Her sobs were again suffocating her, but the haunting memory of her adventure soon brought her back to her narrative, and she related what the woman of Beaumont had told her. This woman, who lived in the main street of the village, had seen the German artillery pass after nightfall. On either side of the way stood a line of soldiers carrying torches of resin, which illumined the road with the ruddy glare of a conflagration. And in the middle a stream of horses, guns, and caissons swept past, urged on at a furious, hellish gallop. Frenzied and diabolical were the haste and eagerness to achieve victory, to pursue, overtake, finish off, and crush the French troops in the depths of some pit near by. Nothing was spared, every obstacle was annihilated, and still and ever the artillery swept past. If horses fell, their traces were immediately cut, and they were crushed, rolled on, thrust aside like bloody wreckage. The men who tried to cross were in their turn knocked down and hashed to mincemeat by the cannon wheels. And, as the hurricane swept along, the famished drivers did not for a moment think of halting, but deftly caught the loaves of bread that were flung to them, and seized hold of the hunks of meat which some of the torchbearers had stuck upon the tips of their bayonets. And then with these same bayonets the torchbearers prodded the horses, which reared and plunged, and, maddened by pain, galloped faster and faster away. And thus, as the night went by, still and ever the artillery rushed along with tempestuous violence, in the midst of frantic hurrahs.
Despite the attention he had been giving to Silvine's narrative, Maurice, overcome with fatigue after his gluttonous repast, had just let his head fall upon the table, on which he was resting both arms. For another minute Jean continued struggling, then he, in his turn, was vanquished and fell asleep at the other end of the table. Meantime, old Fouchard had gone down the road again, and thus Honoré found himself alone with Silvine, who was now sitting, quite still, in front of the open window.
The quartermaster rose up and approached the window in his turn. The night was still dense and black, laden with the hard breathing of thousands of troops. Louder, more sonorous sounds, were now rising, however--now a cracking noise, then the thud of a collision. At present some artillery was crossing the half-submerged bridge down below. Horses reared, frightened by the dancing, flowing water. Caissons slipped, and as they could not be righted, had to be thrown into the stream. And at sight of the retreat which was being so painfully, so slowly effected across the river--this retreat, which had begun the previous day, and would certainly not be accomplished by dawn--the young man instinctively thought of that other artillery--the artillery of the foe--rushing like a wild torrent through Beaumont, overthrowing all before it, and crushing both man and beast so that it might travel the faster.