forward, then halted, awaiting the death he had come there to seek.
The bullets sang in concert with a music like the fierce autumnal
blast; a shell burst in front of him and covered him with earth. He
maintained his attitude of patient waiting. His steed, with distended
eyes and quivering frame, instinctively recoiled before the grim
presence who was so close at hand and yet refused to smite horse or
rider. At last the trying experience came to an end, and the Emperor,
with his stoic fatalism, understanding that his time was not yet come,
tranquilly retraced his steps, as if his only object had been to
reconnoiter the position of the German batteries.

"What courage, Sire! We beseech you, do not expose yourself further--"

But, unmindful of their solicitations, he beckoned to his staff to
follow him, not offering at present to consult their safety more than
he did his own, and turned his horse's head toward la Moncelle,
quitting the road and taking the abandoned fields of la Ripaille. A
captain was mortally wounded, two horses were killed. As he passed
along the line of the 12th corps, appearing and vanishing like a
specter, the men eyed him with curiosity, but did not cheer.

To all these events had Delaherche been witness, and now he trembled
at the thought that he, too, as soon as he should have left the brick
works, would have to run the gauntlet of those terrible projectiles.
He lingered, listening to the conversation of some dismounted officers
who had remained there.

"I tell you he was killed on the spot; cut in two by a shell."

"You are wrong, I saw him carried off the field. His wound was not