nothing but ill-luck! the right wheel of his piece was smashed! Tonnerre de Dieu! what a state she was in, the poor darling! stretched on her side with a broken paw, her nose buried in the ground, crippled and good for nothing!  The sight brought big tears to his eyes, he laid his trembling hand upon the breech, as if the ardor of his love might avail to warm his dear mistress back to life.  And the best gun of them all, the only one that had been able to drop a few shells among the enemy!  Then suddenly he conceived a daring project, nothing less than to repair the injury there and then, under that terrible fire.  Assisted by one of his men he ran back to the caisson and secured the spare wheel that was attached to the rear axle, and then commenced the most dangerous operation that can be executed on a battlefield.  Fortunately the extra men and horses that he had sent for came up just then, and he had two cannoneers to lend him a hand.

For the third time, however, the strength of the battery was so reduced as practically to disable it.  To push their heroic daring further would be madness; the order was given to abandon the position definitely.

“Make haste, comrades!” Honore exclaimed.  “Even if she is fit for no further service we’ll carry her off; those fellows shan’t have her!”

To save the gun, even as men risk their life to save the flag; that was his idea.  And he had not ceased to speak when he was stricken down as by a thunderbolt, his right arm torn from its socket, his left flank laid open.  He had fallen upon his gun he loved so well, and lay there as if stretched on a bed of honor, with head erect, his unmutilated face turned toward the enemy, and bearing an expression of proud defiance that made him beautiful in death.  From his torn jacket a letter had fallen to the ground and lay in the pool of blood that dribbled slowly from above.

The only lieutenant left alive shouted the order:  “Bring up the limbers!”

A caisson had exploded with a roar that rent the skies.  They were obliged to take the horses from another caisson in order to save a gun of which the team had been killed.  And when, for the last time, the drivers had brought up their smoking horses and the guns had been limbered up, the whole battery flew away at a gallop and never stopped until they reached the edge of the wood of la Garenne, nearly twelve hundred yards away.

Maurice had seen the whole.  He shivered with horror, and murmured mechanically, in a faint voice: 

“Oh! poor fellow, poor fellow!”

In addition to this feeling of mental distress he had a horrible sensation of physical suffering, as if something was gnawing at his vitals.  It was the animal portion of his nature asserting itself; he was at the end of his endurance, was ready to sink with hunger.  His perceptions were dimmed, he was not even conscious of the dangerous position the regiment was in now it no longer was protected by the battery.  It was more than likely that the enemy would not long delay to attack the plateau in force.