Once Rudolph paused, with the heat of the fire on his cheeks.
"The nunnery is burning," he said hopelessly.
His guide halted, peered shrewdly, and listened.
"No, they are still shooting," he answered, and limped onward, skirting
the uproar.
At last, when by pale stars above the smoke and flame and sparks,
Rudolph judged that they were somewhere north of the nunnery, they came
stumbling down into a hollow encumbered with round, swollen obstacles.
Like a patch of enormous melons, oil-jars lay scattered.
"Hide here, and wait," commanded Wutzler. "I will go see." And he
flitted off through the smoke.
Smuggled among the oil-jars, Rudolph lay panting. Shapes of men ran
past, another empty jar rolled down beside him, and a stray bullet sang
overhead like a vibrating wire. Soon afterward, Wutzler came crawling
through the huddled pottery.
"Lie still," he whispered. "Your friends are hemmed in. You cannot get
through."
The smell of rancid oil choked them, yet they could breathe without
coughing, and could rest their smarting eyes. In the midst of tumult and
combustion, the hollow lay dark as a pool.
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