She did not answer.
"I was just thinking," he went on; he spoke slowly, almost in a whisper. "Maybe—you know—we won't come through this." He paused; his thoughts somehow seemed too big to put into words. But he knew he was very happy.
"I was just thinking, Aura, that if we shouldn't come through I just wanted you to know——" Again he stopped. From far away he heard the shrill, rhythmic cry of many voices shouting in unison. He listened, and then it all came back. The battle—his friends there fighting—they needed him. He let go of the girl's hand and sat up, brushing back his moist hair.
"Listen, Aura. Hear them shouting; I mustn't stay here." He tried, weakly, to get upon his feet, but the girl's arm about his waist held him down.
"Wait," she said. Surprised by the tenseness of her tone, he relaxed.
The cry grew louder, rolling up from a thousand voices and echoing back and forth across the amphitheater. The Very Young Man wondered vaguely what it could mean. He looked into Aura's face. Her lips were smiling now.
"What is it, Aura?" he whispered.
The girl impulsively put her arms about him and held him close.
"But we are coming through, my friend Jack. We are coming through." The Very Young Man looked wonderingly into her eyes. "Don't you hear? That cry—the cry of fear and despair. It means—life to us; and no more death—to them."
The Chemist's voice came out of the distance shouting: "They're running away. It's over; thank God it's over!"