“Heaven sends him,” said she. “My friend, tell me, were you—ah!”
Colonel Raynal interfered hastily. “Think what you do. He can tell you nothing but what we know, not so much, in fact, as we know; for, now I look at him, I think this is the very sergeant we found lying insensible under the bastion. He must have been struck before the bastion was taken even.”
“I was, colonel, I was. I remember nothing but losing my senses, and feeling the colors go out of my hand.”
“There, you see, he knows nothing,” said Raynal.
“It was hot work, colonel, under that bastion, but it was hotter to the poor fellows that got in. I heard all about it from Private Dard here.”
“So, then, it was you who carried the colors?”
“Yes, I was struck down with the colors of the brigade in my hand,” cried La Croix.
“See how people blunder about, everything; they told me the colonel carried the colors.”
“Why, of course he did. You don’t think our colonel, the fighting colonel, would let me hold the colors of the brigade so long as he was alive. No; he was struck by a Prussian bullet, and he had just time to hand the colors to me, and point with his sword to the bastion, and down he went. It was hot work, I can tell you. I did not hold them long, not thirty seconds, and if we could know their history, they passed through more hands than that before they got to the Prussian flag-staff.”
Raynal suddenly rose, and walked rapidly to and fro, with his hands behind him.