The note of the artillery came like a distant and smothered groan, but it did not cease, and it would not cease, since the searchlights would show it a way all through the night.
John sat down, looked at the faint flashes on the far horizon and listened to that moaning which grew in volume as one paid close attention to it.

Europe or a great part of it had gone mad.

He was filled once more with wrath against kings and all their doings as he looked upon the murderous aftermath of feudalism, the most gigantic of all wars, made in a few hours by a few men sitting around a table.

Then he laughed at himself.

What was he! A mere feather in a cyclone! Certainly he had been blown about like one! His nervous imagination now passed quickly and throwing himself upon the ground he slept like those around him.