The smaller boy's nerves were not so steady and he was loading and firing almost at random.

Finally he lifted himself almost unconsciously to his full height, but he was dragged down the next instant, as if he had been seized from below by a bear.
"Paul!" fiercely exclaimed the schoolmaster, all the instincts of a pedagogue rising within him, "if you jump up that way again exposing yourself to their bullets, I'll turn you over my knee right here, big as you are, and give you a licking that you'll remember all your life!" The master was savagely in earnest and Paul did not jump up again.

Henry fired once more, and a third time and the tumult rose to its height.
Then it ceased so suddenly and so absolutely that the silence was appalling.

The wind blew the smoke away, a few dark objects lay close to the ground among the trees before them, but not a sound came from the forest, and no flitting form was there..