He put it from him and felt his way over a pile of rocks that rose up suddenly sheer and sharp.
Nothing could be done till the dawn; it was doubtful even if he could find his way back to his own regiment. He seated himself on the rock, wrapped his cloak tightly about him, and waited.
He thought that he must be in some kind of shelter, for he did not feel the wind, and here the cold was certainly less severe.
His sombre mood did not long endure; he ceased to see the darkness filled with weary, dispirited, wounded men; rather he fancied it full of light and even flowers, which were the thoughts, he fancied, and aspirations of these poor tired soldiers.
Obedience, courage, endurance, strength blossomed rich as red roses in the hearts of the feeblest of these sons of France—and in the bosom of such as Georges d’Espagnac bloomed a very glory, as of white passion flowers at midsummer and in his own heart there grew enough to render the bloodstained night fragrant.
He smiled at his conceit, but it was very real to him. He had not eaten since early the previous day; he wondered if he was beginning to grow light-headed, as he had done once before in Italy when he had been without food and several hours in the sun.
The reflection brought back a sudden picture of Italy, hard, brightly-coloured, gorgeous, brilliant; he shivered with a great longing for that purple sunshine that scorched the flesh and ran in the blood.
In particular he recalled a field of wheat sloping to a sea which was like a rough blue stone for colour, and huge-leaved chestnut trees of an intense reddish green that cast a bronze shadow growing near, and the loud humming of grasshoppers persistently—no, he thought, that did not come in the wheat, but in the short dried grass, burnt gold as new clay by the sun; the sun—that sun he had scarcely seen since he left Paris.
A shuddering drowsiness overcame him; his head fell on his bosom, and he sank to sleep.
When he woke it was with a sense of physical pain and the sensation that light was falling about him in great flakes; his clearing senses told him that this was the dawn, and that he was giddy. He sat up, to find himself in a natural alcove of rock overgrown with a grey dry moss frozen and glittering; a jutting point partially shut off his vision, but he could see enough of dead men and horses and painfully moving troops in the strip of ravine immediately below him. He unfolded his cloak from his stiff limbs, and by the aid of his sword rose to his feet. As he did so, he raised his eyes, and then gave an involuntary cry of wonder and pleasure.