The fort and all about it seemed to be inclosed in a deathly stillness.

She looked again at the forest, trying to see the ambushed figures, but again it was only a blur before her, seeming now and then to float in a kind of mist.

Her pulses were beating fast, she could hear the thump, thump in her temples, but the slim scarlet figure never wavered and behind, the double file of women followed, grave and silent.
"They will not fire until we reach the spring," thought Lucy, and now she could hear the bubble of the cool, clear water, as it gushed from the hillside.

But still nothing stirred in the forest, no rifle cracked, there was no sound of moving men.
She reached the spring, bent down, filled both buckets at the pool, and passing in a circle around it, turned her face toward the fort, and, after her, came the silent procession, each filling her buckets at the pool, passing around it and turning her face toward the fort as she had done.
Lucy now felt her greatest fear when she began the return journey and her back was toward the forest.

There was in her something of the warrior; if the bullet was to find her she preferred to meet it, face to face.