When for the third time the men were called upon to charge and responded with invincible heroism, Prosper found that his companions were principally hussars and chasseurs de France. Regiments and squadrons, as organizations, had ceased to exist; their constituent elements were drops in the mighty wave that alternately broke and reared its crest again, to swallow up all that lay in its destructive path. He had long since lost distinct consciousness of what was going on around him, and suffered his movements to be guided by his mount, faithful Zephyr, who had received a wound in the ear that seemed to madden him. He was now in the center, where all about him horses were rearing, pawing the air, and falling backward; men were dismounted as if torn from their saddle by the blast of a tornado, while others, shot through some vital part, retained their seat and rode onward in the ranks with vacant, sightless eyes. And looking back over the additional two hundred yards that this effort had won for them, they could see the field of yellow stubble strewn thick with dead and dying. Some there were who had fallen headlong from their saddle and buried their face in the soft earth. Others had alighted on their back and were staring up into the sun with terror-stricken eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets. There was a handsome black horse, an officer's charger, that had been disemboweled, and was making frantic efforts to rise, his fore feet entangled in his entrails. Beneath the fire, that became constantly more murderous as they drew nearer, the survivors in the wings wheeled their horses and fell back to concentrate their strength for a fresh onset.
Finally it was the fourth squadron, which, on the fourth attempt, reached the Prussian lines. Prosper made play with his saber, hacking away at helmets and dark uniforms as well as he could distinguish them, for all was dim before him, as in a dense mist. Blood flowed in torrents; Zephyr's mouth was smeared with it, and to account for it he said to himself that the good horse must have been using his teeth on the Prussians. The clamor around him became so great that he could not hear his own voice, although his throat seemed splitting from the yells that issued from it. But behind the first Prussian line there was another, and then another, and then another still. Their gallant efforts went for nothing; those dense masses of men were like a tangled jungle that closed around the horses and riders who entered it and buried them in its rank growths. They might hew down those who were within reach of their sabers; others stood ready to take their place, the last squadrons were lost and swallowed up in their vast numbers. The firing, at point-blank range, was so furious that the men's clothing was ignited. Nothing could stand before it, all went down; and the work that it left unfinished was completed by bayonet and musket butt. Of the brave men who rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield, and the sole end achieved by that mad charge was to add another glorious page to history. And then Zephyr, struck by a musket-ball full in the chest, dropped in a heap, crushing beneath him Prosper's right thigh; and the pain was so acute that the young man fainted.
Maurice and Jean, who had watched the gallant effort with burning interest, uttered an exclamation of rage.
"Tonnerre de Dieu! what bravery wasted!"
And they resumed their firing from among the trees of the low hill where they were deployed in skirmishing order. Rochas himself had picked up an abandoned musket and was blazing away with the rest. But the plateau of Illy was lost to them by this time beyond hope of recovery; the Prussians were pouring in upon it from every quarter. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of two o'clock, and their great movement was accomplished; the Vth corps and the Guards had effected their junction, the investment of the French army was complete.
Jean was suddenly brought to the ground.
"I am done for," he murmured.
He had received what seemed to him like a smart blow of a hammer on the crown of his head, and his kepi lay behind him with a great furrow plowed through its top. At first he thought that the bullet had certainly penetrated the skull and laid bare the brain; his dread of finding a yawning orifice there was so great that for some seconds he dared not raise his hand to ascertain the truth. When finally he ventured, his fingers, on withdrawing them, were red with an abundant flow of blood, and the pain was so intense that he fainted.
Just then Rochas gave the order to fall back. The Prussians had crept up on them and were only two or three hundred yards away; they were in danger of being captured.
"Be cool, don't hurry; face about and give 'em another shot. Rally behind that low wall that you see down there."
Maurice was in despair; he knew not what to do.
"We are not going to leave our corporal behind, are we, lieutenant?"
"What are we to do? he has turned up his toes."
"No, no! he is breathing still. Take him along!"
Rochas shrugged his shoulders as if to say they could not bother themselves for every man that dropped. A wounded man is esteemed of little value on the battlefield. Then Maurice addressed his supplications to Lapoulle and Pache.
"Come, give me a helping hand. I am not strong enough to carry him unassisted."
They were deaf to his entreaties; all they could hear was the voice that urged them to seek safety for themselves. The Prussians were now not more than a hundred yards from them; already they were on their hands and knees, crawling as fast as they could go toward the wall.
And Maurice, weeping tears of rage, thus left alone with his unconscious companion, raised him in his arms and endeavored to lug him away, but he found his puny strength unequal to the task, exhausted as he was by fatigue and the emotions of the day. At the first step he took he reeled and fell with his burden. If only he could catch sight of a stretcher-bearer! He strained his eyes, thought he had discovered one among the crowd of fugitives, and made frantic gestures of appeal; no one came, they were left behind, alone. Summoning up his strength with a determined effort of the will he seized Jean once more and succeeded in advancing some thirty paces, when a shell burst near them and he thought that all was ended, that he, too, was to die on the body of his comrade.
Slowly, cautiously, Maurice picked himself up. He felt his body, arms, and legs; nothing, not a scratch. Why should he not look out for himself and fly, alone? There was time left still; a few bounds would take him to the wall and he would be saved. His horrible sensation of fear returned and made him frantic. He was collecting his energies to break away and run, when a feeling stronger than death intervened and vanquished the base impulse. What, abandon Jean! he could not do it. It would be like mutilating his own being; the brotherly affection that had bourgeoned and grown between him and that rustic had struck its roots down into his life, too deep to be slain like that. The feeling went back to the earliest days, was perhaps as old as the world itself; it was as if there were but they two upon earth, of whom one could not forsake the other without forsaking himself, and being doomed thenceforth to an eternity of solitude. Molded of the same clay, quickened by the same spirit, duty imperiously commanded to save himself in saving his brother.