soldiers trembled, on the boy:--

"Drummer!"

The drummer-boy put his hand to his visor.

The captain said, "You have courage."

The boy's eyes flashed.

"Yes, captain," he replied.

"Look down there," said the captain, pushing him to the window; "on the
plain, near the houses of Villafranca, where there is a gleam of
bayonets. There stand our troops, motionless. You are to take this
billet, tie yourself to the rope, descend from the window, get down that
slope in an instant, make your way across the fields, arrive at our men,
and give the note to the first officer you see. Throw off your belt and
knapsack."

The drummer took off his belt and knapsack and thrust the note into his
breast pocket; the sergeant flung the rope out of the window, and held
one end of it clutched fast in his hands; the captain helped the lad to
clamber out of the small window, with his back turned to the landscape.

"Now look out," he said; "the salvation of this detachment lies in your
courage and in your legs."

"Trust to me, Signor Captain," replied the drummer-boy, as he let
himself down.

"Bend over on the slope," said the captain, grasping the rope, with the
sergeant.

"Never fear."

"God aid you!"

In a few moments the drummer-boy was on the ground; the sergeant drew in
the rope and disappeared; the captain stepped impetuously in front of
the window and saw the boy flying down the slope.

He was already hoping that he had succeeded in escaping unobserved, when
five or six little puffs of powder, which rose from the earth in front
of and behind the lad, warned him that he had been espied by the
Austrians, who were firing down upon him from the top of the elevation:
these little clouds were thrown into the air by the bullets. But the
drummer continued to run at a headlong speed. All at once he fell to the
earth. "He is killed!" roared the captain, biting his fist. But before
he had uttered the word he saw the drummer spring up again. "Ah, only a
fall," he said to himself, and drew a long breath. The drummer, in fact,
set out again at full speed; but he limped. "He has turned his ankle,"
thought the captain. Again several cloudlets of powder smoke rose here
and there about the lad, but ever more distant. He was safe. The captain
uttered an exclamation of triumph. But he continued to follow him with
his eyes, trembling because it was an affair of minutes: if he did not
arrive yonder in the shortest possible time with that