Several hours must have elapsed, and the whole black, motionless camp seemed to be annihilated beneath the oppressive weight of that dense, evil night, heavy with something fearful which was as yet without a name. Every now and again there was an upheaval of that sea of darkness, a sudden groan resounded from some invisible tent, the gasp of some soldier in a fitful dream. Then there came noises that were not easily recognised, the snorting of a horse, the clash of a sabre, the hasty footsteps of some belated prowler--all those commonplace sounds which acquire at times a menacing sonority. Suddenly a great glow blazed forth near the canteen. The front was brilliantly illuminated, and the piles of arms could be seen with ruddy reflections streaking the burnished barrels of the guns, as if with trickling runnels of freshly shed blood. The sentinels stood out dark and erect amid this sudden conflagration. Was this the enemy, whose appearance the officers had been predicting for two days past, and to meet whom they had marched expressly from Belfort to Mulhausen? Then, amid a great crackling and sparkling, the flame suddenly went out. After smouldering for hours, the pile of green wood, with which Lapoulle and Loubet had busied themselves so long, had all at once blazed up and burnt away as though it had been so much straw.
Alarmed by the bright glow, Jean in his turn had precipitately bounded out of the tent, and in doing so he narrowly missed stumbling over Maurice, who lay there, looking on, with his head resting upon his elbow. The night had already fallen again, more dense than ever, and the two men remained there stretched on the bare ground, at a few paces from one another. In front of them, in the depths of the gloom, there still shone the window of the farmhouse, illumined by that solitary candle that looked like a funeral taper. What could be the time? Two o'clock, three o'clock perhaps. The staff had certainly not gone to bed. One could hear the brawling voice of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who was quite exasperated by this long vigil, which he had only been able to endure thanks to multitudinous cigars and glasses of grog. Fresh telegrams were arriving, and matters must be getting worse, for the shadowy estafettes could be indistinctly seen galloping hither and thither like men deranged. Stamping and swearing could be heard; then came a stifled gasp like that of a dying man, followed by a fearful silence. Had the end come at last? An icy chill had swept over the camp, weighed down by sleep and anguish.