fore the official returned to his side, filled Desnoyers with dread.
"His Excellency is very gracious," announced the lieutenant. "He might have shot you, but he pardons you … and yet you people say that we are savages!" …
With involuntary contempt, he further explained that he had conducted him thither fully expecting that he would be shot. The General was planning to punish all the prominent residents of Villeblanche, and he had inferred, on his own initiative, that the owner of the castle must be one of them.
"Military duty, sir.… War exacts it."
After this excuse the petty official renewed his eulogies of His Excellency. He was going to make his headquarters in Don Marcelo's property, and on that account granted him his life. He ought to thank him.… Then again his face trembled with wrath. He pointed to some bodies lying near the road. They were the corpses of Uhlans, covered with some cloaks from which were protruding the enormous soles of their boots.
"Plain murder!" he exclaimed. "A crime for which the guilty are going to pay dearly!"
His indignation made him consider the death of four soldiers as an unheard-of and monstrous outrage—as though in war only the enemy ought to fall, keeping safe and sound the lives of his compatriots.
A band of infantry commanded by an officer approached. As their ranks opened, Desnoyers saw the gray uniforms roughly pushing forward some of the inhabitants. Their clothes were torn and some had blood on face and hands. He recognized them one by one as they were lined up against the mud wall, at twenty paces from the firing squad of soldiers—the mayor, the priest, the forest guard, and some rich villagers whose houses he had seen falling in flames.
