“Yes, Colonel.”
“Ah! bad news, my friend, terrible news! MacMahon beaten at Froeschwiller, Frossard beaten at Spickeren, and between them de Failly, held in check where he could give no assistance. At Froeschwiller it was a single corps against an entire army; they fought like heroes. It was a complete rout, a panic, and now France lies open to their advance—”
His tears choked further utterance, the words came from his lips unintelligible, and the three shadows vanished, swallowed up in the obscurity.
Maurice rose to his feet; a shudder ran through his frame.
“Good God!” he stammeringly exclaimed.
And he could think of nothing else to say, while Jean, in whose bones the very marrow seemed to be congealing, murmured in his resigned manner:
“Ah, worse luck! The gentleman, that relative of yours, was right all the same in saying that they are stronger than we.”
Maurice was beside himself, could have strangled him. The Prussians stronger than the French! The thought made his blood boil. The peasant calmly and stubbornly added:
“That don’t matter, mind you. A man don’t give up whipped at the first knock-down he gets. We shall have to keep hammering away at them all the same.”
But a tall figure arose before them. They recognized Rochas, still wrapped in his long mantle, whom the fugitive sounds about him, or it may have been the intuition of disaster, had awakened from his uneasy slumber. He questioned them, insisted on knowing all. When he was finally brought, with much difficulty, to see how matters stood, stupor, immense and profound, filled his boyish, inexpressive eyes. More than ten times in succession he repeated: