“I say, he’s dead,” exclaimed Loubet.  “Let’s leave him here.”

But Chouteau, without relaxing his speed, angrily replied: 

“Go ahead, you booby, will you!  Do you take me for a fool, to leave him here and have them call us back!”

They pursued their course with the corpse until they came to the little wood, threw it down at the foot of a tree, and went their way.  That was the last that was seen of them until nightfall.

The battery beside them had been strengthened by three additional guns; the cannonade on either side went on with increased fury, and in the hideous uproar terror—­a wild, unreasoning terror—­filled Maurice’s soul.  It was his first experience of the sensation; he had not until now felt that cold sweat trickling down his back, that terrible sinking at the pit of the stomach, that unconquerable desire to get on his feet and run, yelling and screaming, from the field.  It was nothing more than the strain from which his nervous, high-strung temperament was suffering from reflex action; but Jean, who was observing him narrowly, detected the incipient crisis in the wandering, vacant eyes, and seizing him with his strong hand, held him down firmly at his side.  The corporal lectured him paternally in a whisper, not mincing his words, but employing good, vigorous language to restore him to a sense of self-respect, for he knew by experience that a man in panic is not to be coaxed out of his cowardice.  There were others also who were showing the white feather, among them Pache, who was whimpering involuntarily, in the low, soft voice of a little baby, his eyes suffused with tears.  Lapoulle’s stomach betrayed him and he was very ill; and there were many others who also found relief in vomiting, amid their comrade’s loud jeers and laughter, which helped to restore their courage to them all.

“My God!” ejaculated Maurice, ghastly pale, his teeth chattering.  “My God!”

Jean shook him roughly.  “You infernal coward, are you going to be sick like those fellows over yonder?  Behave yourself, or I’ll box your ears.”

He was trying to put heart into his friend by gruff but friendly speeches like the above, when they suddenly beheld a dozen dark forms emerging from a little wood upon their front and about four hundred yards away.  Their spiked helmets announced them to be Prussians; the first Prussians they had had within reach of their rifles since the opening of the campaign.  This first squad was succeeded by others, and in front of their position the little dust clouds that rose where the French shells struck were distinctly visible.  It was all very vivid and clear-cut in the transparent air of morning; the Germans, outlined against the dark forest, presented the toy-like appearance of those miniature soldiers of lead that are the delight of children; then, as the enemy’s shells began to drop in their vicinity with uncomfortable frequency, they withdrew and were lost to sight within the wood whence they had come.