you see to the left?"

"To the left?"

"Yes, to the left."

The lad turned his head to the left: at that moment, another whistle,
more acute and lower than the first, cut the air. The boy was thoroughly
aroused. "Deuce take them!" he exclaimed. "They actually are aiming at
me!" The bullet had passed at a short distance from him.

"Down!" shouted the officer, imperious and irritated.

"I'll come down presently," replied the boy. "But the tree shelters me.
Don't fear. You want to know what there is on the left?"

"Yes, on the left," answered the officer; "but come down."

"On the left," shouted the lad, thrusting his body out in that
direction, "yonder, where there is a chapel, I think I see--"

A third fierce whistle passed through the air, and almost
instantaneously the boy was seen to descend, catching for a moment at
the trunk and branches, and then falling headlong with arms outspread.

"Curse it!" exclaimed the officer, running up.

The boy landed on the ground, upon his back, and remained stretched out
there, with arms outspread and supine; a stream of blood flowed from his
breast, on the left. The sergeant and two soldiers leaped from their
horses; the officer bent over and opened his shirt: the ball had entered
his left lung. "He is dead!" exclaimed the officer.

"No, he still lives!" replied the sergeant.--"Ah, poor boy! brave boy!"
cried the officer. "Courage, courage!" But while he was saying
"courage," he was pressing his handkerchief on the wound. The boy rolled
his eyes wildly and dropped his head back. He was dead. The officer
turned pale and stood for a moment gazing at him; then he laid him down
carefully on his cloak upon the grass; then rose and stood looking at
him; the sergeant and two soldiers also stood motionless, gazing upon
him: the rest were facing in the direction of the enemy.

"Poor boy!" repeated the officer. "Poor, brave boy!"

Then he approached the house, removed the tricolor from the window, and
spread it in guise of a funeral pall over the little dead boy, leaving
his face uncovered. The sergeant collected the dead boy's shoes, cap,
his little stick, and his knife, and placed them beside him.

They stood for a few moments longer in silence; then the officer turned
to the sergeant and said to him, "We will send the ambulance for him: he
died as a soldier; the soldiers shall bury him." Having said this, he
wafted a kiss with his hand to the dead boy, and shouted "To horse