atriotism, sir. That means love of country. I love my
country," he said slowly.

A preachment of patriotism from this nonchalant private was a straw too
much for Westerling's patience. He made a nervous gesture--a distinctly
nervous one as he dropped the teaspoon. He would have an end of
nonsense.

"You will answer questions!" he said. "First, you dropped your rifle?"

"Yes, sir."

"You refused to fight?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know the penalty for this?"

Hugo inclined his head. He was silent.

"Shot for treason--and immediately!" Westerling went on, irritated at
the man's complaisance. Then he bit his lip. This was harsh talk before
Marta. He expected to hear her utter some sort of protest against such
cruelty, and instead saw that her face remained calm and that there was
nothing but wonder in her eyes. She knew how to wait.

"Then, sir," said Hugo, speaking, evidently, because he was expected to
say something, "I suppose, of course, that I shall be shot. But"--he was
smiling in the way that he would when he brought a "good one" to the
head in the barracks--"but it will not be necessary to do it more than
once, will it? To tell you the truth, I had not counted on being shot
more than once."

Westerling was like a man who had lunged a blow at an object and struck
only air.

"I said that he was not a coward," Marta remarked quietly. There was
nothing in her manner to imply that she was defending Hugo. She seemed
to be incidentally justifying a previous observation of her own.

A smile in face of death! Westerling's prayer was for countless masses
of infantry who would smile in face of death and do his bidding. He
could not resist a soldier's admiration, which, however, he would not
permit to take the form of words. The form which it took was a sharp
thrust of his fist into the hollow of his hand. He had, too, a sense of
defeat which was uppermost as he spoke--a defeat that he was bound to
retrieve.

"You have a home, a father, and a mother?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"And perhaps a sweetheart?" Westerling proceeded.

Hugo unmistakably flushed.

"I don't think sir, that official statistics require an answer to that
question. I"--and again that confounded smile, as Westerling was
beginning to regard it--"I trust, sir, that I shall not have to be shot
more than once if we do not bring any one not yet officially of my
family into the affair."

"You do not seem to like life," Westerling observed.

"I lo