In her ears were the haunting calmness and contained force of Lanstron’s voice over the telephone.  She was pleased to think that she had not lost her temper in her talk with the staff-officer.  No, she had not flared once in indignation.  It was as if she had absorbed some of Lanny’s own self-control.  Lanny would approve of her in that scene with an officer of the Grays.  And she realized that a change had come over her—­a change inexplicable and telling—­and she was tired—­oh, so tired!  It had been exhausting work, indeed, for one woman, though she had been around the world, making war on two armies.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, all too flushed with energy, the energy of movement, to think of the feud between Hugo and Pilzer, Fracasse’s men had sped along the castle road.  Little Peterkin easily kept pace.  There was no danger in pursuit.  In him was the same zest of the chase which Animated his comrades.  They dropped down on a ledge without much regard to order.  Before them, at close range, was a company breaking out of close order in a sauve-qui-peut rout up a reverse slope.  It was not Dellarme’s company, but some other that had mistaken its direction and retired too late and by the wrong road.

You will throw hand-grenades, will you? thought Fracasse’s men.  You will mangle our fellows when they Can’t strike back, will you?  Now you’ll pay!  Now it is our turn!  We have seen our blood flow and now yours will flow!

The lust of the red slipped the cartridge clips into the magazines and held a true aim in the mad delight of slaughter.  No one minded, for no one heard—­not even little Peterkin—­the scattering bullets in return.  They had reached the stage where the objective thought of revenge wholly submerged the subjective thought of personal danger, which is the mood of the hungry tiger in the hunt.  They were the veritable finished products of veteran experience in purpose and marksmanship.  Hugo, too, was firing, but far over the head of every target; firing like a man in a trance who needs some deciding incident to bring him out of it into the part he was to play.

Only occasional figures who had not escaped over the ridge were to be seen.  The fewer the targets the greater the concentration.  A whole company was firing on a dozen straggling figures.  But one—­that one in the pasture—­seemed to have a charmed life.  The ground around him was peppered with dust spots.  He had only a few yards more to go to safety; yes his head—­the exasperation of him!—­was in line with the crest before he fell.

Where was there any more prey?  With ferret quickness eyes swept the range of vision.  Out of an orchard into the stubble of a wheat-field broke a panicky mass; a score or more of men who had lost their officer and their heads presumably.  They were the nail under the hammer, a brown blot, a target.