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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbarians by Robert W. Chambers
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Barbarians
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2008 [Ebook #25623]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARIANS***
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back
+into mid-air.]
+
+BARBARIANS
+
+By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"The Dark Star," "The Girl Philippa," "Who Goes There," Etc.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+With Frontispiece
+
+By A. I. KELLER
+
+                            ------------------
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+
+Publishers New York
+
+Published by arrangement with D. APPLETON & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+TO
+LYLE and MADELEINE MAHAN
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+  "Daughter of Light, the bestial wrath
+  Of Barbary besets thy path!
+  The Hun is beating his painted drum;
+  His war horns blare! The Hun is come!"
+
+  "Father, I feel his fœtid breath:
+  The thick air reeks with the stench of death;
+  My will is Thine. Thy will be done
+  On Turk and Bulgar, Czech and Hun!"
+
+II
+
+  _She understands._
+  _Where the dead headland flare_
+  _Mocks sea and sand;_
+  _Where death-lights shed their glare_
+  _On No-Man’s-Land._
+  _France takes her stand._
+  _Magnificently fair,_
+  _The Flaming Brand_
+  _Within her slender hand;_
+  _Christ’s lilies in her hair._
+
+III
+
+  "Daughter of Grief, thy House is sand!
+  Thy towers are falling athwart the land.
+  They’ve flayed the earth to its ribs of chalk
+  And over its bones the spectres stalk!"
+
+  "Father, I see my high spires reel;
+  My breast is scarred by the Hun’s hoofed heel.
+  What was, shall be! I read Thy sign:
+  Thy ocean yawns for the smitten swine!"
+
+IV
+
+  _Then, from Verdun_
+  _Pealed westward to the Somme_
+  _From every gun_
+  _God’s summons: "Daughter! Come!"_
+  _Then the red sun_
+  _Stood still. Grew dumb_
+  _The universal hum_
+  _Of life, and numb_
+  _The lips of Life, undone_
+  _By Death.... And so--France won!_
+
+V
+
+  "Daughter of God, the End is here!
+  The swine rush on: the sea is near!
+  My wild flowers bloom on the trenches’ edge;
+  My little birds sing by shore and sedge."
+
+  "Father, raise up my martyred land!
+  Clothe her bones with Thy magic hand;
+  Receive the Brand Thy angel lent,
+  And stanch my blood with Thy sacrament."
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. FED UP
+II. MAROONED
+III. CUCKOO!
+IV. RECONNAISSANCE
+V. PARNASSUS
+VI. IN FINISTÈRE
+VII. THE AIRMAN
+VIII. EN OBSERVATION
+IX. L’OMBRE
+X. THE GHOULS
+XI. THE SEED OF DEATH
+XII. FIFTY-FIFTY
+XIII. MULETEERS
+XIV. LA PLOO BELLE
+XV. CARILLONETTE
+XVI. DJACK
+XVII. FRIENDSHIP
+XVIII. THE AVIATOR
+XIX. HONOUR
+XX. LA BRABANÇONNE
+XXI. THE GARDENER
+XXII. THE SUSPECT
+XXIII. MADAM DEATH
+XXIV. BUBBLES
+XXV. KAMERAD
+Advertisement
+Jacket Flap Text
+Advertisement
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FED UP
+
+
+So this is what happened to the dozen-odd malcontents who could no longer
+stand the dirty business in Europe and the dirtier politicians at home.
+
+There was treachery in the Senate, treason in the House. A plague of liars
+infested the Republic; the land was rotting with plots.
+
+But if the authorities at Washington remained incredulous, stunned into
+impotency, while the din of murder filled the world, a few mere men, fed
+up on the mess, sickened while awaiting executive galvanization, and
+started east to purge their souls.
+
+They came from the four quarters of the continent, drawn to the decks of
+the mule transport by a common sickness and a common necessity. Only two
+among them had ever before met. They represented all sorts, classes,
+degrees of education and of ignorance, drawn to a common rendezvous by
+coincidental nausea incident to the temporary stupidity and poltroonery of
+those supposed to represent them in the Congress of the Great Republic.
+
+The rendezvous was a mule transport reeking with its cargo, still tied up
+to the sun-scorched wharf where scores of loungers loafed and gazed up at
+the rail and exchanged badinage with the supercargo.
+
+The supercargo consisted of this dozen-odd fed-up ones--eight Americans,
+three Frenchmen and one Belgian.
+
+There was a young soldier of fortune named Carfax, recently discharged
+from the Pennsylvania State Constabulary, who seemed to feel rather sure
+of a commission in the British service.
+
+Beside him, leaning on the blistering rail, stood a self-possessed young
+man named Harry Stent. He had been educated abroad; his means were ample;
+his time his own. He had shot all kinds of big game except a Hun, he told
+another young fellow--a civil engineer--who stood at his left and whose
+name was Jim Brown.
+
+A youth on crutches, passing along the deck behind them, lingered,
+listening to the conversation, slightly amused at Stent’s game list and
+his further ambition to bag a Boche.
+
+The young man’s lameness resulted from a trench acquaintance with the game
+which Stent desired to hunt. His regiment had been, and still was, the 2nd
+Foreign Legion. He was on his way back, now, to finish his convalescence
+in his old home in Finistère. He had been a writer of stories for
+children. His name was Jacques Wayland.
+
+As he turned away from the group at the rail, still amused, a man
+advancing aft spoke to him by name, and he recognized an American painter
+whom he had met in Brittany.
+
+"You, Neeland?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I’m fed up with watchful waiting."
+
+"Where are you bound, ultimately?"
+
+"I’ve a hint that an Overseas unit can use me. And you, Wayland?"
+
+"Going to my old home in Finistère where I’ll get well, I hope."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Second Foreign."
+
+"Oh. Get that leg in the trenches?" inquired Neeland.
+
+"Yes. Came over to recuperate. But Finistère calls me. I’ve _got_ to smell
+the sea off Eryx before I can get well."
+
+A pleasant-faced, middle-aged man, who stood near, turned his head and
+cast a professionally appraising glance at the young fellow on crutches.
+
+His name was Vail; he was a physician. It did not seem to him that there
+was much chance for the lame man’s very rapid recovery.
+
+Three muleteers came on deck from below--all young men, all talking in
+loud, careless voices. They wore uniforms of khaki resembling the regular
+service uniform. They had no right to these uniforms.
+
+One of these young men had invented the costume. His name was Jack Burley.
+His two comrades were, respectively, "Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn. Both
+had figured in the squared circle. All three were fed up. They desired to
+wallop something, even if it were only a leather-rumped mule.
+
+Four other men completed the supercargo--three French youths who were
+returning for military duty and one Belgian. They had been waiters in New
+York. They also were fed up with the administration. They kept by
+themselves during the voyage. Nobody ever learned their names. They left
+the transport at Calais, reported, and were lost to sight in the flood of
+young men flowing toward the trenches.
+
+They completed the odd dozen of fed-up ones who sailed that day on the
+suffocating mule transport in quest of something they needed but could not
+find in America--something that lay somewhere amid flaming obscurity in
+that hell of murder beyond the Somme--their souls’ salvation perhaps.
+
+Twelve fed-up men went. And what happened to all except the four French
+youths is known. Fate laid a guiding hand on the shoulder of Carfax and
+gave him a gentle shove toward the Vosges. Destiny linked arms with Stent
+and Brown and led them toward Italy. Wayland’s rendezvous with Old Man
+Death was in Finistère. Neeland sailed with an army corps, but Chance met
+him at Lorient and led him into the strangest paths a young man ever
+travelled.
+
+As for Sticky Smith, Kid Glenn and Jack Burley, they were muleteers. Or
+thought they were. A muleteer has to do with mules. Nothing else is
+supposed to concern him.
+
+But into the lives of these three muleteers came things never dreamed of
+in their philosophy--never imagined by them even in their cups.
+
+As for the others, Carfax, Brown, Stent, Wayland, Neeland, this is what
+happened to each one of them. But the episode of Carfax comes first. It
+happened somewhere north of the neutral Alpine region where the Vosges
+shoulder their way between France and Germany.
+
+After he had exchanged a dozen words with a staff officer, he began to
+realize, vaguely, that he was done in.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MAROONED
+
+
+"Will they do anything for us?" repeated Carfax.
+
+The staff officer thought it very doubtful. He stood in the snow switching
+his wet puttees and looking out across a world of tumbled mountains. Over
+on his right lay Germany; on his left, France; Switzerland towered in ice
+behind him against an arctic blue sky.
+
+It grew warm on the Falcon Peak, almost hot in the sun. Snow was melting
+on black heaps of rocks; a black salamander, swollen, horrible, stirred
+from its stiff lethargy and crawled away blindly across the snow.
+
+"Our case is this," continued Carfax; "somebody’s made a mistake. We’ve
+been forgotten. And if they don’t relieve us rather soon some of us will
+go off our bally nuts. Do you get me, Major?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"Do you understand what I’ve been saying?"
+
+"Oh, yes; quite so."
+
+"Then ask yourself, Major, how long can four men stand it, cooped up here
+on this peak? A month, two months, three, five? But it’s going on ten
+months--ten months of solitude--silence--not a sound, except when the
+snowslides go bellowing off into Alsace down there below our feet." His
+bronzed lip quivered. "I’ll get aboard one if this keeps on."
+
+He kicked a lump of ice off into space; the staff officer glanced at him
+and looked away hurriedly.
+
+"Listen," said Carfax with an effort; "we’re not regulars--not like the
+others. The Canadian division is different. Its discipline is
+different--in spite of Salisbury Plain and K. of K. In my regiment there
+are half-breeds, pelt-hunters, Nome miners, Yankees of all degrees,
+British, Canadians, gentlemen adventurers from Cosmopolis. They’re good
+soldiers, but do you think they’d stay here? It is so in the Athabasca
+Battalion; it is the same in every battalion. They wouldn’t stay here ten
+months. They couldn’t. We are free people; we can’t stand indefinite
+caging; we’ve got to have walking room once every few months."
+
+The staff officer murmured something.
+
+"I know; but good God, man! Four of us have been on this peak for nearly
+ten months. We’ve never seen a Boche, never heard a shot. Seasons come and
+go, rain falls, snow falls, the winds blow from the Alps, but nothing else
+comes to us except a half-frozen bird or two."
+
+The staff officer looked about him with an involuntary shiver. There was
+nothing to see except the sun on the wet, black rocks and the whitewashed
+observation station of solid stone from which wires sagged into the valley
+on the French side.
+
+"Well--good luck," he said hastily, looking as embarrassed as he felt.
+"I’ll be toddling along."
+
+"Will you say a word to the General, like a good chap? Tell him how it is
+with us--four of us all alone up here since the beginning. There’s Gary,
+Captain in the Athabasca Battalion, a Yankee if the truth were known;
+there’s Flint, a cockney lieutenant in a Calgary battery; there’s young
+Gray, a lieutenant and a Prince Edward Islander; and here’s me, a major in
+the Yukon Battalion--four of us on the top of a cursed French
+mountain--ten months of each other, of solitude, silence--and the whole
+world rocking with battles--and not a sound up here--not a whisper! I tell
+you we’re four sick men! We’ve got a grip on ourselves yet, but it’s
+slipping. We’re still fairly civil to each other, but the strain is
+killing. Sullen silences smother irritability, but--" he added in a
+peculiarly pleasant voice, "I expect we are likely to start killing each
+other if somebody doesn’t get us out of here very damn quick."
+
+The staff captain’s lips formed the words, "Awfully sorry! Good luck!" but
+his articulation was indistinct, and he went off hurriedly, still
+murmuring.
+
+Carfax stood in the snow, watching him clamber down among the rocks, where
+an alpinist orderly joined them.
+
+Gary presently appeared at the door of the observation station. "Has he
+gone?" he inquired, without interest.
+
+"Yes," said Carfax.
+
+"Is he going to do anything for us?"
+
+"I don’t know.... _No!_"
+
+Gary lingered, kicked at a salamander, then turned and went indoors.
+Carfax sat down on a rock and sucked at his empty pipe.
+
+Later the three officers in the observation station came out to the door
+again and looked at him, but turned back into the doorway without saying
+anything. And after a while Carfax, feeling slightly feverish, went
+indoors, too.
+
+In the square, whitewashed room Gray and Flint were playing cut-throat
+poker; Gary was at the telephone, but the messages received or transmitted
+appeared to be of no importance. There had never been any message of
+importance from the Falcon Peak or to it. There was likely to be none.
+
+Ennui, inertia, dry rot--and four men, sometimes silently, sometimes
+violently cursing their isolation, but always cursing it--afraid in their
+souls lest they fall to cursing one another aloud as they had begun to
+curse in their hearts.
+
+Months ago rain had fallen; now snow fell, and vast winds roared around
+them from the Alps. But nothing else ever came to the Falcon Peak, except
+a fierce, red-eyed _Lämmergeyer_ sheering above the peak on enormous
+pinions, or a few little migrating birds fluttering down, half frozen,
+from the high air lanes. Now and then, also, came to them a staff officer
+from below, British sometimes, sometimes French, who lingered no longer
+than necessary and then went back again, down into friendly deeps where
+were trees and fields and familiar things and human companionship, leaving
+them to their hell of silence, of solitude, and of each other.
+
+The tide of war had never washed the base of their granite cliffs; the
+highest battle wave had thundered against the Vosges beyond earshot; not
+even a deadened echo of war penetrated those silent heights; not a Taube
+floated in the zenith.
+
+In the squatty, whitewashed ruin which once had been the eyrie of some
+petty predatory despot, and which now served as an observatory for two
+idle divisions below in the valley, stood three telescopes. Otherwise the
+furniture consisted of valises, trunks, a table and chairs, a few books,
+several newspapers, and some tennis balls lying on the floor.
+
+Carfax seated himself at one of the telescopes, not looking through it,
+his heavy eyes partly closed, his burnt-out pipe between his teeth.
+
+Gary rose from the telephone and joined the card players. They shuffled
+and dealt listlessly, seldom speaking save in monosyllables.
+
+After a while Carfax went over to the card table and the young lieutenant
+cashed in and took his place at the telescope.
+
+Below in the Alsatian valley spring had already started the fruit buds,
+and a delicate green edged the lower snow line.
+
+The lieutenant spoke of it wistfully; nobody paid any attention; he rose
+presently and went outdoors to the edge of the precipice--not too near,
+for fear he might be tempted to jump out through the sunshine, down into
+that inviting world of promise below.
+
+Far underneath him--very far down in the valley--a cuckoo called. Out of
+the depths floated the elfin halloo, the gaily malicious challenge of
+spring herself, shouted up melodiously from the plains of
+Alsace--_Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_--You poor, sullen, frozen foreigner
+up there on the snowy rocks!--_Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_
+
+The lieutenant of Yukon infantry, whose name was Gray, came back into the
+room.
+
+"There’s a bird of sorts yelling like hell below," he said to the card
+players.
+
+Carfax ran over his cards, rejected three, and nodded. "Well, let him
+yell," he said.
+
+"What is it, a Boche dicky-bird insulting you?" asked Gary, in his Yankee
+drawl.
+
+Flint, declining to draw cards, got up and went out into the sunshine.
+When he returned to the table, he said: "It’s a cuckoo.... I wish to God I
+were out of this," he added.
+
+They continued to play for a while without apparent interest. Each man had
+won his comrades’ money too many times to care when Carfax added up debit
+and credit and wrote down each man’s score. In nine months, alternately
+beggaring one another, they had now, it appeared, broken about even.
+
+Gary, an American in British uniform, twitched a newspaper toward himself,
+slouched in his chair, and continued to read for a while. The paper was
+French and two weeks old; he jerked it about irritably.
+
+Gray, resting his elbows on his knees, sat gazing vacantly out of the
+narrow window. For a smart officer he had grown slovenly.
+
+"If there was any trout fishing to be had," he began; but Flint laughed
+scornfully.
+
+"What are you laughing at? There must be trout in the valley down there
+where that bird is," insisted Gray, reddening.
+
+"Yes, and there are cows and chickens and houses and women. What of it?"
+
+Gary, in his faded service uniform of a captain, scowled over his
+newspaper. "It’s bad enough to be here," he said heavily; "so don’t let’s
+talk about it. Quit disputing."
+
+Flint ignored the order.
+
+"If there was anything sportin’ to do----"
+
+"Oh, shut up," muttered Carfax. "Do you expect sport on a hog-back?"
+
+Gray picked up a tennis ball and began to play it against the whitewashed
+stone wall, using the palm of his hand. Flint joined him presently; Gary
+went over to the telephone, set the receiver to his ear and spoke to some
+officer in the distant valley on the French side, continuing a spiritless
+conversation while watching the handball play. After a while he rose,
+shambled out and down among the rocks to the spring where snow lay,
+trodden and filthy, and the big, black salamanders crawled half stupefied
+in the sun. All his loathing and fear of them kindled again as it always
+did at sight of them. "Dirty beasts," he muttered, stumping and stumbling
+among the stunted fir trees; "some day they’ll bite some of these damn
+fools who say they can’t bite. And that’ll end ’em."
+
+Flint and Gray continued to play handball in a perfunctory way while
+Carfax looked on from the telephone without interest. Gary came back, his
+shoes and puttees all over wet snow.
+
+"Unless," he said in a monotonous voice, "something happens within the
+next few days I’ll begin to feel queer in my head; and if I feel it coming
+on, I’ll blow my bally nut off. Or somebody’s." And he touched his service
+automatic in its holster and yawned.
+
+After a dead silence:
+
+"Buck up," remarked Carfax; "think how our men must feel in Belfort, never
+letting off their guns. Ross rifles, too--not a shot at a Boche since the
+damn war began!"
+
+"God!" said Flint, smiting the ball with the palm of his hand, "to think
+of those Ross rifles rusting down there and to think of the pink-skinned
+pigs they could paunch so cleanly. Did you ever paunch a deer? What a mess
+of intestines all over the shop!"
+
+Gary, still standing, began to kick the snow from his shoes. Gray said to
+him: "For a dollar of your Yankee money I’d give you a shot at me with
+your automatic--you’re that slack at practice."
+
+"If it goes on much longer like this I’ll not have to pay for a shot at
+anybody," returned Gary, with a short laugh.
+
+Gray laughed too, disagreeably, stretching his facial muscles, but no
+sound issued.
+
+"We’re all going crazy together up here; that’s my idea," he said. "I
+don’t know which I can stand most comfortably, your voices or your
+silence. Both make me sick."
+
+"Some day a salamander will nip you; then you’ll go loco," observed Gary,
+balancing another tennis ball in his right hand. "Give me a shot at you?"
+he added. "I feel as though I could throw it clean through you. You look
+soft as a pudding to me."
+
+Far, clear, from infinite depths, the elf-like hail of the cuckoo came
+floating up to the window.
+
+To Flint, English born, the call meant more than it did to Canadian or
+Yankee.
+
+"In Devon," he said in an altered voice, "they’ll be calling just now.
+There’s a world of primroses in Devon.... And the thorn is as white as the
+damned snow is up here."
+
+Gary growled his impatience and his profile of a Greek fighter showed in
+clean silhouette against the window.
+
+"Aw, hell," he said, "did I come out here for this?--nine months of it?"
+He hurled the tennis ball at the wall. "Can the home talk, if you don’t
+mind."
+
+The cuckoo was still calling.
+
+"Did you ever play cuckoo," asked Carfax, "at ten shillings a throw? It’s
+not a bad game--if you’re put to it for amusement."
+
+Nobody replied; Gray’s sunken, boyish face betrayed no interest; he
+continued to toss a tennis ball against the wall and catch it on the
+rebound.
+
+Toward sundown the usual Alpine chill set in; a mist hung over the
+snow-edged cliffs; the rocks breathed steam under a foggy and battered
+moon.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CUCKOO!
+
+
+Carfax, on duty, sat hunched up over the telephone, reporting to the
+fortress.
+
+Gray came in, closed the wooden shutters, hung blankets over them, lighted
+an oil stove and then a candle. Flint took up the cards, looked at Gary,
+then flung them aside, muttering.
+
+Nobody attempted to read; nobody touched the cards again. An orderly came
+in with soup. The meal was brief and perfectly silent.
+
+Flint said casually, after the table had been cleared: "I haven’t slept
+for a month. If I don’t get some sleep I’ll go queer. I warn you; that’s
+all. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s so."
+
+"They’re dirty beasts to keep us here like this," muttered Gary--"nine
+months of it, and not a shot."
+
+"There’ll be a few shots if things don’t change," remarked Flint in a
+colourless voice. "I’m getting wrong in my head. I can feel it."
+
+Carfax turned from the switchboard with a forced laugh: "Thinking of
+shooting up the camp?"
+
+"That or myself," replied Flint in a quiet voice; "ever since that cuckoo
+called I’ve felt queer."
+
+Gary, brooding in his soiled tunic collar, began to mutter presently: "I
+once knew a man in a lighthouse down in Florida who couldn’t stand it
+after a bit and jumped off."
+
+"Oh, we’ve heard that twenty times," interrupted Carfax wearily.
+
+Gray said: "_What_ a jump!--I mean down into Alsace below----"
+
+"You’re all going dotty!" snapped Carfax. "Shut up or you’ll be doing
+it--some of you."
+
+"I can’t sleep. That’s where I’m getting queer," insisted Flint. "If I
+could get a few hours’ sleep now----"
+
+"I wish to God the Boches could reach you with a big gun. That would put
+you to sleep, all right!" said Gray.
+
+"This war is likely to end before any of us see a Fritz," said Carfax. "I
+could stand it, too, except being up here with such"--his voice dwindled
+to a mutter, but it sounded to Gary as though he had used the word
+"rotters."
+
+Flint’s face had a white, strained expression; he began to walk about,
+saying aloud to himself: "If I could only sleep. That’s the idea--sleep it
+off, and wake up somewhere else. It’s the silence, or the voices--I don’t
+know which. You dollar-crazy Yankees and ignorant Provincials don’t
+realize what a cuckoo is. You’ve no traditions, anyway--no past, nothing
+to care for----"
+
+"Listen to ’Arry!" retorted Gary--"’Arry and his cuckoo!"
+
+Carfax stirred heavily. "Shut up!" he said, with an effort. "The thing is
+to keep doing something--something--anything--except quarrelling."
+
+He picked up a tennis ball. "Come on, you funking brutes! I’ll teach you
+how to play cuckoo. Every man takes three tennis balls and stands in a
+corner of the room. I stand in the middle. Then you blow out the candle.
+Then I call ’cuckoo!’ in the dark and you try to hit me, aiming by the
+sound of my voice. Every time I’m hit I pay ten shillings to the pool,
+take my place in a corner, and have a shot at the next man, chosen by lot.
+And if you throw three balls apiece and nobody hits me, then you each pay
+ten shillings to me and I’m cuckoo for another round."
+
+"We aim at random?" inquired Gray, mildly interested.
+
+"Certainly. It must be played in pitch darkness. When I call out cuckoo,
+you take a shot at where you think I am. If you all miss, you all pay. If
+I’m hit, I pay."
+
+Gary chose three tennis balls and retired to a corner of the room; Gray
+and Flint, urged into action, took three each, unwillingly.
+
+"Blow out the candle," said Carfax, who had walked into the middle of the
+room. Gary blew it out and the place was in darkness.
+
+They thought they heard Carfax moving cautiously, and presently he called,
+"Cuckoo!" A storm of tennis balls rebounded from the walls; "Cuckoo!"
+shouted Carfax, and the tennis balls rained all around him.
+
+Once more he called; not a ball hit him; and he struck a match where he
+was seated upon the floor.
+
+There was some perfunctory laughter of a feverish sort; the candle was
+relighted, tennis balls redistributed, and Carfax wrote down his winnings.
+
+The next time, however, Gray, throwing low, caught him. Again the candle
+was lighted, scores jotted down, a coin tossed, and Flint went in as
+cuckoo.
+
+It seemed almost impossible to miss a man so near, even in total darkness,
+but Flint lasted three rounds and was hit, finally, a stinging smack on
+the ear. And then Gary went in.
+
+It was hot work, but they kept at it feverishly, grimly, as though their
+very sanity depended upon the violence of their diversion. They threw the
+balls hard, viciously hard. A sort of silent ferocity seemed to seize
+them. A chance hit cut the skin over Flint’s cheekbone, and when the
+candle was lighted, one side of his face was bright with blood.
+
+Early in the proceedings somebody had disinterred brandy and Schnapps from
+under a bunk. The room had become close; they all were sweating.
+
+Carfax emptied his iced glass, still breathing hard, tossed a shilling and
+sent in Gary as cuckoo.
+
+Flint, who never could stand spirits, started unsteadily for the candle,
+but could not seem to blow it out. He stood swaying and balancing on his
+heels, puffing out his smooth, boyish cheeks and blowing at hazard.
+
+"You’re drunk," said Gray, thickly; but he was as flushed as the boy he
+addressed, only steadier of leg.
+
+"What’s that?" retorted Flint, jerking his shoulders around and gazing at
+Gray out of glassy eyes.
+
+"Blow out that candle," said Gary heavily, "or I’ll shoot it out! Do you
+get that?"
+
+"Shoot!" repeated Flint, staring vaguely into Gary’s bloodshot eyes;
+"_you_ shoot, you old slacker----"
+
+"Shut up and play the game!" cut in Carfax, a menacing roar rising in his
+voice. "You’re all slackers--and rotters, too. Play the game! Keep
+playing--hard!--or you’ll go clean off your fool nuts!"
+
+Gary walked heavily over and knocked the tennis balls out of Flint’s
+hands.
+
+"There’s a better game than that," he said, his articulation very thick;
+"but it takes nerve--if you’ve got it, you spindle-legged little cockney!"
+
+Flint struck at him aimlessly. "I’ve got nerve," he muttered, "plenty of
+nerve, old top! What d’you want? I’m your man; I’ll go you--eh, what?"
+
+"Go on with the game, I tell you!" bawled Carfax.
+
+Gary swung around: "Wait till I explain----"
+
+"No, don’t wait! Keep going! Keep playing! Keep doing something, for God’s
+sake!"
+
+"Will you wait!" shouted Gary. "I want to tell you----"
+
+Carfax made a hopeless gesture: "It’s talk that will do the trick for us
+all----"
+
+"I want to tell you----"
+
+Carfax shrugged, emptied his full glass with a gesture of finality.
+
+"Then talk, damn you! And we’ll all be at each other’s throats before
+morning."
+
+Gary got Gray by the elbow: "Reggie, it’s this way. We flip up for cuckoo.
+Whoever gets stuck takes a shot apiece from our automatics in the
+legs--eh, what?"
+
+"It’s perfectly agreeable to me," assented Gray, in the mincing, elaborate
+voice characteristic of him when drunk.
+
+Flint wagged his head. "It’s a sportin’ game. I’m in," he said.
+
+Gary looked at Carfax. "A shot in the dark at a man’s legs. And if he gets
+his--it will be Blighty in exchange for hell."
+
+Carfax, sullen with liquor, shoved his big hand into his pocket, produced
+a shilling, and tossed it.
+
+A brighter flush stained the faces which ringed him; the risky hazard of
+the affair cleared their sick minds to comprehension.
+
+Tails turned uppermost; Flint and Gary were eliminated. It lay between
+Carfax and Gray, and the older man won.
+
+"Mind you fire low," said the young fellow, with an excited laugh, and
+walked into the middle of the room.
+
+Gary blew out the candle. Presently from somewhere in the intense darkness
+Gray called "Cuckoo!" and instantly a slanting red flash lashed out
+through the gloom. And, when the deafening echo had nearly ceased:
+"Cuckoo!"
+
+Another pistol crashed. And after a swimming interval they heard him
+moving. "Cuckoo!" he called; a level flame stabbed the dark; something
+fell, thudding through the staccato uproar of the explosion. At the same
+moment the outer door opened on the crack and Carfax’s orderly peeped in.
+
+Carfax struck a match with shaky fingers; the candle guttered, sank,
+flared on Flint, who was laughing without a sound. "Got the beggar, by
+God!" he whispered--"through the head! Look at him. Look at Reggie Gray!
+Tried for his head and got him----"
+
+He reeled back, chuckling foolishly, and levelled at Carfax. "Now I’ll get
+you!" he simpered, and shot him through the face.
+
+As Carfax pitched forward, Gary fired.
+
+"Missed me, by God!" laughed Flint. "Shoot? Hell, yes. I’ll show you how
+to shoot----"
+
+He struck the lighted candle with his left hand and laughed again in the
+thick darkness.
+
+"Shoot? I’ll show you how to shoot, you old slacker----"
+
+Gary fired.
+
+After a silence Flint giggled in the choking darkness as the door opened
+cautiously again, and shot at the terrified orderly.
+
+"I’m a cockney, am I? And you don’t think much of the Devon cuckoos, do
+you? Now I’ll show you that I understand all kinds of cuckoos----"
+
+Both flashes split the obscurity at the same moment. Flint fell back
+against the wall and slid down to the floor. The outer door began to open
+again cautiously.
+
+But the orderly, half dressed, remained knee-deep in the snow by the
+doorway.
+
+After a long interval Gary struck a match, then went over and lit the
+candle. And, as he turned, Flint fired from where he lay on the floor and
+Gary swung heavily on one heel, took two uncertain steps. Then his pistol
+fell clattering; he sank to his knees and collapsed face downward on the
+stones.
+
+Flint, still lying where he had fallen, partly upright, against the wall,
+began to laugh, and died a few moments later, the wind from the slowly
+opening door stirring his fair hair and extinguishing the candle.
+
+And at last, through the opened door crept Carfax’s orderly; peered into
+the darkness within, shivering in his unbuttoned tunic, his boots wet with
+snow.
+
+Dawn already whitened the east; and up out of the ghastly fog edging the
+German Empire, silhouetted, monstrous, against the daybreak, soared a
+_Lämmergeyer_, beating the livid void with enormous, unclean wings.
+
+The orderly heard its scream, shrank, cowering, against the door frame as
+the huge bird’s ferocious red and yellow eyes blazed level with his.
+
+Suddenly, above the clamor of the _Lämmergeyer_, the shrill bell of the
+telephone began to ring.
+
+The terrible racket of the _Lämmergeyer_ filled the sky; the orderly
+stumbled into the room, slipped in a puddle of something wet, sent an
+empty bottle rolling and clinking away into the darkness; stumbled twice
+over prostrate bodies; reached the telephone, half fainting; whispered for
+help.
+
+After a long, long while, the horror still thickly clogging vein and
+brain, he scratched a match, hesitated, then holding it high, reeled
+toward the door with face averted.
+
+Outside the sun was already above the horizon, flashing over Haut Alsace
+at his feet.
+
+The _Lämmergeyer_ was a speck in the sky, poised over France.
+
+Up out of the infinite and sunlit chasm came a mocking, joyous hail--up
+through the sheer, misty gulf out of vernal depths: _Cuck_-oo! _Cuck_-oo!
+_Cuck_-oo!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+RECONNAISSANCE
+
+
+And that was the way Carfax ended--a tiny tragedy of incompetence compared
+to the mountainous official fiasco at Gallipoli. Here, a few perished
+among the filthy salamanders in the snow; there, thousands died in the
+burning Turkish gorse----
+
+                            ------------------
+
+But that’s history; and its makers are already officially damned.
+
+But now concerning two others of the fed-up dozen on board the mule
+transport--Harry Stent and Jim Brown. Destiny linked arms with them; Fate
+jerked a mysterious thumb over her shoulder toward Italy. Chance detailed
+them for special duty as soon as they landed.
+
+It was a magnificent sight, the disembarking of the British overseas
+military force sent secretly into Italy.
+
+They continued to disembark and entrain at night. Nobody knew that British
+troops were in Italy.
+
+The infernal uproar along the Isonzo never ceased; the din of the guns
+resounded through the Trentino, but British and Canadian noses were
+sniffing at something beyond the Carnic Alps, along the slopes of which
+they continued to concentrate, Rifles, Kilties, and Gunners.
+
+There seemed to be no particular hurry. Details from the Canadian
+contingent were constantly sent out to familiarize themselves with the
+vast waste of tunneled mountains denting the Austrian sky-line to the
+northward; and all day long Dominion reconnoitering parties wandered among
+valleys, alms, forest, and peaks in company sometimes with Italian
+alpinists, sometimes by themselves, prying, poking, snooping about with
+all the emotionless pertinacity of Teuton tourists preoccupied with
+_wanderlust_, _kultur_, and _ewigkeit_.
+
+And one lovely September morning the British Military Observer with the
+Italian army, and his very British aid, sat on a sunny rock on the Col de
+la Reine and watched a Canadian northward reconnaissance--nothing much to
+see, except a solitary moving figure here and there on the mountains,
+crawling like a deerstalker across ledges and stretches of bracken--a few
+dots on the higher slopes, visible for a moment, then again invisible,
+then glimpsed against some lower snow patch, and gone again beyond the
+range of powerful glasses.
+
+"The Athabasca regiment, 13th Battalion," remarked the British Military
+Observer; "lively and rather noisy."
+
+"Really," observed his A. D. C.
+
+"Sturdy, half-disciplined beggars," continued the B. M. O., watching the
+mountain plank through his glasses; "every variety of adventurer in their
+ranks--cattlemen, ranchmen, Hudson Bay trappers, North West police,
+lumbermen, mail carriers, bear hunters, Indians, renegade frontiersmen,
+soldiers of fortune--a sweet lot, Algy."
+
+"Ow."
+
+"--And half of ’em unruly Yankees--the most objectionable half, you know."
+
+"A bad lot," remarked the Honorable Algy.
+
+"Not at all," said the B. M. O. complacently; "I’ve a relative of sorts
+with ’em--leftenant, I believe--a Yankee brother-in-law, in point of
+fact."
+
+"Ow."
+
+"Married a step-sister in the States. Must look him up some day,"
+concluded the B. M. O., adjusting his field glasses and focussing them on
+two dark dots moving across a distant waste of alpine roses along the edge
+of a chasm.
+
+One of the dots happened to be the "relative of sorts" just mentioned; but
+the B. M. O. could not know that. And a moment afterward the dots became
+invisible against the vast mass of the mountain, and did not again
+reappear within the field of the English officer’s limited vision. So he
+never knew he had seen his relative of sorts.
+
+Up there on the alp, one of the dots, which at near view appeared to be a
+good-looking, bronzed young man in khaki, puttees, and mountain shoes,
+said to the other officer who was scrambling over the rocks beside him:
+
+"Did you ever see a better country for sheep?"
+
+"Bear, elk, goats--it’s sure a great layout," returned the younger
+officer, a Canadian whose name was Stent.
+
+"Goats," nodded Brown--"sheep and goats. This country was made for them. I
+fancy they _have_ chamois here. Did you ever see one, Harry?"
+
+"Yes. They have a thing out here, too, called an ibex. You never saw an
+ibex, did you, Jim?"
+
+Brown, who had halted, shook his head. Stent stepped forward and stood
+silently beside him, looking out across the vast cleft in the mountains,
+but not using his field glasses.
+
+At their feet the cliffs fell away sheer into tremendous and dizzying
+depths; fir forests far below carpeted the abyss like wastes of velvet
+moss, amid which glistened a twisted silvery thread--a river. A world of
+mountains bounded the horizon.
+
+"Better make a note or two," said Stent briefly.
+
+They unslung their rifles, seated themselves in the warm sun amid a deep
+thicket of alpine roses, and remained silent and busy with pencil and
+paper for a while--two inconspicuous, brownish-grey figures, cuddled close
+among the greyish rocks, with nothing of military insignia about their
+dress or their round grey wool caps to differentiate them from
+sportsmen--wary stalkers of chamois or red deer--except that under their
+unbelted tunics automatics and cartridge belts made perceptible bunches.
