Then she grew a little calmer, and the lieutenant and I stood whispering to each other about what we had just seen and about what we had heard about her. V--SHE FINDS AT LAST THE MAN WHO MURDERED 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. VI--THE GUILTY MAN--AND JUSTICE My friend ceased speaking for a moment, and I felt a prickling and tingling all over me. It was emotion and uneasiness both in one. I looked at him. His eyes had suddenly become bright and clear, and there was a smile about his narrow lips of mingled sadness and joy. I will not tell you anything more about it. I will not go further into what happened. I will only add that half an hour later that man was no longer among the living. _We shot him._ Was it honourable and just? Is it never permissible to shoot a prisoner? Perhaps--perhaps not. I don't wish to dispute about it with anybody. In this case that question does not interest me in the least. I don't care whether it was lawful or not. I will only honestly and openly declare that to me this little incident stands out, amongst all the appalling things I saw, as something infinitely beautiful and exalted. I felt that at that moment I had seen cold, stern Justice face to face. VII--STORY OF A GERMAN SOLDIER'S HOME-COMING The day I went home was terribly long. It seemed to me as if my journey would never come to an end.... I was so deeply stirred that I could have wept. My lips quivered and my breast was as empty as if all the air had been pumped out of my lungs. As the train glided into the small station I pulled down the window and looked out.