About midday
Thenceforth he never stopped . Each night he wandered about , prowled through the country at random , cutting down some Prussians , sometimes here , sometimes there , galloping through the deserted fields under the moonlight , a lost Uhlan , a hunter of men . Then when he had finished his task , leaving behind the corpses lying along the roads , the old horseman went to the bake-house , where he concealed both the animal and the uniform . About midday he calmly returned to the spot to give the horse a feed of oats and some water , and he took every care of the animal , exacting therefore the hardest work . But , the night before his arrest , one of the soldiers he attacked put himself on his guard , and cut the old peasant 's face with a slash of a saber . He had , however , killed both of them . He had even managed to go back and hide his horse and put on his everyday garb , but , when he reached the stable , he was overcome by weakness , and was not able to make his way into the house .