Page:A Gentleman From France (1924).djvu/66

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

glass and cut his face, but he was a little soldier. His master had said so.

He sprang again, and broke away a part of the sash, which was rotten. One more jump carried him to freedom.

He raced to the top of the hill where they had been the night before. The villages he had noted upon the farther side of the plain were burning. The sky-line was red with the conflagration. The whole plain nearer the river was dotted with men running hither and thither.

Flames belched, and thunder rolled all along the valley, as far as the eye could reach. His master, the Colonel, was somewhere upon the plain, in the storm. They had all been going that way.

He was a little soldier of France. He must follow. So he trotted down the road towards the one bridge that was still