noon
At every concussion against the walls of the house , at every crash within the house , Marta pressed her nails tighter into her palms . Abruptly as the inferno of the guns had commenced , it ceased , and the steady , passionate , desperate blasts of the rifles , now uninterrupted , were more deadly and venomous if less shocking to the ear . The movement of the minute-hand on the clock-face became uncanny and merciless to her eye in its deliberate regularity . Dellarme had been told to hold on until noon , she knew . Was he still smiling ? Was Feller still happy in playing a stream of lead from the automatic ? Was the second charge of the Grays , which must have come to close quarters when the guns went silent , going to succeed ?