His men were groaning and
tearing their hair inside at his danger.
"At last it was levelled to his mind, and then his movements were
as quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood
erect in the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock
at the touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a
roar, and the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the Colonel
walked haughtily, but rapidly, back to the trenches: for in all
this no bravado. He was there to make a shot,--not to throw a
chance of life away, watching the effect.
"Ten thousand eyes did that for him.
"Both French and Prussians risked their own lives, craning out to
see what a colonel in full uniform was doing under fire from a
whole line of forts, and what would be his fate: but when he fired
the gun, their curiosity left the man and followed the iron
thunderbolt.
"For two seconds all was uncertain: the ball was travelling.
"Tom gave a rear like a wild horse, his protruding muzzle went up
sky-high, then was seen no more, and a ring of old iron and a
clatter of fragments were heard on the top of the bastion.
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