Suddenly a shot rang out in the darkness and aroused the sleepers.  It was about three o’clock, and the obscurity was profound.  Immediately everyone was on foot, the alarm spread through the camp; it was supposed the Prussians were attacking.  It was only Loubet who, unable to sleep longer, had taken it in his head to make a foray into the oak-wood, which he thought gave promise of rabbits:  what a jolly good lark it would be if he could bring in a pair of nice rabbits for the comrades’ breakfast!  But as he was looking about for a favorable place in which to conceal himself, he heard the sound of voices and the snapping of dry branches under heavy footsteps; men were coming toward him; he took alarm and discharged his piece, believing the Prussians were at hand.  Maurice, Jean, and others came running up in haste, when a hoarse voice made itself heard: 

“For God’s sake, don’t shoot!”

And there at the edge of the wood stood a tall, lanky man, whose thick, bristling beard they could just distinguish in the darkness.  He wore a gray blouse, confined at the waist by a red belt, and carried a musket slung by a strap over his shoulder.  He hurriedly explained that he was French, a sergeant of francs-tireurs, and had come with two of his men from the wood of Dieulet, bringing important information for the general.

“Hallo there, Cabasse!  Ducat!” he shouted, turning his head, “hallo! you infernal poltroons, come here!”

The men were evidently badly scared, but they came forward.  Ducat, short and fat, with a pale face and scanty hair; Cabasse short and lean, with a black face and a long nose not much thicker than a knife-blade.

Meantime Maurice had stepped up and taken a closer look at the sergeant; he finally asked him: 

“Tell me, are you not Guillaume Sambuc, of Remilly?”

And when the man hesitatingly answered in the affirmative Maurice recoiled a step or two, for this Sambuc had the reputation of being a particularly hard case, the worthy son of a family of woodcutters who had all gone to the bad, the drunken father being found one night lying by the roadside with his throat cut, the mother and daughter, who lived by begging and stealing, having disappeared, most likely, in the seclusion of some penitentiary.  He, Guillaume, did a little in the poaching and smuggling lines, and only one of that litter of wolves’ whelps had grown up to be an honest man, and that was Prosper, the hussar, who had gone to work on a farm before he was conscripted, because he hated the life of the forest.

“I saw your brother at Vouziers,” Maurice continued; “he is well.”

Sambuc made no reply.  To end the situation he said: 

“Take me to the general.  Tell him that the francs-tireurs of the wood of Dieulet have something important to say to him.”