Then in exasperation, the doctor kicked the chair
over, and placing one foot on what remained of the
bust in the position of a conqueror, he turned to
the amazed public and yelled: “Thus may
all traitors die!”
As no enthusiasm was, as yet, visible, the spectators
appearing to be dumb with astonishment, the commandant
cried to the militia: “You may go home
now.” And he himself walked rapidly, almost
ran, towards his house.
As soon as he appeared, the servant told him that
some patients had been waiting in his office for over
three hours. He hastened in. They were the
same two peasants as a few days before, who had returned
at daybreak, obstinate and patient.
The old man immediately began his explanation:
“It began with ants, which seemed to be crawling
up and down my legs——”
Since the beginning of the campaign Lieutenant Lare
had taken two cannon from the Prussians. His
general had said: “Thank you, lieutenant,”
and had given him the cross of honor.
As he was as cautious as he was brave, wary, inventive,
wily and resourceful, he was entrusted with a hundred
soldiers and he organized a company of scouts who
saved the army on several occasions during a retreat.
But the invading army entered by every frontier like
a surging sea. Great waves of men arrived one
after the other, scattering all around them a scum
of freebooters. General Carrel’s brigade,
separated from its division, retreated continually,
fighting each day, but remaining almost intact, thanks
to the vigilance and agility of Lieutenant Lare, who
seemed to be everywhere at the same moment, baffling
all the enemy’s cunning, frustrating their plans,
misleading their Uhlans and killing their vanguards.
One morning the general sent for him.
“Lieutenant,” said he, “here is
a dispatch from General de Lacere, who will be destroyed
if we do not go to his aid by sunrise to-morrow.
He is at Blainville, eight leagues from here.
You will start at nightfall with three hundred men,
whom you will echelon along the road. I will follow
you two hours later. Study the road carefully;
I fear we may meet a division of the enemy.”
It had been freezing hard for a week. At two
o’clock it began to snow, and by night the ground
was covered and heavy white swirls concealed objects
hard by.
At six o’clock the detachment set out.
Two men walked alone as scouts about three yards ahead.
Then came a platoon of ten men commanded by the lieutenant
himself. The rest followed them in two long columns.
To the right and left of the little band, at a distance
of about three hundred feet on either side, some soldiers
marched in pairs.
The snow, which was still falling, covered them with
a white powder in the darkness, and as it did not
melt on their uniforms, they were hardly distinguishable
in the night amid the dead whiteness of the landscape.
