“And the senior lieutenant?”

“This gentleman here, who arrived yesterday,” said the sergeant, in a perfectly calm tone.

The colonel smiled bitterly.

“Come, sir,” he said to me, “you are now in chief command; promptly fortify the entrance of the redoubt with these wagons, for the enemy is in force; but General C—— will see that you are sustained.”

“Colonel,” I said to him, “you are severely wounded?”

“Pish, my dear fellow, but the redoubt is taken!”

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Latin: not twice in the same (place).

[13] In rank.

PIERRE LOTI, COLORIST