddenly our scouts fell back once more, and soon the whole
detachment showed nothing but a vague shadow on the ground, as the men
lay on the snow. I gave my orders in a low voice, and heard the harsh,
metallic sound of the cocking, of rifles. For there, in the middle of the
plain, some strange object was moving about. It looked like some enormous
animal running about, now stretching out like a serpent, now coiling
itself into a ball, darting to the right, then to the left, then