“Have no fear.”
“God speed thee!”
In a few moments the boy was on the ground, the sergeant drew up the rope, and disappeared, while the captain hastened to the little window, and saw the drummer racing down the hill. He now hoped he would escape unseen, but five or six little clouds of dust rising from the ground warned him that the boy had been discovered by the Austrians, who were firing down from the top of the hill. Those little clouds were the earth torn up by the balls. But the drummer continued running at full speed. After a while the captain exclaimed in consternation: “Dead!” but scarcely was the word out of his mouth when he saw the little drummer rise.
“Ah, it was but a fall!” said he, and breathed again.
The drummer again ran on, but he limped.
“He has sprained his foot,” said the captain.
A little cloud of dust rose here and there around the boy, but always farther from him.
He was beyond their reach. The captain uttered a cry of triumph; but his eyes followed him, tremblingly, for it was a question of minutes. If he did not soon reach the regiment with the note, asking for immediate succor, all his soldiers would be killed, or he would be obliged to surrender, and become a prisoner of war with them.
The boy ran for a while rapidly, then he stopped to limp; again he ran on, but every few minutes he stopped to limp.
“Perhaps a ball has bruised his foot,” thought the captain, and he tremblingly noted all his movements, and in his excitement he talked to the drummer as if he could hear him. Every moment his eyes measured the distance between the boy and the bayonets that glistened below on the plain, in the midst of the golden wheat fields.