"Jacques! Oh! mamma! I want mamma!"
It was plain that the child was lost, and that several paths ran from the point where he stood. He called to his sister again—no reply. He began to run, and came up against the wall. He started again, then stopped. He saw a red light at the end of a long gallery. This light came from the funeral pyre of Françoise and the old man.
The boy smiled—he fancied that aid was coming. He called: "Mamma! Mamma!" Suddenly his hurrying feet encountered an obstacle, and he fell from a height. His head struck a rock, and he felt the blood stream over his face. Then he fainted.
How long he lay there he never knew. After a while he struggled to his feet, and then hurried on, always away from the red light, not toward it. Suddenly he felt the air strike his face, and he saw the sunshine. The subterranean passage ended. He emerged upon a plain. An old château stood on the brow of a hill opposite.
"If I go there," he said to himself, "I can find people who will look for Francinette with me."
He tried to run; his foot slipped. He looked down and beheld a pool of blood. A dead body lay near, and then another, and another—death and slaughter everywhere!
These were French soldiers who had been surprised and shot. Three guns were fastened together, holding a pot over a fire not yet entirely gone out.
Jacques was now wild with terror; he wished he were back in the darkness of the subterranean passage, but still he struggled on for his little sister's sake. Suddenly he started. Around the neck of a soldier he saw a cord to which hung a bugle. Jacques made his way to the body. He extended his arm, then pulled it back, but impelled by the hope of safety, he at last succeeded in reaching the bugle without touching the body, but he could not take it away because of the cord. Then Jacques closed his eyes, and supporting himself on one hand, he placed his lips to the mouth of the bugle. His face was very near that of the dead soldier. He remembered the lessons he had received from Simon.
"Tarara! Tarara!"