Pagina 884 van 3800

"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Go

on!" innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had

struck the general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why,

they were shouting.

One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off

onto the ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto

the frozen pond. The ice gave way under one of the foremost

soldiers, and one leg slipped into the water. He tried to right

himself but fell in up to his waist. The nearest soldiers shrank

back, the gun driver stopped his horse, but from behind still

came the shouts: "Onto the ice, why do you stop? Go on! Go on!"

And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers near

the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make them turn

and move on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that had

held under those on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some

forty men who were on it dashed, some forward and some back,

drowning one another.