nued, "says that all the other pieces are popguns
and that his old girl is the only one that is good for anything. Ah, his
old girl! He talks as if she were his wife and there were not another
like her in the world! Just notice how jealously he watches her and
makes the men clean her off! I suppose he is afraid she will overheat
herself and take cold!"

He continued rattling on in this pleasant vein to Jean, both of them
cheered and encouraged by the cool bravery with which the artillerymen
served their guns; but the Prussian batteries, after firing three
rounds, had now got the range, which, too long at the beginning, they
had at last ciphered down to such a fine point that their shells
were landed invariably among the French pieces, while the latter,
notwithstanding the efforts that were made to increase their range,
still continued to place their projectiles short of the enemy's
position. One of Honore's cannoneers was killed while loading the piece;
the others pushed the body out of their way, and the service went on
with the same methodical precision, with neither more nor less haste.
In the midst of the projectiles that fell and burst continually the same
unvarying rhythmical movements went on uninterruptedly about the gun;
the cartridge and shell were introduced, the gun was pointed, the
lanyard pulled, the carriage brought back to place; and all with
such undeviating regularity that the men might have been taken for
automatons, devoid of sight and hearing.

What impressed Maurice, however, more than anything else, was the
attitude of the drivers, sitting straight and stiff in their saddles
fifteen yards to the rear, face to the enemy. There was Adolphe, the
broad-chested, with his big blond mustache across his rubicund face; and
who shall tell the amount of courage a man must have to enable him to
sit without winking and watch the shells coming toward him, and he not
allowed even to twirl his thumbs by way of diversion! The men who
served the guns had something to occupy their minds, while the drivers,
condemned to immobility, had death constantly before their eyes, and
plenty of leisure to speculate on probabilities. They were made to face
the battlefield because, had they turned their backs to it, the coward
that so often lurks at the bottom of man's nature might have got the
better of them and swept away man and beast. It is the unseen danger
that makes dastards of us; that which we can see we brave. The arm