he forest when he came out on the
wood-road. He had a mile and a half before him without lantern or
starlight, and he hastened forward through the mire, which seemed
to pull him back at every step. It astonished him that he
received no challenge in the twilight; he peered across the
river, but saw no sentinels moving. The stillness was profound,
save for the drizzle of the rain and the drip from the wet
branches. He had been walking for a minute or two, trying to keep
his path in the thickening twilight, when, far in the depths of
the mist, a cannon thundered. Almost at once he heard the
whistling quaver of a shell, high in the sky. Nearer and nearer
it came, the woods hummed with the shrill vibration; then it
passed, screeching; there came a swift glare in the sky, a sharp
report, and the steel fragments hurtled through the naked trees.

He was running now; he knew the Prussian guns had opened on the
Chateau again, and the thought of Lorraine in the tempest of iron
terrified him. And now the shells were streaming into the woods,
falling like burning stars from the heavens, bursting over the
tree-tops; the racket of tearing, splintering limbs was in his
ears, the dull shock of a shell exploding in the mud, the splash
of fragments in the river. Behind him a red flare, ever growing,
wavering, bursting into crimson radiance, told him that the
Chateau de Nesville was ablaze. The black, trembling shadows cast
by the trees grew blacker and steadier in the fiery light; the
muddy road sprang into view under his feet; the river ran
vermilion. Another light grew in the southern sky, faint yet, but
growing surely. He ran swiftly, spurred and lashed by fear, for
this time it was the Chateau Morteyn that sent a column of sparks
above the trees, higher, higher, under a pall of reddening smoke.

At last he stumbled into the garden, where a mass of plunging
horses tugged and strained at their harnessed guns and caissons.
Muddy soldiers put their ragged shoulders to the gun-wheels and
pushed; teamsters cursed and lashed their horses; officers rode
through the throng, shouting. A squad of infantry began a
fusillade from the wall; other squads fired from the lawn, where
the rear of a long column in retreat stretched across the gardens
and out into the road.

As Jack ran up the terrace steps the gatling began to whir like a
watchman's rattle; needle-pointed flames pricked the darkness
from hedge and wall, where a dark line swayed to a