On the very last day he began again his eternal story of the cross and the Emperor.

The Major, who was particularly ill, or at least particularly cross, uttered some angry words of protest.
'_Pardonnez-moi_, _monsieur le commandant_, _mais c'est pour monsieur_,' said the Colonel: 'Monsieur has not yet heard the circumstance, and is good enough to feel an interest.' Presently after, however, he began to lose the thread of his narrative; and at last: '_Que que j'ai_?
_Je m'embrouille_!' says he, '_Suffit_: _s'm'a la donne_, _et Berthe en etait bien contente_.' It struck me as the falling of the curtain or the closing of the sepulchre doors.
Sure enough, in but a little while after, he fell into a sleep as gentle as an infant's, which insensibly changed into the sleep of death.

I had my arm about his body at the time and remarked nothing, unless it were that he once stretched himself a little, so kindly the end came to that disastrous life.

It was only at our evening halt that the Major and I discovered we were travelling alone with the poor clay.

That night we stole a spade from a field--I think near Market Bosworth--and a little farther on, in a wood of young oak trees and by the light of King's lantern, we buried the old soldier of the Empire with both prayers and tears.
We had needs invent Heaven if it had not been revealed to us; there are some things that fall so bitterly ill on this side Time! As for the Major, I have long since forgiven him.