And she would have fallen had it not been that Mme. Delaherche put forth her arm to sustain her.
“But why do you stay here?”
Both the women remained, however. They averted their eyes, not wishing to see the rest; motionless and trembling they stood locked in each other’s arms, notwithstanding the little love there was between them.
At no time during the day had the artillery thundered more loudly than now. It was three o’clock, and Delaherche declared angrily that he gave it up—he could not understand it. There could be no doubt about it now, the Prussian batteries, instead of slackening their fire, were extending it. Why? What had happened? It was as if all the forces of the nether regions had been unchained; the earth shook, the heavens were on fire. The ring of flame-belching mouths of bronze that encircled Sedan, the eight hundred guns of the German armies, that were served with such activity and raised such an uproar, were expending their thunders on the adjacent fields; had that concentric fire been focused upon the city, had the batteries on those commanding heights once begun to play upon Sedan, it would have been reduced to ashes and pulverized into dust in less than fifteen minutes. But now the projectiles were again commencing to fall upon the houses, the crash that told of ruin and destruction was heard more frequently. One exploded in the Rue des Voyards, another grazed the tall chimney of the factory, and the bricks and mortar came tumbling to the ground directly in front of the shed where the surgeons were at work. Bouroche looked up and grumbled:
“Are they trying to finish our wounded for us? Really, this racket is intolerable.”
In the meantime an attendant had seized the captain’s leg, and the major, with a swift circular motion of his hand, made an incision in the skin below the knee and some two inches below the spot where he intended to saw the bone; then, still employing the same thin-bladed knife, that he did not change in order to get on more rapidly, he loosened the skin on the superior side of the incision and turned it back, much as one would peel an orange. But just as he was on the point of dividing the muscles a hospital steward came up and whispered in his ear:
“Number two has just slipped his cable.”
The major did not hear, owing to the fearful uproar.
“Speak up, can’t you! My ear drums are broken with their d——-d cannon.”
“Number two has just slipped his cable.”