+
+Just above them a line of stunted firs edged limits of perpetual snow, and
+rocks and glistening fields of crag-broken white carried the eye on upward
+to the dazzling pinnacle of the Col de la Reine, splitting the vast, calm
+blue above.
+
+Nothing except peaks disturbed the tranquil sky to the northward; not a
+cloud hung there. But westward mist clung to a few mountain flanks, and to
+the east it was snowing on distant crests.
+
+Brown, sketching rapidly but accurately, laughed a little under his
+breath.
+
+"To think," he said, "not a Boche dreams we are in the Carnic Alps. It’s
+very funny, isn’t it? Our surveyors are likely to be here in a day or two,
+I fancy."
+
+Stent, working more slowly and methodically on his squared map paper, the
+smoke drifting fragrantly from his brier pipe, nodded in silence, glancing
+down now and then at the barometer and compass between them.
+
+"Mentioning big game," he remarked presently, "I started to tell you about
+the ibex, Jim. I’ve hunted a little in the Eastern Alps."
+
+"I didn’t know it," said Brown, interested.
+
+"Yes. A classmate of mine at the Munich Polytechnic invited me--Siurd von
+Glahn--a splendid fellow--educated at Oxford--just like one of us--nothing
+of the Boche about him at all----"
+
+Brown laughed: "A Boche is always a Boche, Harry. The black Prussian
+blood----"
+
+"No; Siurd was all white. Really. A charming, lovable fellow. Anyway, his
+dad had a shooting where there were chamois, reh, hirsch, and the king of
+all Alpine big game--ibex. And Siurd asked me."
+
+"Did you get an ibex?" inquired Brown, sharpening his pencil and glancing
+out across the valley at a cloud which had suddenly formed there.
+
+"I did."
+
+"What manner of beast is it?"
+
+"It has mountain sheep and goats stung to death. Take it from me, Jim,
+it’s the last word in mountain sport. The chamois isn’t in it. Pooh, I’ve
+seen chamois within a hundred yards of a mountain macadam highway. But the
+ibex? Not much! The man who stalks and kills an ibex has nothing more to
+learn about stalking. Chamois, red deer, Scotch stag make you laugh after
+you’ve done your bit in the ibex line."
+
+"How about our sheep and goat?" inquired Brown, staring at his comrade.
+
+"It’s harder to get ibex."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"It really is, Jim."
+
+"What does your ibex resemble?"
+
+"It’s a handsome beast, ashy grey in summer, furred a brownish yellow in
+winter, and with little chin whiskers and a pair of big, curved, heavily
+ridged horns, thick and flat and looking as though they ought to belong to
+something African, and twice as big."
+
+"Some trophy, what?" commented Brown, working away at his sketches.
+
+"Rather. The devilish thing lives along the perpetual snow line; and, for
+incredible stunts in jumping and climbing, it can give points to any Rocky
+Mountain goat. You try to get above it, spend the night there, and stalk
+it when it returns from nocturnal grazing in the stunted growth below.
+That’s how."
+
+"And you got one?"
+
+"Yes. It took six days. We followed it for that length of time across the
+icy mountains, Siurd and I. I thought I’d die."
+
+"Cold work, eh?"
+
+Stent nodded, pocketed his sketch, fished out a packet of bread and
+chocolate from his pocket and, rolling over luxuriously in the sun among
+the alpine roses, lunched leisurely, flat on his back.
+
+Brown presently stretched out and reclined on his elbow; and while he ate
+he lazily watched a kestrel circling deep in the gulf below him.
+
+"I think," he said, half to himself, "that this is the most beautiful
+region on earth."
+
+Stent lifted himself on both elbows and gazed across the chasm at the
+lower slopes of the alm opposite, all ablaze with dewy wild flowers. Down
+it, between fern and crag and bracken, flashed a brook, broken into in
+silvery sections amid depths of velvet green below, where evidently it
+tumbled headlong into that thin, shining thread which was a broad river.
+
+"Yes," mused Stent, "Siurd von Glahn and I were comrades on many a foot
+tour through such mountains as these. He was a delightful fellow, my
+classmate Siurd----"
+
+Brown’s swift rigid grip on his arm checked him to silence; there came the
+clink of an iron-shod foot on the ledge; they snatched their rifles from
+the fern patch; two figures stepped around the shelf of rock, looming up
+dark against the dazzling sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PARNASSUS
+
+
+Brown, squatting cross-legged among the alpine roses, squinted along his
+level rifle.
+
+"Halt!" he said with a pleasant, rising inflection in his quiet voice.
+"Stand very still, gentlemen," he added in German.
+
+"Drop your rifles. Drop ’em quick!" he repeated more sharply. "Up with
+your hands--hold them up high! Higher, if you please!--quickly. Now, then,
+what are you doing on this alp?"
+
+What they were doing seemed apparent enough--two gentlemen of Teutonic
+persuasion, out stalking game--deer, rehbok or chamois--one a tall, dark,
+nice-looking young fellow wearing the usual rough gray jacket with
+stag-horn buttons, green felt hat with feather, and leather breeches of
+the alpine hunter. His knees and aristocratic ankles were bare and
+bronzed. He laughed a little as he held up his arms.
+
+The other man was stout and stocky rather than fat. He had the square red
+face and bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and the spectacles of a
+Herr Professor. He held up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers
+spread out wide. They seemed rather soiled.
+
+From his _rücksack_ stuck out a butterfly net in two sections and the
+deeply scalloped, silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss
+adorned his green felt hat; a green tin box punched full of holes was
+slung from his broad shoulders.
+
+Brown, lowering his rifle cautiously, was already getting to his feet from
+the trampled bracken, when, behind him, he heard Stent’s astonished voice
+break forth in pedantic German:
+
+"Siurd! Is it _thou_ then?"
+
+"Harry Stent!" returned the dark, nice-looking young fellow amiably. And,
+in a delightful voice and charming English:
+
+"Pray, am I to offer you a shake hands," he inquired smilingly; "or shall
+I continue to invoke the Olympian gods with classically uplifted and
+imploring arms?"
+
+Brown let Stent pass forward. Then, stepping back, he watched the greeting
+between these two old classmates. His rifle, grasped between stock and
+barrel, hung loosely between both hands. His expression became vacantly
+good humoured; but his brain was working like lightning.
+
+Stent’s firm hand encountered Von Glahn’s and held it in questioning
+astonishment. Looking him in the eyes he said slowly: "Siurd, it is good
+to see you again. It is amazing to meet you this way. I am glad. I have
+never forgotten you.... Only a moment ago I was speaking to Brown about
+you--of our wonderful ibex hunt! I was telling Brown--my comrade--" he
+turned his head slightly and presented the two young men--"Mr. Brown, an
+American----"
+
+"American?" repeated Von Glahn in his gentle, well-bred voice, offering
+his hand. And, in turn, becoming sponsor, he presented his stocky
+companion as Dr. von Dresslin; and the ceremony instantly stiffened to a
+more rigid etiquette.
+
+Then, in his always gentle, graceful way, Von Glahn rested his hand
+lightly on Stent’s shoulder:
+
+"You made us jump--you two Americans--as though you had been British. Of
+what could two Americans be afraid in the Carnic Alps to challenge a pair
+of wandering ibex stalkers?"
+
+"You forget that I am Canadian," replied Stent, forcing a laugh.
+
+"At that, you are practically American and civilian--" He glanced
+smilingly over their equipment, carelessly it seemed to Stent, as though
+verifying all absence of military insignia. "Besides," he added with his
+gentle humour, "there are no British in Italy. And no Italians in these
+mountains, I fancy; they have their own affairs to occupy them on the
+Isonzo I understand. Also, there is no war between Italy and Germany."
+
+Stent smiled, perfectly conscious of Brown’s telepathic support in
+whatever was now to pass between them and these two Germans. He knew, and
+Brown knew, that these Germans must be taken back as prisoners; that,
+suspicious or not, they could not be permitted to depart again with a
+story of having met an American and a Canadian after ibex among the Carnic
+Alps.
+
+These two Germans were already their prisoners; but there was no hurry
+about telling them so.
+
+"How do you happen to be here, Siurd?" asked Stent, frankly curious.
+
+Von Glahn lifted his delicately formed eyebrows, then, amused:
+
+"Count von Plessis invites me; and"--he laughed outright--"he must have
+invited you, Harry, unless you are poaching!"
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Stent, for a brief second believing in the part he
+was playing; "I supposed this to be a free alp."
+
+He and Von Glahn laughed; and the latter said, still frankly amused:
+"_Soyez tranquille_, Messieurs; Count von Plessis permits my friends--in
+my company--to shoot the Queen’s alm."
+
+With a lithe movement, wholly graceful, he slipped the _rücksack_ from his
+shoulders, let it fall among the _alpenrosen_ beside his sporting rifle.
+
+"We have a long day and a longer night ahead of us," he said pleasantly,
+looking from Stent to Brown. "The snow limit lies just above us; the ibex
+should pass here at dawn on their way back to the peak. Shall we
+consolidate our front, gentlemen--and make it a Quadruple Entente?"
+
+Stent replied instantly: "We join you with thanks, Siurd. My one ibex hunt
+is no experience at all compared to your record of a veteran--" He looked
+full and significantly at Brown; continuing: "As you say, we have all day
+and--a long night before us. Let us make ourselves comfortable here in the
+sun before we take--our final stations."
+
+And they seated themselves in the lee of the crag, foregathering
+fraternally in the warm alpine sunshine.
+
+The Herr Professor von Dresslin grunted as he sat down. After he had
+lighted his pipe he grunted again, screwed together his butterfly net and
+gazed hard through thick-lensed spectacles at Brown.
+
+"Does it interest you, sir, the pursuit of the diurnal Lepidoptera?" he
+inquired, still staring intently at the American.
+
+"I don’t know anything about them," explained Brown. "What are
+Lepidoptera?"
+
+"The _schmetterling_--the butterfly. In Amerika, sir, you have many fine
+species, notably Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus of the four
+varietal forms." His prominent eyes shifted from one detail of Brown’s
+costume to another--not apparently an intelligent examination, but a sort
+of protruding and indifferent stare.
+
+His gaze, however, was arrested for a moment where the lump under Brown’s
+tunic indicated something concealed--a hunting knife, for example. Brown’s
+automatic was strapped there. But the bulging eyes, expressionless still,
+remained fixed for a second only, then travelled on toward the Ross
+rifle--the Athabasca Regiment having been permitted to exchange this
+beloved weapon for the British regulation piece recently issued to the
+Canadians. From behind the thick lenses of his spectacles the Herr
+Professor examined the rifle while his monotonously dreary voice continued
+an entomological monologue for Brown’s edification. And all the while Von
+Glahn and Stent, reclining nearby among the ferns, were exchanging what
+appeared to be the frankest of confidences and the happiest of youthful
+reminiscences.
+
+"Of the Parnassians," rumbled on Professor von Dresslin, "here in the Alps
+we possess one notable example--namely, the Parnassus Apollo. It is for
+the capture of this never-to-be-sufficiently studied butterfly that I
+have, upon this ibex-hunting expedition, myself equipped with net and
+suitable paraphernalia."
+
+"I see," nodded Brown, eyeing the green tin box and the net. The Herr
+Professor’s pop-eyed attention was now occupied with the service puttees
+worn by Brown. A sportsman also might have worn them, of course.
+
+"The Apollo butterfly," droned on Professor Dresslin, "iss a butterfly of
+the larger magnitude among European Lepidoptera, yet not of the largest.
+The Parnassians, allied to the Papilionidæ, all live only in high
+altitudes, and are, by the thinly scaled and always-to-be-remembered red
+and plack ge-spotted wings, to be readily recognized. I haf already two
+specimens captured this morning. I haff the honour, sir, to exhibit them
+for your inspection----"
+
+He fished out a flat green box from his pocket, opened it under Brown’s
+nose, leaning close enough to touch Brown with an exploring and furtive
+elbow--and felt the contour of the automatic.
+
+Amid a smell of carbolic and camphor cones Brown beheld, pinned side by
+side upon the cork-lined interior of the box, two curiously pretty
+butterflies.
+
+Their drooping and still pliable wings seemed as thin as white tissue
+paper; their bodies were covered with furry hairs. Brick-red and black
+spots decorated the frail membrane of the wings in a curiously pleasing
+harmony of pattern and of colour.
+
+"Very unusual," he said, with a vague idea he was saying the wrong thing.
+
+Monotonously, paying no attention, Professor von Dresslin continued: "I,
+the life history of the Parnassus Apollo, haff from my early youth
+investigated with minuteness, diligence, and patience."--His protuberant
+eyes were now fixed on Brown’s rifle again.--"For many years I haff bred
+this Apollo butterfly from the egg, from the caterpillar, from the
+chrysalis. I have the negroid forms, the albino forms, the dwarf forms,
+the hybrid forms investigated under effery climatic condition. Notes
+sufficient for three volumes of quarto already exist as a residuum of my
+investigations----"
+
+He looked up suddenly into the American’s face--which was the first sudden
+movement the Herr Professor had made----
+
+"Ach wass! Three volumes! It is nothing. Here iss material for thirty!--A
+lifetime iss too short to know all the secrets of a single species.... If
+I may inquire, sir, of what pattern is your most interesting and admirable
+rifle?"
+
+"A--Ross," said Brown, startled into a second’s hesitation.
+
+"So? And, if I may inquire, of what nationality iss it, a R-r-ross?"
+
+"It’s a Canadian weapon. We Americans use it a great deal for big game."
+
+"So?... And it iss also by the Canadian military employed perhaps, sir?"
+
+"I believe," said Brown, carelessly, "that the British Government has
+taken away the Ross rifle from the Canadians and given them the regulation
+weapon."
+
+"So? Permit--that I examine, sir?"
+
+Brown did not seem to hear him or notice the extended
+hand--blunt-fingered, hairy, persistent.
+
+The Professor, not discouraged, repeated: "Sir, _bitte darf ich_, may I be
+permitted?" And Brown’s eyes flashed back a lightning shaft of inquiry.
+Then, carelessly smiling, he passed the Ross rifle over to the Herr
+Professor; and, at the same time, drew toward him that gentleman’s
+silver-mounted weapon, and carelessly cocked it.
+
+"Permit me," he murmured, balancing it innocently in the hollow of his
+left arm, apparently preoccupied with admiration at the florid workmanship
+of stock and guard. No movement that the Herr Professor made escaped him;
+but presently he thought to himself--"The old dodo is absolutely
+unsuspicious. My nerves are out of order.... What odd eyes that Fritz
+has!"
+
+When Herr Professor von Dresslin passed back the weapon Brown laid the
+German sporting piece beside it with murmured complimentary comment.
+
+"Yess," said the German, "such rifles kill when properly handled. We
+Germans may cordially recommend them for our American--friends--" Here was
+the slightest hesitation--"Pardon! I mean that we may safely guarantee
+this rifle _to_ our friends."
+
+Brown looked thoughtfully at the thick lenses of the spectacles. The
+popeyes remained expressionless, utterly, Teutonically inscrutable. A big
+heather bee came buzzing among the _alpenrosen_. Its droning hum resembled
+the monotone of the Herr Professor.
+
+Behind them Brown heard Stent saying: "Do you remember our ambition to
+wear the laurels of Parnassus, Siurd? Do you remember our notes at the
+lectures on the poets? And our ambition to write at least one deathless
+poem apiece before we died?"
+
+Von Glahn’s dark eyes narrowed with merriment and his gentle laugh and
+attractive voice sounded pleasantly in Brown’s ears.
+
+"You wrote at least _one_ famous poem to Rosa," he said, still laughing.
+
+"To Rosa? Oh! Rosa of the Café Luitpold! By Jove I did, didn’t I, Siurd?
+How on earth did you ever remember that?"
+
+"I thought it very pretty." He began to repeat aloud:
+
+  "Rosa with the winsome eyes,
+  When my beer you bring to me;
+  I can see through your disguise!
+  I my goddess recognize--
+  Hebe, young immortally,
+  Sweet nepenthe pouring me!"
+
+Stent laughed outright:
+
+"How funny to think of it now--and to think of Rosa!... And you, Siurd, do
+you forget that you also composed a most wonderful war-poem--to the metre
+of ’Fly, Eagle, Fly!’ Do you remember how it began?
+
+  "Slay, Eagle, Slay!
+    They die who dare decry us!
+  Red dawns ’The Day.’
+    The western cliffs defy us!
+  Turn their grey flood
+  To seas of blood!
+  And, as they flee, Slay, Eagle! Slay!
+  For God has willed this German ’Day’!"
+
+"Enough," said Siurd Von Glahn, still laughing, but turning very red.
+"What a terrible memory you have, Harry! For heaven’s sake spare my
+modesty such accurate reminiscences."
+
+"I thought it fine poetry--then," insisted Stent with a forced smile. But
+his voice had subtly altered.
+
+They looked at each other in silence, the reminiscent smile still stamped
+upon their stiffening lips.
+
+For a brief moment the years had seemed to fade--time was not--the
+sunshine of that careless golden age had seemed to warm them once again
+there where they sat amid the _alpenrosen_ below the snow line on the Col
+de la Reine.
+
+But it did not endure; everything concerning earth and heaven and life and
+death had so far remained unsaid between these two. And never would be
+said. Both understood that, perhaps.
+
+Then Von Glahn’s sidelong and preoccupied glance fell on Stent’s field
+glasses slung short around his neck. His rigid smile died out. Soldiers
+wore field glasses that way; hunters, when they carried them instead of
+spyglasses, wore them _en bandoulière_.
+
+He spoke, however, of other matters in his gentle, thoughtful
+voice--avoiding always any mention of politics and war--chatted on
+pleasantly with the familiarity and insouciance of old acquaintance. Once
+he turned slowly and looked at Brown--addressed him politely--while his
+dark eyes wandered over the American, noting every detail of dress and
+equipment, and the slight bulge at his belt line beneath the tunic.
+
+Twice he found pretext to pick up his rifle, but discarded it carelessly,
+apparently not noticing that Stent and Brown always resumed their own
+weapons when he touched his.
+
+Brown said to Von Glahn:
+
+"Ibex stalking is a new game to me. My friend Stent tells me that you are
+old at it."
+
+"I have followed some few ibex, Mr. Brown," replied the young man
+modestly. "And--other game," he added with a shrug.
+
+"I know how it’s done in theory," continued the American; "and I am
+wondering whether we are to lie in this spot until dawn tomorrow or
+whether we climb higher and lie in the snow up there."
+
+"In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly where we shall lie tonight--Mr.
+Brown."
+
+There was an odd look in Siurd’s soft brown eyes; he turned and spoke to
+Herr Professor von Dresslin, using dialect--and instantly appearing to
+recollect himself he asked pardon of Stent and Brown in his very perfect
+English.
+
+"I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun dialect: ’Ibex may be stirring,
+as it is already late afternoon. We ought now to use our glasses.’ My
+family," he added apologetically, "come from the Traunwald; I forget and
+employ the vernacular at times."
+
+The Herr Professor unslung his telescope, set his rifle upright on the
+moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the
+blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he
+is drawing on the bowstring.
+
+Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of the same thing: the chance that
+these Germans might spy others of the Athabasca regiment prowling among
+the ferns and rocks of neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly at an end,
+anyway.
+
+They exchanged a glance; both picked up their rifles; Brown nodded almost
+imperceptibly. The tragic comedy was approaching its close.
+
+"_Hirsch_" grunted the Herr Professor--"_und stück_--on the north
+alm"--staring through his telescope intently.
+
+"Accorded," said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing his spyglass and sweeping the
+distant crags. "_Stück_ on the western shoulder," he added--"and a stag
+royal among them."
+
+"Of ten?"
+
+"Of twelve."
+
+After a silence: "Why are they galloping--I wonder--the herd-stag and
+_stück_?"
+
+Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent’s arm.
+
+"A _geier_, perhaps," suggested Siurd, his eye glued to his spyglass.
+
+"No ibex?" asked Stent in a voice a little forced.
+
+"_Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok_--high on the third
+peak--feeding."
+
+"Accorded," grunted the Herr Professor after an interval of search; and he
+closed his spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.
+
+His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually upon Brown, who was laying
+aside his own rifle again--and the German’s expression did not alter.
+
+"Ibex!" exclaimed Von Glahn softly.
+
+Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted his field glasses on the
+third peak, and stood there, poised, slim and upright against the sky on
+the chasm’s mossy edge.
+
+"I don’t see your ibex, Siurd," he said, still searching.
+
+"On the third peak, _mon ami_"--drawing Stent familiarly to his side--the
+lightest caressing contact--merely enough to verify the existence of the
+automatic under his old classmate’s tunic.
+
+If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch, neither did Brown notice it,
+watching them. Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not at all
+certain, because at that moment there came flopping along over the bracken
+and _alpenrosen_ a loppy winged butterfly--a large, whitish creature,
+seeming uncertain in its irresolute flight whether to alight at Brown’s
+feet or go flapping aimlessly on over Brown’s head.
+
+The Herr Professor snatched up his net--struck heavily toward the winged
+thing--a silent, terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle clutched
+together. Brown went down with a crash.
+
+At the shocking sound of the impact Stent wheeled from the abyss, then
+staggered back under the powerful shove from Von Glahn’s nervous arm.
+Swaying, fighting frantically for foothold, there on the chasm’s awful
+edge, he balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium. Von Glahn,
+rigid, watched him. Then, deathly white, his young eyes looking straight
+into the eyes of his old classmate--Stent lost the fight, fell outward,
+wider, dropping back into mid-air, down through sheer, tremendous
+depths--down there where the broad river seemed only a silver thread and
+the forests looked like beds of tender, velvet moss.
+
+After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus Apollo, still
+winging its erratic way where God willed it--a frail, dainty, translucent,
+wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf--symbol, perhaps of the soul
+already soaring up out of the terrific deeps below.
+
+The Herr Professor sweated and panted as he tugged at the silk
+handkerchief with which he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious
+American behind his back.
+
+"Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!" he grunted--"mit his pockets full of automatic
+clips. A Yankee, eh? What I tell you, Siurd?--English and Yankee they are
+one in blood and one at heart--pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what I
+told you already _gesternabend_? The British _schwein_ are in Italy
+already. Hola! Siurd! Take his feet and we turn him over _mal_!"
+
+But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning heavily against the crag, his
+back to the abyss, his blond head buried in both arms.
+
+So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too, began, with his powerful,
+stubby hands, to pull the unconscious man over on his back. And, as he
+worked, he hummed monotonously but contentedly in his bushy beard
+something about _something_ being "_über alles_"--God, perhaps, perhaps
+the blue sky overhead which covered him and his sickened friend alike, and
+the hurt enemy whose closed lids shut out the sky above--and the dead man
+lying very, very far below them--where river and forest and moss and
+Parnassus were now alike to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN FINISTÈRE
+
+
+It was a dirty trick that they played Stent and Brown--the three
+Mysterious Sisters, Fate, Chance, and Destiny. But they’re always billed
+for any performance, be it vaudeville or tragedy; and there’s no use
+hissing them off: they’ll dog you from the stage entrance if they take a
+fancy to you.
+
+They dogged Wayland from the dock at Calais, where the mule transport
+landed, all the way to Paris, then on a slow train to Quimperlé, and then,
+by stagecoach, to that little lost house on the moors, where ties held him
+most closely--where all he cared for in this world was gathered under a
+humble roof.
+
+In spite of his lameness he went duck-shooting the week after his arrival.
+It was rather forcing his convalescence, but he believed it would
+accelerate it to go about in the open air, as though there were nothing
+the matter with his shattered leg.
+
+So he hobbled down to the point he knew so well. He had longed for the sea
+off Eryx. It thundered at his feet.
+
+And, now, all around him through clamorous obscurity a watery light
+glimmered; it edged the low-driven clouds hurrying in from the sea; it
+outlined the long point of rocks thrust southward into the smoking
+smother.
+
+The din of the surf filled his ears; through flying patches of mist he
+caught glimpses of rollers bursting white against the reef; heard duller
+detonations along unseen sands, and shattering reports where heavy waves
+exploded among basalt rocks.
+
+His lean face of an invalid glistened with spray; salt water dripped from
+cap and coat, spangled the brown barrels of his fowling-piece, and ran
+down the varnished supports of both crutches where he leaned on them,
+braced forward against an ever-rising wind.
+
+At moments he seemed to catch glimpses of darker specks dotting the
+heaving flank of some huge wave. But it was not until the wild ducks rose
+through the phantom light and came whirring in from the sea that his gun,
+poked stiffly skyward, flashed in the pallid void. And then, sometimes, he
+hobbled back after the dead quarry while it still drove headlong inland,
+slanting earthward before the gale.
+
+Once, amid the endless thundering, in the turbulent desolation around him,
+through the roar of wind in his ears, he seemed to catch deadened sounds
+resembling distant seaward cannonading--_real_ cannonading--as though
+individual shots, dully distinct, dominated for a few moments the unbroken
+uproar of surf and gale.
+
+He listened, straining his ears, alert, intent upon the sounds he ought to
+recognize--the sounds he knew so well.
+
+Only the ceaseless pounding of the sea assailed his ears.
+
+Three wild duck, widgeon, came speeding through the fog; he breasted the
+wind, balanced heavily on both crutches and one leg, and shoved his gun
+upward.
+
+At the same instant the mist in front and overhead became noisy with wild
+fowl, rising in one great, panic-stricken, clamoring cloud. He hesitated;
+a muffled, thudding sound came to him over the unseen sea, growing louder,
+nearer, dominating the gale, increasing to a rattling clatter.
+
+Suddenly a great cloudy shape loomed up through the whirling mist
+ahead--an enormous shadow in the fog--a gigantic spectre rushing inland on
+vast and ghostly pinions.
+
+As the man shrank on his crutches, looking up, the aëroplane swept past
+overhead--a wounded, wavering, unsteady, unbalanced thing, its right
+aileron dangling, half stripped, and almost mangled to a skeleton.
+
+Already it was slanting lower toward the forest like a hard-hit duck,
+wing-crippled, fighting desperately for flight-power to the very end. Then
+the inland mist engulfed it.
+
+And after it hobbled Wayland, painfully, two brace of dead ducks and his
+slung fowling piece bobbing on his back, his rubber-shod crutches groping
+and probing among drenched rocks and gullies full of kelp, his left leg in
+splints hanging heavily.
+
+He could not go fast; he could not go very far. Further inland, foggy
+gorse gave place to broom and blighted bracken, all wet, sagging with
+rain. Then he crossed a swale of brown reeds and tussock set with little
+pools of water, opaque and grey in the rain.
+
+Where the outer moors narrowed he turned westward; then a strip of low,
+thorn-clad cliff confronted him, up which he toiled along a V-shaped cleft
+choked with ferns.
+
+The spectral forest of Läis lay just beyond, its wind-tortured branches
+tossing under a leaden sky.
+
+East and west lonely moors stretched away into the depths of the mist;
+southward spread the sea; to the north lay the wide woods of Läis, equally
+deserted now in this sad and empty land.
+
+He hobbled to the edge of the forest and stood knee deep in discoloured
+ferns, listening. The sombre beech-woods spread thick on either hand, a
+wilderness of crossed limbs and meshed branches to which still clung great
+clots of dull brown leaves.
+
+He listened, peering into sinister, grey depths. In the uncertain light
+nothing stirred except the clashing branches overhead; there was no sound
+except the wind’s flowing roar and the ghostly noise of his own voice,
+hallooing through the solitude--a voice in the misty void that seemed to
+carry less sound than the straining cry of a sleeper in his dreams.
+
+If the aëroplane had landed, there was no sign here. How far had it
+struggled on, sheering the tree-tops, before it fell?--if indeed it had
+fallen somewhere in the wood’s grey depths?
+
+As long as he had sufficient strength he prowled along the forest,
+entering it here and there, calling, listening, searching the foggy
+corridors of trees. The rotting brake crackled underfoot; the tree tops
+clashed and creaked above him.
+
+At last, having only enough strength left to take him home, he turned
+away, limping through the blotched and broken ferns, his crippled leg
+hanging stiffly in its splints, his gun and the dead ducks bobbing on his
+back.
+
+The trodden way was soggy with little pools full of drenched grasses and
+dead leaves; but at length came rising ground, and the blue-green,
+glimmering wastes of gorse stretching away before him through the
+curtained fog.
+
+A sheep path ran through; and after a little while a few trees loomed
+shadowy in the mist, and a low stone house took shape, whitewashed,
+flanked by barn, pigpen, and a stack of rotting seaweed.
+
+A few wet hens wandered aimlessly by the doorstep; a tiny bed of white
+clove-pinks and tall white phlox exhaled a homely welcome as the lame man
+hobbled up the steps, pulled the leather latchstring, and entered.
+
+In the kitchen an old Breton woman, chopping herbs, looked up at him out
+of aged eyes, shaking her head under its white coiffe.
+
+"It is nearly noon," she said. "You have been out since dawn. Was it wise,
+for a convalescent, Monsieur Jacques?"
+
+"Very wise, Marie-Josephine. Because the more exercise I take the sooner I
+shall be able to go back."
+
+"It is too soon to go out in such weather."
+
+"Ducks fly inland only in such weather," he retorted, smiling. "And we
+like roast widgeon, you and I, Marie-Josephine."
+
+And all the while her aged blue eyes were fixed on him, and over her
+withered cheeks the soft bloom came and faded--that pretty colour which
+Breton women usually retain until the end.
+
+"Thou knowest, Monsieur Jacques," she said, with a curiously quaint
+mingling of familiarity and respect, "that I do not counsel caution
+because I love thee and dread for thee again the trenches. But with thy
+leg hanging there like the broken wing of a _vanneau_----"
+
+He replied good humouredly:
+
+"Thou dost not know the Legion, Marie-Josephine. Every day in our trenches
+we break a comrade into pieces and glue him together again, just to make
+him tougher. Broken bones, once mended, are stronger than before."
+
+He was looking down at her where she sat by the hearth, slicing vegetables
+and herbs, but watching him all the while out of her lovely, faded eyes.
+
+"I understand, Monsieur Jacques, that you are like your father--God knows
+he was hardy and without fear--to the last"--she dropped her head--"Mary,
+glorious--intercede--" she muttered over her bowl of herbs.
+
+Wayland, resting on his crutches, unslung his ducks, laid them on the
+table, smoothed their beautiful heads and breasts, then slipped the
+soaking _bandoulière_ of his gun from his shoulder and placed the dripping
+piece against the chimney corner.
+
+"After I have scrubbed myself," he said, "and have put on dry clothes, I
+shall come to luncheon; and I shall have something very strange to tell
+you, Marie-Josephine."
+
+He limped away into one of the two remaining rooms--the other was
+hers--and closed his door.
+
+Marie-Josephine continued to prepare the soup. There was an egg for him,
+too; and a slice of cold pork and a _brioche_ and a jug of cider.
+
+In his room Wayland was whistling "Tipperary."
+
+Now and again, pausing in her work, she turned her eyes to his closed
+door--wonderful eyes that became miracles of tenderness as she listened.
+
+He came out, presently, dressed in his odd, ill-fitting uniform of the
+Legion, tunic unbuttoned, collarless of shirt, his bright, thick hair, now
+of decent length, in boyish disorder.
+
+Delicious odours of soup and of Breton cider greeted him; he seated
+himself; Marie-Josephine waited on him, hovered over him, tucked a sack of
+feathers under his maimed leg, placed his crutches in the corner beside
+the gun.
+
+Still eating, leisurely, he began:
+
+"Marie-Josephine--a strange thing has happened on Quesnel Moors which
+troubles me.... Listen attentively. It was while waiting for ducks on the
+Eryx Rocks, that once I thought I heard through the roar of wind and sea
+the sound of a far cannonading. But I said to myself that it was only the
+imagination of a haunted mind; that in my ears still thundered the
+cannonade of Lens."
+
+"Was it nevertheless true?" She had turned around from the fire where her
+own soup simmered in the kettle. As she spoke again she rose and came to
+the table.
+
+He said: "It must have been cannon that I heard. Because, not long
+afterward, out of the fog came a great aëroplane rushing inland from the
+sea--flying swiftly above me--right over me!--and staggering like a
+wounded duck--it had one aileron broken--and sheered away into the fog,
+northward, Marie-Josephine."
+
+Her work-worn hands, tightly clenched, rested now on the table and she
+leaned there, looking down at him.
+
+"Was it an enemy--this airship, Jacques?"
+
+"In the mist flying and the ragged clouds I could not tell. It might have
+been English. It must have been, I think--coming as it came from the sea.
+But I am troubled, Marie-Josephine. Were the guns at sea an enemy’s guns?
+Did the aëroplane come to earth in safety? Where? In the Forest of Laïs? I
+found no trace of it."
+
+She said, tremulous perhaps from standing too long motionless and intent:
+
+"Is it possible that the Boches would come into these solitary moors,
+where there are no people any more, only the creatures of the Laïs woods,
+and the curlew and the lapwings which pass at evening?"
+
+He ate thoughtfully and in silence for a while; then:
+
+"They go, usually--the Boches--where there is plunder--murder to be
+done.... Spying to be done.... God knows what purpose animates the
+Huns.... After all, Lorient is not so far away.... Yet it surely must have
+been an English aëroplane, beaten off by some enemy ship--a submarine
+perhaps. God send that the rocks of the Isle des Chouans take care of
+her--with their teeth!"
+
+He drank his cider--a sip or two only--then, setting aside the glass:
+
+"I went from the Rocks of Eryx to Laïs Woods. I called as loudly as I
+could; the wind whirled my voice back into my throat.... I am not yet very
+strong....
+
+"Then I went into the wood as far as my strength permitted. I heard and
+saw nothing, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"Would they be dead?" she asked.
+
+"They were planing to earth. I don’t know how much control they had,
+whether they could steer--choose a landing place. There are plenty of safe
+places on these moors."
+
+"If their airship is crippled, what can they do, these English flying men,
+out there on the moors in the rain and wind? When the coast guard passes
+we must tell him."
+
+"After lunch I shall go out again as far as my strength allows.... If the
+rain would cease and the mist lift, one might see something--be of some
+use, perhaps----"
+
+"Ought you to go, Monsieur Jacques?"
+
+"Could I fail to try to find them--Englishmen--and perhaps injured? Surely
+I should go, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"The coast guard----"
+
+"He passed the Eryx Rocks at daylight. He is at Sainte-Ylva now. Tonight,
+when I see his comrade’s lantern, I shall stop him and report. But in the
+meanwhile I must go out and search."
+
+"Spare thyself--for the trenches, Jacques. Remain indoors today." She
+began to unpin the coiffe which she always wore ceremoniously at meals
+when he was present.
+
+He smiled: "Thou knowest I must go, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"And if thou come upon them in the forest and they are Huns?"
+
+He laughed: "They are English, I tell thee, Marie-Josephine!"
+
+She nodded; under her breath, staring at the rain-lashed window: "Like thy
+father, thou must go forth," she muttered; "go always where thy spirit
+calls. And once _he_ went. And came no more. And God help us all in
+Finistère, where all are born to grief."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE AIRMAN
+
+
+She had seated herself on a stool by the hearth. Presently she spread her
+apron with trembling fingers, took the glazed bowl of soup upon her lap
+and began to eat, slowly, casting long, unquiet glances at him from time
+to time where he still at table leaned heavily, looking out into the rain.
+
+When he caught her eye he smiled, summoning her with a nod of his boyish
+head. She set aside her bowl obediently, and, rising, brought him his
+crutches. And at the same moment somebody knocked lightly on the outer
+door.
