About two o'clock
It was not yet five o'clock ; the rain was pouring in torrents from a sky of inky blackness , and the dim carriage-lamps faintly illuminated the road and cast little fitful gleams of light across the streaming fields on either side , over which came mysterious sounds that made them pull up from time to time in the belief that the army was at hand . Jean , meantime , down there before Vouziers , had not been slumbering . Maurice had explained to him how the retreat was to be salvation to them all , and he was keeping watch , holding his men together and waiting for the order to move , which might come at any minute . About two o'clock , in the intense darkness that was dotted here and there by the red glow of the watch-fires , a great trampling of horses resounded through the camp ; it was the advance-guard of cavalry moving off toward Balay and Quatre-Champs so as to observe the roads from Boult-aux-Bois and Croix-aux-Bois ; then an hour later the infantry and artillery also put themselves in motion , abandoning at last the positions of Chestre and Falaise that they had defended so persistently for two long days against an enemy who never showed himself . The sky had become overcast , the darkness was profound , and one by one the regiments marched out in deepest silence , an array of phantoms stealing away into the bosom of the night . Every heart beat joyfully , however , as if they were escaping from some treacherous pitfall ; already in imagination the troops beheld themselves under the walls of Paris , where their revenge was awaiting them . Jean looked out into the thick blackness .