midnight
I should follow the route he had laid down for me as long as Violette could move a hoof or I a finger upon her bridle . All the way from Sermoise to Soissons , where the road dips up and down , curving among fir woods , I kept my pistol ready and my sword-belt braced , pushing on swiftly where the path was straight , and then coming slowly round the corners in the way we learned in Spain . When I came to the farmhouse which lies to the right of the road just after you cross the wooden bridge over the Crise , near where the great statue of the Virgin stands , a woman cried to me from the field , saying that the Prussians were in Soissons . A small party of their lancers , she said , had come in that very afternoon , and a whole division was expected before midnight . I did not wait to hear the end of her tale , but clapped spurs into Violette , and in five minutes was galloping her into the town . Three Uhlans were at the mouth of the main street , their horses tethered , and they gossiping together , each with a pipe as long as my sabre . I saw them well in the light of an open door , but of me they could have seen only the flash of Violette 's grey side and the black flutter of my cloak .