At the spot where this lamentable disaster occurred, all was now silence. The hollow way was filled with an inextricable pile of horses and their riders. There was no slope now, for the corpses levelled the road with the plain, and came up flush to the top, like a fairly measured bushel of barley. A pile of dead atop, a stream of blood at bottom,--such was the road on the night of June 18, 1815. The blood ran as far as the Nivelles road, and extravasated there in a wide pool, in front of the barricade, at a spot which is still pointed out. It will be remembered that the destruction of the cuirassiers took place at the opposite point, near the Genappe road. The depth of the corpses was proportionate to that of the hollow way; toward the middle, at the spot where Delord's division passed, the layer of dead was thinner.
The nocturnal prowler, at whom we have allowed the reader a glance, proceeded in that direction, searching this immense tomb. He looked around and held a hideous review of the dead; he walked with his feet in the blood. All at once he stopped. A few paces before him in the hollow way, at the point where the pile of dead ended, an open hand, illumined by the moon, emerged from a heap of men and horses. This hand had on one finger something that glittered, and was a gold ring. The man bent down, and when he rose again there was no longer a ring on this finger. He did not exactly rise; he remained in a savage and shy attitude, turning his back to the pile of dead, investigating the horizon, supporting himself on his two forefingers, and his head spying over the edge of the hollow way. The four paws of the jackal are suited for certain actions. Then, making up his mind, he rose, but at the same moment he started, for he felt that some one was holding him behind. He turned and found that it was the open hand, which had closed and seized the skirt of his coat. An honest man would have been frightened, but this one began laughing.
"Hilloh!" he said, "it is only the dead man. I prefer a ghost to a gendarme."
The hand, however, soon relaxed its hold, for efforts are quickly exhausted in the tomb.
"Can this dead man be alive?" the marauder continued; "let me have a look."