She babbled on, taking a lantern from the shelf of the tottering stables and groping for matches there. In its way, the dreadful day had been welcome to her as the changing event of an unchanging life. She had a terrible fear of the woods, and she held her mistress’s hand when they began to go down towards the village, and the darkness of the thickets closed about their path. What sights that forest cloaked! A cry escaped her lips when the lantern showed her a Bavarian trooper sitting with his back against a tree, but quite dead in spite of the ghastly laugh about his lips. The bodies were everywhere. She saw in fancy the spirits of the dead hovering above the place of battle. The moan of a wounded chasseur, who crawled upon his hands and knees towards them, was a wail as of some evil thing hidden in the brake. She had no pity for the man. She craved for light—the lights of a city, the voices of men.
Beatrix passed through the woods unconscious of their secrets. She went on with eyes half closed and lips compressed. Edmond was waiting for her in the vineyards where the dead lay. She did not see the terrible figures of the brake, the dying, or those that followed, ghoul-like, the path of the destroyer. Once, indeed, a man with bloody hands and the eyes of a hawk sprang up from the path before her and disappeared into the undergrowth, believing that men and not women came to watch him. The face of the man made her heart stand still. She stepped back as one who had seen a figure from the very pit of hell. Guillaumette had fallen upon her knees to sob an hysterical prayer.
“Sainte Vierge—what sights! Oh, God help us, Madame. Did you see the man? Did you see his face? There was blood upon it. I cannot go on. You will not leave me alone here—Jesus help me—I cannot go.”
Beatrix took her hand and dragged her up.
“Come,” she said, “Monsieur is waiting for us in the vineyards. Who will harm two women? Do you not hear the soldiers, Guillaumette?”
A strange sound, the echo of guttural voices raised in merriment, came to them from the copse below. Men were singing a weird song of victory; lights danced in the interstices of the trees—cheering was heard, and the excited exclamations of the masqueraders. It would be the Prussians rejoicing by some bivouac fire, Beatrix thought. They would respect her errand. Even the trembling Guillaumette took heart when she knew that there were soldiers there.
“The vilains Prusses, Madame—hark to them,” she cried, forgetting her tears in a moment, “they have the voices of pigs, Madame. And they will give us supper, perhaps. Ah, if there should be supper there—”
She stumbled on, and at the turn of the road they beheld the bivouac and the watch-fire burning brightly. A regiment of Uhlans made merry there; and never did troopers wear a uniform so strange. For these were the hussars who had broken open the baggage of the great MacMahon himself—strange baggage for a man and for those who followed the man. Dainty corsets were there, and hose of silk, and gowns which famous costumiers had made, and little white shoes of satin and bows of many hues, and even bonnets with gay feathers in them. The Uhlans, half drunk with the excitement of victory, greeted the treasures hilariously. Some of them had put on the cap of “Madame”; some wore the rustling skirts spangled with fine embroidery; some capered in the hats which had been the glory of the Bois. Ribald shouts greeted their pantomime. Officers looked on and spoke no word of rebuke. Bottles were raised to the absent owners. A very saturnalia heralded the night of victory.
Guillaumette was all for seeking help of the Germans. They were merry fellows, as their antics showed. She had seen no such spectacle since the marionettes were at Wörth a year ago.