“Forward, then!... You can’t have the omelette without breaking eggs.” And the grenadier of the Garde urged on the horses over the prostrate bodies, and upset the bivouacs; the blood-stained wheels ploughing that field of faces left a double furrow of dead. But in justice it should be said that he never ceased to thunder out his warning cry, “Carrion! look out!”
“Poor wretches!” exclaimed the major.
“Bah! That way, or the cold, or the cannon!” said the grenadier, goading on the horses with the point of his sword.
Then came the catastrophe, which must have happened sooner but for miraculous good fortune; the carriage was overturned, and all further progress was stopped at once.
“I expected as much!” exclaimed the imperturbable grenadier. “Oho! he is dead!” he added, looking at his comrade.
“Poor Laurent!” said the major.
“Laurent! Wasn’t he in the Fifth Chasseurs?”
“Yes.”
“My own cousin.—Pshaw! this beastly life is not so pleasant that one need be sorry for him as things go.”
But all this time the carriage lay overturned, and the horses were only released after great and irreparable loss of time. The shock had been so violent that the Countess had been awakened by it, and the subsequent commotion aroused her from her stupor. She shook off the rugs and rose.