"Now they are warming up," said one of them.
Rene, as though reading their thoughts, prepared to go. "Good-bye,
father!" They were needing him in his battery. The senator tried to
resist; he wished to prolong the interview, but found that he was
hitting against something hard and inflexible that repelled all his
influence. A senator amounted to very little with people accustomed to
discipline. "Farewell, my boy! . . . All success to you! . . . Remember
who you are!"
The father wept as he embraced his son, lamenting the brevity of the
interview, and thinking of the dangers awaiting him.
When Rene had disappeared, the captains again recommended their
departure. It was getting late; they ought to reach a certain cantonment
before nightfall. So they went down the hill in the shelter of a cut in
the mountain, seeing the enemy's shells flying high above them.
In a hollow, they came upon several groups of the famed seventy-fives
spread about through the woods, hidden by piles of underbrush, like
snapping dogs, howling and sticking up their gray muzzles. The great
cannon were roaring only at intervals, while the steel pack of hounds
were yelping incessantly without the slightest break in their noisy
wrath--like the endless tearing of a piece of cloth. The pieces were
many, the volleys dizzying, and the shots uniting in one prolonged
shriek, as a series of dots unite to form a single line.
Pages:
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539