ttle ammunition for his automatic go a long way, and Mrs.
Galland did not observe a single error.

"Hurrah! I won!" Marta cried triumphantly, with some of her old
vivacity.

Then she drew away from the table wearily. The strain of concentrating
her mind had been worse than that of the battle; or, rather, it had
merely added another strain to a tortured brain after a sleepless night.
For her ears had been constantly alert. The demon had moved one of his
claws to fresh ground; the inferno on the La Tir side of the frontier
had shifted to a valley beyond the Galland estate, where the firing
appeared to come from the Brown side. Breaking from the leash of
silence, guns, automatics, rifles--each one straining for a speed
record--roared and crashed and rattled in greedy chorus, while the clock
ticked perhaps a hundred times. Thus famished savages might boll their
food in a time limit. Thereafter, for a while, the battle was desultory.

Then came another outburst from Dellarme's men, which she interpreted as
the response to another rush by the Grays; and this yelping of the demon
was not that of the hound after the hare, as in the valley, but of the
hare with his back to the wall. When it was over there was no cheer.
What did this mean? Oh, that slow minute-hand, resting so calmly between
hitches of destiny, now pointing to a quarter after eleven! For half a
century, it seemed to her, Marta had endured watching its snail pace.
Now inaction was no longer bearable. Without warning to her mother she
bolted out of the kitchen. Mrs. Galland sprang up to follow, but Minna
barred the way.

"One is enough!" she said firmly, and Mrs. Galland dropped back into her
chair.

In the front rooms Marta found havoc beyond her imagination. A portion
of the ceiling had been blown out by a shell entering at an up-stairs
window; the hardwood floors were littered with plaster and window-glass
and ripped into splinters in places.

"How can we ever afford repairs!" she thought.

But she hurried on, impelled by she knew not what, through the
dining-room, and, coming to the veranda, stopped short, with dilating
eyes and a cry of grievous shock. Two of his men were carrying Dellarme
back from the breastwork where they had caught him in their arms as he
fell. They laid him gently on the sward with a knapsack under his head.
His face grew whiter with the flow of blood from the red hole in the
right breast of his blouse. Then he opened his lips and