"General Douay?" cried Lorraine, horrified.
"Yes, he was killed about ten o'clock in the morning. The town was stormed through the Hagenauer Thor by the Bavarians. After that we still held the Geisberg and the Château. You should have seen it when we left it. I'll say it was a butcher's shambles. I'd say more if Mademoiselle de Nesville were not here." He was trying hard to bear up--to speak lightly of the frightful calamity that had overwhelmed General Abel Douay and his entire division.
"The fight at the Château was worth seeing," said Georges, airily. "They went at it with drums beating and flags flying. Oh, but they fell like leaves in the gardens, there--the paths and shrubbery were littered with them, dead, dying, gasping, crawling about, like singed flies under a lamp. We had them beaten, too, if it hadn't been for their General von Kirchbach. He stood in the garden--he'd been hit, too--and bawled for the artillery. Then they came at us again in three divisions. Where they got all their regiments, I don't know, but their 7th Grenadier Guards were there, and their 47th, 58th, 59th, 80th, and 87th regiments of the line, not counting a Jäger battalion and no end of artillery. They carried the Three Poplars--a hill--and they began devastating everything. We couldn't face their fire--I don't know why, Jack; it breaks my heart when I say it, but we couldn't hold them. Then they began howling for cannon, and, of course, that settled the Château. The town was in flames when I left."
After a silence, Jack asked him whether it was a rout or a retreat.
"We're falling back in very decent order," said Georges, eagerly--"really, we are. Of course, there were some troops that got into a sort of panic--the Uhlans are annoying us considerably. The Turcos fought well. We fairly riddled the 58th Prussians--their king's regiment, you know. It was the 2d Bavarian Corps that did for us. We will meet them later."
"Where are you going--to Metz?" inquired Jack, soberly.
"Yes; I've a packet for Bazaine--I don't know what. They're trying to reach him by wire, but those confounded Uhlans are destroying everything. My dear fellow, you need not worry; we have been checked, that's all. Our promenade to Berlin is postponed in deference to King Wilhelm's earnest wishes."
They all tried to laugh a little, and Jack chirped to his horse, but even that sober animal seemed to feel the depression, for he responded in fits and starts and jerks that were unpleasant and jarring to Georges' aching head.
The sky had become covered with bands of wet-looking clouds, the leaves of the forest stirred noiselessly on their stems. Along the river willows quivered and aspens turned their leaves white side to the sky. In the querulous notes of the birds there was a prophecy of storms, the river muttered among its hollows of floods and tempests.