"The cowards!" he snarled. "The murderers!"
"Are you sure," stammered Bernard, "are you sure it's Élisabeth's hair?"
"Why, of course I am. They've shot her as they shot the two others. I know them both: it's the keeper and his wife. Oh, the blackguards! . . ."
He raised the butt of his rifle over a German dragging himself in the grass and was about to strike him, when the Colonel came up to him:
"Hullo, Delroze, what are you doing? Where's your company?"
"Oh, sir, if you only knew! . . ."
He rushed up to his colonel. He looked like a madman and brandished his rifle as he spoke:
"They've killed her, sir, yes, they've shot my wife. . . . Look, against the wall there, with the two people who were in her service. . . . They've shot her. . . . She was twenty years old, sir. . . . Oh, we must kill them all like dogs!"
But Bernard was dragging him away:
"Don't let us waste time, Paul; we can take our revenge on those who are still fighting. . . . I hear firing over there. Some of them are surrounded, I expect."