Bugler Gaude had just blown a sonorous blast, the summons to the roll-call. There was no tattoo however; the camp at once sank into deep silence. And when Sergeant Sapin, with the thin, sickly face and the contracted nose, had found that his half-section was complete, he gently remarked: 'Some of them will be missing to-morrow night.' Then, noticing that Jean was looking at him, he added with an air of tranquil certainty, gazing the while into the darkness with dreamy eyes: 'Oh! for my part I shall be killed to-morrow.' It was nine o'clock. The night threatened to be very cold, for a great deal of mist had risen from the Meuse, hiding the stars from view. Maurice shivered as he lay beside Jean under a hedge, and suggested that it would perhaps be better for them to turn into the tent. Worn out, however, aching in every limb since their rest at Weiss's, neither of them was able to get to sleep. They envied Lieutenant Rochas, who, disdaining any shelter and simply wrapped in a blanket, was snoring like a hero on the damp ground near them. Then, for a long time they fixed their attention on the little, flickering flame of a candle, burning in a large tent where the colonel and a few officers were sitting up. M. de Vineuil had seemed very anxious all the evening at not receiving any orders for the following day. He felt that his regiment was quite adrift, still far too much to the front, though he had already fallen back some distance, relinquishing the advanced position that he had taken up in the morning. General Bourgain-Desfeuilles had not shown himself; he was said to be ill in bed at the Golden Cross Hotel, and the colonel had at last decided to send an officer to warn him that the new position appeared a dangerous one; the Seventh Corps being so scattered, having far too long a line to defend, from the bend of the Meuse to the wood of La Garenne. The battle would certainly begin at dawn. They now had only seven or eight hours of that deep, black peacefulness before them. At last the candle in the colonel's tent was extinguished, and at that moment Maurice was greatly surprised to see Captain Beaudoin pass by, furtively skirting the hedge, and vanishing in the direction of Sedan. The night was becoming more and more dense, the mass of vapour that had ascended from the river obscured it with a gloomy fog. 'Are you awake, Jean?' asked Maurice.