We cast a look at the field-grey backs which rode away on big horses. English? it may be!
"But at what did they fire?"
"It was a signal."
"No, they have shot carrier-pigeons."
"You are mistaken, they have arrested a spy."
In fact they had taken away a French soldier, bareheaded, who looked about him with a profoundly ironical air.
"Oh," murmured the crowd, "it was easy to see he was a spy; he seemed to laugh at us."
He was laughing at you! I am sure he was, the poor man! English soldiers! English soldiers! Oh, you blind of one, of two eyes, threefold idiots, how foolish you have been! They were twelve in number, and the village was armed, and the men were there, and Prussians in flesh and bone, as quiet as can be, took the high road to Laon!
We, quiet too, came back home. There now! We had had our warning! Our hearts were still throbbing violently, but all the same we plucked up courage again.
"The English keep watch and ward!"