"Oh," said Jack, softly, staring out into the sunshine, "it is time, is it not, that we knew what was going on along the frontier? Look there!"
On the horizon vast shapeless clouds lay piled, gigantic coils and masses of vapour, dark, ominous, illuminated by faint, pallid lights that played under them incessantly; and over all towered one tall column of smoke, spreading above like an enormous palm-tree. But this was not all. The vast panorama of hill and valley and plain, cut by roads that undulated like narrow satin ribbons on a brocaded surface, was covered with moving objects, swarming, inundating the landscape. To the south a green hill grew black with the human tide, to the north long lines and oblongs and squares moved across the land, slowly, almost imperceptibly—but they were moving, always moving east.
"It is an army coming," said the marquis.
"It is a rout," said Jack, quietly.
The marquis moved suddenly, as though to avoid a blow.
"What troops are those?" he asked, after a silence.
"It is the French army," replied Jack. "Have you not heard the cannonade?"
"No—my machines make some noise when I'm working. I hear it now. What is that cloud—a fire?"
"It is the battle cloud."
"And the smoke on the horizon?"