"It is well!" was all he said; "they have sent me my reckoning!"

He caused his men to take him across the sidewalk and place him with
his back to the wall, near where the dead woman lay, stretched across
her doorstep. His boyish face had lost nothing of its energy and
determination.

"It don't matter, my children; listen to what I say. Don't fire too
hurriedly; take your time. When the time comes for you to charge, I
will tell you."

And he continued to command them still, with head erect, watchful of
the movements of the distant enemy. Another house was burning,
directly across the street. The crash and rattle of musketry, the roar
of bursting shells, rent the air, thick with dust and sulphurous
smoke. Men dropped at the corner of every lane and alley; corpses
scattered here and there upon the pavement, singly or in little
groups, made splotches of dark color, hideously splashed with red. And
over the doomed village a frightful uproar rose and swelled, the
vindictive shouts of thousands, devoting to destruction a few hundred
brave men, resolute to die.

Then Delaherche, who all this time had been frantically shouting to
Weiss without intermission, addressed him one last appeal:

"You won't come? Very well! then I shall leave you to your fate.
Adieu!"

It was seven o'clock, and he had delayed his departure too long. So