Just as the sun was setting, the soldiers on watch came tearing down the wooden passage, making an awful clatter, and calling out: "The gun is pointed on the convent!" As they spoke, the shell went off, clean over our heads, burying itself in a cloud of dust close to a herd of cattle half a mile distant.

This did not reassure me, but we hoped it was a chance shot, which might not occur again, and that it had been provoked by the cattle grazing so temptingly within range.

I must say there was something very weird and eerie in those long nights spent at the convent.

At first my throat was too painful to enable me to sleep, and endless did those dreary hours seem.

We had supper usually before seven, in order to take advantage of the fading daylight, for lights were on no account to be shown at any of the windows, being almost certain to attract rifle-fire.