, a river--then the
stinging smoke rushed outward, the little flames leaped and sank
and played through the fog. Broad, level bands of mist, fringed
with flame, cut the pasture to the right; the earth rocked with
the stupendous cannon shock, the ripping rifle crashes chimed a
dreadful treble.

There was a bridge there in the mist; an iron gate, a heavy wall
of masonry, a glimpse of a moat below. The crowded wagons,
groaning under their load of death, the dusty infantry, the
officers, the startled horses, jammed the bridge to the parapets.
Wheels splintered and cracked, long-lashed whips snapped and
rose, horses strained, recoiled, leaped up, and fell scrambling
and kicking.

"Open the gates, for God's sake!" they were shouting.

A great shell, moaning in its flight above the smoke, shrieked
and plunged headlong among the wagons. There came a glare of
blinding light, a velvety white cloud, a roar, and through the
gates, no longer choked, rolled the wagon-train, a frantic
stampede of men and horses. It caught the dog-cart and its
occupants with it; it crushed the horse, seized the vehicle, and
flung it inside the gates as a flood flings driftwood on the
rocks.

Jack clung to the reins; the wretched horse staggered out into
the stony street, fell, and rolled over stone-dead.

Jack turned and caught Lorraine in both arms, and jumped to a
sidewalk crowded with soldiers, and at the same time the crush of
wagons ground the dog-cart to splinters on the cobble-stones. The
crowd choked every inch of the pavement--women, children,
soldiers, shouting out something that seemed to move the masses
to delirium. Jack, his arm around Lorraine, beat his way forward
through the throng, murmuring anxiously, "Are you hurt, Lorraine?
Are you hurt?" And she replied, faintly, "No, Jack. Oh, what is
it? What is it?"

Soldiers blocked his way now, but he pushed between them towards
a cleared space on a slope of grass. Up the slope he staggered
and out on to a stone terrace above the crush of the street. An
officer stood alone on the terrace, pulling at some ropes around
a pole on the parapet.

"What--what is that?" stammered Lorraine, as a white flag shot up
along the flag-staff and fluttered drearily over the wall.

"Lorraine!" cried Jack; but she sprang to the pole and tore the
ropes free. The white flag fell to the ground.

The officer turned to her, his face whiter than the flag. The
crowd in the street below roared.

"Monsie