As the dark gathered, lit only by the flickering lightnings, an immense hush fell over the islands. Every lamp and fire was extinguished; the multitudinous tramp of moving hosts mingled with the boom of the river, and became part with it; the song of the bugles, soft and short, mounted on the wind, and fled with its shrilling through the branches of the trees. One might never have guessed the universal movement that was taking itself cover, as it were, under these silences, as if the islands themselves had been unmoored, and were drifting soundlessly, with their freight of death, towards the shores. In the midst, a little cry, sharp and sudden, rang out in the neighbourhood of the Emperor’s tent--it might have been a trodden bird’s; it passed, and was not repeated. A young officer, de Sainte Croix, of the personal staff, hurried towards the spot. It was he, vigorous and enthusiastic, who had often gained the Emperor’s approval by climbing tall trees on the island to watch the Austrian preparations on the distant plain. He found a sentry standing by a clump of bushes, and another, one of the Old Guard, lying prone at his feet. “Malediction!” he whispered. “Who had the daring?” The man saluted. “It is Corporal Lebrun, Monsieur. He gave one cry--thus; and I saw him fall. He was hit over the heart at Essling, and only his cartouchier saved him; but he has complained since of an oppression. I think the closeness, the thunder----” The officer interrupted him: “That will do. You had no right to leave your post. Return to it.” The soldier saluted again, wheeled, and retreated. De Sainte Croix bent over the fallen man. “How is it, Lebrun?” The corporal lay with a ghastly face, his breath labouring, his chest lifting in spasms. He was not a young man, yet prematurely aged, toughened, grizzled, tanned like old leather in the service of his god. There was a wild, lost look in his eyes which betokened the coming end. He struggled to speak. “Lift me up, monsieur, in God’s name!” De Sainte Croix took the livid head on his knee. The posture somewhat eased the fighting heart. “Courage, comrade! This fit will pass with the oppression. Why, I myself feel it--I. When the storm breaks----” The blue lips caught at the word. “When the storm breaks! What will he have answered?” “He? Who?” said the young officer. The dying corporal, twisting in his arms, made an awful gesture towards the Emperor’s tent. “As always,” said de Sainte Croix, “with the cry to victory.” The other clutched his hand with a grip like madness. “I believe it, monsieur. He will have renewed the compact.” “What compact, my poor friend?” “With the red man.” De Sainte Croix could hardly catch the answer. He laughed--men must laugh, though they died for it--and spoke a soothing word. He believed the poor fellow delirious.