Caffarelli made a disdainful movement. The gallant general had left one of his legs on the banks of the Rhine, and he did not seem alarmed at the prospect of leaving some other portion of his body on the banks of the Kerdaneah. He did not move.
A moment later Bonaparte saw him start and turn round with his arm hanging lifeless at his side. A bullet had struck his elbow and broken the joint. At the same moment Bonaparte raised his eyes and discovered Croisier, not ten paces from them, standing on the edge of the trench. It was useless bravado. Bonaparte therefore called out: "Come down, Croisier, come down! You have no business there. Come down: I wish it."
"Did you not say in public one day that I was a coward?"
"I was wrong, Croisier," replied the general, "and you have proved to me since that I was mistaken. Come down."
Croisier started to obey, but he fell down instead. A bullet had broken his thigh.
"Larrey! Larrey!" cried Bonaparte, stamping his foot impatiently, "here, come here; I have some work for you."
Larrey came up. They laid Croisier on some muskets. As for Caffarelli, he walked away, leaning on the arm of the chief surgeon.
Let us leave the assault, begun under such gloomy auspices, to take its course, and cast our eyes on the beautiful plain of Esdrelon, covered with flowers, and the river Kishon, whose course is marked by a long extent of rose-laurels.
Two horsemen were carelessly riding along the banks of this river. One of them, dressed in the green uniform of the mounted chasseurs, with his sabre at his side and his three-cornered hat on his head, was fanning himself with a perfumed handkerchief, as he might have done with a fan. The tri-colored cockade in his hat showed that he belonged to the French army.