Then, while a terrine of foie-gras, purchased in Belgium, was being served, the conversation took another turn; dwelling for an instant on the quantities of fish that were dying of poison in the Meuse, and finally coming around to the subject of the pestilence that menaced Sedan when there should be a thaw.  Even as early as November, there had been several cases of disease of an epidemic character.  Six thousand francs had been expended after the battle in cleansing the city and collecting and burning clothing, knapsacks, haversacks, all the debris that was capable of harboring infection; but, for all that, the surrounding fields continued to exhale sickening odors whenever there came a day or two of warmer weather, so replete were they with half-buried corpses, covered only with a few inches of loose earth.  In every direction the ground was dotted with graves; the soil cracked and split in obedience to the forces acting beneath its surface, and from the fissures thus formed the gases of putrefaction issued to poison the living.  In those more recent days, moreover, another center of contamination had been discovered, the Meuse, although there had already been removed from it the bodies of more than twelve hundred dead horses.  It was generally believed that there were no more human remains left in the stream, until, one day, a garde champetre, looking attentively down into the water where it was some six feet deep, discovered some objects glimmering at the bottom, that at first he took for stones; but they proved to be corpses of men, that had been mutilated in such a manner as to prevent the gas from accumulating in the cavities of the body and hence had been kept from rising to the surface.  For near four months they had been lying there in the water among the eel-grass.  When grappled for the irons brought them up in fragments, a head, an arm, or a leg at a time; at times the force of the current would suffice to detach a hand or foot and send it rolling down the stream.  Great bubbles of gas rose to the surface and burst, still further empoisoning the air.

“We shall get along well enough as long as the cold weather lasts,” remarked Delaherche, “but as soon as the snow is off the ground we shall have to go to work in earnest to abate the nuisance; if we don’t we shall be wanting graves for ourselves.”  And when his wife laughingly asked him if he could not find some more agreeable subject to talk about at the table, he concluded by saying:  “Well, it will be a long time before any of us will care to eat any fish out of the Meuse.”

They had finished their repast, and the coffee was being poured, when the maid came to the door and announced that M. de Gartlauben presented his compliments and wanted to know if he might be allowed to see them for a moment.  There was a slight flutter of excitement, for it was the first time he had ever presented himself at that hour of the day.  Delaherche, seeing in the circumstance a favorable opportunity for presenting