crowned with the little wood of Seugnon, an offshoot of the forest of
la Falizette. At the summit of the hill, at the _carrefour_ of la
Maison-Rouge, the road from Donchery to Vrigne-aux-Bois debouched into
the Mezieres pike.

"See, that is the road by which we might retreat on Mezieres."

Even as he spoke the first gun was fired from Saint-Menges. The
fog still hung over the bottom-lands in shreds and patches, and
through it they dimly descried a shadowy body of men moving through
the Saint-Albert defile.

"Ah, they are there," continued Maurice, instinctively lowering his
voice. "Too late, too late; they have intercepted us!"

It was not eight o'clock. The guns, which were thundering more
fiercely than ever in the direction of Bazeilles, now also began to
make themselves heard at the eastward, in the valley of la Givonne,
which was hid from view; it was the army of the Crown Prince of
Saxony, debouching from the Chevalier wood and attacking the 1st
corps, in front of Daigny village; and now that the XIth Prussian
corps, moving on Floing, had opened fire on General Douay's troops,
the investment was complete at every point of the great periphery of
several leagues' extent, and the action was general all along the
line.

Maurice suddenly perceived the enormity of their blunder in not
retreating on Mezieres during the night; but as yet the consequences
were not clear to him; he could not foresee all the disaster that was
to result from that fatal error of judgment. Moved by some indefinable