And they resumed their firing from among the trees of the low hill where they were deployed in skirmishing order.  Rochas himself had picked up an abandoned musket and was blazing away with the rest.  But the plateau of Illy was lost to them by this time beyond hope of recovery; the Prussians were pouring in upon it from every quarter.  It was somewhere in the neighborhood of two o’clock, and their great movement was accomplished; the Vth corps and the Guards had effected their junction, the investment of the French army was complete.

Jean was suddenly brought to the ground.

“I am done for,” he murmured.

He had received what seemed to him like a smart blow of a hammer on the crown of his head, and his kepi lay behind him with a great furrow plowed through its top.  At first he thought that the bullet had certainly penetrated the skull and laid bare the brain; his dread of finding a yawning orifice there was so great that for some seconds he dared not raise his hand to ascertain the truth.  When finally he ventured, his fingers, on withdrawing them, were red with an abundant flow of blood, and the pain was so intense that he fainted.

Just then Rochas gave the order to fall back.  The Prussians had crept up on them and were only two or three hundred yards away; they were in danger of being captured.

“Be cool, don’t hurry; face about and give ’em another shot.  Rally behind that low wall that you see down there.”

Maurice was in despair; he knew not what to do.

“We are not going to leave our corporal behind, are we, lieutenant?”

“What are we to do? he has turned up his toes.”

“No, no! he is breathing still.  Take him along!”

Rochas shrugged his shoulders as if to say they could not bother themselves for every man that dropped.  A wounded man is esteemed of little value on the battlefield.  Then Maurice addressed his supplications to Lapoulle and Pache.

“Come, give me a helping hand.  I am not strong enough to carry him unassisted.”

They were deaf to his entreaties; all they could hear was the voice that urged them to seek safety for themselves.  The Prussians were now not more than a hundred yards from them; already they were on their hands and knees, crawling as fast as they could go toward the wall.

And Maurice, weeping tears of rage, thus left alone with his unconscious companion, raised him in his arms and endeavored to lug him away, but he found his puny strength unequal to the task, exhausted as he was by fatigue and the emotions of the day.  At the first step he took he reeled and fell with his burden.  If only he could catch sight of a stretcher-bearer!  He strained his eyes, thought he had discovered one among the crowd of fugitives, and made frantic gestures of appeal; no one came, they were left behind, alone.  Summoning up his strength with a determined effort of the will he seized Jean once more and succeeded in advancing some thirty paces, when a shell burst near them and he thought that all was ended, that he, too, was to die on the body of his comrade.