Some time after a convoy of prisoners passed by. There were about two
hundred men.
The instant the young woman saw the prisoners she rushed out on the
road. Meanwhile my captain had come up, too. He stood by her side and
closely watched her movements. She looked like an animal ready to
spring. Every muscle was tense, every nerve tightened, and meanwhile
her eyes scrutinized the prisoners as they passed by.
There was a strange, penetrating force in her eyes. They burned like
live coals. They flashed like rapiers.
Suddenly she rushed out and almost threw herself upon one of the
prisoners in the convoy. It stopped, and as she clenched her hands
threateningly in the air she screamed in mingled exultation and agony:
"It's he! It's he! I knew I should find him!"
At first the captive soldier stared at her in surprise. Suddenly a wave
of deep red suffused his face, and then he turned ashy grey and bent
his head. It looked as if he were slowly sinking on his knees.
The young woman went on crying: "It's he! It's he! I knew I should find
him!"
At last she laughed wildly, a laugh that was more like a mad shriek,
and then collapsed on the roadside while the froth oozed through her
tightly-closed lips.