The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity everyone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over their heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly.

“What force!” remarked one. “Knocked the roof and ceiling all to splinters!”

“Routed up the earth like a pig,” said another.

“That’s grand, it bucks one up!” laughed the first. “Lucky you jumped aside, or it would have wiped you out!”

Others joined those men and stopped and told how cannon balls had fallen on a house close to them. Meanwhile still more projectiles, now with the swift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable intermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people’s heads incessantly, but not one fell close by, they all flew over. Alpátych was getting into his trap. The innkeeper stood at the gate.