, bursting on contact with the road and spreading
its own grist of death and the stones of the road in a fan-shaped,
mowing swath. Legs and bodies were thrown out as if driven centrifugally
by a powerful breath, with Hugo lost in the smoke and dust of the
weaving mass. He came out of it bearing Clarissa in his arms, up the
terrace steps. To Marta, this was an isolated deed of saving life, of
mercy in the midst of merciless slaughter; a parallel to that of
Stransky bringing in Grandfather Fragini pickaback.

"Big fireworks!" said Clarissa Eileen as Hugo set her down in front of
Marta, whose heart was in her eyes speaking its gratitude.

The artillery's maceration of the human jam suddenly ceased; perhaps
because the gunners had seen the Red Cross flag which a doctor had the
presence of mind to wave. Westerling turned from a sight worse to him
than the killing--that of the flowing retreat along the road pressing
frantically over the dead and wounded in growing disorder for the cover
of the town, and found himself face to face with the mask-like features
of that malingerer who had told him on the veranda that the Grays could
not win. Gall flooded his brain. In Hugo he recognized something kindred
to the spirit that had set his army at flight, something tangible and
personified; and through a mist of rage he saw Hugo smiling--smiling as
he had at times at the veranda court--and saluting him as a superior
officer.

"Now I am going to fight," said Hugo, "if they try to cross the white
posts; to fight with all the skill and courage I can command. But not
till then. They are still in their own country and we are not in ours.
Then they, in the wrong, will attack and we, in the right, will
defend--and, God with us, we shall win."

Thus a second time he had given to the prayer of Marta's children the
life of action. She could imagine how steadfastly and exaltedly he would
face the invader.

"Thank you, Miss Galland," he said. "And say good-by to your mother and
Minna for me."

He was gone, without waiting for any reply, this stranger whom her part
had not permitted to know well. A thousand words striving for utterance
choked her as she watched him pass out of sight. Westerling was
regarding her with a stare which fixed itself first on one thing and
then on another in dull misery. Near by were Bellini, the chief of
intelligence, and a subaltern who had arrived only a minute before. The
subaltern was dust-covered. He seemed t