+
+Marie-Josephine had unpinned her coiffe. Now she pinned it on over her
+_bonnet_ before going to the door, glancing uneasily around at him while
+she tied her tresses and settled the delicate starched wings of her
+bonnet.
+
+"That’s odd," he said, "that knocking," staring at the door. "Perhaps it
+is the lost Englishman."
+
+"God send them," she whispered, going to the door and opening it.
+
+It certainly seemed to be one of the lost Englishmen--a big,
+square-shouldered, blond young fellow, tall and powerful, in the leather
+dress of an aëronaut. His glass mask was lifted like the visor of a
+tilting helmet, disclosing a red, weather-beaten face, wet with rain.
+Strength, youth, rugged health was their first impression of this
+leather-clad man from the clouds.
+
+He stepped inside the house immediately, halted when he caught sight of
+Wayland in his undress uniform, glanced involuntarily at his crutches and
+bandaged leg, cast a quick, penetrating glance right and left; then he
+spoke pleasantly in his hesitating, imperfect French--so oddly imperfect
+that Wayland could not understand him at all.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded in English.
+
+The airman seemed astonished for an instant, then a quick smile broke out
+on his ruddy features:
+
+"I say, this _is_ lucky! Fancy finding an Englishman here!--wherever this
+place may be." He laughed. "Of course I know I’m ’somewhere in France,’ as
+the censor has it, but I’m hanged if I know where!"
+
+"Come in and shut the door," said Wayland, reassured. Marie-Josephine
+closed the door. The aëronaut came forward, stood dripping a moment, then
+took the chair to which Wayland pointed, seating himself as though a
+trifle tired.
+
+"Shot down," he explained, gaily. "An enemy submarine winged us out yonder
+somewhere. I tramped over these bally moors for hours before I found a
+sign of any path. A sheepwalk brought me here."
+
+"You are lucky. There is only one house on these moors--this! Who are
+you?" asked Wayland.
+
+"West--flight-lieutenant, 10th division, Cinque-Ports patrolling
+squadron."
+
+"Good heavens, man! What are you doing in Finistère?"
+
+"_What!_"
+
+"You are in Brittany, province of Finistère. Didn’t you know it?"
+
+The air-officer seemed astounded. Presently he said: "The dirty weather
+foxed us. Then that fellow out yonder winged us. I was glad enough to see
+a coast line."
+
+"Did you fall?"
+
+"No; we controlled our landing pretty well."
+
+"Where did you land?"
+
+There was a second’s hesitation; the airman looked at Wayland, glanced at
+his crippled leg.
+
+"Out there near some woods," he said. "My pilot’s there now trying to
+patch up.... You are not French, are you?"
+
+"American."
+
+"Oh! A--volunteer, I presume."
+
+"Foreign Legion--2d."
+
+"I see. Back from the trenches with a leg."
+
+"It’s nearly well. I’ll be back soon."
+
+"Can you walk?" asked the airman so abruptly that Wayland, looking at him,
+hesitated, he did not quite know why.
+
+"Not very far," he replied, cautiously. "I can get to the window with my
+crutches pretty well."
+
+And the next moment he felt ashamed of his caution when the airman laughed
+frankly.
+
+"I need a guide to some petrol," he said. "Evidently you can’t go with
+me."
+
+"Haven’t you enough petrol to take you to Lorient?"
+
+"How far is Lorient?"
+
+Wayland told him.
+
+"I don’t know," said the flight-lieutenant; "I’ll have to try to get
+somewhere. I suppose it is useless for me to ask," he added, "but have
+you, by any chance, a bit of canvas--an old sail or hammock?--I don’t need
+much. That’s what I came for--and some shellac and wire, and a screwdriver
+of sorts? We need patching as well as petrol; and we’re a little short of
+supplies."
+
+Wayland’s steady gaze never left him, but his smile was friendly.
+
+"We’re in a tearing hurry, too," added the flight-lieutenant, looking out
+of the window.
+
+Wayland smiled. "Of course there’s no petrol here. There’s nothing here. I
+don’t suppose you could have landed in a more deserted region if you had
+tried. There’s a château in the Laïs woods, but it’s closed; owner and
+servants are at the war and the family in Paris."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody has cleared out; the war has
+stripped the country; and there never were any people on these moors,
+excepting shooting parties and, in the summer, a stray artist or two from
+Quimperlé."
+
+The lieutenant looked at him. "You say there is nobody here--between here
+and Lorient? No--troops?"
+
+"There’s nothing to guard. The coast is one vast shoal. Ships pass hull
+down. Once a day a coast guard patrols along the cliffs----"
+
+"When?"
+
+"He has passed, unfortunately. Otherwise he might signal by relay to
+Lorient and have them send you out some petrol. By the way--are you
+hungry?"
+
+The flight-lieutenant showed all his firm, white teeth under a yellow
+mustache, which curled somewhat upward. He laughed in a carefree way, as
+though something had suddenly eased his mind of perplexity--perhaps the
+certainty that there was no possible chance for petrol. Certainty is said
+to be more endurable than suspense.
+
+"I’ll stop for a bite--if you don’t mind--while my pilot tinkers out
+yonder," he said. "We’re not in such a bad way. It might easily have been
+worse. Do you think you could find us a bit of sail, or something, to use
+for patching?"
+
+Wayland indicated an old high-backed chair of oak, quaintly embellished
+with ancient leather in faded blue and gold. It had been a royal chair in
+its day, or the Fleur-de-Lys lied.
+
+The flight-lieutenant seated himself with a rather stiff bow.
+
+"If you need canvas"--Wayland hesitated--then, gravely: "There are, in my
+room, a number of artists’ _toiles_--old chassis with the blank canvas
+still untouched."
+
+"Exactly what we need!" exclaimed the other. "What luck, now, to meet a
+painter in such a place as this!"
+
+"They belonged to my father," explained Wayland. "We--Marie-Josephine and
+I--have always kept my father’s old canvases and colours--everything of
+his.... I’ll be glad to give them to a British soldier.... They’re about
+all I have that was his--except that oak chair you sit on."
+
+He rose on his crutches, spoke briefly in Breton to Marie-Josephine, then
+limped slowly away to his room.
+
+When he returned with half a dozen blank canvases the flight-lieutenant,
+at table, was eating pork and black bread and drinking Breton cider.
+
+Wayland seated himself, laid both crutches across his knees, picked up one
+of the chassis, and began to rip from it the dusty canvas. It was like
+tearing muscles from his own bones. But he smiled and chatted on,
+casually, with the air-officer, who ate as though half starved.
+
+"I suppose," said Wayland, "you’ll start back across the Channel as soon
+as you secure petrol enough?"
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"You could go by way of Quimper or by Lorient. There’s petrol to be had at
+both places for military purposes"--leisurely continuing to rip the big
+squares of canvas from the frames.
+
+The airman, still eating, watched him askance at intervals.
+
+"I’ve brought what’s left of the shellac; it isn’t much use, I fear. But
+here is his hammer and canvas stretcher, and the remainder of the nails he
+used for stretching his canvases," said Wayland, with an effort to speak
+carelessly.
+
+"Many thanks. You also are a painter, I take it."
+
+Wayland laid one hand on the sleeve of his uniform and laughed.
+
+"I _was_ a writer. But there are only soldiers in the world now."
+
+"Quite so ... This is an odd place for an American to live in."
+
+"My father bought it years ago. He was a painter of peasant life." He
+added, lowering his voice, although Marie-Josephine understood no English:
+"This old peasant woman was his model many years ago. She also kept house
+for him. He lived here; I was born here."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, but my father desired that I grow up a good Yankee. I was at school
+in America when he--died."
+
+The airman continued to eat very busily.
+
+"He died--out there"--Wayland looked through the window, musingly. "There
+was an Iceland schooner wrecked off the Isle des Chouans. And no
+life-saving crew short of Ylva Light. So my father went out in his little
+American catboat, all alone.... Marie-Josephine saw his sail off Eryx
+Rocks ... for a few moments ... and saw it no more."
+
+The airman, still devouring his bread and meat, nodded in silence.
+
+"That is how it happened," said Wayland. "The French authorities notified
+me. There was a little money and this hut, and--Marie-Josephine. So I came
+here; and I write children’s stories--that sort of thing.... It goes well
+enough. I sell a few to American publishers. Otherwise I shoot and fish
+and read ... when war does not preoccupy me...."
+
+He smiled, experiencing the vague relief of talking to somebody in his
+native tongue. Quesnel Moors were sometimes very lonely.
+
+"It’s been a long convalescence," he continued, smilingly. "One of their
+’coal-boxes’ did this"--touching his leg. "When I was able to move I went
+to America. But the sea off the Eryx called me back; and the authorities
+permitted me to come down here. I’m getting well very fast now."
+
+He had stripped every chassis of its canvas, and had made a roll of the
+material.
+
+"I’m very glad to be of any use to you," he said pleasantly, laying the
+roll on the table.
+
+Marie-Josephine, on her low chair by the hearth, sat listening to every
+word as though she had understood. The expression in her faded eyes varied
+constantly; solicitude, perplexity, vague uneasiness, a recurrent glimmer
+of suspicion were succeeded always by wistful tenderness when her gaze
+returned to Wayland and rested on his youthful face and figure with a
+pride forever new.
+
+Once she spoke in mixed French and Breton:
+
+"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques, _mon chéri_?"
+
+"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do you?"
+
+"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"
+
+"He has the tricks of speech. Also his accent is of an English university.
+There is no mistaking it."
+
+"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed in the universities of England?"
+
+"Yes.... But----"
+
+"_Gar à nous, mon p’tit_, Jacques. In Finistère a stranger is a suspect.
+Since earliest times they have done us harm in Finistère. The
+strangers--God knows what centuries of evil they have wrought."
+
+"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned again to the airman, who had
+now satisfied his hunger and had already risen to gather up the roll of
+canvas, the hammer, nails, and shellac.
+
+"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially. "I’ll take these articles,
+if I may. It’s very good of you ... I’m in a tearing hurry----"
+
+"Won’t your pilot come over and eat a bit?"
+
+"I’ll take him this bread and meat, if I may. Many thanks." He held out
+his heavily gloved hand with a friendly smile, nodded to Marie-Josephine.
+And as he hurriedly turned to go, the ancient carving on the high-backed
+chair caught him between the buttons of his leather coat, tearing it wide
+open over the breast. And Wayland saw the ribbon of the Iron Cross there
+fastened to a sea-grey tunic.
+
+There was a second’s frightful silence.
+
+"What’s that you wear?" said Wayland hoarsely. "Stop! Stand where you----"
+
+"Halt! Don’t touch that shotgun!" cried the airman sharply. But Wayland
+already had it in his hands, and the airman fired twice at him where he
+stood--steadied the automatic to shoot again, but held his fire, seeing it
+would not be necessary. Besides, he did not care to shoot the old woman
+unless military precaution made it advisable; and she was on her knees,
+her withered arms upflung, shielding the prostrate body with her own.
+
+"You Yankee fool," he snapped out harshly--"it is your own fault, not
+mine!... Like the rest of your imbecile nation you poke your nose where it
+has no business! And I--" He ceased speaking, realizing that his words
+remained unheard.
+
+After a moment he backed toward the door, carrying the canvas roll under
+his left arm and keeping his eye carefully on the prostrate man. Also, one
+can never trust the French!--he was quite ready for that old woman there
+on the floor who was holding the dead boy’s head to her breast, muttering:
+"My darling! My child!--Oh, little son of Marie-Josephine!--I told thee--I
+warned thee of the stranger in Finistère!... Marie--holy--intercede!...
+All--all are born to grief in Finistère!..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EN OBSERVATION
+
+
+The incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from
+Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had
+notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was
+very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.
+
+Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately
+playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle
+and Isole, had seen a werewolf in Laïs Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two
+legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two
+enormous eyes.
+
+The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes
+Lighthouse; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of
+Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to
+keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.
+
+That an enemy airman had done murder in Finistère was now certain; but
+that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very
+improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel,
+at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.
+
+That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des
+Chouettes and Finistère, and landing men, seemed to be practically an
+impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.
+
+But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been
+established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and
+rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck,
+and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild
+boar roamed and rooted unmolested?
+
+And where in Finistère was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for
+the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the
+enemy’s flag had vanished from the seas?
+
+Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went
+out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British
+expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of
+troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French
+and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines
+put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for
+any possible aërial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the
+coasts.
+
+Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various
+rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.
+
+And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion,
+Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the
+Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to verify or
+discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.
+
+The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy
+and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers
+and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges
+loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of
+Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.
+
+Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate
+this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become
+temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an
+American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow
+Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental
+Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a
+very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a
+promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman,
+however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.
+
+He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finistère pretty
+well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and
+because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be
+reasonable as well as original.
+
+It had been a stiff walk across country--fifteen miles, as against thirty
+odd around by road--but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the
+affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield,
+crossing the marshes, skirting _étangs_, a solitary figure in the waste,
+easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+L’OMBRE
+
+
+Aulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October
+leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered,
+unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns,
+startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound
+except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of
+brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or
+one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly
+along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and
+cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.
+
+It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were
+long past timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen
+branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was
+littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which
+broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the
+acrid odour of decay.
+
+Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but
+he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a
+high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.
+
+It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens
+stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing
+underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.
+
+Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint
+sounds--perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken,
+or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of
+some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily
+conceding him right of way.
+
+After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of
+stone stood, and where there should have been gates.
+
+But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.
+
+He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had
+softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become
+indistinguishable.
+
+Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded
+panes were broken; nobody came to the closed and discoloured door of
+massive oak.
+
+The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away
+between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three
+deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.
+
+Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal
+burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in
+his autumn migration.
+
+The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the
+house--a low, weather-ravaged structure in the grassy glade, ringed by a
+square, wet moat.
+
+There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed
+the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and
+continued on into the forest.
+
+An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned
+and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.
+
+A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching
+his approach.
+
+As he crossed the bridge he took off his cap.
+
+"Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired. "Would you be kind enough
+to say to her that I arrive from Lorient at her request?"
+
+"I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said in flawless English.
+
+He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force."
+
+"May I see your credentials, Captain Neeland?" She had descended the
+single step of crumbling stone.
+
+"Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerning _your_ identity?"
+
+There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown.
+Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made
+her skin seem so white.
+
+"What proof of my identity do you expect?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Only one word, Madame."
+
+She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle toward him. "L’Ombre," she
+whispered.
+
+From his pocket he drew his credentials and offered them. Among them was
+her own letter to the authorities at Lorient.
+
+After she had examined them she handed them back to him.
+
+"Will you come in, Captain Neeland--or, perhaps we had better seat
+ourselves on the bridge--in order to lose no time--because I wish you to
+see for yourself----"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment came into her cheeks:
+"It may seem absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times--what I am going
+to say to you--concerning L’Ombre----"
+
+She had turned; he followed; and at her grave gesture of invitation, he
+seated himself beside her on the coping of mossy stone which ran like a
+bench under the parapet of the little bridge.
+
+"Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did
+not suppose myself to be superstitious.... I really am not--unless--except
+for this one matter of L’Ombre.... My English governess drove superstition
+out of my head.... Still, living in Finistère--here in this house"--she
+flushed again--"I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but
+I am sure you are too courteous--... It required some courage for me to
+write to Lorient. But, if it might possibly help my country--to risk
+ridicule--of course I do not hesitate."
+
+She looked uncertainly at the young man’s pleasant, serious face, and, as
+though reassured:
+
+"I shall have to tell you a little about myself first--so that you may
+understand better."
+
+"Please," he said gravely.
+
+"Then--my father and my only brother died a year ago, in battle.... It
+happened in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had maintained only two men
+servants here. They went with their classes. One old woman remains." She
+looked up with a forced smile. "I need not explain to you that our
+circumstances are much straitened. You have only to look about you to see
+that ... our poverty is not recent; it always has been so within my
+memory--only growing a little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes
+began during the Vendée.... But that is of no interest ... except
+that--through coincidence, of course--every time a new misfortune comes
+upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still
+mystified, but interested.
+
+"Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked.
+
+"I thought it resembled a fish----"
+
+"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you know that L’Ombre means ’the shadow’."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you know, also, that there is a fish called ’L’Ombre’?"
+
+"No; I did not know that."
+
+"There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L’Ombre does not belong
+here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high altitudes where waters are
+icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord
+me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning
+my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything
+... _everything_...."
+
+"I am interested," he assured her pleasantly.
+
+"Then--it is a legend--perhaps a superstition in our family--that any
+misfortune to us--_and to France_--is always preceded by two invariable
+omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L’Ombre in
+the waters of our moat--" She turned her head slowly and looked down over
+the parapet of the bridge.--"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is
+that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong--all striking the same
+hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really
+is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I,
+myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vendée the clocks
+persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d’Aulnes mounted
+the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at
+that hour.... L’Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o’clock
+one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong.
+
+"And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L’Ombre appeared in the
+moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week,
+until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the
+light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain
+Neeland----"
+
+"I am intensely interested," he repeated, watching the lovely, sensitive
+face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed
+again.
+
+"It is only to explain--perhaps to justify myself for writing--for asking
+that an officer be sent here from Lorient for a few days----"
+
+"I understand, Countess."
+
+"Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself--for my own fears--my
+personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be
+coincident with my country’s mishaps.... So I thought--if they sent an
+officer who would be kind enough to understand----"
+
+"I understand ... L’Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?"
+
+"Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o’clock in the afternoon."
+
+"And--the clocks?"
+
+"For a week they have been all wrong."
+
+"What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously.
+
+"Five."
+
+"No matter where the hands point?"
+
+"No matter. I have tried to regulate them. I have done everything I could
+do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I
+have"--a pale smile touched her lips--"I have been a little
+wakeful--perhaps a trifle uneasy--on my country’s account. You
+understand...." Pride and courage had permitted her no more than
+uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely
+bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to
+understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the
+race whose name she bore.
+
+The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his
+respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly
+believed what she told him.
+
+But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was
+another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena
+other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in
+medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on
+earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it. And
+this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however
+accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to
+comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood
+of every Breton ever born.
+
+But he merely said with pleasant deference: "I can very easily understand
+your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of
+great nervous tension in France--of heart-racking suspense----"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe me, Monsieur."
+
+"I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a
+natural explanation concerning these matters."
+
+"I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no
+explanation."
+
+"Of course there must be one," he insisted carelessly. "Is there anything
+in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?"
+
+"There are five clocks in the house. Why should they all go wrong at the
+same time and in the same manner?"
+
+He smiled. "I don’t know," he said frankly. "I’ll investigate, if you will
+permit me."
+
+"Of course.... And, about L’Ombre. What could explain its presence in the
+moat? It is a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited in its
+range. My father has often said that, except L’Ombre which has appeared at
+long intervals in our moat, L’Ombre never has been seen in Brittany."
+
+"From where does this clear water come which fills the moat?" he asked,
+smiling.
+
+"From living springs in the bottom."
+
+"No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long subterranean vein of water
+connects these springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere--in the
+Pyrenees, perhaps--" He hesitated, for the explanation seemed as
+far-fetched as the water.
+
+Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained politely silent.
+
+Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five times. They both sat listening
+intently. From the depths of the ancient mansion, the other clocks
+repeated the strokes, first one, then another, then two sounding their
+clear little bells almost in unison. All struck five. He drew out his
+watch and looked at it. The hour was three in the afternoon.
+
+After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid, relaxed. He muttered
+something about making an examination of the clocks, adding that to adjust
+and regulate them would be a simple matter.
+
+She sat very still beside him on the stone coping--her dark eyes wandered
+toward the forest--wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied--the visionary
+eyes of a Bretonne, full of the mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.
+
+Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence of her thoughts:
+"Madame," he said, "have you heard any rumours concerning enemy
+airships--or, undersea boats?"
+
+The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him: "No, but something has been
+happening in the Aulnes Étang."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don’t know. But every day the wild ducks rise from it in fright--clouds
+of them--and the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with their clamour."
+
+"A poacher?"
+
+"I know of none remaining here in Finistère."
+
+"Have you seen anything in the sky? An eagle?"
+
+"Only the wild fowl whirling above the _étang_."
+
+"You have heard nothing--from the clouds?"
+
+"Only the _vanneaux_ complaining and the wild curlew answering."
+
+"Where is L’Ombre?" he asked, vaguely troubled.
+
+She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of
+the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.
+
+For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between
+surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging
+there, colourless, translucent--a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid
+element through which it loomed.
+
+L’Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the
+stream reflected the façade of that ancient house.
+
+Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming,
+and, seeing them, dived. L’Ombre never stirred.
+
+An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with
+the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped--but not yet quite realizing
+it.
+
+In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky
+overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in
+the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant
+tree, a subtle and suspended threat.
+
+He said tritely and with an effort: "For everything there are natural
+causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence....
+Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?"
+
+"Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer
+be sent here? Tell me truthfully, are _you_ annoyed?"
+
+"No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense
+of depression which was creeping over him.
+
+He looked down again at the grey wraith in the water, then, as they turned
+and walked slowly back across the bridge together, he said, suddenly:
+
+"_Something_ is wrong somewhere in Finistère. That is evident to me. There
+have been too many rumours from too many sources. By sea and land they
+come--rumours of things half seen, half heard--glimpses of enemy aircraft,
+sea-craft. Yet their presence would appear to be an impossibility in the
+light of the military intelligence which we possess.
+
+"But we have investigated every rumour; although I, personally, know of no
+report which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these rumours persist; they
+come thicker and faster day by day. But this--" He hesitated, then
+smiled--"this seems rather different----"
+
+"I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule----"
+
+"Countess----"
+
+"You are too considerate to say so.... And perhaps I have become
+nervous--imagining things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it is the
+sadness of the past year--the strangeness of it, and----"
+
+She sighed unconsciously.
+
+"It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she said.
+
+"Indeed it must be very lonely here," he returned in a low voice.
+
+"Yes.... Aulnes Wood is--too remote for them to send our wounded here for
+their convalescence. I offered Aulnes. Then I offered myself, saying that
+I was ready to go anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there are
+already too many volunteers. They take only the trained in hospitals. I am
+untrained, and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody wanted me."
+
+She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest.
+
+"So there is nothing for me to do," she said, "except to remain here and
+sew for the hospitals." ... She looked out thoughtfully across the
+fern-grown _carrefour_: "Therefore I sew all day by the latticed window
+there--all day long, day after day--and when one is young and when there
+is nobody--nothing to look at except the curlew flying--nothing to hear
+except the _vanneaux_, and the clocks striking the hour----"
+
+Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted her proud little head and
+smiled, and her tone grew firm again:
+
+"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming a trifle morbid. It is entirely
+physical; my heart is quite undaunted."
+
+"You heart, Madame, is but a part of the great, undaunted heart of
+France."
+
+"Yes ... therefore there could be no fear--no doubt of God.... Affairs go
+well with France, Monsieur?--may I ask without military impropriety?"
+
+"France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame. And her destiny is victory
+and light."
+
+"Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing for so long.... Thank you,
+Monsieur."
+
+He said quietly: "The Light shall break. We must not doubt it, we English.
+Nor can you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and hellish Darkness which
+has been let loose upon the world to assail it. You shall live to see
+light, Madame--and I also shall see it--perhaps----"
+
+She looked up at the young man, met his eyes, and looked elsewhere,
+gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.
+
+On the doorstep of the house they paused. "Is it possible," she asked,
+"that an enemy aëroplane could land in the Aulnes Étang?--L’Étang aux
+Vanneaux?"
+
+"In the Étang?" he repeated, a little startled. "How large is it, this
+Étang aux Vanneaux?"
+
+"It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile
+across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds--like a
+man without a face--and only two great eyes--" She forced a pale smile.
+"Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen
+dress that way.... I wondered----"
+
+He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache.
+
+"One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed
+invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions--a
+new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer.
+
+"It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usual
+_Albatross_ type, with a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for
+lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment,
+munitions, and a very large crew.
+
+"And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as
+noiseless as a high-class automobile."
+
+"Has such an one been seen in Brittany?"
+
+"Such a machine has been reported--many, many times--as though not one but
+hundreds were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting to us--a report
+has arrived from a distant and totally independent source--from
+Sweden--that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in
+Germany by the hundreds."
+
+After a moment’s silence she stepped into the house; he followed.
+
+The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age
+had more than softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings, it had
+rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and
+monotonous.
+
+Her chair and workbasket stood by a latticed window; she seated herself
+and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace
+fussing over a little mantel clock--a gilt and ebony affair of the
+consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself
+and containing the works, bell and dial.
+
+When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck
+five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at
+intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his
+attempts with a shrug of annoyance.
+
+"_I_ can’t do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across
+the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?"
+
+She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a
+modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he
+gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently
+struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a
+perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him through the
+house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.
+
+When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering
+their striking mechanism--that every clock in the house persisted in
+striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden,
+odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and
+stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.
+
+As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught
+glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors,
+through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts;
+of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted
+the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.
+
+And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable
+things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had
+turned to mould--where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where
+only the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was
+slowly yielding--under the attacks of Time’s relentless mercenaries, moth
+and dust and rust.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE GHOULS
+
+
+They dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne
+served them--old Anne of Fäouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette,
+her velvet bodice and her _chaussons_ broidered with the rose.
+
+Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver--garrulous,
+deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that
+second infancy which comes before the night.
+
+"_Ouidame!_ It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty
+gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin
+and end in the Woods of Aulnes--alas!--in the Woods and the House of
+Aulnes----"
+
+"The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.
+
+"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young,
+Monsieur--and the world was young, too, _mon Capitaine--hélas!_--but the
+Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is
+older, _beau jeune homme_--only the sea is older--the sea which always was
+and will be."
+
+"Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "--to
+France!--I have the honour--" She touched her glass to his and they
+saluted France with the ancient wine of France--a sip, a faint smile, and
+silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment.
+
+"This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking.
+But--but there will be sun enough another year."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"_B’en oui!_ The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the
+Woods of Aulnes. _Non pas._ There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes
+where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with Our Lady
+of Aulnes in shining vestments all----"
+
+"She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear.
+
+"In shining robes of grace--_oui-da_!--the martyrs and the acolytes of
+God. It is I who tell you, _beau jeune homme_--I, Anne of Fäouette. I saw
+them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the
+brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed
+Lady----"
+
+"She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the châtelaine of
+Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.
+
+Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit
+returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes--some graceful shade come back out
+of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles--the
+exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vendée drowned and
+washed it out in blood.
+
+"I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident,
+in months."
+
+Old Anne of Fäouette laid them fresh napkins and set two crystal bowls
+beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat.
+
+"_Ho fois!_" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods
+of Aulnes; they never change--they never change.... The golden people of
+Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."
+
+The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the
+trees."
+
+"_Vrai, c’est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine!_
+And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant
+gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth,
+no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair--the Loup-Garou!--O Lady of Aulnes,
+adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"
+
+The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content,
+so full of faith in months----"
+
+A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the
+forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling,
+swinging wide, drifting against the dying light of day, southward toward
+the sea.
+
+"There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.
+
+Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild
+fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds.
+
+"Is there a path to the Étang?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Yes. I will go with you----"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"No. Show me the path."
+
+His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house
+beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the
+house, L’Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not
+speak of it to each other. At the forest’s edge he halted: "Is this the
+path?"
+
+"Yes.... May I not go?"
+
+"No--please."
+
+"Is there danger?"
+
+"No.... I don’t know if there is any danger."
+
+"Will you be cautious, then?"
+
+He turned and looked at her in the dim light. Standing so for a little
+while they remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet breath. She held
+out one hand, slowly; half way he bent and touched her fingers with his
+lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly at her side.
+
+After he had been gone a long while, she turned away, moving with head
+lowered. At the bridge she waited for him.
+
+A red moon rose low in the east. It became golden above the trees, paler
+higher, and deathly white in mid-heaven.
+
+It was long after midnight when she went into the house to light fresh
+candles. In the intense darkness before dawn she lighted two more and set
+them in an upper window on the chance that they might guide him back.
+
+At five in the morning every clock struck five.
+
+She was not asleep; she was lying on a lounge beside the burning candles,
+listening, when the door below burst open and there came the trampling
+rush of feet, the sound of blows, a fall----
+
+A loud voice cried:--"Because you are armed and not in uniform!--you
+British swine!"--
+
+And the pistol shots crashed through the house.
+
+On the stairs she swayed for an instant, grasped blindly at the rail.
+Through the floating smoke below the dead man lay there by the latticed
+window--where they had sat together--he and she----
+
+Spectres were flitting to and fro--grey shapes without faces--things with
+eyes. A loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely upon her shrinking
+brain:
+
+"You there on the stairs!--do you hear? What are those candles? Signals?"
+
+She looked down at the dead man.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+Through the crackling racket of the fusillade, down, down into roaring
+darkness she fell.
+
+After a few moments her slim hand moved, closed over the dead man’s. And
+moved no more.
+
+In the moat L’Ombre still remained, unstirring; old Anne lay in the
+kitchen dying; and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with ghastly shapes
+which had no faces, only eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SEED OF DEATH
+
+
+It was Dr. Vail whose identification secured burial for Neeland, not in
+the American cemetery, but in Aulnes Wood.
+
+When the raid into Finistère ended, and the unclean birds took flight,
+Vail, at Quimper, ordered north with his unit, heard of the tragedy, and
+went to Aulnes. And so Neeland was properly buried beside the youthful
+châtelaine. Which was, no doubt, what his severed soul desired. And
+perhaps hers desired it, too.
+
+Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders, got gassed, and came back to New
+York.
+
+He had aged ten years in as many months.
+
+Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing from time to time at Vail’s
+pallid face, and the latter understood the professional interest of the
+younger man.
+
+"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally.
+
+"You don’t look very fit, Doctor."
+
+"No.... I’m _going West_."
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why do you think that you are--_going West_?"
+
+"There’s a thing over there, born of gas. It’s a living thing, animal or
+vegetable. I don’t know which. It’s only recently been recognized. We call
+it the ’Seed of Death.’"
+
+Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older man in silence.
+
+Vail went on, slowly: "It’s properly named. It is always fatal. A man may
+live for a few months. But, once gassed, even in the slightest degree, if
+that germ is inhaled, death is certain."
+
+After a silence Gray began: "Do you have any apprehension--" And did not
+finish the sentence.
+
+Vail shrugged. "It’s interesting, isn’t it?" he said with pleasant
+impersonality.
+
+After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing anything about it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It’s working in the dark, of course. I’m feeling rottener every
+day."
+
+He rested his handsome head on one thin hand:
+
+"I don’t want to die, Gray, but I don’t know how to keep alive. It’s odd,
+isn’t it? I don’t wish to die. It’s an interesting world. I want to see
+how the local elections turn out in New York."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Certainly. That is what worries me more than anything. We Allies are sure
+to win. I’m not worrying about that. But I’d like to live to see Tammany a
+dead cock in the pit!"
+
+Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly, and then, solemn again,
+said:
+
+"I’d like to live to see this country aspire to something really noble."
+
+"After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing to stifle aspiration."
+
+It was not only because Vail had been gazing upon death in every phase,
+every degree--on brutal destruction wholesale and in detail; but also he
+had been standing on the outer escarpment of Civilization and had watched
+the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering, undermining,
+gradually engulfing the world itself and all its ancient liberties.
+
+He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to sail to France next day were
+alone together on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the infernal heat
+of a summer day in town.
+
+On the avenue below motor cars moved north and south, hansoms crept slowly
+along the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people passed listlessly under
+the electric lights--the nine--and--seventy sweating tribes.
+
+For, on such summer nights, under the red moon, an exodus from the East
+Side peoples the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle along the
+gilded grilles and still façades of stone, up and down, to and fro, in
+quest of God knows what--of air perhaps, perhaps of happiness, or of
+something even vaguer. But whatever it may be that starts them into
+painful motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration is a part of their
+unrest.
+
+"There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail--"also her inevitable shadow,
+tyranny."
+
+"We need more light; that’s all," said Gray.
+
+"When light streams in from every angle no shadow is possible."
+
+"The millennium? I get you.... In this country the main thing is that
+there is _some_ light. A single ray, however feeble, and even coming from
+one fixed angle only, means aspiration, life...."
+
+He lighted a cigar.
+
+"As you know," he remarked, "there is a flower called _Aconitum_. It is
+also known by the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower. Direct
+sunlight kills it. It flourishes only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower it
+also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly poison.... As you say, the
+necessary thing in this world is light from every angle."
+
+His cigar glimmered dully through the silence. Presently he went on;
+"Speaking of tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized and
+tolerated business carried on successfully by those born with a genius for
+it. It flourishes in the shade--like the Helmet-Flower.... But the sun in
+this Western Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It’s gradually killing
+off our local tyrants--slowly, almost imperceptibly but inexorably,
+killing ’em off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive--tyrants of
+every degree born to the business of tyranny and making a success at it."
+
+He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:
+
+"There are our tyrants of industry," he said; "tyrants of politics,
+tyrants of religion--great and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants,
+all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling under this fierce western
+sun of ours----"
+
+He laughed without mirth, turning his worn and saddened eyes on Gray:
+
+"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also it is a state of mind--a
+delusion, a ruling passion--strong even in death.... The odd part of it is
+that a tyrant never knows he’s one.... He invariably mistakes himself for
+a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story if you care to listen....
+Or, we can go to some cheerful show or roof-garden----"
+
+"Go on with your story," said Gray.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+FIFTY-FIFTY
+
+
+Vail began:
+
+Tyranny was purely a matter of business with this little moral shrimp
+about whom I’m going to tell you. I was standing between a communication
+trench and a crater left by a mine which was being "consolidated," as they
+have it in these days.... All around me soldiers of the third line swarmed
+and clambered over the débris, digging, hammering, shifting planks and
+sandbags from south to north, lugging new timbers, reels of barbed wire,
+ladders, cases of ammunition, machine guns, trench mortars.
+
+The din of the guns was terrific; overhead our own shells passed with a
+deafening, clattering roar; the Huns continued to shell the town in front
+of us where our first and second lines were still fighting in the streets
+and houses while the third line were reconstructing a few yards of
+trenches and a few craters won.
+
+Stretchers and bearers from my section had not yet returned from the
+emergency dressing station; the crater was now cleared up except of enemy
+dead, whose partly buried arms and legs still stuck out here and there. A
+company of the Third Foreign Legion had just come into the crater and had
+taken station at the loopholes under the parapet of sandbags.
+
+As soon as the telephone wires were stretched as far as our crater a
+message came for me to remain where I was until further orders. I had just
+received this message and was walking along, slowly, behind the rank of
+soldiers, who stood leaning against the parapet with their rifles thrust
+through the loops, when somebody said in English--in East Side New York
+English I mean--"Ah, there, Doc!"
+
+A soldier had turned toward me, both hands still grasping his resting
+rifle. In the "horizon blue" uniform and ugly, iron, shrapnel-proof helmet
+strapped to his bullet head I failed to recognize him.
+
+"It’s me, ’Duck’ Werner," he said, as I stood hesitating.... You know who
+he is, political leader in the 50th Ward, here. I was astounded.
+
+"What do you know about it?" he added. "Me in a tin derby potting
+Fritzies! And there’s Heinie, too, and Pick-em-up Joe--the whole bunch
+sewed up in this here trench, oh my God!"
+
+I went over to him and stood leaning against the parapet beside him.
+
+"Duck," I said, amazed, "how did _you_ come to enlist in the Foreign
+Legion?"
