We had marched many hours in the darkness--from eight or nine of the evening till the small hours were passing one by one with infinite weariness. I was lighter on my feet than Hugh, having less to carry in the way of "too, too solid flesh." Consequently he suffered more, both from the weight of his rifle, and the dumb remorseless steadiness of the marching column. Forward we went, however, stumbling now and then with sleep, our feet blistered, and the rattle and wheeze of the ammunition wagons coming back to us mixed with a jingle of mules' gear through the dark. At last, when it seemed as if we could do no more, the column halted, and our grateful sergeant came back in order to set us on the road to Autun. "Yonder," he said, "you can see a hill which cuts the stars. It is high and steep, but to the right of it is a pass, and when you reach the top you will look down upon the lights of Autun." He bade us a rapid good-bye, and hastened away to his own place in the column. With a final word of thanks to the adjutant (who is here a kind of sergeant-major), we left our kindly rear-guard and set out to find Garibaldi. The night grew suddenly darker as we missed the shoulder-touch of a comrade on either side of us. We rolled over vine-terraces, clutching at the gnarled roots, or stumbled with a breath-expelling "ouch" into dry ditches all laid out for the summer irrigation. Fence rails and the corner posts of vineyard guard-shelters marked us black, and blue, but aloft or alow we held firm to the Henry rifles which were to be our chief treasures, when we should at last don the red cardigan of the Garibaldian troops. To us it seemed as if we never would reach the top of that pass. We could see the mountain towering up on our left hand, and once a shower of stones came rumbling down as a warning not to venture too near. The wind was now soft and equal, and the unusual warmth had served no doubt to loosen the frost-bound rocks above, as well as to keep us in a gentle perspiration while we climbed the corkscrew pathway towards the hill crest. Things became easier after we had left the vineyards beneath us, and our road lay over the clean grassy plateau on which the sheep had that day been grazing. We rested a while in a shepherd's shelter hut, and did not scruple to refresh ourselves with some slices of bread and sausage, washed down by a long swig from a skin of wine. We left a franc in payment, stuck into the cut end of the sausage, with a note appended that we were two recruits on our way to join Garibaldi. Little did we imagine that in a few weeks we should, without hurt to our consciences, simply have transferred the whole supply to our haversacks without thanks or payment.