In two or three minutes he came up with the column of horse.
"Where is your officer ?" he asked, drawing rein as he reached them.
"Seize him!" a voice cried in German, and before he and Paolo could turn their horses half a dozen troopers were upon them.
"I surrender," he cried in German, seeing that resistance was impossible.
"Who are you, monsieur ?" an officer demanded.
"I am colonel of the Poitou regiment of infantry," he said.

"This man is my lackey." "Where are your cavalry, sir ?" "That I cannot tell you exactly, seeing that no one knows.

I thought that you formed part of our rearguard." "How comes it that you, an infantry officer, were there?
We heard that there were no infantry with them." "We joined them just before nightfall, and were at once divided up among the various regiments of horse." "I must inform our colonel of that.

Come along with me," and they pushed past the troopers until they arrived at the head of the column, when the officer reported to the colonel.
"Donner Blitzen!" the latter exclaimed, "it is well that we learned this news, for we should have fared very ill if we had come upon horse and foot together.

The Poitou regiment! That is the one that we heard beat back our charges so often at Freiburg, and they say the best regiment in the French service.