“Oh! do not leave me here,” he pleaded; “take me to the ambulance, I beseech you. Take me to the rear.” Rochas endeavored to silence him, and it was on his brutal lips to say that it was useless to imperil two comrades’ lives for one whose wound was so evidently mortal, when his better nature made its influence felt and he murmured: “Be patient for a little, my poor boy, and the litter-bearers will come and get you.” But the wretched man, whose tears were now flowing, kept crying, as one distraught that his dream of happiness was vanishing with his trickling life-blood: “Take me away, take me away—” Finally Captain Beaudoin, whose already unstrung nerves were further irritated by his pitiful cries, called for two volunteers to carry him to a little piece of woods a short way off where a flying ambulance had been established. Chouteau and Loubet jumped to their feet simultaneously, anticipating the others, seized the sergeant, one of them by the shoulders, the other by the legs, and bore him away on a run. They had gone but a little way, however, when they felt the body becoming rigid in the final convulsion; he was dying. “I say, he’s dead,” exclaimed Loubet. “Let’s leave him here.” But Chouteau, without relaxing his speed, angrily replied: “Go ahead, you booby, will you! Do you take me for a fool, to leave him here and have them call us back!” They pursued their course with the corpse until they came to the little wood, threw it down at the foot of a tree, and went their way. That was the last that was seen of them until nightfall. The battery beside them had been strengthened by three additional guns; the cannonade on either side went on with increased fury, and in the hideous uproar terror—a wild, unreasoning terror—filled Maurice’s soul. It was his first experience of the sensation; he had not until now felt that cold sweat trickling down his back, that terrible sinking at the pit of the stomach, that unconquerable desire to get on his feet and run, yelling and screaming, from the field. It was nothing more than the strain from which his nervous, high-strung temperament was suffering from reflex action; but Jean, who was observing him narrowly, detected the incipient crisis in the wandering, vacant eyes, and seizing him with his strong hand, held him down firmly at his side. The corporal lectured him paternally in a whisper, not mincing his words, but employing good, vigorous language to restore him to a sense of self-respect, for he knew by experience that a man in panic is not to be coaxed out of his cowardice. There were others also who were showing the white feather, among them Pache, who was whimpering involuntarily, in the low, soft voice of a little baby, his eyes suffused with tears. Lapoulle’s stomach betrayed him and he was very ill; and there were many others who also found relief in vomiting, amid their comrade’s loud jeers and laughter, which helped to restore their courage to them all.