the water was six feet deep.  Her path was closed effectually; she clenched her little fists and had to summon up all her resolution to keep from bursting into tears.  When the first shock of disappointment had passed over she made her way along the enclosure and found a narrow lane that pursued a tortuous course among the scattered houses.  She believed that now her troubles were at an end, for she was acquainted with that labyrinth, that tangled maze of passages, which, to one who had the key to them, ended at the village.

But the missiles seemed to be falling there even more thickly than elsewhere.  Henriette stopped short in her tracks and all the blood in her body seemed to flow back upon her heart at a frightful detonation, so close that she could feel the wind upon her cheek.  A shell had exploded directly before her and only a few yards away.  She turned her head and scrutinized for a moment the heights of the left bank, above which the smoke from the German batteries was curling upward; she saw what she must do, and when she started on her way again it was with eyes fixed on the horizon, watching for the shells in order to avoid them.  There was method in the rash daring of her proceeding, and all the brave tranquillity that the prudent little housewife had at her command.  She was not going to be killed if she could help it; she wished to find her husband and bring him back with her, that they might yet have many days of happy life together.  The projectiles still came tumbling frequently as ever; she sped along behind walls, made a cover of boundary stones, availed herself of every slight depression.  But presently she came to an open space, a bit of unprotected road where splinters and fragments of exploded shells lay thick, and she was watching behind a shed for a chance to make a dash when she perceived, emerging from a sort of cleft in the ground in front of her, a human head and two bright eyes that peered about inquisitively.  It was a little, bare-footed, ten-year-old boy, dressed in a shirt and ragged trousers, an embryonic tramp, who was watching the battle with huge delight.  At every report his small black beady eyes would snap and sparkle, and he jubilantly shouted: 

“Oh my! aint it bully!—­Look out, there comes another one! don’t stir!  Boom! that was a rouser!—­Don’t stir! don’t stir!”

And each time there came a shell he dived to the bottom of his hole, then reappeared, showing his dirty, elfish face, until it was time to duck again.

Henriette now noticed that the projectiles all came from Liry, while the batteries at Pont-Maugis and Noyers were confining their attention to Balan.  At each discharge she could see the smoke distinctly, immediately afterward she heard the scream of the shell, succeeded by the explosion.  Just then the gunners afforded them a brief respite; the bluish haze above the heights drifted slowly away upon the wind.

“They’ve stopped to take a drink, you can go your money on it,” said the urchin.  “Quick, quick, give me your hand!  Now’s the time to skip!”