had crawled across the road in
the night--to find themselves unable to move either way and directly
under the flashes of the Browns' rifles.

Feller's and Stransky's shouts rose together in a peculiar unity of
direction and full of the fellowship they had found in their first
exchange of glances.

"You engineers, make ready!"

"Hand-grenades to the men under the tree! That's where they're going to
try for it--no wall to climb over there!"

"You engineers, take your rifles--and bayonet into anything that wears
gray!"

"Get back, you men by the tree, to avoid their hand-grenades! Form up
behind them, everybody!"

"No matter if they do get in at first! Back, you men, from under the
tree!"

There was not a single rifle-shot. In a silence like that before the
word to fire in a duel, all orders were heard and the more readily
obeyed because Dellarme's foresight had impressed their sense upon the
men in his quiet way.

The sand-bags by the tree were blown up by the Grays. Then, before the
dust had hardly settled, came a half score of hand-grenades thrown by
the first men of a Gray wedge, scrambling as they were pushed through
the breach by the pressure of the mass behind. In that final struggle of
one set of men to gain and another to hold a position, guns or
automatics or long-range bullets played no part. It was the grapple of
cold steel with cold steel and muscle with muscle, in a billowing,
twisting mob of wrestlers, with no sound from throats but straining
breaths; with no quarter, no distinction of person, and bloodshot eyes
and faces hot with the effort of brute strength striving, in primitive
desperation, to kill in order not to be killed. The cloud of rocking,
writhing arms and shoulders was neither going forward nor backward. Its
movement was that of a vortex, while the gray stream kept on pouring
through the breach as if it were only the first flood from some gray
lake on the other side of the breastwork.

Marta had come to the edge of the veranda, at once drawn and repelled,
feeling the fearful suspense of the combat, the savage horror of it, and
herself uttering sounds like the straining breaths of the men. What a
place for her to be! But she did not think of that. She was there. The
dreadful alchemy of war had made her a stranger to herself. She was mad;
they were mad; all the world was mad!

One minute--two, perhaps--not three--and the thing was over. She saw
the Grays being crushed back and reali