Brocard and I immediately set out for Batea. It was yet early morning, and the road was almost deserted. We could not perceive in the direction of Casserras a single trace that might remind us of the recent passage of a body of armed men. It seemed scarcely probable that the guerillas would dare return toward Batea, which was at furthest a league to the north-west.
On the road I confided to my comrade the cruel mission with which we were charged, and as I had never seen a military execution, and had never expected to see so horrible a one as this, the slaying of every tenth man in my own company, the conversation ran on the best mode of conducting the business in which we were engaged so as to gain time, as the colonel had recommended.
"Oh!" said Brocard, "I was 'decimated' my self once. It was in Portugal, under Junot, for a trick our battalion played the commandant—a lion under fire, but an ill-natured dog. We gave him a free bath in the Tagus. I was then only a corporal. They commenced by surrounding and disarming the mutineers; then, if any officers were found in the number, their names were proclaimed aloud, or they were degraded. Then the ranks were broken, and we were aligned in single file, each man taking his place according to chance. A sergeant, drawn by lot and blindfolded, then approached the line, and, starting from the first man he chanced to touch, without including him, counted off ten, twenty, thirty, until he reached the end of the line, when he continued in the other direction, commencing again with the man he first touched, and if that poor fellow happened to be the tenth, or twentieth, or thirtieth, psit! his doom was clear."
"Great heavens!" thought I, "how terribly cool he takes it!"
"While the counting went on," continued my imperturbable sous-officier, "a roll of the drum accompanied each tenth man as he stepped out; he was led to the edge of the trench dug for his grave; a sufficient amount of lead lodged in his head or breast, and his affair was ended. You see that much time is not lost, and the business even becomes amusing sometimes; for every man's pride is up, and he chats, jokes, laughs, appoints a rendezvous under ground a year, a month, or perhaps only a day off; and all the while the regimental band regales you with the merriest symphonies, the most alluring marches!"
"You would not make a mockery of death!" cried I, interrupting him.
"Mockery!" he returned. "Diable! we won't have much chance to do so here. We haven't yet even disarmed our friends, captain. San-Polo evidently honors us both with his particular esteem, to send us two alone to decimate more than eighty jokers, each of whom carries ten rounds of ammunition to answer our polite proposition with."
"Nevertheless, the enterprise amuses you a little, does it not?"
"Humph! whether a man leaves his skin here or elsewhere, what matters it? although it is disagreeable to be sent out of the world by your old comrades, your friends at the bivouac, fellows whose elbows you are accustomed to feel in the ranks. But, after all, those fellows haven't treated us right; that is a consolation."