+
+"Aw," he replied with infinite disgust, "I got drunk."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Me and Heinie and Joe was follerin’ the races down to Boolong when this
+here war come and put everything on the blink. Aw, hell, sez I, come on
+back to Parus an’ look ’em over before we skiddoo home--meanin’ the dames
+an’ all like that. Say, we done what I said; we come back to Parus, an’ we
+got in wrong! Listen, Doc; them dames had went crazy over this here war
+graft. Veeve France, sez they. An’ by God! we veeved.
+
+"An’ one of ’em at Maxeems got me soused, and others they fixed up Heinie
+an’ Joe, an’ we was all wavin’ little American flags and yellin’ ’To hell
+with the Hun!’ Then there was a interval for which I can’t account to
+nobody.
+
+"All I seem to remember is my marchin’ in the boolyvard along with a guy
+in baggy red pants, and my chewin’ the rag in a big, hot room full o’
+soldiers; an’ Heinie an’ Joe they was shoutin’, ’Wow! Lemme at ’em. Veeve
+la France!’ Wha’ d’ye know about me? Ain’t I the mark from home?"
+
+"You didn’t realize that you were enlisting?"
+
+"Aw, does it make any difference to these here guys what you reelize, or
+what you don’t? I ask you, Doc?"
+
+He spat disgustedly upon the sand, rolled his quid into the other cheek,
+wiped his thin lips with the back of his right hand, then his fingers
+mechanically sought the trigger guard again and he cast a perfunctory
+squint up at the parapet.
+
+"Believe me," he said, "a guy can veeve himself into any kind of trouble
+if he yells loud enough. I’m getting mine."
+
+"Well, Duck," I said, "it’s a good game----"
+
+"Aw," he retorted angrily, "it ain’t my graft an’ you know it. What do I
+care who veeves over here?--An’ the 50th Ward goin’ to hell an’ all!"
+
+I strove to readjust my mind to understand what he had said. I was, you
+know, that year, the Citizen’s Anti-Graft leader in the 50th Ward.... I
+am, still, if I live; and if I ever can get anything into my head except
+the stupendous din of this war and the cataclysmic problems depending upon
+its outcome.... Well, it was odd to remember that petty political conflict
+as I stood there in the trenches under the gigantic shadow of world-wide
+disaster--to find myself there, talking with this sallow, wiry, shifty
+ward leader--this corrupt little local tyrant whom I had opposed in the
+50th Ward--this ex-lightweight bruiser, ex-gunman--this dirty little
+political procurer who had been and was everything brutal, stealthy, and
+corrupt.
+
+I looked at him curiously; turned and glanced along the line where,
+presently, I recognized his two familiars, Heinie Baum and Pick-em-up Joe
+Brady with whom he had started off to "Parus" on a month’s summer junket,
+and with whom he had stumbled so ludicrously into the riff-raff ranks of
+the 3rd Foreign Legion. Doubtless the 1st and 2nd Legions couldn’t stand
+him and his two friends, although in one company there were many Americans
+serving.
+
+Thinking of these things, the thunder of the cannonade shaking sand from
+the parapet, I became conscious that the rat eyes of Duck Werner were
+furtively watching me.
+
+"You can do me dirt, now, can’t you, Doc?" he said with a leer.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Aw, as if I had to tell you. I got some sense left."
+
+Suddenly his sallow visage under the iron helmet became distorted with
+helpless fury; he fairly snarled; his thin lips writhed as he spat out the
+suspicion which had seized him:
+
+"By God, Doc, if you do that!--if you leave me here caged up an’ go home
+an’ raise hell in the 50th--with me an’ Joe here----"
+
+After a breathless pause: "Well," said I, "what will you do about
+it?"--for he was looking murder at me.
+
+Neither of us spoke again for a few moments; an officer, smoking a
+cigarette, came up between Heinie and Pick-em-up Joe, adjusted a periscope
+and set his eye to it. Through the sky above us the shells raced as though
+hundreds of shaky express trains were rushing overhead on rickety aërial
+tracks, deafening the world with their outrageous clatter.
+
+"Listen, Doc----"
+
+I looked up into his altered face--a sallow, earnest face, fiercely
+intent. Every atom of the man’s intelligence was alert, concentrated on
+me, on my expression, on my slightest movement.
+
+"Doc," he said, "let’s talk business. We’re men, we are, you an’ me. I’ve
+fought you plenty times. I _know_. An’ I guess you are on to me, too. I
+ain’t no squealer; you know that anyway. Perhaps I’m everything else you
+claim I am when you make parlor speeches to Gussie an’ Reggie an’ when you
+stand on a bar’l in Avenoo A an’ say: ’my friends’ to Billy an’ Izzy an’
+Pete the Wop.
+
+"All right. Go to it! I’m it. I got mine. That’s what I’m there for.
+But--when I get mine, the guys that back me get theirs, too. My God, Doc,
+let’s talk business! What’s a little graft between friends?"
+
+"Duck," I said, "you own the 50th Ward. You are no fool. Why is it not
+possible for you to understand that some men don’t graft?"
+
+"Aw, can it!" he retorted fiercely. "What else is there to chase except
+graft? What else is there, I ask you? Graft! Ain’t there graft into
+everything God ever made? An’ don’t the smart guy get it an’ take his an’
+divide the rest same as you an’ me?"
+
+"You can’t comprehend that I don’t graft, can you, Duck?"
+
+"What do you call it what you get, then? The wages of Reeform? And what do
+you hand out to your lootenants an’ your friends?"
+
+"Service."
+
+"Hey? Well, all right. But what’s in it for you? Where do you get yours,
+Doc?"
+
+"There’s nothing in it for me except to give honest service to the people
+who trust me."
+
+"Listen," he persisted with a sort of ferocious patience; "you ain’t on no
+bar’l now; an’ you ain’t calling no Ginneys and no Kikes your friends.
+You’re just talkin’ to me like there wasn’t nobody else onto this damn
+planet excep’ us two guys. Get that?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And I’m tellin’ you that I get mine same as any one who ain’t a loonatic.
+Get that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"All right. Now I know you ain’t no nut. Which means that you get yours,
+whatever you call it. And _now_ will you talk business?"
+
+"What business do you want to talk, Duck?" I added; "I should say that you
+already have your hands rather full of business and Lebel rifles----"
+
+"Aw’ Gawd; _this_? This ain’t business. I was a damn fool and I’m doin’
+time like any souse what the bulls pinch. Only I get more than thirty
+days, I do. That’s what’s killin’ me, Doc!--Duck Werner in a tin lid,
+suckin’ soup an’ shootin’ Fritzies when I oughter be in Noo York with me
+fren’s lookin’ after business. Can you beat it?" he ended fiercely.
+
+He chewed hard on his quid for a few moments, staring blankly into space
+with the detached ferocity of a caged tiger.
+
+"What are they a-doin’ over there in the 50th?" he demanded. "How do I
+know whose knifin’ me with the boys? I don’t mean your party. You’re here
+same as I am. I mean Mike the Kike, and the regular Reepublican
+nomination, I do.... And, how do I know when _you_ are going back?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+"_Are_ you?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Doc, will you talk business, man to man?"
+
+"Duck, to tell you the truth, the hell that is in full blast over
+here--this gigantic, world-wide battle of nations--leaves me, for the
+time, uninterested in ward politics."
+
+"Stop your kiddin’."
+
+"Can’t you comprehend it?"
+
+"Aw, what do you care about what Kink wins? If we was Kinks, you an’ me,
+all right. But we ain’t Doc. We’re little fellows. Our graft ain’t big
+like the Dutch Emperor’s, but maybe it comes just as regular on pay day.
+Ich ka bibble."
+
+"Duck," I said, "you explain your presence here by telling me that you
+enlisted while drunk. How do you explain my being here?"
+
+"You’re a Doc. I guess there must be big money into it," he returned with
+a wink.
+
+"I draw no pay."
+
+"I believe you," he remarked, leering. "Say, don’t you do that to me, Doc.
+I may be unfortunit; I’m a poor damn fool an’ I know it. But don’t tell me
+you’re here for your health."
+
+"I won’t repeat it, Duck," I said, smiling.
+
+"Much obliged. Now for God’s sake let’s talk business. You think you’ve
+got me cinched. You think you can go home an’ raise hell in the 50th while
+I’m doin’ time into these here trenches. You sez to yourself, ’O there
+ain’t nothin’ to it!’ An’ then you tickles yourself under the ribs, Doc.
+You better make a deal with me, do you hear? Gimme mine, and you can have
+yours, too; and between us, if we work together, we can hand one to Mike
+the Kike that’ll start every ambulance in the city after him. Get me?"
+
+"There’s no use discussing such things----"
+
+"All right. I won’t ask you to make it fifty-fifty. Gimme half what I
+oughter have. You can fix it with Curley Tim Brady----"
+
+"Duck, this is no time----"
+
+"Hell! It’s all the time I’ve got! What do you expec’ out here, a caffy
+dansong? I don’t see no corner gin-mills around neither. Listen, Doc, quit
+up-stagin’! You an’ me kick the block off’n this here Kike-Wop if we get
+together. All I ask of you is to talk business----"
+
+I moved aside, and backward a little way, disgusted with the ratty soul of
+the man, and stood looking at the soldiers who were digging out bombproof
+burrows all along the trench and shoring up the holes with heavy, green
+planks.
+
+Everybody was methodically busy in one way or another behind the long rank
+of Legionaries who stood at the loops, the butts of the Lebel rifles
+against their shoulders.
+
+Some sawed planks to shore up dugouts; some were constructing short
+ladders out of the trunks of slender green saplings; some filled sacks
+with earth to fill the gaps on the parapet above; others sharpened pegs
+and drove them into the dirt façade of the trench, one above the other, as
+footholds for the men when a charge was ordered.
+
+Behind me, above my head, wild flowers and long wild grasses drooped over
+the raw edge of the parados, and a few stalks of ripening wheat trailed
+there or stood out against the sky--an opaque, uncertain sky which had
+been so calmly blue, but which was now sickening with that whitish pallor
+which presages a storm.
+
+Once or twice there came the smashing tinkle of glass as a periscope was
+struck and a vexed officer, still holding it, passed it to a rifleman to
+be laid aside.
+
+Only one man was hit. He had been fitting a shutter to the tiny embrasure
+between sandbags where a machine gun was to be mounted; and the bullet
+came through and entered his head in the center of the triangle between
+nose and eyebrows.
+
+A little later when I was returning from that job, walking slowly along
+the trench, Pick-em-up Joe hailed me cheerfully, and I glanced up to where
+he and Heinie stood with their rifles thrust between the sandbags and
+their grimy fists clutching barrel and butt.
+
+"Hello, Heinie!" I said pleasantly. "How are you, Joe?"
+
+"Commong ça va?" inquired Heinie, evidently mortified at his situation and
+condition, but putting on the careless front of a gunman in a strange
+ward.
+
+Pick-em-up Joe added jauntily: "Well, Doc, what’s the good word?"
+
+"France," I replied, smiling; "Do you know a better word?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "Noo York. Say, what’s your little graft over here, Doc?"
+
+"You and I reverse rôles, Pick-em-up; you _stop_ bullets; _I_ pick ’em
+up--after you’re through with ’em."
+
+"The hell you say!" he retorted, grinning. "Well, grab it from me, if it
+wasn’t for the Jack Johnsons and the gas, a gun fight in the old 50th
+would make this war look like Luna Park! It listens like it, too, only
+this here show is all fi-_nally_, with Bingle’s Band playin’ circus tunes
+an’ the supes hollerin’ like they seen real money."
+
+He was a merry ruffian, and he controlled the "coke" graft in the 50th
+while Heinie was perpetual bondsman for local Magdalenes.
+
+"Well, ain’t we in Dutch--us three guys!" he remarked with forced
+carelessness. "We sure done it that time."
+
+"Did you do business with Duck?" inquired Pick-em-up, curiously.
+
+"Not so he noticed it. Joe, can’t you and Heinie rise to your
+opportunities? This is the first time in your lives you’ve ever been
+decent, ever done a respectable thing. Can’t you start in and live
+straight--think straight? You’re wearing the uniform of God’s own
+soldiers; you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with men who are fighting
+God’s own battle. The fate of every woman, every child, every unborn baby
+in Europe--and in America, too--depends on your bravery. If you don’t win
+out, it will be our turn next. If you don’t stop the Huns--if you don’t
+come back at them and wipe them out, the world will not be worth
+inhabiting."
+
+I stepped nearer: "Heinie," I said, "you know what your trade has been,
+and what it is called. Here’s your chance to clean yourself. Joe--you’ve
+dealt out misery, insanity, death, to women and children. You’re called
+the Coke King of the East Side. Joe, we’ll get you sooner or later. Don’t
+take the trouble to doubt it. Why not order a new pack and a fresh deal?
+Why not resolve to live straight from this moment--here where you have
+taken your place in the ranks among real men--here where this army stands
+for liberty, for the right to live! You’ve got your chance to become a
+real man; so has Heinie. And when you come back, we’ll stand by you----"
+
+"An’ gimme a job choppin’ tickets in the subway!" snarled Heinie. "Expec’
+me to squeal f’r that? Reeform, hey? Show me a livin’ in it an’ I carry a
+banner. But there ain’t nothing into it. How’s a guy to live if there
+ain’t no graft into nothin’?"
+
+Joe touched his gas-mask with a sneer: "He’s pushin’ the yellow stuff at
+us, Heinie," he said; and to me: "You get _yours_ all right. I don’t know
+what it is, but you get it, same as me an’ Heinie an’ Duck. _I_ don’t know
+what it is," he repeated impatiently; "maybe it’s dough; maybe it’s them
+suffragettes with their silk feet an’ white gloves what clap their hands
+at you. _I_ ain’t saying nothin’ to _you_, am I? Then lemme alone an’ go
+an’ talk business with Duck over there----"
+
+Officers passed rapidly between the speaker and me and continued east and
+west along the ranks of riflemen, repeating in calm, steady voices:
+
+"Fix bayonets, _mes enfants_; make as little noise as possible. Everybody
+ready in ten minutes. Ladders will be distributed. Take them with you. The
+bomb-throwers will leave the trench first. Put on goggles and respirators.
+Fix bayonets and set one foot on the pegs and ladders ... all ready in
+seven minutes. Three mines will be exploded. Take and hold the craters....
+Five minutes!... When the mines explode that is your signal. Bombers lead.
+Give them a leg up and follow.... Three minutes...."
+
+From a communication trench a long file of masked bomb-throwers appeared,
+loaded sacks slung under their left arms, bombs clutched in their right
+hands; and took stations at every ladder and row of freshly driven pegs.
+
+"One minute!" repeated the officers, selecting their own ladders and
+drawing their long knives and automatics.
+
+As I finished adjusting my respirator and goggles a muffled voice at my
+elbow began: "Be a sport, Doc! Gimme a chanst! Make it fifty-fifty----"
+
+"_Allez!_" shouted an officer through his respirator.
+
+Against the sky all along the parapet’s edge hundreds of bayonets wavered
+for a second; then dark figures leaped up, scrambled, crawled forward,
+rose, ran out into the sunless, pallid light.
+
+Like surf bursting along a coast a curtain of exploding shells stretched
+straight across the débris of what had been a meadow--a long line of livid
+obscurity split with flame and storms of driving sand and gravel. Shrapnel
+leisurely unfolded its cottony coils overhead and the iron helmets rang
+under the hail.
+
+Men fell forward, backward, sideways, remaining motionless, or rolling
+about, or rising to limp on again. There was smoke, now, and mire, and the
+unbroken rattle of machine guns.
+
+Ahead, men were fishing in their sacks and throwing bombs like a pack of
+boys stoning a snake; I caught glimpses of them furiously at work from
+where I knelt beside one fallen man after another, desperately busy with
+my own business.
+
+Bearers ran out where I was at work, not my own company but some French
+ambulance sections who served me as well as their own surgeons where, in a
+shell crater partly full of water, we found some shelter for the wounded.
+
+Over us black smoke from the Jack Johnsons rolled as it rolls out of the
+stacks of soft-coal burning locomotives; the outrageous din never
+slackened, but our deafened ears had become insensible under the repeated
+blows of sound, yet not paralyzed. For I remember, squatting there in that
+shell crater, hearing a cricket tranquilly tuning up between the
+thunderclaps which shook earth and sods down on us and wrinkled the pool
+of water at our feet.
+
+The Legion had taken the trench; but the place was a rabbit warren where
+hundreds of holes and burrows and ditches and communicating runways made a
+bewildering maze.
+
+And everywhere in the dull, flame-shot obscurity, the Legionaries ran
+about like ghouls in their hoods and round, hollow eye-holes; masked
+faces, indistinct in the smoke, loomed grotesque and horrible as Ku-Klux
+where the bayonets were at work digging out the enemy from blind burrows,
+turning them up from their bloody forms.
+
+Rifles blazed down into bomb-proofs, cracked steadily over the heads of
+comrades who piled up sandbags to block communication trenches;
+grenade-bombs rained down through the smoke into trenches, blowing bloody
+gaps in huddling masses of struggling Teutons until they flattened back
+against the parados and lifted arms and gun-butts stammering out,
+"Comrades! Comrades!"--in the ghastly irony of surrender.
+
+A man whose entire helmet, gas-mask, and face had been blown off, and who
+was still alive and trying to speak, stiffened, relaxed, and died in my
+arms. As I rolled him aside and turned to the next man whom the bearers
+were lowering into the crater, his respirator and goggles fell apart, and
+I found myself looking into the ashy face of Duck Werner.
+
+As we laid him out and stripped away iron helmet and tunic, he said in a
+natural and distinct voice.
+
+"Through the belly, Doc. Gimme a drink."
+
+There was no more water or stimulant at the moment and the puddle in the
+crater was bloody. He said, patiently, "All right; I can wait.... It’s in
+the belly.... It ain’t nothin’, is it?"
+
+I said something reassuring, something about the percentage of recovery I
+believe, for I was exceedingly busy with Duck’s anatomy.
+
+"Pull me through, Doc?" he inquired calmly.
+
+"Sure...."
+
+"Aw, listen, Doc. Don’t hand me no cones of hokey-pokey. Gimme a deck of
+the stuff. Dope out the coke. Do I get mine this trip?"
+
+I looked at him, hesitating.
+
+"Listen, Doc, am I hurted bad? Gimme a hones’ deal. Do I croak?"
+
+"Don’t talk, Duck----"
+
+"Dope it straight. _Do_ I?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought you’d say that," he returned serenely. "Now I’m goin’ to fool
+you, same as I fooled them guys at Bellevue the night that Mike the Kike
+shot me up in the subway."
+
+A pallid sneer stretched his thin and burning lips; in his ratty eyes
+triumph gleamed.
+
+"I’ve went through worse than this. I ain’t hurted bad. I ain’t got mine
+just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak--an’ that bum, Mike the
+Kike, handin’ me fren’s the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though
+his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f’r that I’ll get up an’--an’
+go--home--" His voice flattened out and he lay silent.
+
+Working over the next man beyond him and glancing around now and then to
+discover a _brancardier_ who might take Duck to the rear, I presently
+caught his eyes fixed on me.
+
+"Say, Doc, will you talk--business?" he asked in a dull voice.
+
+"Be quiet, Duck, the bearers will be here in a minute or two----"
+
+"T’hell wit them guys! I’m askin’ you will you make it fifty-fifty--’r’
+somethin’--" Again his voice trailed away, but his bright ratty eyes were
+indomitable.
+
+I was bloodily occupied with another patient when something struck me on
+the shoulder--a human hand, clutching it. Duck was sitting upright, eyes
+a-glitter, the other hand pressed heavily over his abdomen.
+
+"Fifty-fifty!" he cried in a shrill voice. "F’r Christ’s sake, Doc, talk
+business--" And life went out inside him--like the flame of a suddenly
+snuffed candle--while he still sat there....
+
+I heard the air escaping from his lungs before he toppled over.... I swear
+to you it sounded like a whispered word--"business."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"Then came their gas--a great, thick, yellow billow of it pouring into our
+shell hole.... I couldn’t get my mask on fast enough ... and here I am,
+Gray, wondering, but really knowing.... Are you stopping at the Club
+tonight?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Vail got to his feet unsteadily: "I’m feeling rather done in.... Won’t sit
+up any longer, I guess.... See you in the morning?"
+
+"Yes," said Gray.
+
+"Good-night, then. Look in on me if you leave before I’m up."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+And that is how Gray saw him before he sailed--stopped at his door,
+knocked, and, receiving no response, opened and looked in. After a few
+moments’ silence he understood that the "Seed of Death" had sprouted.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MULETEERS
+
+
+Lying far to the southwest of the battle line, only when a strong
+northwest wind blew could Sainte Lesse hear the thudding of cannon beyond
+the horizon. And once, when the northeast wind had blown steadily for a
+week, on the wings of the driving drizzle had come a faint but dreadful
+odour which hung among the streets and lanes until the wind changed.
+
+Except for the carillon, nothing louder than the call of a cuckoo, the
+lowing of cattle or a goatherd’s piping ever broke the summer silence in
+the little town. Birds sang; a shallow river rippled; breezes ruffled
+green grain into long, silvery waves across the valley; sunshine fell on
+quiet streets, on scented gardens unsoiled by war, on groves and meadows,
+and on the stone-edged brink of brimming pools where washerwomen knelt
+among the wild flowers, splashing amid floating pyramids of snowy suds.
+
+And into the exquisite peace of this little paradise rode John Burley with
+a thousand American mules.
+
+The town had been warned of this impending visitation; had watched
+preparations for it during April and May when a corral was erected down in
+a meadow and some huts and stables were put up among the groves of poplar
+and sycamore, and a small barracks was built to accommodate the negro
+guardians of the mules and a peloton of gendarmes under a fat brigadier.
+
+Sainte Lesse as yet knew nothing personally of the American mule or of
+Burley. Sainte Lesse heard both before it beheld either--Burley’s loud,
+careless, swaggering voice above the hee-haw of his trampling herds:
+
+"All I ask for is human food, Smith--not luxuries--just food!--and that of
+the commonest kind."
+
+And now an immense volume of noise and dust enveloped the main street of
+Sainte Lesse, stilling the quiet noon gossip of the town, silencing the
+birds, awing the town dogs so that their impending barking died to amazed
+gurgles drowned in the din of the mules.
+
+Astride a cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule, erect in his saddle, talkative,
+gesticulating, good-humoured, famished but gay, rode Burley at the head of
+the column, his reckless grey eyes glancing amiably right and left at the
+good people of Sainte Lesse who clustered silently at their doorways under
+the trees to observe the passing of this noisy, unfamiliar procession.
+
+Mules, dust; mules, dust, and then more mules, all enveloped in dust,
+clattering, ambling, trotting, bucking, shying, kicking, halting, backing;
+and here and there an American negro cracking a long snake whip with
+strange, aboriginal ejaculations; and three white men in khaki riding
+beside the trampling column, smoking cigarettes.
+
+"Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn rode mules on the column’s flank; Burley
+continued to lead on his wall-eyed animal, preceded now by the fat
+brigadier of the gendarmerie, upon whom he had bestowed a cigarette.
+
+Burley, talking all the while from his saddle to whoever cared to listen,
+or to himself if nobody cared to listen, rode on in the van under the
+ancient bell-tower of Sainte Lesse, where a slim, dark-eyed girl looked up
+at him as he passed, a faint smile hovering on her lips.
+
+"Bong jour, Mademoiselle," continued Burley, saluting her _en passant_
+with two fingers at the vizor of his khaki cap, as he had seen British
+officers salute. "I compliment you on your silent but eloquent welcome to
+me, my comrades, my coons, and my mules. Your charming though slightly
+melancholy smile bids us indeed welcome to your fair city. I thank you; I
+thank all the inhabitants for this unprecedented ovation. Doubtless a
+municipal banquet awaits us----"
+
+Sticky Smith spurred up.
+
+"Did you see the inn?" he asked. "There it is, to the right."
+
+"It looks good to me," said Burley. "Everything looks good to me except
+these accursed mules. Thank God, that seems to be the corral--down in the
+meadow there, Brigadeer!"
+
+The fat brigadier drew bridle; Burley burst into French:
+
+"Esker--esker----"
+
+"_Oui_," nodded the brigadier, "that is where we are going."
+
+"Bong!" exclaimed Burley with satisfaction; and, turning to Sticky Smith:
+"Stick, tell the coons to hustle. We’re there!"
+
+Then, above the trampling, whip-cracking, and shouting of the negroes,
+from somewhere high in the blue sky overhead, out of limpid, cloudless
+heights floated a single bell-note, then another, another, others
+exquisitely sweet and clear, melting into a fragment of heavenly melody.
+
+Burley looked up into the sky; the negroes raised their sweating, dark
+faces in pleased astonishment; Stick and Kid Glenn lifted puzzled visages
+to the zenith. The fat brigadier smiled and waved his cigarette:
+
+"_Il est midi, messieurs._ That is the carillon of Sainte Lesse."
+
+The angelic melody died away. Then, high in the old bell-tower, a great
+resonant bell struck twelve times.
+
+Said the brigadier:
+
+"When the wind is right, they can hear our big bell, Bayard, out there in
+the first line trenches----"
+
+Again he waved his cigarette toward the northeast, then reined in his
+horse and backed off into the flowering meadow, while the first of the
+American mules entered the corral, the herd following pellmell.
+
+The American negroes went with the mules to a hut prepared for them inside
+the corral--it having been previously and carefully explained to France
+that an American mule without its negro complement was as galvanic and
+unaccountable as a beheaded chicken.
+
+Burley burst into French again, like a shrapnel shell:
+
+"Esker--esker----"
+
+"_Oui_," said the fat brigadier, "there is an excellent inn up the street,
+messieurs." And he saluted their uniform, the same being constructed of
+cotton khaki, with a horseshoe on the arm and an oxidized metal mule on
+the collar. The brigadier wondered at and admired the minute nicety of
+administrative detail characterizing a government which clothed even its
+muleteers so becomingly, yet with such modesty and dignity.
+
+He could not know that the uniform was unauthorized and the insignia an
+invention of Sticky Smith, aiming to counteract any social stigma that
+might blight his sojourn in France.
+
+"For," said Sticky Smith, before they went aboard the transport at New
+Orleans, "if you dress a man in khaki, with some gimcrack on his sleeve
+and collar, you’re level with anybody in Europe. Which," he added to
+Burley, "will make it pleasant if any emperors or kings drop in on us for
+a drink or a quiet game behind the lines."
+
+"Also," added Burley, "it goes with the ladies." And he and Kid Glenn
+purchased uniforms similar to Smith’s and had the horseshoe and mule
+fastened to sleeve and collar.
+
+"They’ll hang you fellows for francs-tireurs," remarked a battered soldier
+of fortune from the wharf as the transport cast off and glided gradually
+away from the sun-blistered docks.
+
+"Hang _who_?" demanded Burley loudly from the rail above.
+
+"What’s a frank-tiroor?" inquired Sticky Smith.
+
+"And who’ll hang us?" shouted Kid Glenn from the deck of the moving
+steamer.
+
+"The Germans will if they catch you in that uniform," retorted the
+battered soldier of fortune derisively. "You chorus-boy mule drivers will
+wish you wore overalls and one suspender if the Dutch Kaiser nails you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LA PLOO BELLE
+
+
+They had been nearly three weeks on the voyage, three days in port, four
+more on cattle trains, and had been marching since morning from the
+nearest railway station at Estville-sur-Lesse.
+
+Now, lugging their large leather hold-alls, they started up the main
+street of Sainte Lesse, three sunburnt, loud-talking Americans, young,
+sturdy, careless of glance and voice and gesture, perfectly
+self-satisfied.
+
+Their footsteps echoed loudly on the pavement of this still, old town,
+lying so quietly in the shadow of its aged trees and its sixteenth century
+belfry, where the great bell, Bayard, had hung for hundreds of years, and,
+tier on tier above it, clustered in set ranks the fixed bells of the
+ancient carillon.
+
+"Some skyscraper," observed Burley, patronizing the bell-tower with a
+glance.
+
+As he spoke, they came to the inn, a very ancient hostelry built into a
+remnant of the old town wall, and now a part of it. On the signboard was
+painted a white doe; and that was the name of the inn.
+
+So they trooped through the stone-arched tunnel, ushered by a lame
+innkeeper; and Burley, chancing to turn his head and glance back through
+the shadowy stone passage, caught a glimpse in the outer sunshine of the
+girl whose dark eyes had inspired him with jocular eloquence as he rode on
+his mule under the bell-tower of Sainte Lesse.
+
+"A peach," he said to Smith. And the sight of her apparently going to his
+head, he burst into French: "Tray chick! Tray, tray chick! I’m glad I’ve
+got on this uniform and not overalls and one suspender."
+
+"What’s biting you?" inquired Smith.
+
+"Nothing, Stick, nothing. But I believe I’ve seen the prettiest girl in
+the world right here in this two-by-four town."
+
+Stick glanced over his shoulder, then shrugged:
+
+"She’s ornamental, only she’s got a sad on."
+
+But Burley trudged on with his leather hold-all, muttering to himself
+something about the prettiest girl in the world.
+
+The "prettiest girl in the world" continued her way unconscious of the
+encomiums of John Burley and the critique of Sticky Smith. Her way,
+however, seemed to be the way of Burley and his two companions, for she
+crossed the sunny street and entered the White Doe by the arched door and
+tunnel-like passage.
+
+Unlike them, however, she turned to the right in the stone corridor,
+opened a low wooden door, crossed the inn parlour, ascended a short
+stairway, and entered a bedroom.
+
+Here, standing before a mirror, she unpinned her straw hat, smoothed her
+dark hair, resting her eyes pensively for a few moments on her reflected
+face. Then she sauntered listlessly about the little room in performance
+of those trivial, aimless offices, entirely feminine, such as opening all
+the drawers in her clothes-press, smoothing out various frilly objects and
+fabrics, investigating a little gilded box and thoughtfully inspecting its
+contents, which consisted of hair-pins. Fussing here, lingering there,
+loitering by her bird-cage, where a canary cheeped its greeting and hopped
+and hopped; bending over a cluster of white phlox in a glass of water to
+inhale the old-fashioned perfume, she finally tied on a fresh apron and
+walked slowly out to the ancient, vaulted kitchen.
+
+An old peasant woman was cooking, while a young one washed dishes.
+
+"Are the American gentlemen still at table, Julie?" she inquired.
+
+"Mademoiselle Maryette, they are devouring everything in the house!"
+exclaimed old Julie, flinging both hands toward heaven. "_Tenez_,
+mamzelle, I have heard of eating in ancient days, I have read of
+Gargantua, I have been told of banquets, of feasting, of appetites! But
+there is one American in there! Mamzelle Maryette, if I should swear to
+you that he is on his third chicken and that a row of six pint bottles of
+’93 Margaux stand empty on the cloth at his elbow, I should do no penance
+for untruthfulness. _Tenez, Mamzelle Maryette, regardez un peu par
+l’oubliette_--" And old Julie slid open the wooden shutter on the crack
+and Maryette bent forward and surveyed the dining room outside.
+
+They were laughing very loud in there, these three Americans--three
+powerful, sun-scorched young men, very much at their ease around the
+table, draining the red Bordeaux by goblets, plying knife and fork with
+joyous and undiminished vigour.
+
+The tall one with the crisp hair and clear, grayish eyes--he of the three
+chickens--was already achieving the third--a crisply browned bird, fresh
+from the spit, fragrant and smoking hot. At intervals he buttered great
+slices of rye bread, or disposed of an entire young potato, washing it
+down with a goblet of red wine, but always he returned to the rich roasted
+fowl which he held, still impaled upon its spit, and which he carved as he
+ate, wings, legs, breast falling in steaming flakes under his skillful
+knife blade.
+
+Sticky Smith finally pushed aside his drained glass and surveyed an empty
+plate frankly and regretfully, unable to continue. He said:
+
+"I’m going to bed and I’m going to sleep twenty-four hours. After that I’m
+going to eat for twenty-four more hours, and then I’ll be in good shape.
+Bong soir."
+
+"Aw, stick around with the push!" remonstrated Kid Glenn thickly, impaling
+another potato upon his fork and gesticulating with it.
+
+Smith gazed with surfeited but hopeless envy upon Burley’s magnificent
+work with knife and fork, saw him crack a seventh bottle of Bordeaux,
+watched him empty the first goblet.
+
+But even Glenn’s eyes began to dull in spite of himself, his head nodded
+mechanically at every mouthful achieved.
+
+"I gotta call it off, Jack," he yawned. "Stick and I need the sleep if you
+don’t. So here’s where we quit----"
+
+"Let me tell you about that girl," began Burley. "I never saw a
+prettier--" But Glenn had appetite neither for food nor romance:
+
+"Say, listen. Have a heart, Jack! We need the sleep!"
+
+Stick had already risen; Glenn shoved back his chair with a gigantic yawn
+and shambled to his feet.
+
+"I want to tell you," insisted Burley, "that she’s what the French call
+tray, tray chick----"
+
+Stick pointed furiously at the fowl:
+
+"Chick? I’m fed up on chick! Maybe she is some chick, as you say, but it
+doesn’t interest me. Goo’bye. Don’t come battering at my door and wake me
+up, Jack. Be a sport and lemme alone----"
+
+He turned and shuffled out, and Glenn followed, his Mexican spurs
+clanking.
+
+Burley jeered them:
+
+"Mollycoddles! Come on and take in the town with us!"
+
+But they slammed the door behind them, and he heard them stumbling and
+clanking up stairs.
+
+So Burley, gazing gravely at his empty plate, presently emptied the last
+visible bottle of Bordeaux, then stretching his mighty arms and superb
+chest, fished out a cigarette, set fire to it, unhooked the cartridge-belt
+and holster from the back of his chair, buckled it on, rose, pulled on his
+leather-peaked cap, and drew a deep breath of contentment.
+
+For a moment he stood in the centre of the room, as though in pleasant
+meditation, then he slowly strode toward the street door, murmuring to
+himself: "Tray, tray chick. The prettiest girl in the world.... La ploo
+belle fille du monde ... la ploo belle...."
+
+He strolled as far as the corral down in the meadow by the stream, where
+he found the negro muleteers asleep and the mules already watered and fed.
+
+For a while he hobnobbed with the three gendarmes on duty there,
+practicing his kind of French on them and managing to understand and be
+understood more or less--probably less.
+
+But the young man was persistent; he desired to become that easy master of
+the French language that his tongue-tied comrades believed him to be. So
+he practiced garrulously upon the polite, suffering gendarmes.
+
+He related to them his experience on shipboard with a thousand mutinous
+mules to pacify, feed, water, and otherwise cherish. They had, it
+appeared, encountered no submarines, but enjoyed several alarms from
+destroyers which eventually proved to be British.
+
+"A cousin of mine," explained Burley, "Ned Winters, of El Paso, went down
+on the steamer _John B. Doty_, with eleven hundred mules and six niggers.
+The Boches torpedoed the ship and then raked the boats. I’d like to get a
+crack at one Boche before I go back to God’s country."
+
+The gendarmes politely but regretfully agreed that it was impracticable
+for Burley to get a crack at a Hun; and the American presently took
+himself off to the corral, after distributing cigarettes and establishing
+cordial relations with the Sainte Lesse Gendarmerie.
+
+He waked up a negro and inspected the mules; that took a long time. Then
+he sought out the negro blacksmith, awoke him, and wrote out some
+directions.
+
+"The idea is," he explained, "that whenever the French in this sector need
+mules they draw on our corral. We are supposed to keep ten or eleven
+hundred mules here all the time and look after them. Shipments come every
+two weeks, I believe. So after you’ve had another good nap, George, you
+wake up your boys and get busy. And there’ll be trouble if things are not
+in running order by tomorrow night."
