“Ah!” a chorus of excited exclamations in greeting of the game flushed from cover ran along the line.  Just the way you got our fellows with the hand-grenades, we will get you!  This was the thought, this the prayer which they saw being fulfilled by the glad medley of their fire when Hugo Mallin sprang up and threw down his rifle as if it were something whose touch had become venomous.  He threw it down with features transformed in the uplifting thought and the relief of a final resolution taken.

“I am through!” he cried.  “I will not murder my fellowman who has done me no wrong!  I cannot, I will not kill!”

Fracasse, who was near by, heard enough to understand the purport of the declaration, and his recollection of Hugo’s heresy and all the prejudice that he had formed against Hugo and the abhorrence of Hugo’s offence to the strict militarist brought a rush of anger to his brain as he leaped up and drawing his sword, struck at Hugo with the flat of it.  He aimed for Hugo’s back, but a bullet had hit Hugo in the calf of his leg and, his knees giving under him, he received the blow on the head and fell unconscious.

When he came to it was with a twitch of pain in his ribs.  He saw the glowering faces of his comrades above him and realized that Pilzer had given him a kick which expressed the general opinion.

“Once ought to be enough of that,” said the doctor, who was bandaging the leg, speaking to Pilzer.

Yet in the doctor’s eyes Hugo saw no favor, only the humanity of his occupation of mercy to criminal and king alike.  But Hugo expected no favor and he was glad of what he had done as he swooned again.  When he came to a second time, his head aching with throbs, it was with a sense of falling.  He found that he was on a litter that had just been set down.  Evidently this was by order of the colonel, who was standing over Hugo in the company of some officers.  All were regarding him as if he were a species of reptile.

“World anarchist ideas, which is another word for treason or white liver,” observed the colonel.  “To think that it happened in my regiment!  But I’ll not try to cover it for the regiment’s good name.  He will get the full measure of the law!”

“The placard is a good idea,” suggested an officer.

“Yes, put on by one of his comrades!”

“The punishment of public opinion.  It shows how sound the army is at heart.”

Hugo, lowering his glance, was able to see a sheet of note-paper pinned to his blouse.  It was lettered, but he could not make out the words.  Then he heard the approach of a galloping horse, whose hoofs seemed to strike his head, and heard the horse stop and an orderly saying something about Company I having got too far forward into a mess and the need of litters.

“We can spare this one,” said the colonel.

Hugo was rolled roughly onto the ground by the roadside and left alone.  He managed to raise himself on his elbow and saw that the lettering of the placard was “Coward!” Officers and soldiers and hospital-corps men called attention to it as they passed.  The sun was very hot and he was growing feverish.  Painfully he dragged himself to the shelter of a tree, and then, looking around, saw that he was near the big house of the terraced garden.