They
remained in the garden, lying on the same stretchers that they had
occupied within the vehicle. By the light of the lanterns Desnoyers
recognized one of the dying. It was the secretary to His Excellency, the
Socialist professor who had shut him in the cellar vaults.
At the sight of the owner of the castle he smiled as though he had met a
comrade. His was the only familiar face among all those people who were
speaking his language. He was ghastly in hue, with sunken features and
an impalpable glaze spreading over his eyes. He had no visible wounds,
but from under the cloak spread over his abdomen his torn intestines
exhaled a fatal warning. The presence of Don Marcelo made him guess
where they had brought him, and little by little he co-ordinated his
recollections. As though the old gentleman might be interested in the
whereabouts of his comrades, he told him all he knew in a weak and
strained voice. . . . Bad luck for their brigade! They had reached the
front at a critical moment for the reserve troops. Commandant Blumhardt
had died at the very first, a shell of '75 taking off his head. Dead,
too, were all the officers who had lodged in the castle. His Excellency
had had his jaw bone torn off by a fragment of shell. He had seen him
on the ground, howling with pain, drawing a portrait from his breast and
trying to kiss it with his broken mouth.
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