+
+"Yas, suh, Mistuh Burley," nodded the sleepy blacksmith, still blinking in
+the afternoon sunshine.
+
+"And if you need an interpreter," added Burley, "always call on me until
+you learn French enough to get on. Understand, George?"
+
+"Yas, suh."
+
+"Because," said Burley, walking away, "a thorough knowledge of French
+idioms is necessary to prevent mistakes. When in doubt always apply to me,
+George, for only a master of the language is competent to deal with these
+French people."
+
+It was his one vanity, his one weakness. Perhaps, because he so ardently
+desired proficiency, he had already deluded himself with the belief that
+he was a master of French.
+
+So, belt and loaded holster sagging, and large silver spurs clicking and
+clinking at every step, John Burley sauntered back along the almost
+deserted street of Sainte Lesse, thinking sometimes of his mules,
+sometimes of the French language, and every now and then of a dark-eyed,
+dark-haired girl whose delicately flushed and pensive gaze he had
+encountered as he had ridden into Sainte Lesse under the old belfry.
+
+"Stick Smith’s a fool," he thought to himself impatiently. "Tray chick
+doesn’t mean ’some chicken.’ It means a pretty girl, in French."
+
+He looked up at the belfry as he passed under it, and at the same moment,
+from beneath the high, gilded dragon which crowned its topmost spire, a
+sweet bell-note floated, another, others succeeding in crystalline
+sweetness, linked in a fragment of some ancient melody. Then they ceased;
+then came a brief silence; the great bell he had heard before struck five
+times.
+
+"Lord!--that’s pretty," he murmured, moving on and turning into the arched
+tunnel which was the entrance to the White Doe Inn.
+
+Wandering at random, he encountered the innkeeper in the parlour, studying
+a crumpled newspaper through horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose.
+
+"Tray jolie," said Burley affably, seating himself with an idea of further
+practice in French.
+
+"_Plait-il?_"
+
+"The bells--tray beau!"
+
+The old man straightened his bent shoulders a little proudly.
+
+"For thirty years, m’sieu, I have been Carillonneur of Sainte Lesse." He
+smiled; then, saddened, he held out both hands toward Burley. The fingers
+were stiff and crippled with rheumatism.
+
+"No more," he said slowly; "the carillon is ended for me. The great art is
+no more for Jean Courtray, Master of Bells."
+
+"What is a carillon?" inquired John Burley simply.
+
+Blank incredulity was succeeded by a shocked expression on the old man’s
+visage. After a silence, in mild and patient protest, he said:
+
+"I am Jean Courtray, Carillonneur of Sainte Lesse.... Have you never heard
+of the carillon of Sainte Lesse, or of me?"
+
+"Never," said Burley. "We don’t have anything like that in America."
+
+The old carillonneur, Jean Courtray, began to speak in a low voice of his
+art, his profession, and of the great carillon of forty-six bells in the
+ancient tower of Sainte Lesse.
+
+A carillon, he explained, is a company of fixed bells tuned according to
+the chromatic scale and ranging through several octaves. These bells,
+rising tier above tier in a belfry, the smallest highest, the great,
+ponderous bells of the bass notes lowest, are not free to swing, but are
+fixed to huge beams, and are sounded by clappers connected by a wilderness
+of wires to a keyboard which is played upon by the bell-master or
+carillonneur.
+
+He explained that the office of bell-master was an ancient one and greatly
+honoured; that the bell-master was also a member of the municipal
+government; that his salary was a fixed one; that not only did he play
+upon the carillon on fête days, market days, and particular occasions, but
+he also travelled and gave concerts upon the few existing carillons of
+other ancient towns and cities, not alone in France where carillons were
+few, but in Belgium and Holland, where they still were comparatively many,
+although the German barbarians had destroyed some of the best at Liége,
+Arras, Dixmude, Termonde, and Ypres.
+
+"Monsieur," he went on in a voice which began to grow a little unsteady,
+"the Huns have destroyed the ancient carillons of Louvain and of Mechlin.
+In the superb bell-tower of Saint Rombold I have played for a thousand
+people; and the Carillonneur, Monsieur Vincent, and the great bell-master,
+Josef Denyn, have come to me to congratulate me with tears in their
+eyes--in their eyes----"
+
+There were tears in his own now, and he bent his white head and looked
+down at the worn floor under his crippled feet.
+
+"Alas," he said, "for Denyn--and for Saint Rombold’s tower. The Hun has
+passed that way."
+
+After a silence:
+
+"Who is it now plays the carillon in Sainte Lesse!" asked Burley.
+
+"My daughter, Maryette. Sainte Lesse has honoured me in my daughter, whom
+I myself instructed. My daughter--the little child of my old age,
+monsieur--is mistress of the bells of Sainte Lesse.... They call her
+Carillonnette in Sainte Lesse----"
+
+The door opened and the girl came in.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CARILLONETTE
+
+
+Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn remained a week at Sainte Lesse, then left with
+the negroes for Calais to help bring up another cargo of mules, the
+arrival of which was daily expected.
+
+A peloton of the Train-des-Equipages and three Remount troopers arrived at
+Sainte Lesse to take over the corral. John Burley remained to explain and
+interpret the American mule to these perplexed troopers.
+
+Morning, noon, and night he went clanking down to the corral, his
+cartridge belt and holster swinging at his hip. But sometimes he had a
+little leisure.
+
+Sainte Lesse knew him as a mighty eater and as a lusty drinker of good red
+wine; as a mighty and garrulous talker, too, he became known, ready to
+accost anybody in the quiet and subdued old town and explode into French
+at the slightest encouragement.
+
+But Burley had only women and children and old men on whom to practice his
+earnest and voluble French, for everybody else was at the front.
+
+Children adored him--adored his big, silver spurs, his cartridge belt and
+pistol, the metal mule decorating his tunic collar, his six feet two of
+height, his quick smile, the even white teeth and grayish eyes of this
+American muleteer, who always had a stick of barley sugar to give them or
+an amazing trick to perform for them with a handkerchief or coin that
+vanished under their very noses at the magic snap of his finger.
+
+Old men gossiped willingly with him; women liked him and their rare smiles
+in the war-sobered town of Sainte Lesse were often for him as he sauntered
+along the quiet street, clanking, swaggering, affable, ready for
+conversation with anybody, and always ready for the small, confident hands
+that unceremoniously clasped his when he passed by where children played.
+
+As for Maryette Courtray, called Carillonnette, she mounted the bell-tower
+once every hour, from six in the morning until nine o’clock in the
+evening, to play the passing of Time toward that eternity into which it is
+always and ceaselessly moving.
+
+After nine o’clock Carillonnette set the drum and wound it; and through
+the dark hours of the night the bells played mechanically every hour for a
+few moments before Bayard struck.
+
+Between these duties the girl managed the old inn, to which, since the
+war, nobody came any more--and with these occupations her life was
+full--sufficiently full, perhaps, without the advent of John Burley.
+
+They met with enough frequency for her, if not for him. Their encounters
+took place between her duties aloft at the keyboard under the successive
+tiers of bells and his intervals of prowling among his mules.
+
+Sometimes he found her sewing in the parlour--she could have gone to her
+own room, of course; sometimes he encountered her in the corridor, in the
+street, in the walled garden behind the inn, where with basket and pan she
+gathered vegetables in season.
+
+There was a stone seat out there, built against the southern wall, and in
+the shadowed coolness of it she sometimes shelled peas.
+
+During such an hour of liberty from the bell-tower he found the dark-eyed
+little mistress of the bells sorting various vegetables and singing under
+her breath to herself the carillon music of Josef Denyn.
+
+"Tray chick, mademoiselle," he said, with a cheerful self-assertion, to
+hide the embarrassment which always assailed him when he encountered her.
+
+"You know, Monsieur Burley, you should not say ’_très chic_’ to me," she
+said, shaking her pretty head. "It sounds a little familiar and a little
+common."
+
+"Oh," he exclaimed, very red. "I thought it was the thing to say."
+
+She smiled, continuing to shell the peas, then, with her sensitive and
+slightly flushed face still lowered, she looked at him out of her dark
+blue eyes.
+
+"Sometimes," she said, "young men say ’_très chic_.’ It depend on when and
+how one says it."
+
+"Are there times when it is all right for me to say it?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes, I think so.... How are your mules today?"
+
+"The same," he said, "--ready to bite or kick or eat their heads off. The
+Remount took two hundred this morning."
+
+"I saw them pass," said the girl. "I thought perhaps you also might be
+departing."
+
+"Without coming to say good-bye--to _you_!" he stammered.
+
+"Oh, conventions must be disregarded in time of war," she returned
+carelessly, continuing to shell peas. "I really thought I saw you riding
+away with the mules."
+
+"That man," said Burley, much hurt, "was a bow-legged driver of the
+Train-des-Equipages. I don’t think he resembles me."
+
+As she made no comment and expressed no contrition for her mistake, he
+gazed about him at the sunny garden with a depressed expression. However,
+this changed presently to a bright and hopeful one.
+
+"Vooz ate tray, tray belle, mademoiselle!" he asserted cheerfully.
+
+"Monsieur!" Vexed perhaps as much at her own quick blush as his abrupt
+eulogy, she bit her lip and looked at him with an ominously level gaze.
+Then, suddenly, she smiled.
+
+"Monsieur Burley, one does _not_ so express one’s self without reason,
+without apropos, without--without encouragement----"
+
+She blushed again, vividly. Under her wide straw hat her delicate,
+sensitive face and dark blue eyes were beautiful enough to inspire eulogy
+in any young man.
+
+"Pardon," he said, confused by her reprimand and her loveliness. "I shall
+hereafter only _think_ you are pretty, mademoiselle--mais je ne le dirais
+ploo."
+
+"That would be perhaps more--_comme il faut_, monsieur."
+
+"Ploo!" he repeated with emphasis. "Ploo jamais! Je vous jure----"
+
+"_Merci_; it is not perhaps necessary to swear quite so solemnly,
+monsieur."
+
+She raised her eyes from the pan, moving her small, sun-tanned hand
+through the heaps of green peas, filling her palm with them and idly
+letting them run through her slim fingers.
+
+"L’amour," he said with an effort--"how funny it is--isn’t it,
+mademoiselle?"
+
+"I know nothing about it," she replied with decision, and rose with her
+pan of peas.
+
+"Are you going, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have I offended you?"
+
+"No."
+
+He trailed after her down the garden path between rows of blue larkspurs
+and hollyhocks--just at her dainty heels, because the brick walk was too
+narrow for both of them.
+
+"Ploo," he repeated appealingly.
+
+Over her shoulder she said with disdain:
+
+"It is not a topic for conversation among the young, monsieur--what you
+call _l’amour_." And she entered the kitchen, where he had not the
+effrontery to follow her.
+
+That evening, toward sunset, returning from the corral, he heard, high in
+the blue sky above him, her bell-music drifting; and involuntarily
+uncovering, he stood with bared head looking upward while the celestial
+melody lasted.
+
+And that evening, too, being the fête of Alincourt, a tiny neighbouring
+village across the river, the bell-mistress went up into the tower after
+dinner and played for an hour for the little neighbour hamlet across the
+river Lesse.
+
+All the people who remained in Sainte Lesse and in Alincourt brought out
+their chairs and their knitting in the calm, fragrant evening air and
+remained silent, sadly enraptured while the unseen player at her keyboard
+aloft in the belfry above set her carillon music adrift under the summer
+stars--golden harmonies that seemed born in the heavens from which they
+floated; clear, exquisitely sweet miracles of melody filling the world of
+darkness with magic messages of hope.
+
+Those widowed or childless among her listeners for miles around in the
+darkness wept quiet tears, less bitter and less hopeless for the divine
+promise of the sky music which filled the night as subtly as the scent of
+flowers saturates the dusk.
+
+Burley, listening down by the corral, leaned against a post, one powerful
+hand across his eyes, his cap clasped in the other, and in his heart the
+birth of things ineffable.
+
+For an hour the carillon played. Then old Bayard struck ten times. And
+Burley thought of the trenches and wondered whether the mellow thunder of
+the great bell was audible out there that night.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+DJACK
+
+
+There came a day when he did not see Maryette as he left for the corral in
+the morning.
+
+Her father, very stiff with rheumatism, sat in the sun outside the arched
+entrance to the inn.
+
+"No," he said, "she is going to be gone all day today. She has set and
+wound the drum in the belfry so that the carillon shall play every hour
+while she is absent."
+
+"Where has she gone?" inquired Burley.
+
+"To play the carillon at Nivelle."
+
+"Nivelle!" he exclaimed sharply.
+
+"_Oui, monsieur._ The Mayor has asked for her. She is to play for an hour
+to entertain the wounded." He rested his withered cheek on his hand and
+looked out through the window at the sunshine with aged and tragic eyes.
+"It is very little to do for our wounded," he added aloud to himself.
+
+Burley had sent twenty mules to Nivelle the night before, and had heard
+some disquieting rumours concerning that town.
+
+Now he walked out past the dusky, arched passageway into the sunny street
+and continued northward under the trees to the barracks of the
+Gendarmerie.
+
+"_Bon jour l’ami Gargantua!_" exclaimed the fat, jovial brigadier who had
+just emerged with boots shining, pipe-clay very apparent, and all rosy
+from a fresh shave.
+
+"Bong joor, mon vieux copain!" replied Burley, preoccupied with some
+papers he was sorting. "Be good enough to look over my papers."
+
+The brigadier took them and examined them.
+
+"Are they _en règle_?" demanded Burley.
+
+"_Parfaitement, mon ami._"
+
+"Will they take me as far as Nivelle?"
+
+"Certainly. But your mules went forward last night with the Remount----"
+
+"I know. I wish to inspect them again before the veterinary sees them.
+Telephone to the corral for a saddle mule."
+
+The brigadier went inside to telephone and Burley started for the corral
+at the same time.
+
+His cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule was saddled and waiting when he
+arrived; he stuffed his papers into the breast of his tunic and climbed
+into the saddle.
+
+"Allongs!" he exclaimed. "Hoop!"
+
+                            ------------------
+
+Half way to Nivelle, on an overgrown, bushy, circuitous path which was the
+only road open between Nivelle and Sainte Lesse, he overtook Maryette,
+driving her donkey and ancient market cart.
+
+"Carillonnette!" he called out joyously. "Maryette! C’est je!"
+
+The girl, astonished, turned her head, and he spurred forward on his
+wall-eyed mount, evincing cordial symptoms of pleasure in the encounter.
+
+"Wee, wee!" he cried. "Je voolay veneer avec voo!" And ere the girl could
+protest, he had dismounted, turning the wall-eyed one’s nose southward,
+and had delivered a resounding whack upon the rump of that temperamental
+animal.
+
+"Allez! Go home! Beat it!" he cried.
+
+The mule lost no time but headed for the distant corral at a canter; and
+Burley, grinning like a great, splendid, intelligent dog who has just done
+something to be proud of, stepped into the market cart and seated himself
+beside Maryette.
+
+"Who told you where I am going?" she asked, scarcely knowing whether to
+laugh or let loose her indignation.
+
+"Your father, Carillonnette."
+
+"Why did you follow me?"
+
+"I had nothing else to do----"
+
+"Is that the reason?"
+
+"I like to be with you----"
+
+"Really, monsieur! And you think it was not necessary to consult my
+wishes?"
+
+"Don’t you like to be with me?" he asked, so naïvely that the girl blushed
+and bit her lip and shook the reins without replying.
+
+They jogged on through the disused byway, the filbert bushes brushing axle
+and traces; but presently the little donkey relapsed into a walk again,
+and the girl, who had counted on that procedure when she started from
+Sainte Lesse, did not urge him.
+
+"Also," she said in a low voice, "I have been wondering who permits you to
+address me as Carillonnette. Also as Maryette. You have been, heretofore,
+quite correct in assuming that mademoiselle is the proper form of
+address."
+
+"I was so glad to see you," he said, so simply that she flushed again and
+offered no further comment.
+
+For a long while she let him do the talking, which was perfectly agreeable
+to him. He talked on every subject he could think of, frankly practicing
+idioms on her, pleased with his own fluency and his progress in French.
+
+After a while she said, looking around at him with a curiosity quite
+friendly:
+
+"Tell me, Monsieur Burley, _why_ did you desire to come with me today?"
+
+He started to reply, but checked himself, looking into the dark blue and
+engaging eyes. After a moment the engaging eyes became brilliantly
+serious.
+
+"Tell me," she repeated. "Is it because there were some rumours last
+evening concerning Nivelle?"
+
+"Wee!"
+
+"Oh," she nodded, thoughtfully.
+
+After driving for a little while in silence she looked around at him with
+an expression on her face which altered it exquisitely.
+
+"Thank you, my friend," she murmured.... "And if you wish to call me
+Carillonnette--do so."
+
+"I do want to. And my name’s Jack.... If you don’t mind."
+
+Her eyes were fixed on her donkey’s ears.
+
+"Djack," she repeated, musingly. "Jacques--Djack--it’s the same, isn’t
+it--Djack?"
+
+He turned red and she laughed at him, no longer afraid.
+
+"Listen, my friend," she said, "it is _très beau_--what have you done."
+
+"Vooz êtes tray belle----"
+
+"_Non!_ Please stop! It is not a question of me----"
+
+"Vooz êtes tray chick----"
+
+"Stop, Djack! That is not good manners! No! I was merely saying that--you
+have done something very nice. Which is quite true. You heard rumours that
+Nivelle had become unsafe. People whispered last evening--something about
+the danger of a salient being cut at its base.... I heard the gossip in
+the street. Was that why you came after me?"
+
+"Wee."
+
+"Thank you, Djack."
+
+She leaned a trifle forward in the cart, her dimpled elbows on her knees,
+the reins sagging.
+
+Blue and rosy jays flew up before them, fluttering away through the
+thickets; a bullfinch whistled sweetly from a thorn bush, watching them
+pass under him, unafraid.
+
+"You see," she said, half to herself, "I _had_ to come. Who could refuse
+our wounded? There is no bell-master in our department; and only one
+bell-mistress.... To find anyone else to play the Nivelle carillon one
+would have to pierce the barbarians’ lines and search the ruins of
+Flanders for a _Beiaardier_--a _Klokkenist_, as they call a carillonneur
+in the low countries.... But the Mayor asked it, and our wounded are
+waiting. You understand, _mon ami_ Djack, I had to come."
+
+He nodded.
+
+She added, naïvely:
+
+"God watches over our trenches. We shall be quite safe in Nivelle."
+
+A dull boom shook the sunlit air. Even in the cart they could feel the
+vibration.
+
+An hour later, everywhere ahead of them, a vast, confused thundering was
+steadily increasing, deepening with every ominous reverberation.
+
+Where two sandy wood roads crossed, a mounted gendarme halted them and
+examined their papers.
+
+"My poor child," he said to the girl, shaking his head, "the wounded at
+Nivelle were taken away during the night. They are fighting there now in
+the streets."
+
+"In Nivelle streets!" faltered the girl.
+
+"_Oui, mademoiselle._ Of the carillon little remains. The Boches have been
+shelling it since daylight. Turn again. And it is better that you turn
+quickly, because it is not known to us what is going on in that wooded
+district over there. For if they get a foothold in Nivelle on this drive
+they might cross this road before evening."
+
+The girl sat grief-stricken and silent in the cart, staring at the woods
+ahead where the road ran through taller saplings and where, here and
+there, mature trees towered.
+
+All around them now the increasing thunder rolled and echoed and shook the
+ground under them. Half a dozen gendarmes came up at a gallop. Their
+officer drew bridle, seized the donkey’s head and turned animal and cart
+southward.
+
+"Go back," he said briefly, recognizing Burley and returning his salute.
+"You may have to take your mules out of Sainte Lesse!" he added, as he
+wheeled his horse. "We are getting into trouble out here, _nom de Dieu_!"
+
+Maryette’s head hung as the donkey jogged along, trotting willingly
+because his nose was now pointed homeward.
+
+The girl drove with loose and careless rein and in silence; and beside her
+sat Burley, his troubled gaze always reverting to the despondent form
+beside him.
+
+"Too bad, little girl," he said. "But another time our wounded shall
+listen to your carillon."
+
+"Never at Nivelle.... The belfry is being destroyed.... The sweetest
+carillon in France--the oldest, the most beautiful.... Fifty-six bells,
+Djack--a wondrous wilderness of bells rising above where one stands in the
+belfry, tier on tier, tier on tier, until one’s gaze is lost amid the
+heavenly company aloft.... Oh, Djack! And the great bell, Clovis! He hangs
+there--through hundreds of years he has spoken with his great voice of
+God!--so that they heard him for miles and miles across the land----"
+
+"Maryette--I am so sorry for you----"
+
+"Oh! Oh! My carillon of Nivelle! My beloved carillon!"
+
+"Maryette, dear! My little Carillonnette----"
+
+"No--my heart is broken----"
+
+"Vooz ates tray, tray belle----"
+
+The sudden crashing of heavy feet in the bushes checked him; but it was
+too late to heed it now--too late to reach for his holster. For all around
+them swarmed the men in sea-grey, jerking the donkey off his forelegs,
+blocking the little wheels with great, dirty fists, seizing Burley from
+behind and dragging him violently out of the cart.
+
+A near-sighted officer, thin and spare as Death, was talking in a loud,
+nasal voice and squinting at Burley where he still struggled, red and
+exasperated, in the clutches of four soldiers:
+
+"Also! That is no uniform known to us or to any nation at war with us.
+That is not regulation in England--that collar insignia. This is a case of
+a franc-tireur! Now, then, you there in your costume de fantasie! What
+have you to say, eh?"
+
+There was a silence; Burley ceased struggling.
+
+"Answer, do you hear? What are you?"
+
+"American."
+
+"Pig-dog!" shouted the gaunt officer. "So you are one of those Yankee
+muleteers in your uniform, and armed! It is sufficient that you are
+American. If it had not been for America this war would be ended! But it
+is not enough, apparently, that you come here with munitions and food,
+that you insult us at sea, that you lie about us and slander us and send
+your shells and cartridges to England to slay our people! No! Also you
+must come to insult us in your clown’s uniform and with your pistol--" The
+man began to choke with fury, unable to continue, except by gesture.
+
+But the jerky gestures were terribly significant: soldiers were already
+pushing Burley across the road toward a great oak tree; six men fell out
+and lined up.
+
+"M-my Government--" stammered the young fellow--but was given no
+opportunity to speak. Very white, the chill sweat standing on his forehead
+and under his eyes, he stood against the oak, lips compressed, grey eyes
+watching what was happening to him.
+
+Suddenly he understood it was all over.
+
+"Djack!"
+
+He turned his gaze toward Maryette, where she struggled toward him, held
+by two soldiers.
+
+"Maryette--Carillonnette--" His voice suddenly became steady, perfectly
+clear. "_Je vous aime_, Carillonnette."
+
+"Oh, Djack! Djack!" she cried in terror.
+
+He heard the orders; was aware of the levelled rifles; but his reckless
+greyish eyes were now fixed on her, and he began to laugh almost
+mischievously.
+
+"Vooz êtes tray belle," he said, "--tray, tray chick----"
+
+"Djack!"
+
+But the clang of the volley precluded any response from him except the
+half tender, half reckless smile that remained on his youthful face where
+he lay looking up at the sky with pleasant, sightless eyes, and a sunbeam
+touching the metal mule on his blood-wet collar.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FRIENDSHIP
+
+
+She tried once more to lift the big, warm, flexible body, exerting all her
+slender strength. It was useless. It was like attempting to lift the
+earth. The weight of the body frightened her.
+
+Again she sank down among the ferns under the great oak tree; once more
+she took his blood-smeared head on her lap, smoothing the bright, wet
+hair; and her tears fell slowly upon his upturned face.
+
+"My friend," she stammered, "--my kind, droll friend.... The first friend
+I ever had----"
+
+The gun thunder beyond Nivelle had ceased; an intense stillness reigned in
+the forest; only a leaf moved here and there on the aspens.
+
+A few forest flies whirled about her, but as yet no ominous green flies
+came--none of those jewelled harbingers of death which appear with
+horrible promptness and as though by magic from nowhere when anything dies
+in the open world.
+
+Her donkey, still attached to the little gaily painted market cart, had
+wandered on up the sandy lane, feeding at random along the fern-bordered
+thickets which walled in the Nivelle byroad on either side.
+
+Presently her ear caught a slight sound; something stirred somewhere in
+the woods behind her. After an interval of terrible stillness there came a
+distant crashing of footsteps among dead leaves and underbrush.
+
+Horror of the Hun still possessed her; the victim of Prussian ferocity
+still lay across her knees. She dared not take the chance that friendly
+ears might hear her call for aid--dared not raise her voice in appeal lest
+she awaken something monstrous, unclean, inconceivable--the unseen thing
+which she could hear at intervals prowling there among dead leaves in the
+demi-light of the woods.
+
+Suddenly her heart leaped with fright; a man stepped cautiously out of the
+woods into the road; another, dressed in leather, with dry blood caked on
+his face, followed.
+
+The first comer, a French gendarme, had already caught sight of the donkey
+and market cart; had turned around instinctively to look for their owner.
+Now he discovered her seated there among the ferns under the oak tree.
+
+"In the name of God," he growled, "what’s that child doing there!"
+
+The airman in leather followed him across the road to the oak; the girl
+looked up at them out of dark, tear-marred eyes that seemed dazed.
+
+"Well, little one!" rumbled the big, red-faced gendarme. "What’s your
+name?--you who sit here all alone at the wood’s edge with a dead man
+across your knees?"
+
+She made an effort to find her voice--to control it.
+
+"I am Maryette Courtray, bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse," she answered,
+trembling.
+
+"And--this young man?"
+
+"They shot him--the Prussians, monsieur."
+
+"My poor child! Was he your lover, then?"
+
+Her tear-filled eyes widened:
+
+"Oh, no," she said naïvely; "it is sadder than that. He was my friend."
+
+The big gendarme scratched his chin; then, with an odd glance at the young
+airman who stood beside him:
+
+"To lose a friend is indeed sadder than to lose a lover. What was your
+friend’s name, little one?"
+
+She pressed her hand to her forehead in an effort to search among her
+partly paralyzed thoughts:
+
+"Djack.... That is his name.... He was the first real friend I ever had."
+
+The airman said:
+
+"He is one of my countrymen--an American muleteer, Jack Burley--in charge
+at Sainte Lesse."
+
+At the sound of the young man’s name pronounced in English the girl began
+to cry. The big gendarme bent over and patted her cheek.
+
+"_Allons_," he growled; "courage! little mistress of the bells! Let us
+place your friend in your pretty market cart and leave this accursed
+place, in God’s name!"
+
+He straightened up and looked over his shoulder.
+
+"For the Boches are in Nivelle woods," he added, with an oath, "and we
+ought to be on our way to Sainte Lesse, if we are to arrive there at all.
+_Allons_, comrade, take him by the head!"
+
+So the wounded airman bent over and took the body by the shoulders; the
+gendarme lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed, holding to
+one of the sagging arms, as though fearing that these strangers might take
+away from her this dead man who had been so much more to her than a mere
+lover.
+
+When they laid him in the market cart she released his sleeve with a sob.
+Still crying, she climbed to the seat of the cart and gathered up the
+reins. Behind her, flat on the floor of the cart, the airman and the
+gendarme had seated themselves, with the young man’s body between them.
+They were opening his tunic and shirt now and were whispering together,
+and wiping away blood from the naked shoulders and chest.
+
+"He’s still warm, but there’s no pulse," whispered the airman. "He’s dead
+enough, I guess, but I’d rather hear a surgeon say so."
+
+The gendarme rose, stepped across to the seat, took the reins gently from
+the girl.
+
+"Weep peacefully, little one," he said; "it does one good. Tears are the
+tisane which strengthens the soul."
+
+"Ye-es.... But I am remembering that--that I was not very k-kind to him,"
+she sobbed. "It hurts--_here_--" She pressed a slim hand over her breast.
+
+"_Allons!_ Friends quarrel. God understands. Thy friend back there--he
+also understands now."
+
+"Oh, I hope he does!... He spoke to me so tenderly--yet so gaily. He was
+even laughing at me when they shot him. He was so kind--and droll--" She
+sobbed anew, clasping her hands and pressing them against her quivering
+mouth to check her grief.
+
+"Was it an execution, then?" demanded the gendarme in his growling voice.
+
+"They said he must be a franc-tireur to wear such a uniform----"
+
+"Ah, the scoundrels! Ah, the assassins! And so they murdered him there
+under the tree?"
+
+"Ah, God! Yes! I seem to see him standing there now--his grey, kind
+eyes--and no thought of fear--just a droll smile--the way he had with
+me--" whispered the girl, "the way--_his_ way--with me----"
+
+"Child," said the gendarme, pityingly, "it _was_ love!"
+
+But she shook her head, surprised, the tears still running down her tanned
+cheeks:
+
+"Monsieur, it was more serious than love; it was friendship."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE AVIATOR
+
+
+Where the Fontanes highroad crosses the byroad to Sainte Lesse they were
+halted by a dusty column moving rapidly west--four hundred American mules
+convoyed by gendarmerie and remount troopers.
+
+The sweating riders, passing at a canter, shouted from their saddles to
+the big gendarme in the market cart that neither Nivelle nor Sainte Lesse
+were to be defended at present, and that all stragglers were being
+directed to Fontanes and Le Marronnier. Mules and drivers defiled at a
+swinging trot, enveloped in torrents of white dust; behind them rode a
+peloton of the remount, lashing recalcitrant animals forward; and in the
+rear of these rolled automobile ambulances, red crosses aglow in the rays
+of the setting sun.
+
+The driver of the last ambulance seemed to be ill; his head lay on the
+shoulder of a Sister of Charity who had taken the steering wheel.
+
+The gendarme beside Maryette signalled her to stop; then he got out of the
+market cart and, lifting the body of the American muleteer in his powerful
+arms, strode across the road. The airman leaped from the market cart and
+followed him.
+
+Between them they drew out a stretcher, laid the muleteer on it, and
+shoved it back into the vehicle.
+
+There was a brief consultation, then they both came back to Maryette, who,
+rigid in her seat and very pale, sat watching the procedure in silence.
+
+The gendarme said:
+
+"I go to Fontanes. There’s a dressing station on the road. It appears that
+your young man’s heart hasn’t quite stopped yet----"
+
+The girl rose excitedly to her feet, but the gendarme gently forced her
+back into her seat and laid the reins in her hands. To the airman he
+growled:
+
+"I did not tell this poor child to hope; I merely informed her that her
+friend yonder is still breathing. But he’s as full of holes as a pepper
+pot!" He frowned at Maryette: "_Allons!_ My comrade here goes to Sainte
+Lesse. Drive him there now, in God’s name, before the Uhlans come
+clattering on your heels!"
+
+He turned, strode away to the ambulance once more, climbed in, and placed
+one big arm around the sick driver’s shoulder, drawing the man’s head down
+against his breast.
+
+"_Bonne chance!_" he called back to the airman, who had now seated himself
+beside Maryette. "Explain to our little bell-mistress that we’re taking
+her friend to a place where they fool Death every day--where to cheat the
+grave is a flourishing business! Good-bye! Courage! En route, brave Sister
+of the World!"
+
+The Sister of Charity turned and smiled at Maryette, made her a friendly
+gesture, threw in the clutch, and, twisting the steering wheel with both
+sun-browned hands, guided the machine out onto the road and sped away
+swiftly after the cloud of receding dust.
+
+"Drive on, mademoiselle," said the airman quietly.
+
+In his accent there was something poignantly familiar to Maryette, and she
+turned with a start and looked at him out of her dark blue, tear-marred
+eyes.
+
+"Are _you_ also American?" she asked.
+
+"Gunner observer, American air squadron, mademoiselle."
+
+"An airman?"
+
+"Yes. My machine was shot down in Nivelle woods an hour ago."
+
+After a silence, as they jogged along between the hazel thickets in the
+warm afternoon sunshine:
+
+"Were you acquainted with my friend?" she asked wistfully.
+
+"With Jack Burley? A little. I knew him in Calais."
+
+The tears welled up into her eyes:
+
+"Could you tell me about him?... He was my first friend.... I did not
+understand him in the beginning, monsieur. Among children it is different;
+I had known boys--as one knows them at school. But a man, never--and,
+indeed, I had not thought I had grown up until--he came--Djack--to live at
+our inn.... The White Doe at Sainte Lesse, monsieur. My father keeps it."
+
+"I see," nodded the airman gravely.
+
+"Yes--that is the way. He came--my first friend, Djack--with mules from
+America, monsieur--one thousand mules. And God knows Sainte Lesse had
+never seen the like! As for me--I thought I was a child still--until--do
+you understand, monsieur?"
+
+"Yes, Maryette."
+
+"Yes, that is how I found I was grown up. He was a man, not a boy--that is
+how I found out. So he became my first friend. He was quite droll, and
+very big and kind--and timid--following me about--oh, it was quite droll
+for both of us, because at first I was afraid, but pretended not to be."
+
+She smiled, then suddenly her eyes filled with the tragedy again, and she
+began to whimper softly to herself, with a faint sound like a hovering
+pigeon.
+
+"Tell me about him," said the airman.
+
+She staunched her tears with the edge of her apron.
+
+"It was that way with us," she managed to say. "I was enchanted and a
+little frightened--it being my first friendship. He was so big, so droll,
+so kind.... We were on our way to Nivelle this morning. I was to play the
+carillon--being mistress of the bells at Sainte Lesse--and there was
+nobody else to play the bells at Nivelle; and the wounded desired to hear
+the carillon."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So Djack came after me--hearing rumours of Prussians in that direction.
+They were true--oh, God!--and the Prussians caught us there where you
+found us."
+
+She bowed her supple figure double on the seat, covering her face with her
+sun-browned hands.
+
+The airman drove on, whistling "La Brabançonne" under his breath, and deep
+in thought. From time to time he glanced at the curved figure beside him;
+but he said no more for a long time.
+
+Toward sunset they drove into the Sainte Lesse highway.
+
+He spoke abruptly, dryly:
+
+"Anybody can weep for a friend. But few avenge their dead."
+
+She looked up, bewildered.
+
+They drove under the old Sainte Lesse gate as he spoke. The sunlight lay
+pink across the walls and tipped the turret of the watch tower with fire.
+
+The town seemed very still; nothing was to be seen on the long main street
+except here and there a Spahi horseman _en vidette_, and the clock-tower
+pigeons circling in their evening flight.
+
+The girl, Maryette, looked dumbly into the fading daylight when the cart
+stopped before her door. The airman took her gently by the arm, and that
+awakened her. As though stiffened by fatigue she rose and climbed to the
+sidewalk. He took her unresisting arm and led her through the tunnelled
+wall and into the White Doe Inn.
+
+"Get me some supper," he said. "It will take your mind off your troubles."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bread, wine, and some meat, if you have any. I’ll be back in a few
+moments."
+
+He left her at the inn door and went out into the street, whistling "La
+Brabançonne." A cavalryman directed him to the military telephone
+installed in the house of the notary across the street.
+
+His papers identified him; the operator gave him his connection; they
+switched him to the headquarters of his air squadron, where he made his
+report.
+
+"Shot down?" came the sharp exclamation over the wire.
+
+"Yes, sir, about eleven-thirty this morning on the north edge of Nivelle
+forest."
+
+"The machine?"
+
+"Done for, sir. They have it."
+
+"You?"
+
+"A scratch--nothing. I had to run."
+
+"What else have you to report?"
