“You may have use for it,” responded the captain dryly.

Francoise had approached, somewhat agitated.  Without heeding the strangers present Dominique took and grasped in his the two hands she extended to him, as if to put herself under his protection.  The captain smiled again but said not a word.  He remained seated, his sword across his knees and his eyes plunged into space, lost in a reverie.

It was already ten o’clock.  The heat had become very great.  A heavy silence prevailed.  In the courtyard, in the shadows of the sheds, the soldiers had begun to eat their soup.  Not a sound came from the village; all its inhabitants had barricaded the doors and windows of their houses.  A dog, alone upon the highway, howled.  From the neighboring forests and meadows, swooning in the heat, came a prolonged and distant voice made up of all the scattered breaths.  A cuckoo sang.  Then the silence grew more intense.

Suddenly in that slumbering air a shot was heard.  The captain leaped briskly to his feet; the soldiers left their plates of soup, yet half full.  In a few seconds everybody was at the post of duty; from bottom to top the mill was occupied.  Meanwhile the captain, who had gone out upon the road, had discovered nothing; to the right and to the left the highway stretched out, empty and white.  A second shot was heard, and still nothing visible, not even a shadow.  But as he was returning the captain perceived in the direction of Gagny, between two trees, a light puff of smoke whirling away like thistledown.  The wood was calm and peaceful.

“The bandits have thrown themselves into the forest,” he muttered.  “They know we are here.”

Then the firing continued, growing more and more vigorous, between the French soldiers posted around the mill and the Prussians hidden behind the trees.  The balls whistled above the Morelle without damaging either side.  The fusillade was irregular, the shots coming from every bush, and still only the little puffs of smoke, tossed gently by the breeze, were seen.  This lasted nearly two hours.  The officer hummed a tune with an air of indifference.  Francoise and Dominique, who had remained in the courtyard, raised themselves on tiptoe and looked over a low wall.  They were particularly interested in a little soldier posted on the shore of the Morelle, behind the remains of an old bateau; he stretched himself out flat on the ground, watched, fired and then glided into a ditch a trifle farther back to reload his gun; and his movements were so droll, so tricky and so supple, that they smiled as they looked at him.  He must have perceived the head of a Prussian, for he arose quickly and brought his weapon to his shoulder, but before he could fire he uttered a cry, fell and rolled into the ditch, where for an instant his legs twitched convulsively like the claws of a chicken just killed.  The little soldier had received a ball full in the breast.  He was the first man slain.  Instinctively Francoise seized Dominique’s hand and clasped it with a nervous contraction.