“Come down, my lad!” shouted the officer. “They have seen you. I don’t want anything more. Come down.”
“I’m not afraid,” replied the boy.
“Come down!” repeated the officer. “What else do 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—”