+
+The airman made his brief report in an unemotional voice. Ending it, he
+asked permission to volunteer for a special service. And for ten minutes
+the officer at the other end of the wire listened to a proposition which
+interested him intensely.
+
+When the airman finished, the officer said:
+
+"Wait till I relay this matter."
+
+For a quarter of an hour the airman waited. Finally the operator half
+turned on his camp chair and made a gesture for him to resume the
+receiver.
+
+"If you choose to volunteer for such service," came the message, "it is
+approved. But understand--you are not ordered on such duty."
+
+"I understand. I volunteer."
+
+"Very well. Munitions go to you immediately by automobile. It is expected
+that the wind will blow from the west by morning. By morning, also, all
+reserves will arrive in the west salient. What is to be your signal?"
+
+"The carillon from the Nivelle belfry."
+
+"What tune?"
+
+"’La Brabançonne.’ If not that, then the tocsin on the great bell,
+Clovis."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+In the tiny café the crippled innkeeper sat, his aged, wistful eyes
+watching three leather-clad airmen who had been whispering together around
+a table in the corner all the afternoon.
+
+They nodded in silence to the new arrival, and he joined them.
+
+Daylight faded in the room; the drum in the Sainte Lesse belfry, set to
+play before the hour sounded, began to turn aloft; the silvery notes of
+the carillon seemed to shower down from the sky, filling the twilight
+world with angelic melody. Then, in resonant beauty, the great bell,
+Bayard, measured the hour.
+
+The airman who had just arrived went to a sink, washed the caked blood
+from his face and tied it up with a first-aid bandage. Then he began to
+pace the café, his head bent in thought, his nervous hands clasped behind
+him.
+
+The room was dusky when he came back to the table where his three comrades
+still sat consulting in whispers. The old innkeeper had fallen asleep on
+his chair by the window. There was no light in the room except what came
+from stars.
+
+"Well," said one of the airmen in a carefully modulated voice, "what are
+you going to do, Jim?"
+
+"Stay."
+
+"What’s the idea?"
+
+The bandaged airman rested both hands on the stained table-top:
+
+"We quit Nivelle tonight, but our reserves are already coming up and we
+are to retake Nivelle tomorrow. You flew over the town this morning,
+didn’t you?"
+
+All three said yes.
+
+"You took photographs?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then you know that our trenches pass under the bell-tower?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. The wind is north. When the Boches enter our trenches they’ll
+try to gas our salient while the wind holds. But west winds are predicted
+after sunrise tomorrow. I’m going to get into the Nivelle belfry tonight
+with a sack of bombs. I’m going to try to explode their gas cylinders if I
+can. The tocsin is the signal for our people in the salient."
+
+"You’re crazy!" remarked one of the airmen.
+
+"No; I’ll bluff it out. I’m to have a Boche uniform in a few moments."
+
+"You _are_ crazy! You know what they’ll do to you, don’t you, Jim?"
+
+The bandaged airman laughed, but in his eyes there was an odd flicker like
+a tiny flame. He whistled "La Brabançonne" and glanced coolly about the
+room.
+
+One of the airmen said to another in a whisper:
+
+"There you are. Ever since they got his brother he’s been figuring on
+landing a whole bunch of Huns at one clip. This is going to finish him,
+this business."
+
+Another said:
+
+"Don’t try anything like that, Jim----"
+
+"Sure, I’ll try it," interrupted the bandaged airman pleasantly. "When are
+you fellows going?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"All right. Take my report. Wait a moment----"
+
+"For God’s sake, Jim, act sensibly!"
+
+The bandaged airman laughed, fished out from his clothing somewhere a note
+book and pencil. One of the others turned an electric torch on the table;
+the bandaged man made a little sketch, wrote a few lines which the others
+studied.
+
+"You can get that note to headquarters in half an hour, can’t you, Ed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right. I’ll wait here for my answer."
+
+"You know what risk you run, Jim?" pleaded the youngest of the airmen.
+
+"Oh, certainly. All right, then. You’d better be on your way."
+
+After they had left the room, the bandaged airman sat beside the table,
+thinking hard in the darkness.
+
+Presently from somewhere across the dusky river meadow the sudden roar of
+an airplane engine shattered the silence; then another whirring racket
+broke out; then another.
+
+He heard presently the loud rattle of his comrades’ machines from high
+above him in the star-set sky; he heard the stertorous breathing of the
+old innkeeper; he heard again the crystalline bell-notes break out aloft,
+linger in linked harmonies, die away; he heard Bayard’s mellow thunder
+proclaim the hour once more.
+
+There was a watch on his wrist, but it had been put out of business when
+his machine fell in Nivelle woods. Glancing at it mechanically he saw the
+phosphorescent dial glimmer faintly under shattered hands that remained
+fixed.
+
+An hour later Bayard shook the starlit silence ten times.
+
+As the last stroke boomed majestically through the darkness an automobile
+came racing into the long, unlighted street of Sainte Lesse and halted,
+panting, at the door of the White Doe Inn.
+
+The airman went out to the doorstep, saluted the staff captain who leaned
+forward from the tonneau and turned a flash on him. Then, satisfied, the
+officer lifted a bundle from the tonneau and handed it to the airman. A
+letter was pinned to the bundle.
+
+After the airman had read the letter twice, the staff captain leaned a
+trifle nearer.
+
+"Do you think it can be done?" he demanded bluntly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Very well. Here are your munitions, too."
+
+He lifted from the tonneau a bomb-thrower’s sack, heavy and full. The
+airman took it and saluted.
+
+"It means the cross," said the staff captain dryly. And to the engineer
+chauffeur: "Let loose!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HONOUR
+
+
+For a moment the airman stood watching and listening. The whir of the
+receding car died away in the night.
+
+Then, carrying his bundle and his bomber’s sack, heavy with latent death,
+he went into the inn and through the café, where the sleeping innkeeper
+sat huddled, and felt his way cautiously to the little dining room.
+
+The wooden shutters had been closed; a candle flared on the table.
+Maryette sat beside it, her arms extended across the cloth, her head
+bowed.
+
+He thought she was asleep, but she looked up as his footfall sounded on
+the bare floor.
+
+She was so pale that he asked her if she felt ill.
+
+"No. I have been thinking of my friend," she replied in a low but steady
+voice.
+
+"He may live," said the airman. "He was alive when we lifted him."
+
+The girl nodded as though preoccupied--an odd, mysterious little nod, as
+though assenting to some intimate, inward suggestion of her own mind.
+
+Then she raised her dark blue eyes to the airman, who was still standing
+beside the table, the sack of bombs hanging from his left shoulder, the
+bundle under his arm.
+
+"Here is supper," she said, looking around absently at the few dishes.
+Then she folded her hands on the table’s edge and sat silent, as though
+lost in thought.
+
+He placed the sack carefully on a cane chair beside him, the bundle on the
+floor, and seated himself opposite her. There was bread, meat, and a
+bottle of red wine. The girl declined to eat, saying that she had supped.
+
+"Your friend Jack," he said again, after a long silence, "--I have seen
+worse cases. He may live, mademoiselle."
+
+"That," she said musingly, in her low, even voice, "is now in God’s
+hands." She gave the slightest movement to her shoulders, as though easing
+them a trifle of that burden. "I have prayed. You saw me weep. That is
+ended--so much. Now--" and across her eyes shot a blue gleam, "--now I am
+ready to listen to _you_! In the cart--out on the road there--you said
+that anybody can weep, but that few dare avenge."
+
+"Yes," he drawled, "I said that."
+
+"Very well, then; tell me _how_!"
+
+"What do _you_ want to avenge? Your friend?"
+
+"His country’s honour, and mine! If he had been slain--otherwise--I should
+have perhaps mourned him, confident in the law of France. But--I have seen
+the Rhenish swine on French soil--I saw the Boches do this thing in
+France. It is not merely my friend I desire to avenge; it is the triple
+crime against his life, against the honour of his country and of mine."
+She had not raised her voice; had not stirred in her chair.
+
+The airman, who had stopped eating, sat with fork in hand, listening,
+regarding her intently.
+
+"Yes," he said, resuming his meal, "I understand quite well what you mean.
+Some such philosophy sent my elder brother and me over here from New
+York--the wild hogs trampling through Belgium--the ferocious herds from
+the Rhine defacing, defiling, rending, obliterating all that civilized man
+has reverenced for centuries.... That’s the idea--the world-wide menace of
+these unclean hordes--and the murderous filth of them!... They got my
+brother."
+
+He shrugged, realizing that his face had flushed with the heat of inner
+fires.
+
+"Coolness does it," he added, almost apologetically, "--method and
+coolness. The world must keep its head clear: yellow fever and smallpox
+have been nearly stamped out; the Hun can be eliminated--with intelligence
+and clear thinking.... And I’m only an American airman who has been shot
+down like a winged heron whose comrades have lingered a little to comfort
+him and have gone on.... Yes, but a winged heron can still stab, little
+mistress of the bells.... And every blow counts.... Listen
+attentively--for Jack’s sake ... and for the sake of France. For I am
+going to explain to you how you can strike--if you want to."
+
+"I am listening," said Maryette serenely.
+
+"We may not live through it. Even my orders do not send me to do this
+thing; they merely permit it. Are you contented to go with me?"
+
+She nodded, the shadow of a smile on her lips.
+
+"Very well. You play the carillon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You can play ’La Brabançonne’?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On the bells?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He rose, went around the table, carrying his chair with him, and seated
+himself beside her. She inclined her pale, pretty head; he placed his lips
+close to her ear, speaking very slowly and distinctly, explaining his plan
+in every minute detail.
+
+While he was still speaking in a whisper, the street outside filled with
+the trample of arriving cavalry. The Spahis were leaving the environs of
+Sainte Lesse; _chasseurs à cheval_ followed from still farther afield,
+escorting ambulances from the Nivelle hospitals now being abandoned.
+
+"The trenches at Nivelle are being emptied," said the airman.
+
+"And do you mean that you and I are to go there, to Nivelle?" she asked.
+
+"That is exactly what I mean. In an hour I shall be in the Nivelle belfry.
+Will you be there with me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "You can play ’La Brabançonne’ on the bells
+while I blow hell out of them in the redoubt below us!"
+
+The infantry from the Nivelle trenches began to pass. There were a few
+wagons, a battery of seventy-fives, a soup kitchen or two and a long
+column of mules from Fontanes.
+
+Two American muleteers knocked at the inn door and came stamping into the
+hallway, asking for a loaf and a bottle of red wine. Maryette rose from
+the table to find provisions; the airman got up also, saying in English:
+
+"Where do you come from, boys?"
+
+"From Fontanes corral," they replied, surprised to hear their own tongue
+spoken.
+
+"Do you know Jack Burley, one of your people?"
+
+"Sure. He’s just been winged bad."
+
+"The Huns done him up something fierce," added the other.
+
+"Very bad?"
+
+Maryette came back with a loaf and two bottles.
+
+"I seen him at Fontanes," replied the muleteer, taking the provisions from
+the girl. "He’s all shot to pieces, but they say he’ll pull through."
+
+The airman turned to Maryette:
+
+"Jack will get well," he translated bluntly.
+
+The girl, who had just refused the money offered by the American muleteer,
+turned sharply, became deadly white for a second, then her face flamed
+with a hot and splendid colour.
+
+One of the muleteers said:
+
+"Is this here his girl?"
+
+"Yes," nodded the airman.
+
+The muleteer became voluble, patting Maryette on one arm and then on the
+other:
+
+"J’ai vue Jack Burley, mamzelle, toot a l’heure! Il est bien, savvy voo!
+Il est tray, tray bien! Bocoo de trou! N’importe! Il va tray bien! Savvy
+voo? Jack Burley, l’ami de voo! Comprenny? On va le guerir toot sweet!
+Wee! Wee! Wee!----"
+
+The girl flung her arms around the amazed muleteer’s neck and kissed him
+impetuously on both cheeks. The muleteer blushed and his comrade fidgeted.
+Only the girl remained unembarrassed.
+
+Half laughing, half crying, terribly excited, and very lovely to look
+upon, she caught both muleteers by their sleeves and poured out a torrent
+of questions. With the airman’s aid she extracted what information they
+had to offer; and they went their way, flustered, still blushing, clasping
+bread and bottles to their agitated breasts.
+
+The airman looked her keenly in the eyes as she came back from the door,
+still intensely excited, adorably transfigured. She opened her lips to
+speak--the happy exclamation on her lips, already half uttered, died
+there.
+
+"Well?" inquired the airman quietly.
+
+Dumb, still breathing rapidly, she returned his gaze in silence.
+
+"Now that your friend Jack is going to live--what next?" asked the airman
+pleasantly.
+
+For a full minute she continued to stare at him without a word.
+
+"No need to avenge him now," added the airman, watching her.
+
+"No." She turned, gazed vaguely into space. After a moment she said, as
+though to herself: "But his country’s honour--and mine? That reckoning
+still remains! Is it not true?"
+
+The airman said, with a trace of pity in his voice, for the girl seemed
+very young:
+
+"You need not go with me to Nivelle just because you promised."
+
+"Oh," she said simply, "I must go, of course--it being a question of our
+country’s honour."
+
+"I do not ask it. Nor would Jack, your friend. Nor would your own country
+ask it of you, Maryette Courtray."
+
+She replied serenely:
+
+"But _I_ ask it--of _myself_. Do you understand, monsieur?"
+
+"Perfectly." He glanced mechanically at his useless wrist watch, then
+inquired the time. She went to her room, returned, wearing a little jacket
+and carrying a pair of big, wooden gloves.
+
+"It is after eleven o’clock," she said. "I brought my jacket because it is
+cold in all belfries. It will be cold in Nivelle, up there in the tower
+under Clovis."
+
+"You really mean to go with me?"
+
+She did not even trouble to reply to the question. So he picked up his
+packet and his sack of bombs, and they went out, side by side, under the
+tunnelled wall.
+
+Infantry from Nivelle trenches were still plodding along the dark street
+under the trees; dull gleams came from their helmets and bayonets in the
+obscure light of the stars.
+
+The girl stood watching them for a few moments, then her hand sought the
+airman’s arm:
+
+"If there is to be a battle in the street here, my father cannot remain."
+
+The airman nodded, went out into the street and spoke to a passing
+officer. He, in turn, signalled the driver of a motor omnibus to halt.
+
+The little bell-mistress entered the tavern, followed by two soldiers. In
+a few moments they came out bearing, chair-fashion between them, the
+crippled innkeeper.
+
+The old man was much alarmed, but his daughter followed beside him to the
+omnibus, in which were several lamed soldiers.
+
+"_Et toi?_" he quavered as they lifted him in. "What of thee, Maryette?"
+
+"I follow," she called out cheerily. "I rejoin thee--" the bus moved
+on--"God knows when or where!" she added under her breath.
+
+The airman was whispering to a fat staff officer when she rejoined him.
+All three looked up in silence at the belfry of Sainte Lesse, looming
+above them, a monstrous shadow athwart the stars. A moment later an
+automobile, arriving from the south, drew up in front of the inn.
+
+"_Bonne chance_," said the fat officer abruptly; he turned and waddled
+swiftly away in the darkness. They saw him mount his horse. His legs stuck
+out sideways.
+
+"Now," whispered the airman, with a nod to the chauffeur.
+
+The little bell-mistress entered the car, her wooden gloves tucked under
+one arm. The airman followed with his packet and his sack of bombs. The
+chauffeur started his engine.
+
+The middle of the road was free to him; the edges were occupied by the
+retreating infantry. As the car started, very slowly, cautiously feeling
+its way out of Sainte Lesse, the fat staff officer turned his horse and
+trotted up alongside. The car stopped, the engine still running.
+
+"It’s understood?" asked the officer in a low voice. "It’s to be when we
+hear ’La Brabançonne’?"
+
+"When you hear ’La Brabançonne.’"
+
+"Understood," said the staff officer crisply, saluted and drew bridle. And
+the car moved out into the starlit night along an endless column of
+retreating soldiers, who were laughing, smoking, and chatting as though
+not in the least depressed by their withdrawal from the dry and cosy
+trenches of Nivelle which they were abandoning.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"LA BRABANÇONNE"
+
+
+No shells were falling in Nivelle as they left the car on the outskirts of
+the town and entered the long main street. That was all of Nivelle, a
+long, treeless main street from which branched a few alleys.
+
+Smouldering débris of what had been houses illuminated the street. There
+were no other lights. Nothing stirred except a gaunt cat flitting like a
+shadow along the gutter. There was not a sound save the faint stirring of
+the cinders over which pale flames played fitfully.
+
+Abandoned trenches ditched the little town in every direction; temporary
+shelters made of boughs, sheds, and broken-down wagons stood along the
+street. Otherwise, all impedimenta, materials, and stores had apparently
+been removed by the retreating columns. There was little wreckage except
+the burning débris of the few shell-struck houses--a few rags, a few piles
+of firewood, a bundle of straw and hay here and there.
+
+High, mounting toward the stars, the ancient tower with its gilded
+hippogriff dominated the place--a vast, vague shape brooding over the
+single mile-long street and grimy alleys branching from it.
+
+Nobody guarded the portal; the ancient doors stood wide open; pitch
+darkness reigned within.
+
+"Do you know the way?" whispered the airman.
+
+"Yes. Take hold of my hand."
+
+He dared not use his flash. Carrying bundle and bombsack under one arm, he
+sought for her hand and encountered it. Cool, slim fingers closed over
+his.
+
+After a few moments’ stealthy advance, she whispered:
+
+"Here are the stairs. Be careful; they twist."
+
+She started upward, feeling with her feet for every stone step. The ascent
+appeared to be interminable; the narrowing stone spiral seemed to have no
+end. Her hand grew warm within his own.
+
+But at last they felt a fresh wind blowing and caught a glimpse of stars
+above them.
+
+Then, tier on tier, the bells of the carillon, fixed to their great beams,
+appeared above them--a shadowy, bewildering wilderness of bells, rising,
+rank above rank, until they vanished in the darkness overhead. Beside
+them, almost touching them, loomed the great bell Clovis, a gigantic mass
+bulking enormously in that shadowy place.
+
+A sonorous wind flowed through the open tower, eddying among the bells--a
+strong, keen night wind blowing from the north.
+
+The airman walked to the south parapet and looked down. Below him in the
+starlight, like an indistinct map spread out, lay the Nivelle redoubt and
+the trench with its gabions, its sand bags, its timbers, its dugouts.
+
+Very far away to the southeast they could see the glare of rockets and
+exploding shells, but the sound of the bombardment did not reach them.
+North, a single searchlight played and switched across the clouds; west,
+all was dark.
+
+"They’ll arrive just before dawn," said the airman, placing his sack of
+bombs on the pavement under the parapet. "Come, little bell-mistress, take
+me to see your keyboard."
+
+"It is below--a few steps. This way--if you will follow me----"
+
+She turned to the stone stairs again, descended a dozen steps, opened a
+door on a narrow landing.
+
+And there, in the starlight, he saw the keyboard and the bewildering maze
+of wires running up and branching like a huge web toward the tiers of
+bells above.
+
+He looked at the keyboard curiously. The little mistress of the bells
+displayed the two wooden gloves with which she encased her hands when she
+played the carillon.
+
+"It would be impossible for one to play unless one’s hands are armoured,"
+she explained.
+
+"It is almost a lost art," he mused aloud, "--this playing the
+carillon--this wonderful bell-music of the middle ages. There are few
+great bell-masters in this day."
+
+"Few," she said dreamily.
+
+"And"--he turned and stared at her--"few mistresses of the bells, I
+imagine."
+
+"I think I am the only one in France or in Flanders.... And there are few
+carillons left. The Huns are battering them down. Towers of the ancient
+ages are falling everywhere in Flanders and in France under their shell
+fire. Very soon there will be no more of the old carillons left; no more
+bell-music in the world." She sighed heavily. "It is a pity."
+
+She seated herself at the keyboard.
+
+"Dare I play?" she asked, looking up over her shoulder.
+
+"No; it would only mean a shell from the Huns."
+
+She nodded, laid the wooden gloves beside her and let her delicate hands
+wander over the mute keys.
+
+Leaning beside her the airman quietly explained the plan they were to
+follow.
+
+"With dawn they will come creeping into Nivelle--the Huns," he said. "I
+have one of their officers’ uniforms in that bundle above. I shall try to
+pass as a general officer. You see, I speak German. My education was
+partly ruined in Germany. So I’ll get on very well, I expect.
+
+"And directly under us is the trench and the main redoubt. They’ll occupy
+that first thing. They’ll swarm there--the whole trench will be crawling
+with them. They’ll install their gas cylinders at once, this wind being
+their wind.
+
+"But with sunrise the wind changes--and whether it changes or not, I don’t
+care," he added. "I’ve got them at last where I want them."
+
+The girl looked up at him. He smiled that terrifying smile of his:
+
+"With the explosion of my first bomb among their gas cylinders you are to
+start these bells above us. Are you afraid?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are to play ’La Brabançonne.’ That is the signal to our trenches."
+
+"I have often played it," she said coolly.
+
+"Not in the teeth of a barbarian army. Not in the faces of a murderous
+soldiery."
+
+The girl sat quite still for a few moments; then looking up at him, and
+very pale in the starlight:
+
+"Do you think they will tear me to pieces, monsieur?"
+
+He said:
+
+"I mean to hold those stairs with my sack of bombs until our people enter
+the trenches. If they can do it in an hour we will be all right."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is only a half-hour affair from our salient. I allow our people an
+hour."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But if, even now, you had rather go back----"
+
+"_No!_"
+
+"There is no disgrace in going back."
+
+"You said once, ’anybody can weep for friend and country. Few avenge
+either.’ I am--happy--to be among the few."
+
+He nodded. After a moment he said:
+
+"I’ll bet you something. My country is all right, but it’s sick. It’s
+got a nauseous dose of verbiage to spew up--something it’s
+swallowed--something about being too proud to fight.... My brother and I
+couldn’t stand it, so we came to France.... He was in the photo air
+service. He was in mufti--and about two miles up, I believe. Six Huns went
+for him.... And winged him. He had to land behind their lines.... In
+mufti.... Well--I’ve never found courage to hear the details. I can’t
+stand them--yet."
+
+"Your brother--is dead, monsieur?" she asked timidly.
+
+"Oh, yes. With--circumstances. Well, then--after that, from an ordinary,
+commonplace man I became a machine for the extermination of vermin. That’s
+all I am--an animated magazine of Persian powder--or I do it in any handy
+way. It’s not a sporting proposition, you see, just get rid of them any
+old way. You don’t understand, do you?"
+
+"A--little."
+
+"But it’s slow work--slow work," he muttered vaguely, "--and the world is
+crawling--crawling with them. But if God guides my bomb this time and if I
+hit one of their gas cylinders--_that_ ought to be worth while."
+
+In the starlight his features became tense and terrible; she shivered in
+her threadbare jacket.
+
+After a few moments’ silence he went away up the steps to put on his
+German uniform. When he descended again she had a troubled question for
+him to answer:
+
+"But how shall you account for me, a French girl, monsieur, if they come
+to the belfry?"
+
+A heavy flush darkened his face:
+
+"Little mistress of the bells, I shall pretend to be what the Huns are. Do
+you know how they treat French women?"
+
+"I have heard," she said faintly.
+
+"Then if they come and find you here as my--_prisoner_--they will think
+they understand."
+
+The colour flamed in her face and she bowed it, resting her elbows on the
+keyboard.
+
+"Come," he said, "don’t be distressed. Does it matter what a Hun thinks?
+Come; let’s be cheerful. Can you hum for me ’La Brabançonne’?"
+
+She did not reply.
+
+"Well, never mind," he said. "But it’s a grand battle anthem.... We
+Americans have one.... It’s out of fashion. And after all, I had rather
+hear ’La Brabançonne’ when the time comes.... What a terrible admission!
+But what Americans have done to my country is far more terrible. The
+nation’s sick--sick!... I prefer ’La Brabançonne’ for the time being."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The Prussians entered Nivelle a little before dawn. The airman had been
+watching the street below. Down there in the slight glow from the cinders
+of what once had been a cottage a cat had been squatting, staring at the
+bed of coals, as though she were once more installed upon the family
+hearthstone.
+
+Then something unseen as yet by the airman attracted the animal’s
+attention. Alert, crouching, she stared down the vista of dark, deserted
+houses, then turned and fled like a ghost.
+
+For a long while the airman perceived nothing. Suddenly close to the house
+façades on either side of the street, shadowy forms came gliding forward.
+
+They passed the glowing embers and went on toward Sainte-Lesse; jägers,
+with knapsacks on back and rifles trailing; and on their heads oddly
+shaped pot helmets with battered looking visors.
+
+One or two motorcyclists followed, whizzing through the desolate street
+and into the country beyond.
+
+After a few minutes, out of the throat of the darkness emerged a solid
+column of infantry. In a moment, beneath the bell tower, the ground was
+swarming with Huns; every inch of the earth became infested with them;
+fields, hedges, alleys crawled alive with Germans. They overran every
+road, every street, every inch of open country; their wagons choked the
+main thoroughfare, they were already establishing themselves in the
+redoubt below, in the trench, running in and out of dugouts and all over
+scarp, counter-scarp, parades and parapet, ant-like in energy, busy with
+machine gun, trench mortar, installing telephones, searchlights,
+periscopes, machine guns.
+
+Automobiles arrived--two armoured cars and grey passenger machines in
+which there were officers.
+
+The airman laid his hand on Maryette’s arm.
+
+"Little bell-mistress," he said, "German officers are coming into the
+tower. I want them to find you in my arms when they come up into this
+belfry. Understand me, and forgive me."
+
+"I--understand," she whispered.
+
+"Play your part bravely. Will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He put his arms around her; they stood rigid, listening.
+
+"Now!" he whispered, and drew her close, kissing her.
+
+Spurred boots clattered on the stone floor:
+
+"Herr Je!" exclaimed an astonished voice. Somebody laughed. But the airman
+coolly pushed the girl aside, and as the faint grey light of dawn fell on
+his field uniform bearing the ribbon of the iron cross, two pairs of
+spurred heels hastily clinked together and two hands flew to the oddly
+shaped helmet visors.
+
+"Also!" exclaimed the airman in a mincing Berlin accent. "When I require a
+corps of observers I usually send my aide. That being now quite perfectly
+understood, you gentlemen will give yourselves the trouble to descend as
+you have come. Further, you will place a sentry at the tower door, and
+inform enquirers that General Count von Gierdorff and his staff are
+occupying the Nivelle belfry for purposes of observation."
+
+The astounded officers saluted steadily; and if they imagined that the
+mythical staff of this general officer was clustered aloft somewhere up
+there where the bells hung it was impossible to tell by the strained
+expressions on their wooden countenances.
+
+However, it was evidently perfectly plain to them what the high Excellenz
+was about in this vaulted room where wires led aloft to an unseen carillon
+on the landing in the belfry above.
+
+The airman nodded; they went. And when their clattering steps echoed far
+below on the spiral stone stairs, the airman motioned to the little
+bell-mistress. She followed him up the short flight to where the bells
+hung.
+
+"We’re in for it now," he said. "If High Command comes into this place to
+investigate then I shall have to hold those stairs.... It’s growing quite
+light in the east. Which way is the wind?"
+
+"North," she said in a steady voice. She was terribly pale.
+
+He went to the parapet and looked over, half wondering, perhaps, whether
+he would receive a rifle shot through the head.
+
+Far below at the foot of the bell-tower the dimly discerned Nivelle
+redoubt, swarming with men, was being armed; and, to the south, wired he
+thought, but could not see distinctly.
+
+Then, as the dusk of early dawn grew greyer, the first rifle shots rattled
+out in the west. The French salient was saluting the wire-stringers.
+
+Back under shelter they tumbled; whistles sounded distantly; a trench
+mortar crashed; then the accentless tattoo of machine guns broke from
+every emplacement.
+
+"The east is turning a little yellow," he said calmly. "I believe this
+matter is going through. Toss some dust into the air. Which way?"
+
+"North," said the girl.
+
+"Good. I think they’re placing their cylinders. I think I can see them
+laying their coils. I’m certain of it. What luck!"
+
+The airman was becoming excited and his voice trembled a little with the
+effort to control it.
+
+"It’s growing pink in the east. Try a handful of dust again," he suggested
+almost gaily.
+
+"North," she said briefly, watching the dust aloft.
+
+"Luck’s with us! Look at the east! If their High Command keeps his nose
+out of this place!--if he _does_!--Look at the east, little bell-mistress!
+It’s all gold! There’s pink up higher. I can see a faint tinge of blue,
+too. Can you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+A minute dragged like a year in prison. Then:
+
+"Try the wind again," he said in a strained voice.
+
+"North."
+
+"Oh, luck! Luck!" he muttered, slinging his sack of bombs over his
+shoulder. "We’ve got them! We’ve certainly got them! What’s that! An
+airplane! Look, little girl--one of our planes is up. There’s another!
+Which way is the wind?"
+
+"North."
+
+"Got ’em!" he snapped between his teeth. "Run over to the stairs. Listen!
+Is anybody coming up?"
+
+"I can hear nothing."
+
+"Stand there and listen. Never mind the row the guns are making; listen
+for somebody on the stairs. Look how light it’s getting! The sun will push
+up before many minutes. We’ve got ’em! _Got ’em!_ Wet your finger and try
+the wind!"
+
+"North."
+
+"North here, too. What do you know about that! Luck! Luck’s with us! And
+we’ve got ’em--!" he lifted his clenched hand and laughed at her. "Like
+that!" he said, his blue eyes blazing. "They’re getting ready to gas
+below. Look at ’em! Glory to God! I can see two cylinders directly under
+me. They’re manning the nozzles! Every man is masking at his post! Anybody
+on the stairs! Any sound?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Are you certain?"
+
+"It is as still as death below."
+
+"Try the dust. The wind’s changing, I think. Quick! Which way?"
+
+"_West._"
+
+"Oh, glory! Glory to God! They feel it below! They know. The wind has
+changed. Off came their respirators. No gas this morning, eh? Yes, by God,
+there will be gas enough for all----!"
+
+He caught up a bomb, leaned over the parapet, held it aloft, poised,
+aiming steadily for one second of concentrated coördination of mind and
+muscle. Then straight down he launched it. The cylinder beneath him was
+shattered and a green geyser of gas burst from it deluging the trench.
+
+Already a second bomb followed the first, then another, and then a third;
+and with the last report another cylinder in the trench below burst into
+thick green billows of death and flowed over the ground, _west_.
+
+Two more bombs whirled down, bursting on a machine gun; then the airman
+turned with a cry of triumph, and at the same instant the sun rose above
+the hills and flung a golden ray straight across his face.
+
+To Maryette the man stood transfigured, like the Blazing Guardian of the
+Flaming Sword.
+
+"Ring out your Brabançonne!" he cried. "Let the Huns hear the war song of
+the land they’ve trampled! Now! Little bell-mistress, arm your white hands
+with your wooden gloves and make this old carillon speak in brass and
+iron!"
+
+He caught her by the arm; they ran down the short flight of steps; she
+drew on her wooden gloves and sprang to the keyboard.
+
+"I’ll hold the stairs!" he cried. "I can hold these stairs for an hour
+against the whole world in arms. Now, then! The Brabançonne!"
+
+Above the roaring confusion and the explosions far below, from high up in
+the sky a clear bell note floated as though out of Heaven itself--another,
+others, crystalline clear, imperious, filling all the sky with their
+amazing and terrible beauty.
+
+The mistress of the bells struck the keyboard with armoured
+hands--beautiful, slender, avenging hands; the bells above her crashed out
+into the battle-song of Flanders, filling sky and earth with its splendid
+defiance of the Hun.
+
+The airman, bomb in hand, stood at the head of the stone stairs; the
+ancient tower rocked with the fiercely magnificent anthem of revolt--the
+war cry of a devastated land--the land that died to save the world--the
+martyr, Belgium, still prone in the deathly trance awaiting her certain
+resurrection.
+
+The rising sun struck the tower where three score ancient bells poured
+from metal throats their heavenly summons to battle!
+
+The Hun heard it, tumbling, clawing, strangling below in the hellish
+vapours of his own death-fog; and now, from the rear his sky-guns hurled
+shrapnel at the carillon in the belfry of Nivelle.
+
+Clouds possessed the tower--soft, white, fleecy clouds rolling, unfolding,
+floating about the ancient buttresses and gargoyles. An iron hail rained
+on slate and parapet and resounding bell-metal. But the bells pealed and
+pealed in clear-voiced beauty, and Clovis, the great iron giant, hung,
+scarcely sonorous under the shrapnel rain.
+
+Suddenly there were bayonets on the stairs--the clatter of heavy
+feet--alien faces on the threshold. Then a bomb flew, and the terrible
+crash cleared the stairs.
+
+Twice more the clatter came with the clank of bayonets and guttural cries;
+but both died out in the infernal roar of the grenades exploding inside
+that stony spiral. And no more bayonets flickered on the stairs.
+
+The airman, frozen to a statue, listened. Again and again he thought he
+could hear bugles, but the roar from below blotted out the distant call.
+
+"Little bell-mistress!"
+
+She turned her head, her hands still striking the keyboard. He spoke
+through the confusion of the place:
+
+"Sound the tocsin!"
+
+Then Clovis thundered from the belfry like a great gun fired, booming out
+over the world. Around the iron colossus shrapnel swept in gusts; Clovis
+thundered on, annihilating all sound except his own tremendous voice,
+heedless of shell and bullet, disdainful of the hell’s shambles below,
+where masked French infantry were already leaping the parapets of Nivelle
+Redoubt into the squirming masses below.
+
+The airman shouted at her through the tumult:
+
+"They murdered my brother. Did I tell you? They hacked him to slivers with
+their bayonets. I’ve settled the reckoning down in the gas there--their
+own green gas, damn them! You don’t understand what I say, do you? He was
+my brother----"
+
+A frightful explosion blew in the oubliette; the room rattled and
+clattered with shrapnel.
+
+The airman swayed where he stood in the swirling smoke, lurched up against
+the stone coping, slid down to his knees.
+
+When his eyes opened the little bell-mistress was bending over him.
+
+"They got me," he gasped. All the front of his tunic was sopping red.
+
+"They said it meant the cross--if I made good.... Are you hurt?"
+
+"Oh, no!" she whispered. "But you----"
+
+"Go on and play!" he whispered with a terrible effort.
+
+"But you----"
+
+"The Brabançonne! Quick!"
+
+She went, whimpering. Standing before the keyboard she pulled on her
+wooden gloves and struck the keys.
+
+Out over the infernal uproar below pealed the bells; the morning sky rang
+with the noble summons to all brave men. Once more the ancient tower
+trembled with the mighty out-crash of the battle hymn.
+
+With the last note she turned and looked down at him where he lay against
+the wall. He opened his glazing eyes and tried to smile at her.
+
+"Bully," he whispered. "Could you recite--the words--to me--just so I
+could hear them on my way--West?"
+
+She left the keyboard, came and dropped on her knees beside him; and
+closing her eyes to check the tears sang in a low, tremulous, girlish
+voice, De Lonlay’s words, to the battle anthem of revolution.
+
+"Bully," he sighed. And spoke no more on earth.
+
+But the little mistress of the bells did not know his soul had passed.
+
+And the French officer who came leaping up the stairs, pistol lifted,
+halted in astonishment to see a dead man lying beside a sack of bombs and
+a young girl on her knees beside him, weeping and tremblingly intoning "La
+Brabançonne."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE GARDENER
+
+
+A week later, toward noon, as usual, the two American, muleteers, Smith
+and Glenn, sauntered over from their corral to the White Doe Tavern where,
+it being a meatless day, they ate largely of potato soup and of a tench,
+smoking hot.
