"We'll have work again soon. All ours in that place near by have been put out of action."
"Liar," said the man's comrade, with that courtesy so characteristic of the race.
"True as gospel. I was by the major when the news came. He's mad, too."
"What's going to happen?" said the man at the trough.
"That begins with a kay and ends in a curse."
The man was evidently right, for a lull came now as though the retreating force had completed its tasks in Kosczielna. The day wore on. The women, though obsessed with the same sense of coming disaster, bore up splendidly. But at about four in the afternoon, when the firing began again and two shells burst, one on the site of the windmill, the other at the end of the village, where Szmul used to live, Ian sent them and the women and children from the village into the cellars.
The Russians stopped firing at six o'clock and the women came up from the cellars. The little family had supper in the dining-room as quietly as in times of peace. None of the Prussians came to table. They had just received a supply of fresh provisions by motor-lorry and sent the Countess some, with a message that there was beer too, if she liked. They refused the beer, but ate the food. They could not afford to be proud, for supplies, except for cereals, had quite given out. Being cut off from Russia, the land of plenty, and the refugees they had fed, put them in this unenviable position. There was no chance of buying things in the neighborhood, as bare of supplies as if it had seen ten years' war. Vanda, noticing that her aunt had no appetite, laughingly remarked that she had better eat a good meal, for who knew where the next would come from. Little did they think how true her jest would prove to be.
They had finished and were sitting out in the ruins of the rose garden when the firing suddenly began again and so violently that Ian insisted upon the women taking to the cellar. Then he ran to the sacristy, calling to Father Constantine to keep under the broad archway leading from the chapel. He heard an answering voice, no more. He wanted to see what was happening with the Germans, so ran to the hillock, which seemed safe so far. Indeed, all the firing was on the other side, towards the village.