What's the matter with the Frenchman ?" Monsieur Fardet was stamping about the plateau with the gestures of a man who has been stung by a wasp.

"_S'cre nom! S'cre nom!_" he shouted, showing his strong white teeth under his black waxed moustache.
He wrung his right hand violently, and as he did so he sent a little spray of blood from his finger-tips.

A bullet had chipped his wrist.
Headingly ran out from the cover where be had been crouching, with the intention of dragging the demented Frenchman into a place of safety, but he had not taken three paces before he was himself hit in the loins, and fell with a dreadful crash among the stones.

He staggered to his feet, and then fell again in the same place, floundering up and down like a horse which has broken its back.

"I'm done!" he whispered, as the Colonel ran to his aid, and then he lay still, with his china-white cheek against the black stones.