the mountain excited to the very utmost the distrust and watchfulness
of the chief--whose name was Hulot. All the striking points in the
foregoing description had been to him matters of the keenest interest;
he marched in silence, surrounded by five young officers, each of whom
respected the evident preoccupation of their leader. But just as Hulot
reached the summit of La Pelerine he turned his head, as if by
instinct, to inspect the anxious faces of the recruits, and suddenly
broke silence. The slow advance of the Bretons had put a distance of
three or four hundred feet between themselves and their escort.
Hulot's face contorted after a fashion peculiar to himself.

"What the devil are those dandies up to?" he exclaimed in a sonorous
voice. "Creeping instead of marching, I call it."

At his first words the officers who accompanied him turned
spasmodically, as if startled out of sleep by a sudden noise. The
sergeants and corporals followed their example, and the whole company
paused in its march without receiving the wished for "Halt!" Though
the officers cast a first look at the detachment, which was creeping
like an elongated tortoise up the mountain of La Pelerine, these young
men, all dragged, like many others, from important studies to defend
their country, and in whom war had not yet smothered the sentiment of
art, were so much struck by the scene which lay spread before their
eyes that they made no answer to their chief's remark, the real
significance of which was unknown to them. Though they had come from
Fougeres, where the scene which now presented itself to their eyes is
also visible (but with certain differences caused by the change of
perspective), they could not resist pausing to admire it again, like
those dilettanti who enjoy all music the more when familiar with its
construction.