+
+The tench had been caught that morning off the back doorstep, which was an
+ancient and mossy slab of limestone let into the coping of the river wall.
+
+Jean Courtray, the crippled inn-keeper, caught it. All that morning he had
+sat there in the sun on the river wall, half dozing, opening his dim eyes
+at intervals to gaze at his painted quill afloat among the water weeds of
+the little river Lesse. At intervals, too, he turned his head with that
+peculiar movement of the old, and peered at his daughter, Maryette, and
+the Belgian gardener who were working among the potatoes in the garden.
+
+And at last he had hooked his fish and the emaciated young Belgian dropped
+his hoe and came over and released it from the hook where it lay flopping
+and quivering and glittering among the wild grasses on the river bank. And
+that was how Kid Glenn and Sticky Smith, American muleteers on duty at
+Saint Lesse, came to lunch on freshly caught tench at the Inn of the White
+Doe.
+
+After luncheon, agreeably satiated, they rose from the table in the little
+dining room and strolled out to the garden in the rear of the inn, their
+Mexican spurs clanking. Maryette heard them; they tipped their caps to
+her; she acknowledged their salute gravely and continued to cultivate her
+garden with a hoe, the blond, consumptive Belgian trundling a rickety
+cultivator at her heels.
+
+"Look, Stick," drawled Glenn. "Maryette’s got her decoration on."
+
+From where they lounged by the river wall they could see the cross of the
+Legion pinned to the girl’s blouse.
+
+Both muleteers had been present at the investment the day before, when a
+general officer arrived from Paris and the entire garrison of Sainte Lesse
+had been paraded--an impressive total of three dozen men--six gendarmes
+and a brigadier; one remount sub-lieutenant and twenty troopers; a
+veterinary, two white American muleteers, and five American negro hostlers
+from Baton Rouge.
+
+The girl had nearly died of shyness during the ceremony, had endured the
+accolade with crimson cheeks, had stammered a whispered response to the
+congratulations of neighbors who had gathered to see the little
+bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse honoured by the country which she had served
+in the belfry of Nivelle.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+As she came past Smith and Glenn, trailing her hoe, the latter now
+sufficiently proficient in French, said gaily:
+
+"Have you heard from Jack again, Mamzelle Maryette?"
+
+The girl blushed:
+
+"I hear from Djack by every mail," she said, with all the transparent
+honesty that characterized her.
+
+Smith grinned:
+
+"Just like that! Well, tell him from me to quit fooling away his time in a
+hospital and come and get you or somebody is going to steal you."
+
+The girl was very happy; she stood there in the September sunshine leaning
+on her hoe and gazing half shyly, half humorously down the river where a
+string of American mules was being watered.
+
+Mellow Ethiopian laughter sounded from the distance as the Baton Rouge
+negroes exchanged pleasantries in limited French with a couple of
+gendarmes on the bank above them. And there, in the sunshine of the little
+garden by the river, war and death seemed very far away. Only at intervals
+the veering breeze brought to Sainte Lesse the immense vibration of the
+cannonade; only at intervals the high sky-clatter of an airplane reminded
+the village that the front was only a little north of Nivelle, and that
+what had been Nivelle was not so very far away.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"If you were _my_ girl, Maryette," remarked Smith, "I’d die of worry in
+that hospital."
+
+"_You_ might have reason to, Monsieur," retorted the girl demurely. "But
+you see it’s Djack who is convalescing, not you."
+
+She had become accustomed to the ceaseless banter of Burley’s two
+comrades--a banter entirely American, and which at first she was unable to
+understand. But now all things American, including accent and odd,
+perverted humour, had become very dear to her. The clink-clank of the
+muleteer’s big spurs always set her heart beating; the sight of an
+arriving convoy from the Channel port thrilled her, and to her the trample
+of mules, the shouts of foreign negroes, the drawling, broken French
+spoken by the white muleteers made heavenly real to her the dream which
+love had so suddenly invaded, and into which, as suddenly, strode Death,
+clutching at Love.
+
+She had beaten him off--she had--or God had--routed Death, driven him from
+the dream. For it was a dream to her still, and she thought she could
+never be able to comprehend the magic reality of it, even when at last her
+man, "Djack," came back to prove the blessed miracle which held her in the
+magic of its thrall.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"Who’s the guy with the wheelbarrow?" inquired Sticky Smith, rolling a
+cigarette.
+
+"Karl, his name is," she answered; "--a Belgian refugee."
+
+"He looks like a Hun to me," remarked Glenn, bluntly.
+
+"He has his papers," said the girl.
+
+Glenn shrugged.
+
+"With his little pink eyes of a pig and his whitish hair and
+eyebrows--well, maybe they make ’em like that in Belgium."
+
+"Papers," added Smith, "_can_ be swiped."
+
+The girl shook her head:
+
+"He’s an invalid student from Ypres. He looks quite ill, I think."
+
+"He looks the lunger, all right. But Huns have it, too. What does he
+do--wander about town at will?"
+
+"He works for us, monsieur. Your suspicions are harsh. Karl is quite
+harmless, poor boy."
+
+"What does he do after hours?" demanded Sticky Smith, watching the
+manœuvres of the sickly blond youth and the wheelbarrow.
+
+"Monsieur Smith, if you knew how innocent is his pastime!" she exclaimed,
+laughing. "He collects and studies moths and butterflies. Is there, if you
+please, a mania more harmless in the world?... And now I must return to my
+work, messieurs."
+
+As the two muleteers strode clanking away toward the canal in the meadow,
+the blond youth turned his head and looked after them out of eyes which
+were naturally pale and small, and which, as he watched the two Americans,
+seemed to grow paler and smaller yet.
+
+That afternoon old Courtray, swathed in a shawl, sat on the mossy doorstep
+and fished among the water weeds of the river. The sun was low; work in
+the garden had ended.
+
+Maryette had gone up into her belfry to play the sunset hymn on the noble
+old carillon. Through the sunset sky the lovely bell-notes floated far and
+wide, exquisitely chaste and aloof as the high-showering ecstasy of a
+skylark.
+
+As always the little village looked upward and listened, pausing in its
+humble duties as long as their little bell-mistress remained in her tower.
+
+After the hymn she played "Myn hart is vol verlangen" and "Het Lied der
+Vlamingen," and ended with the delicate, bewitching little folk-song, "Myn
+Vryer," by Hasselt.
+
+Then in the red glow of the setting sun the girl laid aside her wooden
+gloves, rose from the ancient keyboard, wound up the drum, and, her duty
+done for the evening, came down out of the tower among the transparent
+evening shadows of the tree-lined village street.
+
+The sun hung over Nivelle hills, which had turned to amethyst. Sunbeams
+laced the little river in a red net through which old Courtray’s quill
+stemmed the ripples. He still clutched his fishing pole, but his eyes were
+closed, his chin resting on his chest.
+
+Maryette came silently into the garden and looked at her father--looked at
+the blond Karl seated on the river wall beside the dozing angler. The
+blond youth had a box on his knees into which he was intently peering.
+
+The girl came to the river wall and seated herself at her father’s feet.
+The Belgian refugee student had already risen to attention, his heels
+together, but Maryette signed him to be seated again.
+
+"What have you found now, Karl?" she inquired in a cautiously modulated
+voice.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle, fancy! I haff by chance with my cultivator among your
+potatoes already twenty pupæ of the magnificent moth, Sphinx Atropos,
+upturned! See! Regard them, mademoiselle! What lucky chance! What fortune
+for me, an entomologist, this wonderful sphinx moth to discover encased
+within its chrysalis!"
+
+The girl smiled at his enthusiasm:
+
+"But, Karl, those funny, smooth brown things which resemble little
+polished evergreen-cones are not rare in my garden. Often, when spading or
+hoeing among the potato vines, I uncover them."
+
+"Mademoiselle, the caterpillar which makes this chrysalis feeds by night
+on the leaves of the potato, and, when ready to transform, burrows into
+the earth to become a chrysalis or pupa, as we call it. That iss why
+mademoiselle has often disinterred the pupæ of this largest and strangest
+of our native sphinx-moths."
+
+Maryette leaned over and looked into the wooden box, where lay the
+chrysalides.
+
+"What kind of moth do they make?" she asked.
+
+He blinked his small, pale eyes:
+
+"The Death’s Head," he said, complacently.
+
+The girl recoiled involuntarily:
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, "--_that_ creature!"
+
+For everywhere in France the great moth, with its strange and ominous
+markings, is perfectly well known. To the superstitious it is a creature
+of evil omen in its fulvous, black and lead-coloured livery of death. For
+the broad, furry thorax bears a skull, and the big, mousy body the yellow
+ribs of a skeleton.
+
+Measuring often more than five inches across the expanded wings, its
+formidable size alone might be sufficient to inspire alarm, but in
+addition it possesses a horrid attribute unknown among other moths and
+butterflies; it can utter a cry--a tiny shrill, shuddering complaint.
+Small wonder, perhaps, that the peasant holds it in horror--this sleek,
+furry, powerfully winged creature marked with skull and bones, which
+whirrs through the night and comes thudding against the window, and
+shrieks horridly when touched by a human hand.
+
+"So _that_ is what turns into the Death’s Head moth," said the girl in a
+low voice as though to herself. "I never knew it. I thought those things
+were legless cock-chafers when I dug them out of potato hills. Karl, why
+do you keep them?"
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle! To study them. To breed from them the moth. The Death’s
+Head is magnificent."
+
+"God made it," admitted the girl with a faint shudder, "but I am afraid I
+could not love it. When do they hatch out?"
+
+"It is time now. It is not like others of the sphinx family. Incubation
+requires but a few weeks. These are nearly ready to emerge, mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh. And then what do they do?"
+
+"They mate."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"The males seek the females," he said in his pedantic, monotonous voice.
+"And so ardent are the lovers that although there be no female moth within
+five, eight, perhaps ten miles, yet will her lover surely search through
+the night for her and find her."
+
+Maryette shuddered again in spite of herself. The thought of this creature
+marked with the emblems of death and possessed of ardour, too, was
+distasteful.
+
+"Amour macabre--what an unpleasant thought, Karl. I do not care for your
+Death’s Head and for the history of their amours."
+
+She turned and gently laid her head on her father’s knees. The young man
+regarded her with a pallid sneer.
+
+Addressing her back, still holding his boxful of pupæ on his bony knees,
+he said with the sneer quite audible in his voice:
+
+"Your famous savant, Fabre, first inspired me to study the sex habits of
+the Death’s Head."
+
+She made no reply, her cheek resting on her father’s knees.
+
+"It was because of his wonderful experiments with the Great Peacock moth
+and with others of the genus that I have studied to acquaint myself
+concerning the amours of the Death’s Head. _And I have discovered that he
+will find the female even if she be miles and miles away._"
+
+The man was grinning now in the dusk--grinning like a skull; but the
+girl’s back was still turned and she merely found something in his voice
+not quite agreeable.
+
+"I think," she said in a low, quiet voice, "that I have now heard
+sufficient about the Death’s Head moth."
+
+"Ah--have I offended mademoiselle? I ask a thousand pardons----"
+
+Old Courtray awoke in the dusk.
+
+"My quill, Maryette," he muttered, "--see if it floats yet?"
+
+The girl bent over the water and strained her eyes. Her father tested the
+line with shaky hands. There was no fish on the hook.
+
+"_Voyons!_ The _asticot_ also is gone. Some robber fish has been
+nibbling!" exclaimed the girl cheerfully, reeling in the line. "Father,
+one cannot fish and doze at the same time."
+
+"Eternal vigilance is the price of success--in peace as well as in war,"
+said Karl, the student, as he aided Maryette to raise her father from the
+chair.
+
+"Vigilance," repeated the girl. "Yes, always now in France. Because always
+the enemy is listening." ... Her strong young arm around her father, she
+traversed the garden slowly toward the house. A pleasant odour came from
+the kitchen of the White Doe, where an old peasant woman was cooking.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE SUSPECT
+
+
+That night she wrote to her lover at the great hospital in the south,
+where he lay slowly growing well:
+
+
+    MY DJACK:
+
+    Today has been very beautiful, made so for me by my thoughts of
+    you and by a warm September sun which makes for human happiness,
+    too.
+
+    I am wearing my ribbon of the Legion. Ah, my Djack, it belongs
+    more rightly to you, who would not let me go alone to Nivelle that
+    dreadful day. Why do they not give you the cross? They must be
+    very stupid in Paris.
+
+    All day my happy thoughts have been with you, my Djack. It all
+    seems a blessed dream that we love each other. And I--oh, how
+    could I have been so ignorant, so silly, not to know it sooner
+    than I did!
+
+    I don’t know; I thought it was friendship. And that was so
+    wonderful to me that I never dreamed any other miracle possible!
+
+    _Allons_, my Djack. Come and instruct me quickly, because my
+    desire for further knowledge is very ardent.
+
+    The news? _Cher ami_, there is little. Always the far thunder
+    beyond Nivelle in ruins; sometimes a battle-plane high in the
+    blue; a convoy of your beloved mules arriving from the coast;
+    nothing more exciting.
+
+    Monsieur Smeet and Monsieur Glenn inquire always concerning you.
+    They are brave and kind; their odd jests amuse me.
+
+    My father caught a tench in the Lesse this morning.
+
+    My gardener, Karl, collected many unpleasant creatures while
+    hoeing our potatoes. Poor lad, he seems unhealthy. I am glad I
+    could offer him employment.
+
+    My Djack, there could not possibly be any mistake about him, could
+    there? His papers are en règle. He is what he pretends, a Belgian
+    student from Ypres in distress and ill health, is he not?
+
+    But how can you answer me, you who lie there all alone in a
+    hospital at Nice? Also, I am ashamed of myself for doubting the
+    unfortunate young man. I am too happy to doubt anybody, perhaps.
+
+    And so good night, my Djack. Sleep sweetly, guarded by powerful
+    angels.
+
+                    Thy devoted,
+                    MARYETTE.
+
+
+She had been writing in the deserted café. Now she took a candle and went
+slowly upstairs. On the white plaster wall of her bedroom was a Death’s
+Head moth.
+
+The girl, startled for an instant, stood still; an unfeigned shiver of
+displeasure passed over her. Not that the Death’s Head was an unfamiliar
+or terrifying sight to her; in late summer she usually saw one or two
+which had flown through some lighted window.
+
+But it was the amorous history of this creature which the student Karl had
+related that now repelled her. This night creature with the skull on its
+neck, once scarcely noticed, had now become a trifle repulsive.
+
+She went nearer, lifting the lighted candle. The thing crouched there with
+slanted wings. It was newly hatched, its sleek body still wet with the
+humors of incubation--wet as a soaked mouse. Its abdomen, too, seemed
+enormous, all swelled and distended with unfertilized eggs. No, there
+could be no question concerning the sex of the thing; this was a female,
+and her tumefied body was almost bursting with eggs.
+
+In startling design the yellow skull stood out; the ribs of the skeleton.
+Two tiny, fiery eyes glimmered at the base of the antennæ--two minute
+jewelled sparks of glowing, lambent fire. They seemed to be watching her,
+maliciously askance.
+
+The very horrid part of it was that, if touched, the creature would cry
+out. The girl knew this, hesitated, looked at the open window through
+which it must have crawled, and sat down on her bed to consider the
+situation.
+
+"After all," she said to herself resolutely. "God made it. It is harmless.
+If God thought fit to paint one of his lesser creatures like a skeleton,
+perhaps it was to remind us that life is brief and that we should lose no
+time to live it nobly in His sight.... I think that perhaps explains it."
+
+However, she did not undress.
+
+"I am quite foolish to be afraid of this poor moth. I repeat that I am
+foolish. _Allez_--I am _not_ afraid. I am no longer afraid. I--I admire
+this handiwork of God."
+
+She sat looking at the creature, her hands lying clasped in her lap.
+
+"It’s a very odd thing," she said to herself, "that a lover can find this
+creature even if he be miles and miles away.... Maybe he’s on his way
+now----"
+
+Instinctively she sprang up and closed her bedroom window.
+
+"No," she said, looking severely at the motionless moth, "you shall have
+no visitors in my room. You may remain here; I shall not disturb you; and
+tomorrow you will go away of your own accord. But I cannot permit you to
+receive company----"
+
+A heavy fall on the floor above checked her. Breathless, listening, she
+crept to her door.
+
+"Karl!" she called.
+
+Listening again, she could hear distant and vaguely dreadful sounds from
+the gardener-student’s room above.
+
+She was frightened but she went up. The youth had had a bad hemorrhage.
+She sat beside him late into the night. After his breathing grew quieter,
+sitting there in silence she could hear odd sounds, rustling, squeaking
+sounds from the box of Death’s Head chrysalids on the night table beside
+his bed.
+
+The pupæ of the Death’s Head were making merry in anticipation of the
+rapidly approaching change--the Great Adventure of their lives--the coming
+metamorphosis.
+
+The youth lay asleep now. As she extinguished the candle and stole from
+the room, all the pupæ of the Death’s Head began to squeak in the
+darkness.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The student-gardener could do no more work for the present. He lay propped
+up in bed, pasty, scarlet lipped, and he seemed bald and lidless, so
+colourless were hair and eye-lashes.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, Karl?" asked Maryette, coming in for a moment
+as usual in the intervals of her many duties.
+
+"The ink, if you would be so condescending--and a pen," he said, watching
+her out of hollow, sallow eyes of watery blue.
+
+She fetched both from the café.
+
+She came again in another hour, knocking at his door, but he said rather
+sharply that he wished to sleep.
+
+Scarcely noticing the querulous tone, she departed. She had much to do
+besides her duties in the belfry. Her father was an invalid who required
+constant care; there was only one servant, an old peasant woman who
+cooked. The Government required her father to keep open the White Doe
+Tavern, and there was always a little business from the scanty garrison of
+Sainte Lesse, always a few meals to get, a few drinks to serve, and nobody
+now to do it except herself.
+
+Then, in the belfry she had duties other than playing, than practice.
+Always at night the clock-drum was to be wound.
+
+She had no assistant. The town maintained none, and her salary as Mistress
+of the Bells of Sainte Lesse did not permit her to engage anybody to help
+her.
+
+So she oiled and wound all the machinery herself, adjusted and cared for
+the clock, swept the keyboard clean, inspected and looked after the wires
+leading to the tiers of bells overhead.
+
+Then there was work to do in the garden--a few minutes snatched between
+other duties. And when night arrived at last she was rather tired--quite
+weary on this night in particular, having managed to fulfill all the
+duties of the sick youth as well as her own.
+
+The night was warm and fragrant. She sat in the dark at her open window
+for a while, looking out into the north where, along the horizon, heat
+lightning seemed to play. But it was only the reflected flashes of the
+guns. When the wind was right, she could hear them.
+
+She had even managed to write to her lover. Now, seated beside the open
+window, she was thinking of him. A dreamy, happy lethargy possessed her;
+she was on the first delicate verge of slumber, so close to it that all
+earthly sounds were dying out in her ears. Then, suddenly, she was awake,
+listening.
+
+A window had been opened in the room overhead.
+
+She went to the stars and called:
+
+"Karl!"
+
+"What?" came the impatient reply.
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"No. N-no, I thank you--" His voice became urbane with an apparent effort.
+"Thank you for inquiring----"
+
+"I heard your window open--" she said.
+
+"Thank you. I am quite well. The air is mild and grateful.... I thank
+mademoiselle for her solicitude."
+
+She returned to her room and lighted her candle. On the white plaster wall
+sat the Death’s Head moth.
+
+She had not been in her room all day. She was astonished that the moth had
+not left.
+
+"Shall I have to put you out?" she thought dubiously. "Really, I can not
+keep my window closed for fear of visitors for you, Madam Death! I
+certainly shall be obliged to put you out."
+
+So she found a sheet of paper and a large glass tumbler. Over the moth she
+placed the tumbler, then slipped the sheet of paper under the glass
+between moth and wall.
+
+The thing cried and cried, beating at the glass with wings as powerful as
+a bird’s, and the girl, startled and slightly repelled, placed the moth on
+her night table, imprisoned under the tumbler.
+
+For a while it fluttered and flapped and cried out in its strange, uncanny
+way, then settled on the sheet of paper, quivering its wings, both eyes
+like living coals.
+
+Seated on the bedside, Maryette looked at it, schooling herself to think
+of it kindly as one of God’s creatures before she released it at her open
+window.
+
+And, as she sat there, something came whizzing into the room through her
+window, circled around her at terrific speed with a humming, whispering
+whirr, then dropped with a solid thud on the night table beside the
+imprisoned female moth.
+
+It was the first suitor arrived from outer darkness--a big, powerful
+Death’s Head moth with eyes aglow, the yellow skull displayed in startling
+contrast on his velvet-black body.
+
+The girl watched him, fascinated. He scrambled over to the tumbler, tested
+it with heavy antennæ; then, ardent and impatient, beat against the glass
+with muscular wings that clattered in the silence.
+
+But it was not the amorous fury of the creature striking the tumbler with
+resounding wings, not the glowing eyes, the strong, clawed feet, the
+Death’s Head staring from its funereal black thorax that held the girl’s
+attention. It was something else; something entirely different riveted her
+eyes on the creature.
+
+For the cigar-shaped body, instead of bearing the naked ribs of a
+skeleton, was snow white.
+
+And now she began to understand. Somebody had already caught the moth, had
+wrapped around its body a cylinder of white tissue paper--tied it on with
+a fine, white silk thread.
+
+The moth was very still now, exploring the interstices between tumbler and
+table with heavy, pectinated antennæ.
+
+Cautiously Maryette bent forward and dropped both hands on the moth.
+
+Instantly the creature cried out horribly; it was like a mouse between her
+shrinking fingers; but she slipped the cylinder of tissue paper from its
+abdomen and released it with a shiver; and it darted and whizzed around
+the room, gyrating in whistling circles around her head until, unnerved,
+she struck at it again and again with empty hands, following, driving it
+toward the open window, out of which it suddenly darted.
+
+But now there was another Death’s Head in the room, a burly, headlong,
+infatuated male which drove headlong at the tumbler and clung to it,
+slipping, sliding, filling the room with a feathery tattoo of wings.
+
+It, also, had a snow-white body; and before she had seized the squeaking
+thing and had slipped the tissue wrapper from its body, another Death’s
+Head whirred through the window; then another, then two; then others. The
+room swarmed; they were crawling all over the tumbler, the table, the bed.
+The room was filled with the soft, velvety roar of whirring wings beating
+on wall and ceiling and against the tumbler where Madam Death sat
+imprisoned, quivering her wings, her eyes two molten rubies, and the
+ghastly skull staring from her back.
+
+How Maryette ever brought herself to do it; how she did it at last, she
+had no very clear idea. The touch of the slippery, mousy bodies was
+fearsomely repugnant to her; the very sight of the great, skull-bearing
+things began to sicken her physically. A dreadful, almost impalpable floss
+from their handled wings and bodies smeared her hands; the place vibrated
+with their tiny goblin cries.
+
+Somehow she managed to strip them of the tissue cylinders, drive them from
+where they crawled on ceiling, wall and sill into whistling flight. Amid a
+whirlwind of wings she fought them toward the open window; whizzing,
+flitting, circling they sped in widening spirals to escape her blows,
+where she stood half blinded in the vortex of the ghostly maelstrom.
+
+One by one they darted through the open window out into the night; and
+when the last spectral streak of grey had sped into outer darkness the
+girl slammed the windowpanes shut and leaned against the sill enervated,
+exhausted, revolted.
+
+The room was misty with the microscopic dust from the creatures’ wings; on
+her palms and fingers were black stains and stains of livid orange; and
+across wall and ceiling streaks and smudges of rusty colour.
+
+She was still trembling when she washed the smears from her hands. Her
+fingers were still unsteady as she smoothed out each tiny sheet of tissue
+paper and laid it on her night table. Then, seated on the bed’s edge
+beside the lighted candle, she began to read the messages written in ink
+on these frail, translucent tissue missives.
+
+Every bit of tissue bore a message; the writing was microscopic, the
+script German, the language Flemish. Slowly, with infinite pains, the
+little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse translated to herself each message as
+she deciphered it.
+
+She was trembling more than ever when she finished. Every trace of colour
+had fled from her cheeks.
+
+Then, as she sat there, struggling to keep her mind clear of the horror of
+the thing, striving to understand what was to be done, there came upon her
+window pane a sudden muffled drumming sound, and her frightened gaze fell
+upon a Death’s Head moth outside, its eyes like coals, its misty wings
+beating furiously for admittance. And around its body was tied a cylinder
+of white tissue.
+
+But the girl needed no more evidence. The wretched youth in the room
+overhead had already sealed his own doom with any one of these tissue
+cylinders. Better for him if the hemorrhage had slain him. Now a firing
+squad must do that much for him.
+
+Yet, even still, the girl hesitated, almost incredulous, trying to
+comprehend the monstrous grotesquerie of the abominable plot.
+
+Intuition pointed to the truth; logic proved it; somewhere in the German
+trenches a comrade of this spy was awaiting these messages with a caged
+Death’s Head female as the bait--a living loadstone wearing the terrific
+emblems of death--an unfailing magnet to draw the skull-bearing messengers
+for miles--had it not been that a _nearer magnet deflected them in their
+flight!_
+
+That was it! That was what the miserable youth upstairs had not counted
+on. Chance had ruined him; destiny had sent Madam Death into the room
+below him to draw, with her macabre charms, every ardent winged messenger
+which he liberated from his bedroom window.
+
+The subtle effluvia permeating the night air for miles around might have
+guided these messengers into the German trenches had not a nearer and more
+imperious perfume annihilated it. Headlong, amorous, impatient they had
+whirled toward the embraces of Madam Death; the nearer and more powerful
+perfume had drawn the half-maddened, half-drugged messengers. The spy in
+the room upstairs, like many Germans, had reasoned wrongly on sound
+premises. His logic had broken down, not his amazing scientific
+foundation. His theory was correct; his application stupid.
+
+And now this young man was about to die. Maryette understood that. She
+comprehended that his death was necessary; that it was the unavoidable
+sequence of what he had attempted to do. Trapped rats must be drowned;
+vermin exterminated by easiest and quickest methods; spies who betray
+one’s native land pass naturally the same route.
+
+But this thing, this grotesque, incredible, terrible attempt to engraft
+treachery on one of nature’s most amazing laws--this secret, cunning
+Teutonic reasoning, this scientific scoundrelism, this criminal enterprise
+based on patient, plodding and German efficiency, still bewildered the
+girl.
+
+And yet she vaguely realized how science had been already prostituted to
+Prussian malignancy and fury; she had heard of flame jets, of tear-bombs,
+of bombs containing deadly germs; she herself had beheld the poison gas
+rolling back into the trenches at Nivelle under the town tower. Dimly she
+began to understand that the Hun, in his cunning savagery, had tricked,
+betrayed and polluted civilization itself into lending him her own secrets
+with which she was ultimately to be destroyed.
+
+The very process of human thinking had been imitated by these monkeys of
+Europe--apes with the ferocity of hogs--and no souls, none--nothing to
+lift them inside the pale where dwells the human race.
+
+There came a rapping on the café door. The girl rose wearily; an immense
+weight seemed to crush her shoulders so that her knees had become
+unsteady.
+
+She opened the café door; it was Sticky Smith, come for his nightcap
+before turning in.
+
+"The man upstairs is a German spy," she said listlessly. "Had you not
+better go over and get a gendarme?"
+
+"Who’s a spy? That Dutch shrimp you had in your garden?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he?" demanded the muleteer with an oath.
+
+She placed her lighted candle on the bar.
+
+"Wait," she said. "Read these first--we must be quite certain about what
+we do."
+
+She laid the squares of tissue paper out on the bar.
+
+"Do you read Flemish?" she whispered.
+
+"No, ma’am----"
+
+"Then I will translate into French for you. And first of all I must tell
+you how I came to possess these little letters written upon tissue. Please
+listen attentively."
+
+He rested his palm on the butt of his dangling automatic.
+
+"Go on," he said.
+
+She told him the circumstances.
+
+As she commenced to translate the tissue paper messages in a low,
+tremulous voice, the sound of a door being closed and locked in the room
+overhead silenced her.
+
+The next instant she had stepped out to the stairs and called:
+
+"Karl!"
+
+There was no reply. Smith came out to the stair-well and listened.
+
+"It is his custom," she whispered, "to lock his door before retiring. That
+is what we heard."
+
+"Call again."
+
+"He can’t hear me. He is in bed."
+
+"Call, all the same."
+
+"Karl!" she cried out in an unsteady voice.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MADAM DEATH
+
+
+There was no reply, because the young man was hanging out over his window
+sill in the darkness trying to switch away, from her closed window below,
+the big, clattering Death’s Head moth which obstinately and persistently
+fluttered there.
+
+What possessed the moth to continue battering its wings at the window of
+the room below? Had the other moths which he released done so, too? They
+had darted out of his room into the night, each garnished with a tissue
+robe. He supposed they had flown north; he had not looked out to see.
+
+What had gone wrong with this moth, then?
+
+He took his emaciated blond head between his bony fingers and pondered,
+probing for reason with German thoroughness--that celebrated thoroughness
+which is invariably riddled with flaws.
+
+Of all contingencies he had thought--or so it seemed to him. He could not
+recollect any precaution neglected. He had come to Sainte Lesse for a
+clearly defined object and to make certain reports concerning matters of
+interest to the German military authorities north of Nivelle.
+
+The idea, inspired by the experiments of Henri Fabre, was original with
+him. Patiently, during the previous year, he had worked it out--had proved
+his theory by a series of experiments with moths of this species.
+
+He had arranged with his staff comrade, Dr. Glück, for a forced hatching
+of the pupæ which the latter had patiently bred from the enormous green
+and violet-banded caterpillars.
+
+At least one female Death’s Head must be ready, caged in the trenches
+beyond Nivelle. Hundreds of pupæ could not have died. Where, then, was his
+error--if, indeed, he had made any?
+
+Leaning from the window, he looked down at the frantic moth, perplexed, a
+little uneasy now.
+
+"Swine!" he muttered. "What, then, ails you that you do not fly to the
+mistress awaiting you over yonder?"
+
+He could see the cylinder of white tissue shining on the creature’s body,
+where it fluttered against the pane, illuminated by the rays of the candle
+from within the young girl’s room.
+
+Could it be possible that the candle-light was proving the greater
+attraction?
+
+Even as the possibility entered his mind, he saw another Death’s Head dart
+at the window below and join the first one. But this newcomer wore no
+tissue jacket.
+
+Then, out of the darkness the Death’s Heads began to come to the window
+below, swarms of them, startling him with the racket of their wings.
+
+From where did they arrive? They could not be the moths he liberated.
+But.... _Were they?_ Had some accident robbed their bodies of the tissue
+missives? Had they blundered into somebody’s room and been robbed?
+
+Mystified, uneasy, he hung over his window sill, staring with sickening
+eyes at the winged tumult below.
+
+With patient, plodding logic he began to seek for the solution. What
+attracted these moths to the room below? Was it the candle-light? That
+alone could not be sufficient--could not contend with the more imperious
+attraction, the subtle effluvia stealing out of the north and appealing to
+the ruling passion which animated the frantic winged things below him.
+
+Patiently, methodically in his mind he probed about for some clue to the
+solution. The ruling passion animating the feathery whirlwind below was
+the necessity for mating and perpetuating the species.
+
+That was the dominant passion; the lure of candle-light a secondary
+attraction.... Then, if this were so--and it had been proven to be a
+fact--then--then--_what_ was in that young girl’s bedroom just below him?
+
+Even as the question flashed in his mind he left the window, went to his
+door, listened, noiselessly unlocked it.
+
+A low murmur of voices came from the café.
+
+He drew off both shoes, descended the stairs on the flat pads of his
+large, bony feet, listening all the while.
+
+Candle-light streamed out into the corridor from her open bedroom door;
+and he crept to the sill and peered in, searching the place with small,
+pale eyes.
+
+At first he noticed nothing to interest him, then, all in an instant, his
+gaze fell upon Madam Death under her prison of glass.
+
+There she sat, her great bulging abdomen distended with eggs, her lambent
+eyes shining with the terrible passion of anticipation. For one thing only
+she had been created. That accomplished she died. And there she crouched
+awaiting the fulfillment of her life’s cycle with the blazing eyes of a
+demon.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+From the café below came the cautious murmur of voices. The young man
+already knew what they were whispering about; or, if he did not know he no
+longer cared.
+
+The patches of bright colour in his sunken cheeks had died out in an ashen
+pallor. As far as he was concerned the world was now ended. And he knew
+it.
+
+He went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed’s edge. His little, pale
+eyes wandered about the white room; the murmur of voices below was audible
+all the while.
+
+After a few moments’ patient waiting, his gaze rested again on Madam
+Death, squatting there with wings sloped, and the skull and bones staring
+at him from her head and distended abdomen.
+
+After all there was an odd resemblance between himself and Madam Death. He
+had been born to fulfill one function, it appeared. So had she. And now,
+in his case as in hers, death was immediately to follow. This was
+sentiment, not science--the blind lobe of the German brain balancing
+grotesquely the reasoning lobe.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The voices below had ceased. Presently he heard a cautious step on the
+stair.
+
+He had a little pill-box in his pocket. Methodically, without haste, he
+drew it out, chose one white pellet, and, holding it between his bony
+thumb and forefinger, listened.
+
+Yes, somebody was coming up the stairs, very careful to make no sound.
+
+Well--there were various ways for a Death’s Head Hussar to die for his War
+Lord. All were equally laudable. God--the God of Germany--the celestial
+friend and comrade of his War Lord--would presently correct him if he was
+transgressing military discipline or the etiquette of Kultur. As for the
+levelled rifles of the execution squad, he preferred another way....
+_This_ way!...
+
+His eyes were already glazing when the burly form of Sticky Smith filled
+the doorway.
+
+He looked down at Madam Death under the tumbler beside him, then lifted
+his head and gazed at Smith with blinded eyes.
+
+"Swine!" he said complacently, swaying gently forward and striking the
+floor with his face.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BUBBLES
+
+
+An east wind was very likely to bring gas to the trenches north of the
+Sainte Lesse salient. A north wind, according to season, brought snow or
+rain or fog upon British, French, Belgian and Boche alike. Winds of the
+south carried distant exhalations from orchards and green fields into the
+pitted waste of ashes where that monstrous desolation stretched away
+beneath a thundering iron rain which beat all day, all night upon the dead
+flesh of the world.
+
+But the west wind was the vital wind, flowing melodiously through the
+trees--a clean, aromatic, refreshing wind, filling the sickened world with
+life again.
+
+Sometimes, too, it brought the pleasant music of the bells into far-away
+trenches, when the little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse played the
+carillon. And when her friend, the great bell, Bayard, spoke through the
+resounding sky of France to a million men-at-arms in blue and steel, who
+were steadily forging hell’s manacles for the uncaged Hun, the loyal
+western wind carried far beyond the trenches an ominous iron vibration
+that meant doom for the Beast.
+
+And the Beast heard, leering skyward out of pale pig-eyes, but did not
+comprehend.
+
+At the base corral down in the meadow, mules had been scarce recently,
+because a transport had been torpedoed. But the next transport from New
+Orleans escaped; the dusty column had arrived at Sainte Lesse from the
+Channel port, convoyed by American muleteers, as usual; new mules, new
+negroes, new Yankee faces invaded the town once more.
