Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/32

8 Before leaving Fougères, the commandant had made his own troops surreptitiously take charge of all the cartridge boxes and rations of bread belonging to the entire body of men, so that the attention of the conscripts should not be called to the length of the journey. He had made up his mind to call no halt on the way to Ernée; the Chouans doubtless were abroad in the district, and the men of his new contingent, once recovered from their surprise, might enter into concerted action with them. A sullen silence prevailed among the band of requisitionaries,who had been taken aback by the old republican's tactics; and this, taken with their lagging gait as they climbed the mountain side, increased to the highest pitch the anxiety of the commandant of the demi-brigade, Hulot by name. He was keenly interested in noting those marked characteristics which have been previously described, and was walking in silence among five subaltern officers who all respected their chief's preoccupied mood.

As Hulot reached the summit of the Pèlerine, however, he instinctively turned his head to examine the restless faces of the requisitionarics, and forthwith broke the silence. As a matter of fact, the Bretons had been moving more and more slowly, and already they had put an interval of some two hundred paces between them and their escort. Hulot made a sort of grimace peculiar to him at this.

"What the devil is the matter with the ragamuffins?" he cried in the deep tones of his voice. "Instead of stepping out, these conscripts of ours have their legs glued together, I think."

At these words the officers who were with him turned to look behind them, acting on an impulse like that which makes us wake with a start at some sudden noise. The sergeants and corporals followed their example, and the whole company came to a standstill, without waiting for the wished-for word of command to "Halt!" If, in the first place, the officers gave a glance over the detachment that was slowly crawling up the Pèlerine like an elongated tortoise, they were sufficiently struck with the view that spread