Then, with a wave of the hand, he completed his diagnosis. Another poor devil done for! Again upon his perspiring face appeared that expression of immense fatigue and sadness, that despair summed up in the words: 'Of what use is it?' And, indeed, what did his labour avail since he did not succeed in saving four out of ten? However, he wiped his forehead, and having turned down the flesh of the captain's stump, he began to sew the three sutures.
Gilberte had just turned round, Delaherche having told her that it was finished, and that she could look. However, she caught sight of the captain's foot as the attendant carried it off into the garden. The charnel-place was now becoming more and more crowded; two more corpses were lying there, one with the mouth wide open and black, looking as though it were still howling; the other shrunk by an abominable agony, reduced to the size of a puny, deformed child. The annoyance was that the pile of remnants was now stretching into the path near by. The attendant hesitated for a moment as to where he might fitly deposit the captain's foot, but at last he made up his mind to throw it on the heap.
'Well, it's all finished,' said the major to Beaudoin, who was being roused; 'you're out of danger.'
The captain's, however, was not that gladsome awakening which follows upon successful operations. He slightly raised himself, but fell back stammering in a feeble voice: 'Thanks, major. I would rather it were all over.'
However, he could feel the smart of the spirit dressing. And just as the stretcher was being brought near, so that he might be carried back to his mattress, a terrible detonation shook the entire factory; a shell had burst behind the shed, in the little yard where the pump was. Several window-panes were smashed to pieces, and thick smoke poured into the ambulance. In the drying-room, panic raised the wounded up on their straw pallets, and all cried out in terror, and all were eager to flee.
Delaherche rushed off in distraction to ascertain the extent of the damage. Were they now going to demolish his house, set it on fire? What could be happening? Why did they keep on firing when the Emperor wanted them to stop?
'D——n! bestir yourselves!' shouted Bouroche to his attendants, whom terror rooted to the spot. 'Wash the table; go and fetch me number three!'
The table was washed, and once again the pailfuls of red water were flung across the lawn. The bed of China asters had become a bloody hash—the chopped stalks and flowers were swimming in blood. And now, by way of relaxation, the major, having had number three brought to him, began searching for a bullet which, after shattering the inferior maxilla, must have lodged itself under the tongue. A deal of blood was flowing, and made his fingers quite sticky.
Captain Beaudoin was again lying on his mattress in the drying-room. Gilberte and her mother-in-law had followed the stretcher, and Delaherche himself came to chat for a moment, despite his agitation. 'Keep quiet and rest yourself, captain,' said he; 'we will have a room got ready, you shall stay with us.'
Amid his prostration, however, the captain awoke to a short interval of lucidity. 'No,' said he, 'I really think I am going to die.' And he gazed at the three of them, with dilated eyes full of the fear of death.