Page:A Gentleman From France (1924).djvu/68

 For this day at least, heroic France had been saved.

The sun dropped slowly down the western sky-line to the horizon, but only by the timepiece could you have told that it went. It was hidden from sight by the storm, the smoke, the flames, the dust, and the tears in men's eyes.

The dusk fell. The stars came out. The moon appeared. The cool of evening was over the landscape. The thunder had died away and the hush of night was over the land.

The Colonel lay close to a hedge in a cool, green field. He had been lying there for many hours. He was not dead, but very close to death's door. He lay upon a blanket, with a soldier's knapsack under his head. He had received first aid, but the surgeon had said that he could not