"I turned to Marchas: 'Open the window for a minute.' He did so, the cold outer air as it came in, made the candles flare, and the smoke from the goose, which the _Curé_ was scientifically carving, with a table napkin round his neck, whirl about. We watched him doing it, without speaking now, for we were interested in his attractive handiwork, and seized with renewed appetite at the sight of that enormous golden-colored bird, whose limbs fell one after another into the brown gravy at the bottom of the dish. And at that moment, in the midst of that greedy silence which kept us all attentive, the distant report of a shot came in at the open window.
"I started to my feet so quickly, that my chair fell down behind me, and I shouted: 'Mount, all of you! You, Marchas, will take two men and go and see what it is. I shall expect you back here in five minutes.' And while the three riders went off at full gallop through the night, I got into the saddle with my three remaining hussars, in front of the steps of the villa, while the _Curé_, the Sister and the three old women showed their frightened faces at the window.
"We heard nothing more, except the barking of a dog in the distance. The rain had ceased, and it was cold, very cold, and soon I heard the gallop of a horse, of a single horse, coming back. It was Marchas, and I called out to him: 'Well?' 'It is nothing; François has wounded an old peasant who refused to answer his challenge: "Who goes there?" and who continued to advance, in spite of the order to keep off; but they are bringing him here, and we shall see what is the matter.'
"I gave orders for the horses to be put back into the stable, and I sent my two soldiers to meet the others, and returned to the house. Then the _Curé_, Marchas and I took a mattress into the room to put the wounded man on; the Sister tore up a table napkin, in order to make lint, while the three frightened women remained huddled up in a corner.
"Soon I heard the rattle of sabres on the road, and I took a candle to show a light to the men who were returning; and they soon appeared, carrying that inert, soft, long and sinister object which a human body becomes when life no longer sustains it.
"They put the wounded man on the mattress that had been prepared for him, and I saw at the first glance that he was dying. He had the death rattle and was spitting up blood, which ran out of the corners of his mouth, forced out of his mouth by his gasps. The man was covered with it! His cheeks, his beard, his hair, his neck and his clothes seemed to have been rubbed, to have been dipped in a red tub; and that blood stuck to him, and had become a dull color, which was horrible to look at.