Afar off the cannon were booming, and in the intervals between their
detonations could be heard the bursting of shrapnel, the bubbling of
frying oil, the grinding of a coffee-mill, and the incessant crackling
of rifle-fire. Fleecy clouds were floating over the fields, giving to
near objects the indefinite lines of unreality. The sun was a faint spot
seen between curtains of mist. The trees were weeping fog moisture from
all the cracks in their bark.
A thunderclap rent the air so forcibly that it seemed very near the
castle. Desnoyers trembled, believing that he had received a blow in
the chest. The other men remained impassive with their customary
indifference. A cannon had just been discharged but a few feet away
from him, and not till then did he realize that two batteries had been
installed in the park. The pieces of artillery were hidden under mounds
of branches, the gunners having felled trees in order to mask their
monsters more perfectly. He saw them arranging the last; with shovels,
they were forming a border of earth, a foot in width, around each
piece. This border guarded the feet of the operators whose bodies were
protected by steel shields on both sides of them. Then they raised
a breastwork of trunks and boughs, leaving only the mouth of the
cylindrical mortar visible.
By degrees Don Marcelo became accustomed to the firing which seemed
to be creating a vacuum within his cranium.
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