Part 11 (2/2)

It took some days to build this wonderful fort. For the boys could only work in their hours of recess. But at last, when all was ready, Napoleon divided the schoolboys into two unequal portions. The smaller number was to hold the fort as defenders; the larger number was to form the besieging force. At the head of the besiegers was Napoleon. Who was captain of the fort I do not know. His name has not come down to us.

But the story of the Snow-ball Fight has. For days the battle raged. At every recess hour the forces gathered for the exciting sport. The rule was that when once the fort was captured, the besiegers were to become its possessors, and were, in turn, to defend it from its late occupants, who were now the attacking army, increased to the required number by certain of the less skilful fighters in the successful army.

Napoleon was in his element. He was an impetuous leader; but he was skilful too; he never lost his head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_As leader of the storming-party he would direct the attack_”]

Again and again, as leader of the storming-party, he would direct the attack; and at just the right moment, in the face of a shower of snow-b.a.l.l.s, he would dash from his post of observation, head the a.s.saulting army, and scaling the walls with the fire of victory in his eye and the shout of encouragement on his lips, would lead his soldiers over the ramparts, and with a last dash drive the defeated defenders out from the fortification.

The snow held for nearly ten days; the fight kept up as long as the snow walls, often repaired and strengthened, would hold together.

The thaw, that relentless enemy of all snow sports, came to the attack at last, and gradually dismantled the fortifications; snow for ammunition grew thin and poor, and gravel became more and more a part of the snow-ball manufacture.

Napoleon tried to prevent this, for he knew the danger from such missiles. But often, in the heat of battle, his commands were disregarded. One boy especially--the same Bouquet who had scaled his hedge and brought him into trouble--was careless or vindictive in this matter.

On the last day of the snow, Napoleon saw young Bouquet packing snow-b.a.l.l.s with dirt and gravel, and commanded him to stop. But Bouquet only flung out a hot ”I won't!” at the commander, and launched his gravel snow-ball against the decaying fort.

Napoleon was just about to head the grand a.s.sault. ”To the rear with you! to the rear, Bouquet! You are disqualified!” he cried.

But Bouquet was insubordinate. He did not intend to be cheated out of his fun by any orders that ”Straw-nose” should give him. Instead of obeying his commander, he sang out a contemptuous refusal, and dashed ahead, as if to supplant his general in the post of leader of the a.s.sault.

Napoleon had no patience with disobedience. The insubordination and insolence of Bouquet angered him; and darting forward, he collared his rebellious subordinate, and flung him backward down the slushy rampart.

”Imbecile!” he cried. ”Learn to obey! Drag him to the rear, Lauriston.”

The fort was carried. But ”General Thaw” was too strong for the young soldiers; and that night, a rain setting in, finished the destruction of the now historic snow-fort of Brienne School.

Bouquet, smarting under what he considered the disgrace that had been put upon him before his playmates, accosted Napoleon that night in the hall. ”Bah, then, smarty Straw-nose!” he cried; ”you are a beast. How dare you lay hands on me, a Frenchman?”

”Because you would not obey orders,” Napoleon replied. ”Was not I in command?”

”You!” sneered Bouquet; ”and who are you to command? A runaway Corsican, a brigand, and the son of a brigand, like all Corsicans.”

”My father is not a brigand,” returned Napoleon. ”He is a gentleman--which you are not.”

”I am no gentleman, say you?” cried the enraged French boy. ”Why, young Straw-nose, my ancestors were gentlemen under great King Louis when yours were tending sheep on your Corsican hills. My father is an officer of France; yours is”--

”Well, sir, and what is mine?” said Napoleon defiantly.

”Yours,” Bouquet laughed with a mocking and cruel sneer, ”yours is but a lackey, a beggar in livery, a miserable tip-staff!”

Napoleon flung himself at the insulter of his father in a fury; but he was caught back by those standing by, and saved from the disgrace of again breaking the rules by fighting in the school-hall.

All night, however, he brooded over Bouquet's taunting words, and the desire for revenge grew hot within him.

The boy had said his father was no gentleman. No gentleman, indeed!

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