Charles cast a last glance at the plain; the enemy were fleeing in all directions. This was the first time that he had seen a battle; he was now to see a battlefield. He had seen the poetical side--the movement, the fire, the smoke; but the distance had concealed all the details. He was now to see the hideous side--the agony, the immobility of death: he was about to enter upon the bloody reality. CHAPTER XXIII AFTER THE BATTLE The short distance that the little troop was obliged to cover in order to reach the plain was entirely bare, except for the wounded, the dead, and the dying. The fight had lasted barely an hour and a half, but more than fifteen hundred men lay strewn upon the battlefield. Charles approached the line of dead with a certain degree of apprehension; at the first corpse that his horse encountered the animal shied so violently that the boy was nearly thrown. Pichegru's horse, held in better check, or perhaps better accustomed to such scenes, leaped over the obstacles; in time Charles's horse was forced to follow his example and to leap over the dead. It was not, however, the dead that made the most impression upon Charles, but the wounded, who sought to drag themselves from beneath the hoofs of the horses of the general and his staff, by a supreme effort, or lay horribly mutilated and muttering, the death-rattle in their throats: "Comrades, for mercy's sake despatch me! despatch me!" Others again, those who were not so grievously wounded, raised themselves upon their elbows, and, waving their caps, cried: "Long live the Republic!" "Is this the first time that you have ever seen a battlefield?" asked Pichegru. "No, general," replied the boy. "Where have you seen one before?" "In Tacitus--that of Teutberg, with Germanicus and Cecina." "Ah, yes," replied Pichegru, "I remember: it is when Germanicus, just before he reaches the forest, finds the eagle of the nineteenth legion which was lost with Varus." "And do you remember that passage, general, which I understand so well now--'All the army were filled with pity as they thought of relatives, friends, the chances of war, and the destiny of men'?" "Yes," said Pichegru. "'There were,' said Tacitus, 'in the midst of the vast clearing, whitening bones scattered where the men had fled, and lying in heaps where they had fought.' Oh! I wish I could remember the Latin text, which no translation can equal; wait: 'Medio--'" "I remember it, general," said Charles; "'Medio campi albentia ossa ut fugerant, ut resisterant.'" "Well done, Charles," said Pichegru; "your father made me a fine gift when he sent you to me!" "General," asked Charles, "are you not going to send help to these poor wounded men?"