The Captain was reading, by the light of a solitary
tallow-candle, some intercepted dispatches taken from the
Germans. He had suffered the wood fire, scattered over the large
open grate, to burn low; the red embers only faintly illuminated
a part of the room. On the floor behind him lay some of the
miller's empty sacks. In a corner opposite to him was the
miller's solid walnut-wood bed. On the walls all around him were
the miller's colored prints, representing a happy mixture of
devotional and domestic subjects. A door of communication leading
into the kitchen of the cottage had been torn from its hinges,
and used to carry the men wounded in the skirmish from the field.
They were now comfortably laid at rest in the kitchen, under the
care of the French surgeon and the English nurse attached to the
ambulance. A piece of coarse canvas screened the opening between
the two rooms in place of the door. A second door, leading from
the bed-chamber into the yard, was locked; and the wooden shutter
protecting the one window of the room was carefully barred.
Sentinels, doubled in number, were placed at all the outposts.
The French commander had neglected no precaution which could
reasonably insure for himself and for his men a quiet and
comfortable night.
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