afe from temptation in the yard. He stopped back of the engineers, his
glance roving down the line of brown shoulders until it rested on the
automatic. This also was a gun, though it fired only bullets. His
fingers began beating a tattoo on his trousers' seam; a hungry
brilliance shone in his eyes. He took four or five steps forward as if
drawn by an overpowering fascination.

"This is no place for you!" said one of the engineers.

"No, and don't waste any time, either, old man!" said another. "Back to
your bulbs!"

Feller did not even hear them. For the moment he was actually deaf.

"Fire!" said Dellarme's whistle. "Thur-r-r!" went the automatic in
soulless, mechanical repetition, its tape spinning through the cylinder,
while the rifles spoke with the human irregularity of steel-tipped
fingers pounding at random on a drumhead. All along the line facing La
Tir the volume of fire spread until it was like the concert of a mighty
loom.

Marta could see nothing of the enemy, but she guessed that he was making
a rush from the second to the third terrace and from the outskirts of
the town. The engineer's repeated warning unheard above the din, he
touched Feller on the leg. Feller looked around with a frown of
querulous abstraction just as the breaking of a storm of shell fire
obscured Marta's vision with dust and smoke. She felt her head jerk as
if it would go free of her neck with each explosion, until she
reinforced her nerves with the memory of an old soldier's warning about
the folly of dodging missiles that were already past before you heard
them. She knew that she was perfectly safe behind the pillar.

The Gray batteries having tried out their range by the flashes of the
automatic the previous evening were making the most of the occasion.
"Uk-ung-n-ng!" the breaking jackets whipped out their grists. A crash on
the roof brought a small avalanche of slate tumbling down. A concussion
in the dining-room was followed by the tinkling of falling window-glass.
The engineers had work immediately when two of the infantrymen and their
rifles and the sand-bags on which they leaned were hurled together in a
heap of sand and torn flesh. Other bags were placed in the breach; other
men sprang forward and began firing. The reserves, the hospital-corps
men and the engineers hugged the breastwork for cover. The leaves
clipped from the trees by bullets were blown aside with the hurricane
breaths of shrapnel bursts; bullets whistled s