o near Marta that she
heard their shrillness above every other sound. She was amazed that the
house still remained standing--that any one was alive. But she had a
glimpse of Dellarme maintaining his set smile and another of Feller, who
had crept up behind the automatic, making impatient "come-on! come-on!
what-is-the-matter-with-you?" gestures in the direction of the batteries
in front of the castle.

"Thur-eesh--thur-eesh!" As the welcome note swept overhead he waved his
hands up and down in mad rapture and then peeped over the breastwork to
ascertain if the practice were good. The Brown batteries had been a
little slow in coming into action, but they had the range from the Gray
batteries' flashes the previous night and, undisturbed in the security
of their own flashes screened by the trees, soon broke the precision of
the opposing fire.

Now shells coming infrequently fell short or went wide. The air cleared.
Marta could again see distinctly, and she marvelled that the brown
figures were proceeding with their knitting as if nothing had happened.
She could not resist a thrill of grim admiration for their steadiness or
an appreciative thrill as she saw Feller eagerly peering over the
automatic gunner's shoulder to watch the effect of his fire. Suddenly,
both the rifles and the automatic, which had been firing deliberately,
began to fire with desperate rapidity. It was as if a boxer, sparring
slowly, let out all his power in a rain of blows. She could see nothing
of the Grays, but she understood that they were making a rush.

Then a chance shell, striking at the one point which the man who fired
it six thousand yards away would have chosen as his bull's-eye, obscured
Feller and the automatic and its gunners in the havoc of explosion.
Feller must have been killed. The dust settled; she saw Dellarme making
frantic gestures as he looked at his men. They were keeping up their
fusillade with unflinching rapidity. Through the breach left in the
breastwork she had glimpses, as the dust was finally dissipated, of gray
figures, bayonets fixed, pressing together as they came on fiercely
toward the opening. The Browns let go the full blast of their magazines.
Had that chance shell turned the scales? Would the Grays get into the
breastwork?

All Marta's faculties and emotions were frozen in her stare of suspense
at the breach. Her heart seemed straining with the effort of the living,
who heard nothing, thought nothing, in the cr