“Now, then, get off your horse, boy,” cried the cantinière, “shake him by the hand, and see if he’ll shake yours back.”
At once, though sick almost to death with horror, Fabrizio threw himself from his horse, seized the dead hand and shook it well. Then he stood in a sort of dream; he felt he had not strength to get back upon his horse; the dead man’s open eye, especially, filled him with horror.
“This woman will take me for a coward,” thought he to himself bitterly. Yet he felt that he could not stir; he would certainly have fallen. It was a terrible moment. Fabrizio was just going to faint dead away. The cantinière saw it, jumped smartly out of her little cart, and without a word proffered him a glass of brandy, which he swallowed at a gulp. After that he was able to remount, and rode along without opening his lips. Every now and then the woman looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
“You shall fight to-morrow, my boy,” she said at last. “To-day you shall stay with me. You see now that you must learn your soldier’s trade.”
“Not at all. I want to fight now, at once,” cried our hero, and his look was so fierce that the cantinière augured well from it. The artillery fire grew heavier, and seemed to draw nearer. The reports began to form a sort of continuous bass, there was no interval between them, and above this deep note, which was like the noise of a distant torrent, the musketry volleys rang out distinctly.
Just at this moment the road turned into a grove of trees. The cantinière noticed two or three French soldiers running toward her as hard as their legs would carry them. She sprang nimbly from her cart, and ran to hide herself some fifteen or twenty paces from the road. There she concealed herself in the hole left by the uprooting of a great tree. “Now,” said Fabrizio to himself, “I shall find out whether I am a coward.” He halted beside the forsaken cart and drew his sword. The soldiers paid no attention to him, but ran along the wood on the left side of the road.
“Those are some of our men,” said the cantinière coolly, as she came back panting to her little cart. “If your mare had a canter in her I would tell you to ride to the end of the wood, and see if there is any one on the plain beyond.” Fabrizio needed no second bidding. He tore a branch from a poplar tree, stripped off the leaves, and belaboured his mount soundly. For a moment the brute broke into a canter, but it soon went back to its usual jog-trot. The cantinière had forced her pony into a gallop. “Stop! stop! I say!” she shouted to Fabrizio. Soon they both emerged from the wood. When they reached the edge of the plain they heard a most tremendous noise. Heavy guns and musketry volleys thundered on every hand—right, left, and behind them—and as the grove from which they had just emerged crowned a hillock some eight or ten feet higher than the plain, they had a fair view of a corner of the battle-field. But the meadow just beyond the wood was empty. It was bounded, about a thousand paces from where they stood, by a long row of very bushy willow trees. Beyond these hung a cloud of white smoke, which now and then eddied up toward the sky.
“If I only knew where the regiment was!” said the woman, looking puzzled. “We can’t go straight across that big meadow. By the way, young fellow,” she said to Fabrizio, “if you see one of the enemy, stick him with the point of your sword; don’t amuse yourself by trying to cut him down.”
Just at that moment she caught sight of the four soldiers of whom we have already spoken. They were coming out of the wood on to the plain to the left of the road. One of them was on horseback.
“Here’s what you want,” said she to Fabrizio. Then, shouting to the mounted man, “Halloo, you! Why don’t you come and drink a glass of brandy?” The soldiers drew nearer.