and groves had been swept away or blotted out by the
fire of the artillery. He descried at the foot of the highway near his
castle, several of the attacking columns which had crossed the Marne.
The advancing forces were coming doggedly on, apparently unmoved by the
steady, deadly fire of the Germans. Soon they were rushing forward with
leaps and bounds, by companies, shielding themselves behind bits of
upland in bends of the road, in order to send forth their blasts of
death.

The old man was now fired with a desperate resolution;--since he had to
die, let a French ball kill him! And he advanced very erect with his two
pails among those men shooting, lying down. Then, with a sudden fear,
he stood still hanging his head; a second thought had told him that the
bullet which he might receive would be one danger less for the enemy.
It would be better for them to kill the Germans . . . and he began to
cherish the hope that he might get possession of some weapon from those
dying around him, and fall upon that Junker who had struck him.

He was filling his pails for the third time, and murderously
contemplating the lieutenant's back when something occurred so absurd
and unnatural that it reminded him of the fantastic flash of the
cinematograph;--the officer's head suddenly disappeared; two jets of
blood spurted from his severed neck and his body collapsed like an empty
sack.

At the same time, a cyclone was sweeping the length of the wall, tearing
up groves, overturning cannon and carrying away people in a whirlwind as
though they were dry leaves. He inferred that Death was now blowing from
another direction. Until then, it had come from the front on the river
side, battling with the enemy's line ensconced behind the walls. Now,
with the swiftness of an atmospheric change, it was blustering from the
depths of the park. A skillful manoeuver of the aggressors, the use of a
distant road, a chance bend in the German line had enabled the French to
collect their cannon in a new position, attacking the occupants of the
castle with a flank movement.

It was a lucky thing for Don Marcelo that he had lingered a few moments
on the bank of the fosse, sheltered by the bulk of the edifice. The fire
of the hidden battery passed the length of the avenue, carrying off the
living, destroying for a second time the dead, killing horses, breaking
the wheels of vehicles and making the gun carriages fly through the air
with the flames of a volcan