In a short time this became apparent to the assailants. The attack ceased for a little; then, through the window of the room in which the major lay, bullets flew horizontally across the room, a few inches above his head.
"They will kill their own officer!" cried Burton. "We can't leave him helpless in his present position."
"He deserves no pity," said the general. "Still, we are not Germans. My camp bed is there, lower than the bed he is on, and easily moved. Let us place him on that."
"Mon Dieu! It is the bed you slept on in '70, monsieur," cried Pierre.
"What then, my friend?"
"It is sacrilege, monsieur; it is treason to France--pardon, mon maitre, I should not have said that, but it would tear my heart to see a German on that bed."
"Let that be our revanche," said the general, quietly.
"I hope a German bullet may find him," muttered the old man, as the others released the stiff figure upon the bed. They kept on their knees to avoid the flying bullets, and so transferred the German from the larger bedstead to the low single bed on which the general had made the campaign of '70. They placed it against the wall in the corner near the window, out of danger. Leaving Pierre on his knees to fire up if any German tried to enter the room through the window, they returned to the invalid's bedroom.
"Strange that they should be so reckless of killing their own officer," remarked Burton.
"They are callous ruffians," the general replied. "Besides, it is war; one life is of little account. That is what we all have to remember. The individual life is nothing; the cause is all."