As the muskets and scythes filed past, her white teeth glistened longer and sharper between her red lips, like the fangs of a young wolf eager to bite and tear.

And as she listened to Silvere enumerating the contingents from the country-side with ever-increasing haste, the pace of the column seemed to her to accelerate still more.
She soon fancied it all a cloud of human dust swept along by a tempest.
Everything began to whirl before her.

Then she closed her eyes; big hot tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Silvere's eyelashes were also moist.

"I don't see the men who left Plassans this afternoon," he murmured.
He tried to distinguish the end of the column, which was still hidden by the darkness.

Suddenly he cried with joyous exultation: "Ah, here they are! They've got the banner--the banner has been entrusted to them!" Then he wanted to leap from the slope in order to join his companions.
At this moment, however, the insurgents halted.