And 'twas true; she picked herself up, and henceforth walked on among the bullets with the indifference of one detached from herself, who has ceased to reason and gives her life. And she no longer even sought to protect herself, but went straight before her with her head erect, hastening her steps only because of her desire to reach her destination. The projectiles were falling and flattening around her, and she narrowly missed being killed a score of times without apparently being aware of it. Her lightsome haste, her silent feminine activeness seemed to assist her as it were, to render her so slight and so agile amid the peril that she escaped it. At last she had arrived at Bazeilles, and she at once cut across a field of lucern to reach the high road which passes through the village. Just as she was turning into it, on her right hand, a couple of hundred paces away, she recognised her house, which was burning, the flames not showing in the brilliant sunlight, but the roof already half fallen in, and the windows vomiting big whirling coils of black smoke. Then a gallop carried her along; she ran breathlessly.
At eight o'clock, Weiss had found himself shut up there, separated from the retreating troops. Immediately afterwards it had become impossible for him to return to Sedan, for the Bavarians, streaming forth from the park of Montivilliers, intercepted the road. He was alone, with his gun and his remaining cartridges, when he suddenly espied at his door a small detachment of soldiers, who, parted from their comrades, had remained behind like himself, and were seeking some place of shelter where they might, at any rate, sell their lives dearly. He hastily went down to open the door, and the house henceforth had a garrison: a captain, a corporal, and eight men, all of them beside themselves, quite maddened, and resolved upon no surrender.
'What! are you one of us, Laurent?' exclaimed Weiss, surprised to see among the soldiers a young man in blue linen trousers and jacket, who carried a chassepot which he had picked up beside some corpse.
Laurent, a tall, thin fellow, thirty years of age, was a journeyman gardener of the neighbourhood. He had lately lost his mother and his wife, both carried away by the same malignant fever. 'Why shouldn't I be one of you?' he answered. 'I've only my carcase left, and I can very well give it. Besides, it amuses me, you know, for I'm not a bad shot, and it would be good sport to bring down one of those brutes each time I fire.'