"Bad!" said the doctor.
"Then, good-by!" And his head fell to one side, his lips set in his cheery smile.
Had ever any martyr shown a finer spirit dying for any cause? Marta wondered. She felt the sublimity of a great moment, an inexorable sadness. She knew that she should never forget that cheery smile or that white face. What was danger to anybody? What was death if you had seen how he had died?
His company was a company with his smile out of its heart and in its place blank despair. Many of the men had stopped firing. Some had even run back to look at him and stood, caps off, backs to the enemy, miserable in their grief. Others leaned against the parapet, rifles out of hand, staring and dazed.
"They have killed our captain!"
"They've killed our captain!"—still a captain to them. A general's stars could not have raised him a cubit in their estimation.
"And once we called him 'Baby Dellarme,' he was so young and bashful! Him a baby? He was a king!"
"Men, get to your places!" cried the surviving lieutenant rather hopelessly, with no Dellarme to show him what to do; and Marta saw that few paid any attention to him.
In that minute of demoralization the Grays had their chance, but only for a minute. A voice that seemed to speak some uncontrollable thought of her own broke in, and it rang with the authority and leadership of a mature officer's command, even though coming from a gardener in blue blouse and crownless straw hat.
"Your rifles, your rifles, quick!" called Feller. "We're only beginning to fight!"