It seemed to Silvere as though a great gust of wind was passing over his head, while a shower of leaves, lopped off by the bullets, fell from the elms.

A sharp sound, like the snapping of a dead branch, made him look to his right.

Then, prone on the ground, he saw the big wood-cutter, he who was a head taller than the others.

There was a little black hole in the middle of his forehead.

And thereupon Silvere fired straight before him, without taking aim, reloaded and fired again like a madman or an unthinking wild beast, in haste only to kill.