But it proved to be only Dard, who had discovered that Sergeant La Croix's heart still beat.

They took him up carefully, and carried him gently into camp.

To Dard's delight the surgeon pronounced him curable.
For all that, he was three days insensible, and after that unfit for duty.

So they sent him home invalided, with a hundred francs out of the poor colonel's purse.
Raynal reported the evacuation of the place, and that Colonel Dujardin was buried under the bastion, and soon after rode out of the camp.
The words Camille had scratched with a pencil, and sent him from the edge of the grave, were few but striking.
"A dead man takes you once more by the hand.

My last thought, thank God, is France.