"What in the devil's name have you there?" he exclaimed, pointing towards me, whose face he could not very well see.
"Only a wounded officer," replied Suzette.
"And what business has a wounded officer on your wagon?" cried he, sharply; "but get up, get up, and lose no time;" and riding on to the wagons which had preceded us, and which had likewise halted, he apparently gave more particular orders, and then galloped back, calling to Suzette as he passed to make the best of her way to Marou, and wait his coming there.
As I had never heard of Marou in my life, I was of course at a loss to know in what direction I was about to be borne; but, to tell the truth, in the state of feebleness and pain in which I then was, I cared so little what became of me, that I did not give the matter a second thought. The wagon rolled on; but at a little village, about five miles farther on, we were obliged to pause till fresh horses could be procured; and as this was not to be done without compulsion, a good deal of time was lost, while, lying on the top of the packages with which the vehicle was loaded, wounded, exhausted, and feverish, I suffered more than it is possible to describe. It luckily happened that the sky was dull and cloudy; for had it been one of those hot oppressive days which are sometimes met with in April, I do not think I should have been alive at night. Suzette, however, was kinder than I imagined she could have been: brought me drink several times to assuage the burning thirst that now consumed me, assured me that before night I should have a surgeon to dress my wounds, and did all in her power to keep up my spirits and to soothe my pain. A change had apparently taken place in her feelings since last I had beheld her, and a change had also taken place in her appearance, for I saw--and remembered afterwards, though it made but little impression on my mind at the time--that her dress was very different from that in which she had appeared in Bordeaux; and, indeed, the only mode of conveyance which was assigned to her would have rendered any other apparel than that of the simplest kind both ridiculous and cumbersome.
Through the whole of that day we travelled on, accompanied, as it appeared to me, by a small party of horse; but, nevertheless, Gaspard de Belleville did not again make his appearance, and towards night we halted at a village near Joigny. Here a surgeon was procured for me, who, though none of the best, contrived to extract the ball out of my side, after putting me to terrible torture for nearly half an hour. The relief, however, that I experienced was immediate; and the wound being properly dressed, I fell sound asleep, even before I was removed from the table on which the operation had been performed. The next morning early I found Suzette again by the side of the straw-bed on which I was stretched; and by this time I had recovered sufficient strength to ask her what had become of Father Ferdinand and Mademoiselle de Villardin, when the château of Virmont had been burned. She replied, that she could not tell, as she had not come up till afterwards; and she added, at the same time, an injunction not to trouble myself about other people, but to keep as quiet as circumstances would permit, out of consideration for myself.