"I cannot. O God! I cannot!" I clutched his arm. Tears streamed down his face. He tried to lift me, but he was too weak. I held fast to him, crying: "Zébédé, do not abandon me!" Captain Vidal approached, and gazed sadly on me: "Cheer up, my lad," said he; "the ambulances will be along in half an hour." But I knew what that meant, and I drew Zébédé closer to me. He embraced me, and I whispered in his ear: "Kiss Catharine for me--for my last farewell. Tell her that I died thinking of God's holy mother and of her." "Yes, yes!" he sobbed. "My poor Joseph!" {35} I could cling to him no longer. He placed me on the ground, and ran away without turning his head. The column departed, and I gazed at it as one who sees his last hope fading from his eyes. The last of the battalion disappeared over the ridge of a hill. I closed my eyes. An hour passed, or perhaps a longer time, when the boom of cannon startled me, and I saw a division of the guard pass at a quick step with artillery and wagons. Seeing some sick in the wagons, I cried wistfully: "Take me! Take me!" But no one listened; still they kept on, while the thunder of artillery grew louder and louder. More than ten thousand men, calvary and infantry, passed me, but I had no longer strength to call out to them. At last the long line ended; I saw knapsacks and shakos disappear behind the hill, and I lay down to sleep for ever, when once more I was aroused by the rolling of five or six pieces of artillery along the road. The cannoneers sat sabre in hand, and behind came the caissons. I hoped no more from these than from the others, when suddenly I perceived a tall, lean, red-bearded veteran mounted beside one of the pieces, and bearing the cross upon his breast. It was my old friend Zunnier, my old comrade of Leipsic. He was passing without seeing me, when I cried, with all the strength that remained to me: "Christian! Christian!" He heard me in spite of the noise of the guns; stopped, and turned round. "Christian!" I cried, "take pity on me!" He saw me lying at the foot of a tree, and came to me with a pale face and staring eyes: "What! Is it you, my poor Joseph?" cried he, springing from his horse. He lifted me in his arms as if I were an infant, and shouted to the men who were driving the last wagon: "Halt!" Then embracing me, he placed me in it, my head upon a knapsack. I saw too that he wrapped great cavalry cloak around my feet, as he cried: "Forward! Forward! It is growing warm yonder!" I remember no more, but I have a faint impression of hearing again the sound of heavy guns and rattle of musketry, mingled with shouts and commands. Branches of tall pines seemed to pass between me and the sky through the night; but all this might have been a dream. But that day, behind Solmunster, in the woods of Hanau, we had a battle with the Bavarians, and routed them. XXII.