"Down with the murderer!" the captain shouted, urging his men by voice and gestures to seize the villain.
The Frenchmen, rendered furious by this pursuit, began firing on Cucharés as on a wild beast. For a long time he was seen galloping his horse in every direction, and seeking in vain to quit the circle in which the troopers had inclosed him. At length he tottered in his saddle, tried to hold on by his horse's mane, and rolled in the sand, uttering a parting yell of fury. He was dead!
This event caused extreme excitement among the soldiers: from this moment they felt that they were betrayed, and began to see their position as it really was--that is to say, desperate. In vain did the captain try to restore them a little courage; they would listen to nothing, but yielded to that despair which disorganises and paralyses everything. The count gave the order for departure, and they set out.
But whither should they go? In what direction turn? No trace was visible. Still they marched on, rather to change their place than in the hope of emerging from the sepulchre of sand in which they believed themselves eternally buried. Eight days passed away--eight centuries---during which the adventurers endured the most frightful tortures of thirst and hunger. The troop no longer existed; there were neither chiefs nor soldiers; it was a legion of hideous phantoms, a flock of wild beasts ready to devour each other on the first opportunity.
They had been reduced to splitting the ears of the horses and mules in order to drink the blood.
Wandering now on this side, now on that, deceived by the mirage, dazzled by the burning sunbeams, they were a prey to a hideous despair. Some laughed with a silly air; and these were the happiest, for they no longer felt their sufferings: they were mad. Others brandished their weapons furiously, raising their fists, with menaces and curses to heaven, which, like an immense plate of red-hot iron, seemed the implacable dome of their sandy tomb. Some, rendered raging by suffering, blew out their brains, while mocking their comrades who were too weak-minded to follow their example.
The French are, perhaps, the bravest nation in existence; but, on the other hand, the easiest to demoralise. If their impulse is irresistible in the onward march; it is the same when they give way. Nothing will stop them--neither reasoning nor coercive measures. Extreme in everything, the Frenchman is more than a man, or less than a child.