breath, "we will remain here a moment
and get our wind before we resume the offensive." No adversity could
shake his unwavering faith.

They had not advanced many steps before all felt that they were entering
the valley of death, but it was useless to think of retracing their
steps; their only line of retreat lay through the wood, and cross it
they must, at every hazard. At that time, instead of la Garenne, its
more fitting name would have been the wood of despair and death;
the Prussians, knowing that the French troops were retiring in that
direction, were riddling it with artillery and musketry. Its shattered
branches tossed and groaned as if enduring the scourging of a mighty
tempest. The shells hewed down the stalwart trees, the bullets brought
the leaves fluttering to the earth in showers; wailing voices seemed to
issue from the cleft trunks, sobs accompanied the little twigs as they
fell bleeding from the parent stem. It might have been taken for the
agony of some vast multitude, held there in chains and unable to flee
under the pelting of that pitiless iron hail; the shrieks, the terror
of thousands of creatures rooted to the ground. Never was anguish so
poignant as of that bombarded forest.

Maurice and Jean, who by this time had caught up with their companions,
were greatly alarmed. The wood where they then were was a growth of
large trees, and there was no obstacle to their running, but the
bullets came whistling about their ears from every direction, making it
impossible for them to avail themselves of the shelter of the trunks.
Two men were killed, one of them struck in the back, the other in front.
A venerable oak, directly in Maurice's path, had its trunk shattered by
a shell, and sank, with the stately grace of a mailed paladin, carrying
down all before it, and even as the young man was leaping back the top
of a gigantic ash on his left, struck by another shell, came crashing to
the ground like some tall cathedral spire. Where could they fly? whither
bend their steps? Everywhere the branches were falling; it was as
one who should endeavor to fly from some vast edifice menaced with
destruction, only to find himself in each room he enters in succession
confronted with crumbling walls and ceilings. And when, in order to
escape being crushed by the big trees, they took refuge in a thicket of
bushes, Jean came near being killed by a projectile, only it fortunately
failed to explode. They could no longer make