Crack! The antlered head fell.
Then out of the wood trotted three bewildered pigs—an old boar, a yearling on which the stripes were still visible, and a huge fierce sow. A ripple of rifle shots checked them; the old boar stood swinging his great furry head right and left; the yearling was down, twitching; the sow ran, screaming horribly. Two shots followed; the old boar kneeled down very quietly like a trick-horse in a circus, still facing his enemies. He did not look as though he were dead.
The yearling had ceased its twitching; the sow was down, too, a great lump of coarse black fur in the ditch.
Then the rifles began again; a company of little roe deer whirled into the ride and went down or stumbled with delicate limbs dangling broken, or leaped to a height incredible in the agony of a death wound.
Pell-mell after them galloped a whole herd of red deer; the German rifles rattled steadily. Now and then blasts from fowling-pieces dropped running or incoming pheasants, cock and hen alike; or crumpled up some twisting rabbit or knocked a great hare head over heels.
Faster and faster came the terrified wild things, stag, roe, boar, and hare; steadily the German rifles cracked and rattled out death; thicker and swifter pelted the meteor flight of pheasants; birds of all sorts came driving headlong in their flight; big drab-tinted wood-pigeons, a wild duck or two, widgeon and mallard; now and then a woodcock fluttered past like some soft brown bat beating the air; now and then a coq-de-la-bruyere, planing on huge bowed wings above collapsed and fell heavily to the loose roar of the fowling-pieces.
Crippled, mutilated creatures were heaped along the ride; over them leaped their panic-stricken comrades only to stumble in the rifle-fire and lie struggling or inert.
A veil of smoky haze made the carrefour greyer now, through which at intervals a dying stag lifted its long neck from the shambles about him or some strong feathered thing beat its broken wings impotently upon the grass.
Once a great boar charged, and was shot to pieces, spattering the steps of the shrine with blood. Once a wounded hare dragged its tortured body to the shrine, as though for sanctuary. A non-com swung it crashing against the granite cross.
And now a more sinister thing occurred. Out from the forest, amid the stampeding game, reeled a man! His blue smock hung in ribbons; one bleeding fist grasped a rifle; the cartridges en bandoulière glittered.