The alarm had been given, the danger had still further increased, and, now that our place of concealment had been discovered, we had to start off again across the thicket and rock on our poor done-up horses. On reflecting over it, my mind refuses to believe that such a cross-country ride was possible. To throw the enemy off the scent it was necessary to pass where no one would have imagined that a horse could go, and that involved a ride into the abyss in the deepening night, plunges into black gulfs, intersected by trunks of trees, to the foot of which some horsemen and their horses rolled like broken toys. I felt my old horse, Teint, curl up and tremble between my legs. His hair stood on end and his nostrils opened and shut. On, on, ever on ... to the very heart of the old forest, whose most secret solitudes we troubled, frightening the herds of deer, which fled terrified before our cavalcade. For a moment it seemed as if we were at some monstrous hunt on horseback with men for quarry, and in spite of myself, a mortal fatigue seized on me. I shut my eyes and waited for the “Gone away.” Better it were to be finished quickly, since the game was lost. The troops had got mixed and I found myself again for a moment amongst the 3rd squadron by the side of Lieutenant Cambacérès, and we exchanged a few brief words. Almost timidly, so absurd did the idea appear that one of us could escape, I asked him to write a line home if it were my luck to be done for and if he came out safe. I promised him the same service, if the rôles were reversed. To such an extent does gaiety enter into the composition of our French nature, we even joked for a few moments and we shared a last tablet of chocolate, which he had preserved in his wallet, a service for which I shall always be grateful to him, for hunger was causing me insupportable pain. We were now going at a slow pace over a carpet of dead leaves, amongst trees which were singularly thinned out. Our object being to gain the heart of the forest, we had ended up by reaching its border, and we remained glued to the spot, holding our breath at the sudden vision seen through the branches. The famous convoys that the division was out to take were there, in front of us, on a stretch of some eight kilomètres of road. Waggons of munitions, provision carts, water-carts, lorries of all sorts, were moving gaily along at an easy walk, and the rumbling noise was continuous.