She watched him leap the garden wall as lightly as he had come and gallop away, an impersonation of the gay, adventurous spirit of war, counting death and wounds and hardship as the delights of the gamble. Yes, he would follow the Grays, throwing shells in the irresponsible joy of tossing confetti in a carnival. Pursuit! Was Feller's the sentiment of the army? Were the Browns not to stop at the frontier? Were they to change their song to, "Now we have ours we shall take some of theirs"? The thought was fresh fuel to the live coals that still remained under the ashes.
A brigade commander and some of his staff-officers near by formed a group with faces intent around an operator who was attaching his instrument to a field-wire that had just been reeled over the hedge. Marta moved toward them, but paused on hearing an outburst of jubilant exclamations:
"A hundred thousand prisoners!"
"And five hundred guns!"
"We're closing in on their frontier all along the line!"
"It's incredible!"
"But the word is official—it's right!"
From mouth to mouth—a hundred thousand prisoners, five hundred guns—the news was passed in the garden. Eyes dull with fatigue began flashing as the soldiers broke into a cheer that was not led, a cheer unlike any Marta had heard before. It had the high notes of men who were weary, of a terrible exultation, of spirit stronger than tired legs and as yet unsatisfied. Other exclamations from both officers and men expressed a hunger whetted by the taste of one day's victory.
"We'll go on!"
"We'll make peace in their capital!"