I was going up again very quietly, never thinking of danger, when, suddenly, a frightful noise, a kind of terrible rumbling, passed along the roof, and almost made me drop my lantern. The two Carabins turned pale and looked at each other. "It is a ball!" said the sergeant. At the same time a loud sound of cannon in the distance was heard in the darkness. I had a terrible feeling in my stomach, and I thought to myself, "Since one ball has passed, there may be two, three, four!" My strength was all gone. The two Carabins doubtless thought the same, for they took down at once their waistcoats, which were hanging on the gable, to go away. "Wait!" said the sergeant. "It is nothing. Let us keep at our work--it is going on well. It will be done in an hour more." But the elder Carabin called out, "You may do as you please! _I_ am not going to stay here--I have a family!" And while he was speaking, a second ball, more frightful than the first, began to rumble upon the roof, and five or six seconds after we heard the explosion. It was astonishing! The Russians were firing from the edge of the Bois-de-Chênes, more than a half-hour distant, and yet we saw the red flash pass before our two windows, and even under the tiles. The sergeant tried to keep us still at work. "Two bullets never pass in the same place," said he. "We are in a safe spot, since that has grazed the roof. Come, let us go to work!" It was too much for us. I placed the lantern on the floor and went down, feeling as if my thighs were broken. I wanted to sit down at every step. Out of doors they were shouting as if it were morning, and in a more frightful way. Chimneys were falling, and women running to the windows; but I paid no attention to it, I was so frightened myself. The two Carabins had gone away paler than death. All that night I was ill. Sorlé and Zeffen were no more at ease than myself. The sergeant kept on alone, placing the logs and making them fast. About midnight he came down. "Father Moses," said he, "the roof is screened, but your two men are cowards; they left me alone." I thanked him, and told him that we were all sick, and as for myself I had never felt anything like it. He laughed. "I know what that is," said he. "Conscripts always feel so when they hear the first ball; but that is soon over--they only need to get a little used to it." Then he went to bed, and everybody in the house, except myself, went to sleep. The Russians did not fire after ten o'clock that night; they had only tried one or two field-pieces, to warn us of what they had in store. All this, Fritz, was but the beginning of the blockade; you are going to hear now of the miseries we endured for three months. XIII A DESERTER CAPTURED