'Ah! here's the corporal!' exclaimed Chouteau; 'has he come back from rations?'
There was some little commotion. All day long the men had been rejoining their regiments, some of them quite alone, others in little parties, and amid such a scramble that the officers had even renounced asking for explanations. Indeed, they closed their eyes, only too glad to welcome those who chose to come back. Moreover, Captain Beaudoin had arrived but a short time previously, and it was only at two o'clock that Lieutenant Rochas had reached the camp, having with him merely a third of the men of his disbanded company. The latter, however, was now almost complete again. Some of the men were drunk, whilst others were still famished, not having managed to obtain even a scrap of bread; for there had again been no distribution of rations. Loubet had certainly endeavoured to cook some cabbages, pulled up out of a neighbouring garden, but he had neither salt nor lard to make the vegetables palatable, and the men's stomachs were still groaning with hunger.
'Come, corporal, what have you brought, you who are so artful?' resumed Chouteau, in a bantering way; 'oh! I don't need anything myself; Loubet and I lunched in capital style at a lady's.'
Anxious faces were turned towards Jean, the squad had been waiting for him--especially those unlucky fellows, Lapoulle and Pache--for they had not managed to get a bite, and they had relied on him, in the belief that if need were he could actually extract flour from mill stones. And Jean, moved to pity, filled with remorse at the thought that he had abandoned his men, divided between them the half-loaf which he had placed in his knapsack before leaving Weiss's house. 'Curse it! curse it!' repeated Lapoulle, finding no other words to express the satisfaction with which he devoured the bread; whilst Pache mumbled a _Pater_ and an _Ave_, so as to make sure that Heaven would send him his daily food again on the morrow.
Bugler Gaude had just blown a sonorous blast, the summons to the roll-call. There was no tattoo however; the camp at once sank into deep silence. And when Sergeant Sapin, with the thin, sickly face and the contracted nose, had found that his half-section was complete, he gently remarked: 'Some of them will be missing to-morrow night.' Then, noticing that Jean was looking at him, he added with an air of tranquil certainty, gazing the while into the darkness with dreamy eyes: 'Oh! for my part I shall be killed to-morrow.'