IV

Piédelot was being burnt alive. He was writhing in the middle of a heap

of fagots, against a stake to which they had fastened him, and the

flames were licking him with their sharp tongues. When he saw us, his

tongue seemed to stick in his throat, he drooped his head, and seemed as

if he were going to die. It was only the affair of a moment to upset the

burning pile, to scatter the embers, and to cut the ropes that fastened

him.

Poor fellow! In what a terrible state we found him. The evening before,

he had had his left arm broken, and it seemed as if he had been badly

beaten since then, for his whole body was covered with wounds, bruises,

and blood. The flames had also begun their work on him, and he had two

large burns, one on his loins, and the other on his right thigh, and his

beard and his hair were scorched. Poor Piédelot!

Nobody knows the terrible rage we felt at this sight! We would have

rushed headlong at a hundred thousand Prussians. Our thirst for

vengeance was intense but the cowards had run away, leaving their crime

behind them. Where could we find them now? Meanwhile, however, the

captain's wife was looking after Piédelot, and dressing his wounds as

best she could, while the captain himself shook hands with him excitedly

and in a few minutes he came to himself.

"Good morning, captain, good morning, all of you," he said. "Ah! the

scoundrels, the wretches! Why twenty of them came to surprise us."

"Twenty, do you say?"

"Yes, there was a whole band of them, and that is why I disobeyed

orders, captain, and fired on them, for they would have killed you all,

so I preferred to stop them. That frightened them, and they did not

venture to go further than the cross-roads. They were such cowards. Four

of them shot at me at twenty yards, as if I had been a target, and then

they slashed me with their swords. My arm was broken so that I could

only use my bayonet with one hand."

"But why did you not call for help?"

"I took good care not to do that, for you would all have come, and you

would neither have been able to defend me nor yourselves, being only

five against twenty."

"You know that we should not have allowed you to have been taken, poor

old fellow."

"I preferred to die by myself, don't you see! I did not want to bring

you there, for it would have been a mere ambush."

"Well, we will not talk about it any more. Do you feel rather easier?"

"No, I am suffocating. I know that I cannot live much longer. The

brutes! They tied me to a tree, and beat me till I felt half dead, and

then they shook my broken arm, but I did not make a sound. I would

rather have bitten my tongue out than have called out before them....

Now I can say what I am suffering and shed tears; it does one good.

Thank you, my kind friends."

"Poor Piédelot! But we will avenge you, you may be sure!"

"Yes, yes, I want you to do that. Especially, there is a woman among

them, who passes as the wife of the lancer whom the captain killed

yesterday. She is dressed like a lancer, and she tortured me the most

yesterday, and suggested burning me, and it was she who set fire to the

wood. Oh! the wretch, the brute.... Ah! how I am suffering! My loins, my

arms!" and he fell back panting and exhausted, writhing in his terrible

agony, while the captain's wife wiped the perspiration from his

forehead, and we all shed tears of grief and rage, as if we had been

children. I will not describe the end to you; he died half-an-hour

later, but before that he told us in which direction the enemy had gone.

When he was dead, we gave ourselves time to bury him, and then we set

out in pursuit of them, with our hearts full of fury and hatred.

"We will throw ourselves on the whole Prussian army, if it be needful,"

the captain said, "but we will avenge Piédelot. We must catch those

scoundrels. Let us swear to die, rather than not to find them, and if I

am killed first, these are my orders: all the prisoners that you make

are to be shot immediately, and as for the lancer's wife, she is to be

violated before she is put to death."

"She must not be shot, because she is a woman," the captain's wife said.

"If you survive, I am sure that you would not shoot a woman. Outraging

her will be quite sufficient; but if you are killed in this pursuit, I

want one thing, and that is to fight with her; I will kill her with my

own hands, and the others can do what they like with her if she kills

me.

"We will outrage her! We will burn her! We will tear her to pieces!

Piédelot shall be avenged, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!"

