A large number of the horsemen had already passed on down the road; the sounds that came from them seemed to be of oaths and laughter.  A number were still galloping in and out among the houses; the ground was strewed with bodies of the dead and wounded; the able-bodied, it seemed, must have suddenly huddled within their doors.

Susannah remembered her husband now, remembered where he had been standing.  She forgot all else; she rushed toward the middle of the green, drawing back only when some of the horsemen dashed across her path to follow their fellows.  They stared at her and, as they went, called to some who were still behind them.

One of these came on, checked his horse, and looked in Susannah’s face insultingly.  No doubt her eyes were dazed, and she looked to him like a mad woman, but she remembered afterwards that the child showed anger and babbled that the horseman was a bad man.  At this the rider took out his pistol and pointed it at the child and fired and rode off laughing.

Susannah saw the young Danite bending over her.  His words were hoarse and so sorrowful that she gathered from their tone that she was in great distress before she understood their purport or memory awoke.  “Ma’am,” he said, “I’ll take you down to your own waggon by the creek.”

She found herself sitting on the ground, her child in her arms.  The child was dead; she knew that as soon as she looked at him.  There was a little trickle of blood upon the light frock over his heart, but not much.

As yet no women, only a few men, had ventured forth, and the sound of the enemy’s horses and shouting were still in the air.  Susannah rose up, folding in her arms the body of the child; the momentum of her first intention was upon her will and muscles; she moved straight on toward the place where she had last seen Halsey.

The young Danite took hold of her sleeve when he perceived whither she went.

“’Tisn’t no use, ma’am.  Some of the brothers have attended to him.”

Susannah looked straight in the young man’s face with perfect courage.  “Is he dead?”

But the Danite had not courage for this; he turned away and put his arm over his eyes; she heard him grind his teeth in dumb passion.

Some of the men and women lying on the grass were moaning or screaming with the pain of their injuries.  The thought that Halsey might be in like pain made Susannah imperative.  “Is he dead?” she asked again in precise repetition of tone and accent.  “Is he dead?”

The Danite lifted his head.  “He is quite dead, and I marked the man that did it, and I marked the man that did this too.”  He touched reverently, not the child, but the wilting asters that were still grasped in the baby hand.  “If I’d only had a gun—­but”—­he ground his teeth again and muttered, “God helping me, they shall both die.”

Susannah understood nothing then but the first part of this speech.