All this occurred with dizzying rapidity, like a nightmare. On the other
side of the wall came a murmur, swelling in volume, like that of the
sea. Desnoyers heard shouts, and it seemed to him that some hoarse,
discordant voices were singing the Marseillaise. The machine-guns were
working with the swift steadiness of sewing machines. The attack was
going to be opposed with furious resistance. The Germans, crazed
with fury, shot and shot. In one of the breaches appeared a red kepis
followed by legs of the same color trying to clamber over the ruins. But
this vision was instantly blotted out by the sprinkling from the machine
guns, making the invaders fall in great heaps on the other side of the
wall. Don Marcelo never knew exactly how the change took place. Suddenly
he saw the red trousers within the park. With irresistible bounds they
were springing over the wall, slipping through the yawning gaps, and
darting out from the depths of the woods by invisible paths. They were
little soldiers, husky, panting, perspiring, with torn cloaks; and
mingled with them, in the disorder of the charge, African marksmen with
devilish eyes and foaming mouths, Zouaves in wide breeches and chasseurs
in blue uniforms.
The German officers wanted to die. With upraised swords, after having
exhausted the shots in their revolvers, they advanced upon their
assailants followed by the soldiers who still obeyed them.
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