Silvere smiled at her. But he had
scarcely turned his head when a fusillade burst out. The soldiers, who
could only be seen from their shoulders upwards, had just fired their
first volley. It seemed to Silvere as though a great gust of wind was
passing over his head, while a shower of leaves, lopped off by the
bullets, fell from the elms. A sharp sound, like the snapping of a dead
branch, made him look to his right. Then, prone on the ground, he saw
the big wood-cutter, he who was a head taller than the others. There was
a little black hole in the middle of his forehead. And thereupon Silvere
fired straight before him, without taking aim, reloaded and fired again
like a madman or an unthinking wild beast, in haste only to kill. He
could not even distinguish the soldiers now; smoke, resembling strips of
grey muslin, was floating under the elms. The leaves still rained upon
the insurgents, for the troops were firing too high. Every now and then,
athwart the fierce crackling of the fusillade, the young man heard a
sigh or a low rattle, and a rush was made among the band as if to make
room for some poor wretch clutching hold of his neighbours as he fell.
The firing lasted ten minutes.
Then, between two volleys some one exclaimed in a voice of terror:
"Every man for himself! _Sauve qui peut!_" This roused shouts and
murmurs of rage, as if to say, "The cowards! Oh! the cowards!" sinister
rumours were spreading--the general had fled; cavalry were sabring the
skirmishers in the Nores plain.
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