"Listen to me, mon gars," he said. "If ever I give the word for a sauve qui peut, for disbandment, in short, remember it is because I am convinced that each man, separately, has a better chance for his life than with the rest. If you gained the mainland, it would be difficult to distinguish any of you from the inhabitants there, to prove, indeed, that you had ever been in Quiberon at all."
Grain d'Orge's little eyes twinkled. "That is very true, Monsieur Augustin. I will remember."
And La Vireville, as he bent down to hear what the surgeon thought of Le Goffic, had a conviction that the wise woman had not been wrong about Grain d'Orge, who, of incorruptible fidelity though he was, had too much innate cunning not to succeed in saving his own skin.
"I think he will do," said the surgeon, and gave directions. "The rest—ah, but what have you there yourself, Monsieur? We will have your coat off at once, if you please!"
"I am not made of porcelain," protested La Vireville. "I know what it is—a flesh wound merely. I want my men all seen to first."
But to this the surgeon only responded by starting to slit up the stained sleeve himself.
(2)
Shortly afterwards, when his wound had been probed and dressed, and he found himself set, by the surgeon's orders, to sit a little beside Le Goffic, La Vireville had time to think—or rather, the scenes and sensations with which his brain was spinning began to unroll themselves before him again.
And first, he was marching with his men over the sand and coarse grass up towards Ste. Barbe. It was one o'clock in the morning, and very dark. Six hundred Chouans they were altogether, with the other bodies of the same composition, and, as d'Hervilly had told him it would be, they were on the extreme right of the émigré regiments. The régiment d'Hector—the régiment de la Marine—was next them, on their left.
The sand, fine and white, muffled their footfalls, light, in any case, as became those of intermittent poachers. Just behind La Vireville was St. Four, who never spoke, in his British uniform. But La Vireville had not thought of him; his brain had been busy with what they were doing, or hoping to do.