'Hush!' said the sergeant-major.'Blessed be God, all is well.' I felt him clasp my hand, and there were tears in his voice.''Tis but a scratch, my child; here is papa, who is taking good care of you.Your shoulder is bound up; we have dressed you in your clothes again, and it will all be well.'
At this I began to remember.'And Goguelat?' I gasped.
'He cannot bear to be moved; he has his bellyful; 'tis a bad business,' said the sergeant-major.
The idea of having killed a man with such an instrument as half a pair of scissors seemed to turn my stomach.I am sure I might have killed a dozen with a firelock, a sabre, a bayonet, or any accepted weapon, and been visited by no such sickness of remorse.And to this feeling every unusual circumstance of our rencounter, the darkness in which we had fought, our nakedness, even the resin on the twine, appeared to contribute.I ran to my fallen adversary, kneeled by him, and could only sob his name.
He bade me compose myself.'You have given me the key of the fields, comrade,' said he.'SANS RANCUNE!'
At this my horror redoubled.Here had we two expatriated Frenchmen engaged in an ill-regulated combat like the battles of beasts.
Here was he, who had been all his life so great a ruffian, dying in a foreign land of this ignoble injury, and meeting death with something of the spirit of a Bayard.I insisted that the guards should be summoned and a doctor brought.'It may still be possible to save him,' I cried.
The sergeant-major reminded me of our engagement.'If you had been wounded,' said he, 'you must have lain there till the patrol came by and found you.It happens to be Goguelat - and so must he!
Come, child, time to go to by-by.' And as I still resisted, 'Champdivers!' he said, 'this is weakness.You pain me.'
'Ay, off to your beds with you!' said Goguelat, and named us in a company with one of his jovial gross epithets.
Accordingly the squad lay down in the dark and simulated, what they certainly were far from experiencing, sleep.It was not yet late.
The city, from far below, and all around us, sent up a sound of wheels and feet and lively voices.Yet awhile, and the curtain of the cloud was rent across, and in the space of sky between the eaves of the shed and the irregular outline of the ramparts a multitude of stars appeared.Meantime, in the midst of us lay Goguelat, and could not always withhold himself from groaning.
We heard the round far off; heard it draw slowly nearer.Last of all, it turned the corner and moved into our field of vision: two file of men and a corporal with a lantern, which he swung to and fro, so as to cast its light in the recesses of the yards and sheds.
'Hullo!' cried the corporal, pausing as he came by Goguelat.
He stooped with his lantern.All our hearts were flying.
'What devil's work is this?' he cried, and with a startling voice summoned the guard.
We were all afoot upon the instant; more lanterns and soldiers crowded in front of the shed; an officer elbowed his way in.In the midst was the big naked body, soiled with blood.Some one had covered him with his blanket; but as he lay there in agony, he had partly thrown it off.
'This is murder!' cried the officer.'You wild beasts, you will hear of this to-morrow.'
As Goguelat was raised and laid upon a stretcher, he cried to us a cheerful and blasphemous farewell.