V

The next morning we unexpectedly fell on an outpost of uhlans four

leagues away. Surprised by our sudden attack, they were not able to

mount their horses, nor even to defend themselves, and in a few moments

we had five prisoners, corresponding to our own number. The captain

questioned them, and from their answers we felt certain that they were

the same whom we had encountered the previous day, then a very curious

operation took place. One of us was told off to ascertain their sex, and

nothing can depict our joy when we discovered what we were seeking among

them, the female executioner who had tortured our friend.

The four others were shot on the spot, with their backs towards us, and

close to the muzzles of our rifles, and then we turned our attention to

the woman; what were we going to do with her? I must acknowledge that we

were all of us in favor of shooting her. Hatred, and the wish to avenge

Piédelot had extinguished all pity in us, and we had forgotten that we

were going to shoot a woman, but a woman reminded us of it, the

captain's wife; at her entreaties, therefore, we determined to keep her

prisoner.

The captain's poor wife was to be severely punished for this act of

clemency.

The next day we heard that the armistice had been extended to the

Eastern part of France, and we had to put an end to our little campaign.

Two of us, who belonged to the neighborhood, returned home, so there

were only four of us, all told; the captain, his wife, and two men. We

belonged to Besançon, which was still being besieged in spite of the

armistice.

"Let us stop here," said the captain. "I cannot believe that the war is

going to end like this. The devil take it. Surely there are men still

left in France, and now is the time to prove what they are made of. The

spring is coming on, and the armistice is only a trap laid for the

Prussians. During the time that it lasts, a new army will be formed, and

some fine morning we shall fall upon them again. We shall be ready, and

we have a hostage--let us remain here."

We fixed our quarters there. It was terribly cold, and we did not go out

much, and somebody had always to keep the female prisoner in sight.

She was sullen and never said anything, or else spoke of her husband,

whom the captain had killed. She looked at him continually with fierce

eyes, and we felt that she was tortured by a wild longing for revenge.

That seemed to us to be the most suitable punishment for the terrible

torments that she had made Piédelot suffer, for impotent vengeance is

such intense pain!

Alas! we who knew how to avenge our comrade, ought to have thought that

this woman would know how to avenge her husband, and have been on our

guard. It is true that one of us kept watch every night, and that at

first we tied her by a long rope to the great oak bench that was

fastened to the wall. But, by and by, as she had never tried to escape,

in spite of her hatred for us, we relaxed our extreme prudence, and

allowed her to sleep somewhere else except on the bench, and without

being tied. What had we to fear? She was at the end of the room, a man

was on guard at the door, and between her and the sentinel the captain's

wife and two other men used to lie. She was alone and unarmed against

four, so there could be no danger.

One night when we were asleep, and the captain was on guard, the

lancer's wife was lying more quietly in her corner than usual, and she

had even smiled for the first time since she had been our prisoner,

during the evening. Suddenly, however, in the middle of the night, we

were all awakened by a terrible cry. We got up, groping about and

scarcely were we up when we stumbled over a furious couple who were

rolling about and fighting on the ground. It was the captain and the

lancer's wife. We threw ourselves on to them, and separated them in a

moment. She was shouting and laughing, and he seemed to have the death

rattle. All this took place in the dark. Two of us held her, and when a

light was struck, a terrible sight met our eyes. The captain was lying

on the floor in a pool of blood, with an enormous wound in his throat,

and his sword bayonet that had been taken from his rifle, was sticking

in the red, gaping wound. A few minutes afterwards he died, without

having been able to utter a word.

His wife did not shed a tear. Her eyes were dry, her throat was

contracted, and she looked at the lancer's wife steadfastly, and with a

calm ferocity that inspired fear.

"This woman belongs to me," she said to us suddenly. "You swore to me

not a week ago, to let me kill her as I chose, if she killed my husband,

and you must keep your oath. You must fasten her securely to the

fireplace, upright against the back of it, and then you can go where you

like, but far from here. I will take my revenge on her to myself. Leave

the captain's body, and we three, he, she, and I, will remain here."

We obeyed and went away. She promised to write to us to Geneva, as we

were returning there.