"Kiss Catharine for me—promise! Tell her that I died thinking of her, and bear her my last farewell!"
"Yes, yes!" he sobbed. "My poor Joseph!"
I could cling to him no longer. He placed me on the ground, and ran away without turning his head. The column departed, and I gazed at it as one who sees his last hope fading from his eyes. The last of the battalion disappeared over the ridge of a hill. I closed my eyes. An hour passed, or perhaps a longer time, when the boom of cannon startled me, and I saw a division of the guard pass at a quick step with artillery and wagons. Seeing some sick in the wagons, I cried, wistfully:
"Take me! Take me!"
But no one listened; still they kept on, while the thunder of artillery grew louder and louder. More than ten thousand men, cavalry and infantry, passed me, but I had no longer strength to call out to them.
At last the long line ended; I saw knapsacks and shakos disappear behind the hill, and I lay down to sleep forever, when once more I was aroused by the rolling of five or six pieces of artillery along the road. The cannoneers sat sabre in hand, and behind came the caissons. I hoped no more from these than from the others, when suddenly I perceived a tall, lean, red-bearded veteran mounted beside one of the pieces, and bearing the cross upon his breast. It was my old friend Zimmer, my old comrade of Leipzig. He was passing without seeing me, when I cried, with all the strength that remained to me:
"Christian! Christian!"
He heard me in spite of the noise of the guns; stopped, and turned round.
"Christian!" I cried, "take pity on me!"
He saw me lying at the foot of a tree, and came to me with a pale face and staring eyes: