"
"I don't prevent you civilians from following your own ways," replied
Hulot, roughly.
"Here, Gudin, here's a purse with three louis," said the officer who
was distributing the money. "You have run hard and the commandant
won't prevent your taking it."
Hulot looked askance at Gudin, and saw that he turned pale.
"It's my uncle's purse!" exclaimed the young man.
Exhausted as he was with his run, he sprang to the mound of bodies,
and the first that met his eyes was that of his uncle. But he had
hardly recognized the rubicund face now furrowed with blue lines, and
seen the stiffened arms and the gunshot wound before he gave a stifled
cry, exclaiming, "Let us be off, commandant."
The Blues started. Hulot gave his arm to his young friend.
"God's thunder!" he cried. "Never mind, it is no great matter."
"But he is dead," said Gudin, "dead! He was my only relation, and
though he cursed me, still he loved me. If the king returns, the
neighborhood will want my head, and my poor uncle would have saved
it."
"What a fool Gudin is," said one of the men who had stayed behind to
share the spoils; "his uncle was rich, and he hasn't had time to make
a will and disinherit him."
The division over, the men of Fougeres rejoined the little battalion
of the Blues on their way to the town.
* * * * *
Towards midnight the cottage of Galope-Chopine, hitherto the scene of
life without a care, was full of dread and horrible anxiety.
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