freshly greased and cartridge boxes filled with the obligatory ninety
rounds of ammunition. It followed that when the enemy opened their
fire no one was taken unprepared, and the French batteries, posted to
the rear between Balan and Bazeilles, immediately commenced to answer,
rather with the idea of showing they were awake than for any other
purpose, for in the dense fog that enveloped everything the practice
was of the wildest.

"The dyehouse will be well defended," said Delaherche. "I have a whole
section in it. Come and see."

It was true; forty and odd men of the infanterie de marine had been
posted there under the command of a lieutenant, a tall, light-haired
young fellow, scarcely more than a boy, but with an expression of
energy and determination on his face. His men had already taken full
possession of the building, some of them being engaged in loopholing
the shutters of the ground-floor windows that commanded the street,
while others, in the courtyard that overlooked the meadows in the
rear, were breaching the wall for musketry. It was in this courtyard
that Delaherche and Weiss found the young officer, straining his eyes
to discover what was hidden behind the impenetrable mist.

"Confound this fog!" he murmured. "We can't fight when we don't know
where the enemy is." Presently he asked, with no apparent change of
voice or manner: "What day of the week is this?"

"Thursday," Weiss replied.

"Thursday, that's so. Hanged if I don't think the world might come to
an end and we not know it!"