lso; then half a dozen shots rang out, and the smoke whirled up
over the roof of the house. The officer on the ladder was
motioning to the group of officers below; already the artillerymen
were running the three cannon forward to the port-holes that had
been pierced in the park wall.

"Come," said Jack.

"Not yet--I am not frightened."

A loud explosion enveloped the wall in sulphurous clouds, and a
cannon jumped back in recoil. The cannoneers swarmed around it,
there was a quick movement of a sponger, an order, a falling into
place of rigid artillerymen, then bang! and another up-rush of
smoke. And now the other cannon joined in--crash! bang!--and the
garden swam in the swirling fog. Infantry, too, were firing all
along the wall, and on the other side of the house the rippling
crash of the gatling-gun rolled with the rolling volleys. Jack
led Lorraine to the rear of the Chateau, but she refused to stay,
and he reluctantly followed her into the house.

From every mattress-stuffed window the red-legged soldiers were
firing out across the lawn towards the woods; the smoke drifted
back into the house in thin shreds that soon filled the rooms
with a blue haze.

Suddenly something struck the chandelier and shattered it to the
gilt candle-sockets. Lorraine looked at it, startled, but another
bullet whizzed into the room, starring the long mirror, and
another knocked the plaster from the fireplace. Jack had her out
of the room in a second, and presently they found themselves in
the cellar, the very cement beneath their feet shaking under the
tremendous shocks of the cannon.

"Wait for me. Do you promise, Lorraine?"

"Yes."

He hurried up to the terrace again, and out across the gravel
drive to the stable.

"Alixe!" he called.

She came quietly to him, her arms full of linen bandages. There
was nothing of fear or terror in her cheeks, nothing even of
grief now, but her eyes transfigured her face, and he scarcely
knew it.

"What can I do?" he asked.

"Nothing. The wounded are quiet. Is there water in the well?"

He brought her half a dozen buckets, one after another, and set
them side by side in the harness-room, where three or four
surgeons lounged around two kitchen-tables, on which sponges,
basins, and cases of instruments lay. There was a sickly odour of
ether in the air, mingled with the rank stench of carbolic acid.

"Lorraine is in the cellar. Do you need her? Surely not--when I
am ready," he said.