The sun was setting, and the shadows were darkening in the orchards of Bellecroix, when the 95th were ordered to pile arms and take a little rest; and a singular scene--singular by way of contrast, and yet terrible--did these orchards present. The trees were still in full foliage and bearing, and thickly among the green leaves the apples, golden and red, the yellow pears, the downy peaches, and the purple plums were all mingling on the branches above; below lay the dead and the dying, some of whom in their agony had burrowed their faces into the very earth; others had torn it up in handfuls. A few, who had been wounded early in the day, lay dead now, with their hairy knapsacks under their heads, and many with sweet smiles on their waxen faces, as if their last thoughts had been of home, and those who loved them there. Some had died with their fingers clasped in prayer, others with their hands clenched, as if in rage or pain, and with their faces terribly contorted. Everywhere lay knapsacks, shakos, kepis, helmets, arms, and water-bottles. Pierrepont gladly quitted these dreadful orchards of Bellecroix, and retired to a grassy bank by the side of the highway to Metz, where a few of his brother officers, apart from the rest, were sharing the contents of their havresacks and comparing notes on the dire events of the day. There he found young Frankenburg mounted on the horse of the adjutant, who had fallen in the attack on Bellecroix, and whose duty he had been ordered to take in the interim, an office that was nearly costing him very dear soon after. As the troops were to halt on the field pending those operations which led to the battle of Gravelotte, a chain of out-pickets was detailed for the night, and Charlie Pierrepont, as many of his seniors had been killed off or wounded in that day's strife, had command of one of these, consisting of two non-commissioned officers and thirty men, with whom he was ordered to take possession of a little chateau nearer Metz than Bellecroix, to use it as his picket-house, and post his sentinels as to him seemed best. He accordingly marched for this place, the Chateau de Caillé, belonging to a French gentleman of that name. It was a quaint-looking little place, with latticed windows of iron, two or three little stone _tourelles_, with conical roofs and vanes, and it was quite buried among masses of ivy, jasmine, and clematis, and embosomed, among rich fruit-trees. Having posted ten sentinels, equidistant and in communication with those of the adjacent pickets, with orders to stand on their posts and keep their faces steadily turned in the direction of Metz, the dark mass of the citadel which, together with the spires of the churches, could be traced against the now moonlit sky, he approached the chateau with the main body of his picket, never doubting that they would find it deserted, and that the family of M. de Caillé had fled.