At half-past three everything was done, and a rendezvous fixed for June 2 at the same place. The proportion between believers and unbelievers was changing. Pasteur seemed so sure of his ground that many were saying “He can surely not be mistaken.” One little group had that very morning drunk to a _fiasco_. But, whether from a sly desire to witness a failure, or from a generous wish to be present at the great scientific victory, every man impatiently counted the hours of the two following days. On June 4, Messrs. Chamberland and Roux went back to Pouilly le Fort to judge of the condition of the patients. Amongst the lot of unvaccinated sheep, several were standing apart with drooping heads, refusing their food. A few of the vaccinated subjects showed an increase of temperature; one of them even had 40° C. (104° Fahrenheit); one sheep presented a slight œdema of which the point of inoculation was the centre; one lamb was lame, another manifestly feverish, but all, save one, had preserved their appetite. All the unvaccinated sheep were getting worse and worse. “In all of them” noted M. Rossignol, “breathlessness is at its maximum; the heaving of the sides is now and then interrupted by groans. If the most sick are forced to get up and walk, it is with great difficulty that they advance a few steps, their limbs being so weak and vacillating.” Three had died by the time M. Rossignol left Pouilly le Fort. “Everything leads me to believe,” he wrote, “that a great number of sheep will succumb during the night.” Pasteur’s anxiety was great when Messrs. Chamberland and Roux returned, having noticed a rise in the temperature of certain vaccinated subjects. It was increased by the arrival of a telegram from M. Rossignol announcing that he considered one sheep as lost. By a sudden reaction, Pasteur, who had drawn up such a bold programme, leaving no margin for the unexpected, and who the day before seemed of an imperturbable tranquillity among all those sheep, the life or death of whom was about to decide between an immortal discovery and an irremediable failure, now felt himself beset with doubts and anguish. Bouley, who had that evening come to see his _master_, as he liked to call him, could not understand this reaction--the result of too much strain on the mind, said M. Roux, whom it did not astonish. Pasteur’s emotional nature, strangely allied to his fighting temperament, was mastering him. “His faith staggered for a time,” writes M. Roux, “as if the experimental method could betray him.” The night was a sleepless one.