"I started to my feet so quickly, that my chair fell down behind me, and I shouted: 'Mount, all of you! You, Marchas, will take two men and go and see what it is. I shall expect you back here in five minutes.' And while the three riders went off at full gallop through the night, I got into the saddle with my three remaining hussars, in front of the steps of the villa, while the _Cure_, the Sister and the three old women showed their frightened faces at the window. "We heard nothing more, except the barking of a dog in the distance. The rain had ceased, and it was cold, very cold, and soon I heard the gallop of a horse, of a single horse, coming back. It was Marchas, and I called out to him: 'Well?' 'It is nothing; Francois has wounded an old peasant who refused to answer his challenge: "Who goes there?" and who continued to advance, in spite of the order to keep off; but they are bringing him here, and we shall see what is the matter.' "I gave orders for the horses to be put back into the stable, and I sent my two soldiers to meet the others, and returned to the house. Then the _Cure_, Marchas and I took a mattress into the room to put the wounded man on; the Sister tore up a table napkin, in order to make lint, while the three frightened women remained huddled up in a corner. "Soon I heard the rattle of sabres on the road, and I took a candle to show a light to the men who were returning; and they soon appeared, carrying that inert, soft, long and sinister object which a human body becomes when life no longer sustains it. * * * * * "They put the wounded man on the mattress that had been prepared for him, and I saw at the first glance that he was dying. He had the death rattle and was spitting up blood, which ran out of the corners of his mouth, forced out of his mouth by his gasps. The man was covered with it! His cheeks, his beard, his hair, his neck and his clothes seemed to have been rubbed, to have been dipped in a red tub; and that blood stuck to him, and had become a dull color, which was horrible to look at. "The old man, wrapped up in a large shepherd's cloak, occasionally opened his dull, vacant eyes, which seemed stupid with astonishment, like those of animals which a sportsman kills, and which fall at his feet, more than half dead already, stupefied with fear and astonishment. "The _Cure_ exclaimed: 'Ah! there is old Placide, the shepherd, from les Marlins. He is deaf, poor man, and heard nothing. Ah! Oh God! they have killed the unhappy man!' The Sister had opened his blouse and shirt, and was looking at a little blue hole in the middle of his chest, which was not bleeding any more. 'There is nothing to be done,' she said.