By the time I regained my post, all was in silence once more; either the Russians had arrested their march, or already their columns were out of hearing,—not a gleam of light could I perceive along their entire position. And now, worn out with watching, I threw myself down among the straw, and slept soundly.
“There! there! that's the third!” said General d'Auvergne, shaking me by the shoulder; “there again! Don't you hear the guns?”
I listened, and could just distinguish the faint booming sound of far-off artillery coming up from the extreme right of our position. It was still but three o'clock, and although the sky was thick with stars, perfectly dark in the valley. Meanwhile we could bear the galloping of cavalry quite distinctly in the same direction.
“Mount, Burke, and back to the quartier-général! But you need not; here comes some of the staff.”
“So, D'Auvergne,” cried a voice whose tones were strange to me, “they meditate a night attack, it would seem; or is it only trying the range of their guns?”
“I think the latter, Monsieur le Maréchal, for I heard no small arms; and, even now, all is quiet again.”
“I believe you are right,” said he, moving slowly forward, while a number of officers followed at a little distance. “You see, D'Auvergne, how correctly the Emperor judged their intentions. The brunt of the battle will be about Reygern. But there! don't you hear bugles in the valley?”
As he spoke, the music of our tirailleurs' bugles arose from the glen in front of our centre, where, in a thick beech-wood, the light infantry regiments were posted.
“What is it, D'Esterre?” said he to an officer who galloped up at the moment.
“They say the Russian Guard, sir, is moving to the front; our skirmishers have orders to fall back without firing.”