dissimilar their natures, they were none the less closely united, so bound up in one another, as they tramped along that terrible road to Remilly, the one supporting the other, that they seemed to form but one being compounded of pity and suffering. Whilst the rear-guard was leaving Raucourt, the Germans entered the town at the other end; and two of their batteries which were immediately planted on the heights, upon the left, commenced firing. At this moment, as the 106th was moving off by the downhill-road, skirting the Emmane, it found itself in the line of fire. One shell cut down a poplar on the river bank, and another buried itself in a meadow near Captain Beaudoin. Until reaching Haraucourt the defile gradually contracts, and one there plunges into a narrow passage, overlooked on either hand by crested hills covered with trees. If a handful of Prussians were in ambuscade there, a disaster was certain. Cannonaded in the rear, with an attack possible both on right and left, the troops now advanced in increasing anxiety, eager to get out of this dangerous pass. And thus a last flash of energy came to even the weariest among them. The men, who a little while ago had been crawling from door to door through Raucourt, now stepped out jauntily, revived by the spur of peril. Even the horses seemed to realise that a terrible price might have to be paid for a moment lost; and the head of the column must have already been at Remilly, and the impetus given to the retreat was continuing, when all at once the men again ceased to advance. 'Dash it!' said Chouteau, 'are they going to leave us here?' The 106th had not yet reached Haraucourt and the shells were still falling. Whilst the regiment was marking time pending the resumption of the march, a shell burst on the right, fortunately without wounding anyone. Five minutes elapsed, seeming frightfully long, an eternity. But the men could not move; there was some obstacle over yonder, barring the road like a wall suddenly thrown up. The colonel, rising in his stirrups, looked ahead, quivering, and feeling that panic was spreading among his men behind him. 'Everyone knows that we've been sold!' resumed Chouteau, vehemently. Then, under the lash of fear, loud murmurs arose, a swelling growl of exasperation. Yes, yes; they had been brought there to be sold, to be handed over to the Prussians! Evil fortune had proved so implacable, the blunders committed had been so excessive, that to these men of narrow minds such a series of disasters could only be explained by treachery. 'We are betrayed! We are betrayed!' they shouted, in maddened voices. Then, an idea occurring to Loubet he exclaimed: 'It's perhaps that beast of an Emperor who's blocking the road with all his luggage.'