"It is useless to seek further," said the surgeon; "the shirt is intact and there is no blood. The boy is not strong and the violence of the blow has made him faint. This foraging cap, which would have been of no protection in its proper place, has saved his life here. Give him some brandy and he will be all right." "How strange," said Pichegru; "this cap belongs to the chasseurs of Condé's army." Just then Charles revived, and his first movement, on coming to himself, was to look for the foraging cap. He was about to ask for it when he saw it in the general's hand. "Ah! general," he said, "pardon me." "You may well ask pardon for having given us such a fright." "Oh! not that," said Charles, smiling and pointing to the cap which Pichegru held in his hand. "You must explain this to me," said Pichegru. Charles came close to the general and said in a low voice: "That belongs to the Comte de Sainte-Hermine, that young noble who was shot; and when he was dying he asked me to give it to his family." "But," said Pichegru, feeling it, "there is a letter inside." "Yes, general; to his brother. The poor fellow feared it might be lost if he gave it to a stranger." "While in confiding it to some one from his own part of the country he had nothing to fear, I suppose." "Have I done wrong, general?" "It is never wrong to fulfil the wish of a dying man, particularly when that wish is an honorable one. I may even say that it is a sacred duty to do so as soon as possible." "But I shall probably not return to Besançon at once." "If I try, perhaps I can find some excuse for sending you there." "Not because you are displeased with, me, general?" asked the boy, with tears in his eyes. "No; I will give you some commission which shall prove to your compatriots that the Jura has still another boy in the service of the Republic. Now let us see what is going on yonder." In a few moments Charles forgot his own accident as his eyes wandered over the battlefield and the town; he held his breath in the absorbing interest of the sight, and, touching the general on the arm, pointed to the men running over roofs, jumping out of windows, and climbing over garden walls in their haste to reach the plain. "Good," said Pichegru, "we are masters of the town, and the day is ours." Then, turning to Lieber, the only one of his officers near him, he said: "Take command of the reserve and prevent these men from rallying." Lieber put himself at the head of the four or five hundred men and descended upon the village. "Now," continued Pichegru with his usual calmness, "let us go to the village and see what is happening." And accompanied only by twenty-five or thirty chasseurs of the rear-guard, together with General Boursier and Charles, he set off at a gallop on the road to Dawendorff.