side-whiskers, its large, sharp nose, closely compressed lips and half-closed eyes in their gray, half-concealing lashes was altogether too cold, cruel and disagreeable to win affection from anyone. He never smiled and always gazed off somewhere, shouting out at intervals his brusque orders in gruffly overbearing manner.
He was about six steps distant from us. We were now shooting copiously, keeping an eye on the Major meanwhile.
Suddenly a shot whizzed in a different direction than the rest. Immediately after we saw Major Holay leaning backward and about to fall from his horse.
“He is shot!” flashed through my brain, and a strange foreboding overpowered me.
“That was one of you!” furiously shrieked Schuster and leaped into the furrows where we were lying. His legs encased in knickerbockers were dark above me. A disagreeable chill went through my body.
No one answered. The Lieutenant’s violent cry was carried through the clear autumn sunshine.
“Some one of you fellows here! Who was it?” he cried in a hoarse voice. “Who was it?” he shouted again with a kind of fierce agitation.
We looked silently at the Major as he sank from his horse. His huge body bent backwards. His cap fell off and one foot was for an instant caught in the stirrup. The horse reared up and in wild affright started running across the plain, whitened with stubble. The Major’s body remained lying beside the road.
