"What do you wish, my child?" he asked.
"Captain," said I, "I was four months in the hospital at Leipzig: I
have bathed in the Elster, and I know a ford."
"Where?"
"Ten minutes' march above the bridge."
He drew his sabre at once from its sheath, and shouted:
"Follow me, my boys, and you, Bertha, lead."
The entire battalion, which did not now number more than two hundred
men, followed; a hundred others, who saw us start confidently forward,
joined us without knowing where we were going. The Austrians were
already on the terrace of the avenue; farther down, gardens, separated
by hedges, stretched to the Elster. I recognized the road which Zimmer
and I had traversed so often in July, when the ground was covered with
flowers. The enemy fired on us, but we did not reply. I entered the
water first; Captain Vidal next, then the others, two abreast. It
reached our shoulders, for the river was swollen by the autumn rains;
but we crossed, notwithstanding, without the loss of a man. Nearly all
of us had our muskets when we reached the other bank, and we pressed
onward across the fields, and soon reached the little wooden bridge at
Schleissig, and thence turned to Lindenau.
We marched silently, turning from time to time to gaze on the other
side of the Elster, where the battle still raged in the streets of
Leipzig. The furious shouts, and the deep boom of cannon still reached
our ears; and it was only when, about two o'clock, we overtook the long
column which stretched, till lost in the distance, on the road to
Erfurt, that the sounds of conflict were lost in the roll of wagons and
artillery trains.