“Honore,” he murmured, “I don’t know, I couldn’t say.”

She continued to press him with her questions, looking at him steadily.

“You did not see him, then?”

He waved his hands before him with a slow, uncertain motion and an expressive shake of the head.

“How can you expect one to remember!  There were such lots of things,
such lots of things.  Look you, of all that d-----d battle, if I was to
die for it this minute, I could not tell you that much—­no, not even
the place where I was.  I believe men get to be no better than idiots,
’pon my word I do!” And tossing off a glass of wine, he sat gloomily
silent, his vacant eyes turned inward on the dark recesses of his
memory.  “All that I remember is that it was beginning to be dark when
I recovered consciousness.  I went down while we were charging, and
then the sun was very high.  I must have been lying there for hours, my
right leg caught under poor old Zephyr, who had received a piece of
shell in the middle of his chest.  There was nothing to laugh at in my
position, I can tell you; the dead comrades lying around me in piles,
not a living soul in sight, and the certainty that I should have to
kick the bucket too unless someone came to put me on my legs again. 
Gently, gently, I tried to free my leg, but it was no use; Zephyr’s
weight must have been fully up to that of the five hundred thousand
devils.  He was warm still.  I patted him, I spoke to him, saying all
the pretty things I could think of, and here’s a thing, do you see,
that I shall never forget as long as I live:  he opened his eyes and
made an effort to raise his poor old head, which was resting on the
ground beside my own.  Then we had a talk together:  ‘Poor old fellow,’
says I, ’I don’t want to say a word to hurt your feelings, but you
must want to see me croak with you, you hold me down so hard.’  Of
course he didn’t say he did; he couldn’t, but for all that I could
read in his great sorrowful eyes how bad he felt to have to part with
me.  And I can’t say how the thing happened, whether he intended it or
whether it was part of the death struggle, but all at once he gave
himself a great shake that sent him rolling away to one side.  I was
enabled to get on my feet once more, but ah! in what a pickle; my leg
was swollen and heavy as a leg of lead.  Never mind, I took Zephyr’s
head in my arms and kept on talking to him, telling him all the kind
thoughts I had in my heart, that he was a good horse, that I loved him
dearly, that I should never forget him.  He listened to me, he seemed
to be so pleased!  Then he had another long convulsion, and so he died,
with his big vacant eyes fixed on me till the last.  It is very
strange, though, and I don’t suppose anyone will believe me; still, it
is the simple truth that great, big tears were standing in his eyes. 
Poor old Zephyr, he cried just like a man—­”

At this point Prosper’s emotion got the better of him; tears choked his utterance and he was obliged