+
+However, it signified little to the youthful mistress-of-the-bells,
+Maryette Courtray, called "Carillonnette," for her Yankee lover still lay
+in his distant hospital--her muleteer, "Djack." So mules might bray, and
+negroes fill the Sainte Lesse meadows with their shouting laughter; and
+the lank, hawk-nosed Yankee muleteers might saunter clanking into the
+White Doe in search of meat or drink or tobacco, or a glimpse of the
+pretty bell-mistress, for all it meant to her.
+
+Her Djack lived; that was what occupied her mind; other men were merely
+men--even his comrades, Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn, assumed individuality
+to distinguish them from other men only because they were Djack’s friends.
+And as for all other muleteers, they seemed to her as alike as Chinamen,
+leaving upon her young mind a general impression of long, thin legs and
+necks and the keen eyes of hunting falcons.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+She had washing to do that morning. Very early she climbed up into the
+ancient belfry, wound the drum so that the bells would play a few bars at
+the quarters and before each hour struck; and also in order that the
+carillon might ring mechanically at noon in case she had not returned to
+take her place at the keyboard with her wooden gloves.
+
+There was a light west wind rippling through the tree tops; and everywhere
+sunshine lay brilliant on pasture and meadow under the purest of cobalt
+skies.
+
+In the garden her crippled father, swathed in shawls, dozed in his deep
+chair beside the river-wall, waking now and then to watch the quill on his
+long bamboo fish-pole, stemming the sparkling current of the little river
+Lesse.
+
+Sticky Smith, off duty and having filled himself to repletion with
+café-au-lait at the inn, volunteered to act as nurse, attendant, remover
+of fish and baiter of hook, while Maryette was absent at the stone-rimmed
+pool where the washing of all Sainte Lesse laundry had been accomplished
+for hundreds of years.
+
+"You promise not to go away?" she cautioned him in the simple, first-aid
+French she employed in speaking to him, and pausing with both arms raised
+to balance the loaded clothes-basket on her head.
+
+"Wee--wee!" he assured her with dignity. "Je fume mong peep! Je regard le
+vieux pêcher. Voo poovay allay, Mademoiselle Maryette."
+
+She hesitated, then removed the basket from her head and set it on the
+grass.
+
+"You are very kind, Monsieur Steek-Smeet. I shall wash your underwear the
+very first garments I take out of my basket. Thank you a thousand times."
+She bent over with sweet solicitude and pressed her lips to her father’s
+withered cheek:
+
+"Au revoir, my father _chéri_. An hour or two at the meadow-_lavoir_ and I
+shall return to find thee. _Bonne chance, mon père!_ Thou shalt surely
+catch a large and beautiful fish for luncheon before I return with my
+wash."
+
+She swung the basket of wash to her head again without effort, and went
+her way, following the deeply trodden sheep-path behind the White Doe Inn.
+
+The path wound down through a sloping pasture, across a footbridge
+spanning an arm of the Lesse which washed the base of the garden wall,
+then ascended a gentle aclivity among hazel thicket and tall sycamores,
+becoming for a little distance a shaded wood-path where thrushes sang
+ceaselessly in the sun-flecked undergrowth.
+
+But at the eastern edge of the copse the little hill fell away into an
+open, sunny meadow, fragrant with wild-flowers and clover, through which a
+rivulet ran deep and cold between grassy banks.
+
+It supplied the drinking water of Sainte Lesse; and a branch of it poured
+bubbling into the stone-rimmed _lavoir_ where generations of Sainte Lesse
+maids had scrubbed the linen of the community, kneeling there amid wild
+flowers and fluttering butterflies in the shade of three tall elms.
+
+There was nobody at the pool; Maryette saw that as she came out of the
+hazel copse through the meadow. And very soon she was on her knees at the
+clear pool’s edge, bare of arm and throat and bosom, her blue wool skirts
+trussed up, and elbow deep in snowy suds.
+
+Overhead the sky was a quivering, royal blue; the earth shimmered in its
+bath of sunshine; the west wind blowing carried away eastward the
+reverberations of the distant cannonade, so that not even the vibration of
+the concussions disturbed Sainte Lesse.
+
+A bullfinch was piping lustily in a young tree as she began her task; a
+blackbird answered from somewhere among the hawthorns with a bewildering
+series of complicated trills.
+
+As the little mistress-of-the-bells scrubbed and beat the clothes with her
+paddle, and rinsed and wrung them and soaped them afresh, she sang softly
+under her breath, to an ancient air of her _pays_, words that she
+improvised to fit it--_vrai chanson de laveuse_:
+
+  "A blackbird whistles
+            I love!
+  Over the thistles
+  Butterflies hover,
+  Each with her lover
+            In love.
+  Blue Demoiselles that glisten,
+            Listen, I love!
+  Wind of the west, oh, listen,
+            I am in love!
+  Sing my song, ye little gold bees!
+  Opal bubbles around my knees
+  All afloat in the soap-sud broth,
+  Whisper it low to the snowy froth;
+  And Thou who rulest the skies above,
+  Mary, adored--I love--I love!"
+
+Slap-slap! went her paddle; the sud-spume flew like shreds of cotton;
+iridescent foam set with bubbles swirled in the stone-edged basin,
+constantly swept away down stream by the current, constantly renewed as
+she soaped and scrubbed, kneeling there in the meadow grass above the
+pool.
+
+The blackbird came quite near to watch her; the bullfinch, attracted by
+her childish voice as she sang the song she was making, whistled bold
+response, silent only when the echoing slap of the paddle startled him
+where he sat on the trembling tip of an aspen.
+
+Blue dragon flies drifted on glimmering wings; she put them into her song;
+the meadow was gay with butterflies’ painted wings; she sang about them,
+too. Cloud and azure sky, tree tops and clover, the tiny rivulet dancing
+through deep grasses, the wind furrowing the fields, all these she put
+into her _chansonnette de laveuse_. And always in the clear glass of the
+stream she seemed to see the smiling face of her friend, Djack--her lover
+who had opened her eyes of a child to all things beautiful in the world.
+
+Once or twice, from very far away, she fancied she heard the distant
+singing of the negro muleteers sunning themselves down by the corral. She
+heard, at quarter-hour intervals, her bells melodiously recording time as
+it sped by; then there were intervals of that sweet stillness which is but
+a composite harmony of summer--the murmur of insects, the whisper of
+leaves and water, capricious seconds of intense silence, then the hushed
+voice of life exquisitely audible again.
+
+War, wickedness, the rage and cruelty of the Beast--all the vile and
+filthy ferocity of the ferocious Swine of the North became to her as
+unreal as a tragic legend half-forgotten. And death seemed very far away.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+Her washing was done; the wet clothing piled in her basket. Perspiration
+powdered her forehead and delicate little nose.
+
+Hot, flushed, breathing deeply and irregularly from her efforts under a
+vertical sun, she stood erect, loosening the blouse over her bosom to the
+breeze and pushing back the clustering masses of hair above her brow.
+
+The water laughed up at her, invitingly; the last floating castle of white
+foam swept past her feet down stream. On the impulse of the moment she
+unlaced her blue wool skirt, dropped it around her feet, stepped from it;
+unbuckled both garters, stripped slippers and stockings from her feet, and
+waded out into the pool.
+
+The fresh, delicious coolness of the water thrilled and encouraged her to
+further adventure; she twisted up her splendid hair, bound it with her
+blue kerchief, flung blouse and chemisette from her, and gave herself to
+the sparkling stream with a sigh of ecstasy.
+
+Alders swept the eastern edges of the current where the rivulet widened
+beyond the basin and ran south along the meadow’s edge to the Wood of
+Sainte Lesse--a cool, unruffled flow, breast deep, floored with sand as
+soft as silver velvet.
+
+She waded, floated, swam a little, or, erect, roamed leisurely along the
+alder fringe, exploring the dim green haunts of frog and water-hen, stoat
+and bécassine--a slim, wet dryad, gliding silently through sun and dappled
+shadow.
+
+Where the stream comes to Sainte Lesse Wood, there is a hill set thick
+with hazel and clumps of fern, haunted by one roe-deer and numerous
+rabbits and pheasants.
+
+She was close to its base, now, gliding through the shade like some lithe
+creature of the forest; making no sound save where the current curled
+around her supple body in twisted necklaces of liquid light.
+
+Then, as she stood, peering cautiously through tangled branches for a
+glimpse of the little roe-deer, she heard a curious sound up on the
+hill--an inexplicable sound like metal striking stone.
+
+She stood as though frozen; clink, clink came the distant sound. Then all
+was still. But presently she saw a scared cock-pheasant, crouching low
+with flattened neck outstretched, run like a huge rat through the hazel
+growth, out across the meadow.
+
+She remained motionless, scarcely daring to draw her breath. Somebody had
+passed over the hill--if, indeed, he or she had actually continued on
+their mysterious way. Had they? But finally the intense quiet reassured
+her, and she concluded that whoever had made that metallic sound had
+continued on toward Sainte Lesse Wood.
+
+She had taken with her a cake of soap. Now, here in the green shade, she
+made her ablutions, soaping herself from head to foot, turning her head
+leisurely from time to time to survey her leafy environment, or watch the
+flight of some tiny woodland bird, or study with pretty and speculative
+eyes the soap-suds swirling in a dimpled whirlpool around her thighs.
+
+The bubbles fascinated her; she played with them, capriciously, touching
+one here, one there, with tentative finger to see them explode in a tiny
+rainbow shower.
+
+Finally she chose a hollow stem from among a cluster of scented rushes,
+cleared it with a vigorous breath, soaped one end, and, touching it to the
+water, blew from it a prodigious bubble, all swimming with gold and purple
+hues.
+
+Into the air she tossed it, from the end of the hollow reed; the breeze
+caught it and wafted it upward until it burst.
+
+_Then a strange thing happened!_ Before her upturned eyes another bubble
+slowly arose from a clump of aspens out of the hazel thickets on the
+hill--a big, pearl-tinted, translucent bubble, as large as a melon. Upward
+it floated, slowly ascending to the tree-tops. There the wind caught it,
+drove it east, but it still mounted skyward, higher, higher, sailing
+always eastward, until it dwindled to the size of a thistledown and faded
+away in mid-air.
+
+Astounded, the little mistress-of-the-bells stood motionless, waist deep
+in the stream, lips parted, eyes straining to pierce the dazzling ether
+above.
+
+And then, before her incredulous gaze, another pearl-tinted, translucent
+bubble slowly floated upward from the thicket near the aspens, mounted
+until the breeze struck it, then soared away skyward and melted like a
+snowflake into the east.
+
+Moving as stealthily as some sinuous creature of the water-weeds, the girl
+stole forward, threading her way among the rushes, gliding, twisting
+around tussock and alder, creeping along fern-set banks, her eyes ever
+focused on the clump of aspens quivering against the sky above the hazel.
+
+She could see nobody, hear not a sound from the thicket on the little
+hill. But another bubble rose above the aspens as she looked.
+
+Naked, she dared not advance into the woods--scarcely dared linger where
+she was, yet found enough courage to creep out on a carpet of moss and lie
+flat under a young fir, listening and watching.
+
+No more bubbles rose above the aspens; there was not a sound, not a
+movement in the hazel.
+
+For an hour or more she lay there; then, with infinite caution, she
+slipped back into the stream, waded across, crept into the meadow, and
+sped like a scared fawn along the bank until she stood panting by the
+stone-rimmed pool again.
+
+Sun and wind had dried her skin; she dressed rapidly, swung her basket to
+her head, and started swiftly for Sainte Lesse.
+
+Before she came in sight of the White Doe Tavern, she could hear the negro
+muleteers singing down by the corral. Sticky Smith still squatted in the
+garden by the river-wall, smoking his pipe. Her father lay asleep in his
+chair, his wrinkled hands still clasping the fishing pole, the warm breeze
+blowing his white hair at the temples.
+
+She disposed of the wash; then she and Sticky Smith gently aroused the
+crippled bell-master and aided him into the house.
+
+The old peasant woman who cooked for the inn had soup ready. The noonday
+meal in Sainte Lesse had become an extremely simple affair.
+
+"Monsieur Steek," said the girl carelessly, "did you ever, as a child, fly
+toy balloons?"
+
+"Sure, Maryette. A old Eyetalian wop used to come ’round town selling
+them. He had a stick with about a hundred little balloons tied to it--red,
+blue, green, yellow--all kinds and colours. Whenever I had the price I
+bought one."
+
+"Did it fly?"
+
+"Yes. The gas in it wasn’t much good unless you got a fresh one."
+
+"Would it fly high?"
+
+"Sure. Sky-high. I’ve seen ’em go clean out of sight when you got a fresh
+one."
+
+"Nobody uses them here, do they?"
+
+"Here? No, it wouldn’t be allowed. A spy could send a message by one of
+those toy balloons."
+
+"Oh," nodded Maryette thoughtfully.
+
+Smith shook his head:
+
+"No, children wouldn’t be permitted to play with them things now,
+Maryette."
+
+"Then there are not any toy balloons to be had here in Sainte Lesse?"
+
+"I rather guess not! Farther north there are."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"The artillery uses them."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don’t know. The balloon and flying service use ’em, too. I’ve seen
+officers send them up. Probably it is to find out about upper air
+currents."
+
+"_Our_ flying service?"
+
+"Yes, ma’am."
+
+"_Ballons d’essai_," she nodded carelessly. But she was not yet entirely
+convinced regarding the theory she was pondering.
+
+After lunch she continued to be very busy in the laundry for a time, but
+the memory of those three little balloons above the aspens troubled her.
+
+Smith had gone on duty at the corral; Kid Glenn sauntered clanking into
+the bar and was there regaled with a _bock_ and a _tranche_.
+
+"Monsieur Keed," said Maryette, "are any of our airmen in Sainte Lesse
+today?"
+
+Glenn drained his glass and smacked his lips:
+
+"No, ma’am," he said.
+
+"No balloonists, either?"
+
+"I don’t guess so, Maryette. We’ve got the Boche flyers scared stiff. They
+don’t come over our first lines anymore, and our own people are out
+yonder."
+
+"Keed," she said, winningly sweet, "do you, in fact, love me a little--for
+Djack’s sake?"
+
+"Yes’m."
+
+"I borrow of you that automatic pistol. Yes?" She smiled at him
+engagingly.
+
+"Sure. Anything you want! What’s the trouble, Maryette?"
+
+She shrugged her pretty shoulders:
+
+"Nothing. It just came into my cowardly head that the path to the _lavoir_
+is lonely at sundown. And there are new muleteers in Sainte Lesse. And I
+must wash my clothes."
+
+"I reckon," he said gravely, unbuckling his weapon-filled holster and
+quietly strapping it around her shoulder with its pocketed belt of clips.
+
+"You will not require it this afternoon?" she asked.
+
+"No fear. You won’t either. Them mule-whacking coons is white."
+
+She understood.
+
+"Some men who seem whitest are blacker than any negro," she remarked.
+"_Eh, bien!_ I thank you, Keed, _mon ami_, for your complaisance. You are
+very amiable to submit to the whim of a silly girl who suddenly becomes
+afraid of her own shadow."
+
+Glenn grinned and glanced significantly at the cross dangling from her
+bosom:
+
+"Sure," he said, "your government decorates cowards. That’s why it gave
+you the Legion."
+
+She blushed but looked up at him seriously:
+
+"Keed, if I flew a little toy balloon in the air, where would the west
+wind carry it?"
+
+"Into the Boche trenches," he replied, much interested in the idea. "If
+you’ve got one, we’ll paint ’To hell with Willie’ on it and set it afloat!
+But we’ll have to get permission from the gendarmes first."
+
+She said, smiling:
+
+"I’m sorry, but I haven’t any toy balloons."
+
+She picked up her basket with its new load of soiled linen, swung it
+gracefully to her head, ignoring his offered assistance, gave him a
+beguiling glance, and went away along the sheep-path.
+
+Once more she followed the deep-trodden and ancient trail through copse
+and pasture and over the stream down into the meadow, where the west wind
+furrowed the wild-flowers and the early afternoon sun fell hot.
+
+She set her clothes to soak, laid paddle and soap beside them, then,
+straightening up, remained erect on her knees, her intent gaze fixed on
+the distant clump of aspens, delicate as mist above the hazel copse on the
+little hill beyond.
+
+It was a whole hour before her eyes caught the high glimmer of a tiny
+balloon. Only for a moment was it visible at that distance, then it became
+merged in the dazzling blue above the woods.
+
+She waited. At last she concluded that there were to be no more balloons.
+Then a sudden fear assailed her lest she had waited too long to
+investigate; and she sprang to her feet, hurried over the single plank
+used as a footbridge, and sped down through the alders.
+
+Here and there a pheasant ran headlong across her path; a rabbit or two
+scuttled through the ferns. Nearing the hazel copse she slackened speed
+and advanced with caution, scanning the thicket ahead.
+
+Suddenly, on the ground in front of her, she caught sight of a small iron
+cylinder. Evidently it had rolled down there from the slope above.
+
+Very gingerly she approached and picked it up. It was not very heavy, not
+too big for her skirt pocket.
+
+As she slipped it into the pocket of her blue woolen peasant-skirt, her
+quick eye caught a movement among the hazel bushes on the hillside to her
+right. She sank to the ground and lay huddled there.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+KAMERAD
+
+
+Down the slope, through the thicket, came a man. She could see his legs
+only. He wore dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like Sticky Smith’s
+and Kid Glenn’s, only he wore no big, clanking Mexican spurs.
+
+The man passed in front of her, his burly body barely visible through the
+leaves, but not his features.
+
+She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried through the ferns of the
+warren, retracing her steps, and arrived breathless at the _lavoir_. And
+scarcely had she dropped to her knees and seized soap and paddle, than a
+squat, bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared on the opposite bank
+of the stream, stepping briskly out of the bushes.
+
+He did not notice her at first. He looked about for a place to jump, found
+one, leaped safely across, and came on at a swinging stride across the
+meadow.
+
+The girl, bending above the water, suddenly struck sharply with her
+paddle.
+
+Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee deep in clover.
+
+Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence, continued to soap and
+scrub and slap her wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of a child
+the chansonette she had made that morning. But out of the corner of her
+eyes she kept him in view--saw him come sauntering forward as though
+reassured, became aware that he had approached very near, was standing
+behind her.
+
+Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick up another soiled garment, she
+suddenly encountered his dark gaze; and her start and slight exclamation
+were entirely genuine.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" she said, with offended emphasis, "one does not approach
+people that way, without a word!"
+
+"Did I frighten mademoiselle?" he asked, in recognizable French, but with
+an accent unpleasantly familiar to her. "If I did, I am very sorry and I
+offer mademoiselle a thousand excuses and apologies."
+
+The girl, kneeling there in the clover, flashed a smile at him over her
+shoulder. The quick colour reddened his face and powerful neck. The girl
+had been right; her smile had been an answer that he was not going to
+ignore.
+
+"What a pretty spot for a _lavoir_," he said, stepping to the edge of the
+pool; "and what a pretty girl to adorn it!"
+
+Maryette tossed her head:
+
+"Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur. Do you not perceive that I am
+busy?"
+
+"It is not impossible to exchange a polite word or two when people are
+busy, is it, mademoiselle?" he asked, laughing and showing a white and
+perfect set of teeth under a short, dark mustache.
+
+She continued to wring out her wash; but there was now a slight smile on
+her lips.
+
+"May I not say who I am?" he asked persuasively. "May I not venture to
+speak?"
+
+"_Mon dieu_, monsieur, there is liberty of speech for all in France. That
+blackbird might be glad to know your name if you choose to tell him."
+
+"But I ask _your_ permission to speak to _you_!" There seemed to be no
+sense of humour in this young man.
+
+She laughed:
+
+"I am not curious to hear who you are!... But if it affords you any relief
+to explain to the west wind what your name may be--" She ended with a
+disdainful shrug. After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes to
+his--lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes. But they were studying the
+stranger closely.
+
+He was a powerfully built, dark-skinned young man in the familiar khaki of
+the American muleteers, wearing their insignia, their cap, their holster
+and belt, and an extra pouch or wallet, loaded evidently with something
+heavy.
+
+She said, coolly:
+
+"You must be one of the new Yankee muleteers who came with that beautiful
+new herd of mules."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Yes, I’m an American muleteer. My name is Charles Braun. I came over in
+the last transport."
+
+"You know Steek?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Steek! Monsieur Steekee Smeete?"
+
+"Sticky Smith?"
+
+"_Mais oui?_"
+
+"I’ve met him," he replied curtly.
+
+"And Monsieur Keed Glenn?"
+
+"I’ve met Kid Glenn, too. Why?"
+
+"They are friends of mine--very intimate friends. Of course," she added,
+nose up-tilted, "if they are not also _your_ friends, any acquaintance
+with me will be very difficult for _you_, Monsieur Braun."
+
+He laughed easily and seated himself on the grass beside her; and, as he
+sat down, a metallic clinking sounded in his wallet.
+
+"_Tenez_," she remarked, "you carry old iron and bottles about with you, I
+notice."
+
+"Snaffles, curbs and stirrup irons," he replied carelessly. And in the
+girl’s heart there leaped the swift, fierce flame of certainty in
+suspicion.
+
+"Why do you bring all that ironmongery down here?" she inquired, with
+frankly childish curiosity, leisurely wringing out her linen.
+
+"A mule got away from the corral. I’ve been wandering around in the bushes
+trying to find him," he explained, so naturally and in such a friendly
+voice that she raised her eyes to look again at this young gallant who
+lingered here at the _lavoir_ for the sake of her _beaux yeux_.
+
+Could this dark-eyed, smiling youth be a Hun spy? His smooth, boyish
+features, his crisp short hair and tiny mustache shading lips a trifle too
+red and overfull did not displease her. In his way he was handsome.
+
+His voice, too, was attractive, gaily persuasive, but it was his
+pronunciation of the letters c and d which had instantly set her on her
+guard.
+
+Seated on the bank near her, his roving eyes full of bold curiosity bent
+on her from time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little wreath out of
+long-stemmed clover and _boutons d’or_, he appeared merely an intrusive,
+irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse himself with a few moments’
+rustic courtship here before he continued on his way.
+
+"You are exceedingly pretty," he said. "Will you tell me your name in
+exchange for mine?"
+
+"Maryette Courtray."
+
+"Oh," he exclaimed in quick recognition; "you are bell-mistress in Sainte
+Lesse, then! _You_ are the celebrated carillonnette! I have heard about
+you. I suspected that you might be the little mistress of Sainte Lesse
+bells, because you wear the Legion--" He nodded his handsome head toward
+the decoration on her blouse.
+
+"And to think," he added effusively, "that it is just a mere slip of a
+girl who was decorated for bravery by France!"
+
+She smiled at him with all the beguilingly _bête_ innocence of the young
+when flattered:
+
+"You are too amiable, monsieur. I really do not understand why they gave
+me the Legion. To encourage all French children, perhaps--because I really
+am a dreadful coward." She tapped the holster on her thigh and gazed at
+him quite guilelessly out of wide and trustful eyes. "You see? I dare not
+even come here to wash my clothes unless I carry this--in case some Boche
+comes prowling."
+
+"Whose pistol is it?" he asked.
+
+"The weapon belongs to Monsieur Steek. When I come to wash here I borrow
+it."
+
+"Are you the sweetheart of Monsieur Steek?" he inquired, mimicking her
+pronunciation of "Stick," and at the same time fixing his dark eyes boldly
+and expressively on hers.
+
+"Does a young girl of my age have sweethearts?" she demanded scornfully.
+
+"If she hasn’t had one, it’s time," he returned, staring hard at her with
+a persistent and fixed smile that had become almost offensive.
+
+"Oh, la!" she exclaimed with a shrug of her youthful shoulders. "Perhaps
+you think I have time for such foolishness--what with housework to do and
+washing, and caring for my father, and my duties in the belfry every day!"
+
+"Youth passes swiftly, belle Maryette."
+
+"Imitate him, beau monsieur, and swiftly pass your way!"
+
+"_L’amour est doux, petite Marie!_"
+
+"_Je m’en moque!_"
+
+He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his knees beside her, and rolled
+back his cuffs.
+
+"Come," he said, "I’ll help you wash. We two should finish quickly."
+
+"I am in no haste."
+
+"But it will give you an hour’s leisure, belle Maryette."
+
+"Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?"
+
+"I shall try to instruct you why, when we have our hour together."
+
+"Do you mean to pay court to me?"
+
+"I am doing that now. My ardent courtship will already be accomplished, so
+that we need not waste our hour together!" He began to laugh and wring out
+the linen.
+
+"Monsieur," she expostulated smilingly, "your apropos disturbs me. Have
+you the assurance to believe that you already appeal to my heart?"
+
+"Have I not appealed to it a little, Maryette?"
+
+The girl averted her head coquettishly. For a few minutes they scrubbed
+away there together, side by side on their knees above the rim of the
+pool. Then, without warning, his hot, red lips burned her neck. Her swift
+recoil was also a shudder; her face flushed.
+
+"Don’t do that!" she said sharply, straightening up in the grass where she
+was kneeling.
+
+"You are so adorable!" he pleaded in a low, tense voice.
+
+There was a long silence. She had moved aside and away from him on her
+knees; her head remained turned, too, and her features were set as though
+carven out of rosy marble.
+
+She was summoning every atom of resolution, every particle of courage to
+do what she must do. Every fibre in her revolted with the effort; but she
+steeled herself, and at last the forced smile was stamped on her lips, and
+she dared turn her head and meet his burning gaze.
+
+"You frighten me," she said--and her unsteady voice was convincing. "A
+young girl is not courted so abruptly."
+
+"Forgive me," he murmured. "I could not help myself--your neck is so
+fragrant, so childlike----"
+
+"Then you should treat me as you would a child!" she retorted pettishly.
+"Amuse me, if you aspire to any comradeship with me. Your behaviour does
+not amuse me at all."
+
+"We shall become comrades," he said confidently, "and you shall be
+sufficiently amused."
+
+"It requires time for two people to become comrades."
+
+"Will you give me an hour this evening?"
+
+"What? A rendezvous?" she exclaimed, laughing.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You mean somewhere alone with you?"
+
+"Will you, Maryette?"
+
+"But why? I am not yet old enough for such foolishness. It would not amuse
+me at all to be alone with you for an hour." She pouted and shrugged and
+absently plucked a hollow stem from the sedge.
+
+"It would amuse me much more to sit here and blow bubbles," she added,
+clearing the stem with a quick breath and soaping the end of it.
+
+Then, with tormenting malice, she let her eyes rest sideways on him while
+she plunged the hollow stem into the water, withdrew it, dripping, and
+deliberately blew an enormous golden bubble from the end.
+
+"Look!" she cried, detaching the bubble, apparently enchanted to see it
+float upward. "Is it not beautiful, my fairy balloon?"
+
+On her knees there beside the basin she blew bubble after bubble,
+detaching each with a slight movement of her wrist, and laughing
+delightedly to see them mount into the sunshine.
+
+"You _are_ a child," he said, worrying his red underlip with his teeth.
+"You’re a baby, after all."
+
+She said:
+
+"Very well, then, children require toys to amuse them, not sighs and
+kisses and bold, brown eyes to frighten and perplex them. Have you any
+toys to amuse me if I give you an hour with me?"
+
+"Maryette, I can easily teach you----"
+
+"No! Will you bring me a toy to amuse me?--a clay pipe to blow bubbles? I
+adore bubbles."
+
+"If I promise to amuse you, will you give me an hour?" he asked.
+
+"How can I?" she demanded with sudden caprice. "I have my wash to finish;
+then I have to see that my father has his soup; then I must attend to
+customers at the inn, go up to the belfry, oil the machinery, play the
+carillon later, wind the drum for the night----"
+
+"I shall come to you in the tower after the angelus," he said eagerly.
+
+"I shall be too busy----"
+
+"After the carillon, then! Promise, Maryette!"
+
+"And sit up there alone with you in the dark for an hour? _Ma foi!_ How
+amusing!" She laughed in pretty derision. "I shall not even be able to
+blow bubbles!"
+
+Watching her pouting face intently, he said:
+
+"Suppose I bring some toy balloons for you to fly from the clock tower?
+Would that amuse you--you beautiful, perverse child?"
+
+"Little toy balloons!" she echoed, enchanted. "What pleasure to set them
+afloat from the belfry! Do you really promise to bring me some little toy
+balloons to fly?"
+
+"Yes. But _you_ must promise not to speak about it to anybody."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because the gendarmes wouldn’t let us fly any balloons."
+
+"You mean that they might think me a spy?" she inquired naïvely.
+
+"Or me," he rejoined with a light laugh. "So we shall have to be very
+discreet and go cautiously about our sport. And it ought to be great fun,
+Maryette, to sail balloons out over the German trenches. We’ll tie a
+message to every one! Shall we, little comrade?"
+
+She clapped her hands.
+
+"That _will_ enrage the Boches!" she cried, "You won’t forget to bring the
+balloons?"
+
+"After the carillon," he nodded, staring at her intently.
+
+"Half past ten," she said; "not one minute earlier. I cannot be disturbed
+when playing. Do you understand? Do you promise?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I promise not to bother you before half past ten."
+
+"Very well. Now let me do my washing here in peace."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+She was still scrubbing her linen when he went reluctantly away across the
+meadow toward Sainte Lesse. And when she finally stood up, swung the
+basket to her head, and left the meadow, the sun hung low behind Sainte
+Lesse Wood and a rose and violet glow possessed the world.
+
+At the White Doe Inn she flew feverishly about her duties, aiding the
+ancient peasant woman with the simple preparations for dinner, giving her
+father his soup and helping him to bed, swallowing a mouthful herself as
+she hastened to finish her household tasks.
+
+Kid Glenn came in as usual for an _aperitif_ while she was gathering up
+her wooden gloves.
+
+"Did a mule stray today from your corral?" she asked, filling his glass
+for him.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Dead certain. Why?"
+
+"Do you know one of the new muleteers named Braun?"
+
+"I know him by sight."
+
+"Keed!" she said, going up to him and placing both hands on his broad
+shoulders; "I play the carillon after the angelus. Bring Steek to the
+bell-tower half an hour after you hear the carillon end. You will hear it
+end; you will hear the quarter hour strike presently. Half an hour later,
+after the third quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring pistols. Do
+you promise?"
+
+"Sure! What’s the row, Maryette?"
+
+"I don’t know yet. I _think_ we shall find a spy in the tower."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the belfry, _parbleu_! And you and Steek shall come up the stairs and
+you shall wait in the dark, there where the keyboard is, and where you see
+all the wires leading upward. You shall listen attentively, and I will be
+on the landing above, among my bells. And when you hear me cry out to you,
+then you shall come running with pistols!"
+
+"For heaven’s sake----"
+
+"Is it understood? Give me your word, Keed!"
+
+"Sure!----"
+
+"_Allons! Assez!_" she whispered excitedly. "Make prisoner any man you see
+there!--_any_ man! You understand?"
+
+"You bet!"
+
+"_Any man!_" she repeated slowly, "even if he wears the same uniform _you_
+wear."
+
+There was a silence. Then:
+
+"By God!" said Glenn under his breath.
+
+"You suspect?"
+
+"Yes. And if it _is_ one of our German-American muleteers, we’ll lynch
+him!" he whispered in a white rage.
+
+But Maryette shook her head.
+
+"No," she said in a dull, even voice, "let the gendarmerie take him in
+charge. Spy or suspect, he must have his chance. That is the law in
+France."
+
+"You don’t give rats a chance, do you?"
+
+"I give everything its chance," she said simply. "And so does my country."
+
+She drew the automatic pistol from her holster, examined it, raised her
+eyes gravely to the American beside her:
+
+"This is terrible for me," she added, in a low but steady voice. "If it
+were not for my country--" She made a grave gesture, turned, and went
+slowly out through the arched stone passage into the main street of the
+town. A few minutes later the angelus sounded sweetly over the woods and
+meadows of Sainte Lesse.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+At ten, as the last stroke of the hour ended, there came a charming,
+intimate little murmur of awakening bells; it grew sweeter, clearer,
+filling the starry sky, growing, exquisitely increasing in limpid,
+transparent volume, sweeping through the high, dim belfry like a great
+wind from Paradise carrying Heaven’s own music out over the darkened
+earth.
+
+All Sainte Lesse came to its doorways to listen to the playing of their
+beloved Carillonnette; the bell-music ebbed and swelled under the stars;
+the ancient Flemish masterpiece, written by some carillonneur whose bones
+had long been dust, became magnificently vital again under the enchanted
+hands of the little mistress of the bells.
+
+In fifteen minutes the carillon ended; a slight pause followed, then the
+quarter hour struck.
+
+With the last stroke of the bell, the girl drew off her wooden gloves,
+laid them on the keyboard, turned slowly in her seat, listening. A slight
+sound coming from the spiral staircase of stone set her heart beating
+violently. Had the suspected man violated his word? She drew the automatic
+pistol from her holster, rose, and stole up to the stone platform
+overhead, where, rising tier on tier into the darkness, the great carillon
+of Sainte Lesse loomed overhead.
+
+She listened uneasily. Had the man lied? It seemed to her as though her
+hammering heart must burst from her bosom with the terrible suspense of
+the moment.
+
+Suddenly a shadowy form appeared at the head of the stairs, reaching the
+platform at one bound. And her heart seemed to stop as she realized that
+this man had arrived too early for her friends to be of any use to her. He
+had lied to her. And now she must take him unaided, or kill him there in
+the starlight under the looming bells.
+
+"Maryette!" he called. She did not stir.
+
+"Maryette!" he whispered. "Where are you, little sweetheart? Forgive me, I
+could not wait any longer. I adore you----"
+
+All at once he discovered her standing motionless in the shadow of the
+great bell Bayard--sprang toward her, eager, ardent, triumphant.
+
+"Maryette," he whispered, "I love you! I shall teach you what a lover
+is----"
+
+Suddenly he caught a glimpse of her face; the terrible expression in her
+eyes checked him.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked, bewildered. And then he caught sight of the
+pistol in her hand.
+
+"What’s that for?" he demanded harshly. "Are you afraid to love me? Do you
+think I’m the kind of lover to stop for a thing like that----"
+
+She said, in a low, distinct voice:
+
+"Don’t move! Put up both hands instantly!"
+
+"What!" he snapped out, like the crack of a lash.
+
+"I know who you are. You’re a Boche and no Yankee! Turn your back and
+raise your arms!"
+
+For a moment they looked at each other.
+
+"I think," she said, steadily, "you had better explain your gas cylinders
+and balloons to the gendarmes at the Poste."
+
+"No," he said, "I’ll explain them to you, _now_!----"
+
+"If you touch your pistol, I fire!----"
+
+But already he had whipped out his pistol; and she fired instantly,
+smashing his right hand to pulp.
+
+"You damned hell-cat!" he screamed, stretching out his shattered hand in
+an agony of impotent fury. Blood rained from it on the stone flags.
+Suddenly he started toward her.
+
+"Don’t stir!" she whispered. "Turn your back and raise both arms!"
+
+His face became ghastly.
+
+"Let me go, in God’s name!" he burst out in a strangled voice. "Don’t send
+me before a firing squad! Listen to me, little comrade--I surrender myself
+to your mercy----"
+
+"Then keep away from me! Keep your distance!" she cried, retreating. He
+followed, fawning:
+
+"Listen! We were such good comrades----"
+
+"Don’t come any nearer to me!" she called out sharply; but he still
+shuffled toward her, whimpering, drenched in blood, both hands uplifted.
+
+"Kamerad!" he whined, "Kamerad--" and suddenly launched a kick at her.
+
+She just avoided it, springing behind the bell Bayard; and he rushed at
+her and struck with both uplifted arms, showering her with blood, but not
+quite reaching her.
+
+In the darkness among the beams and the deep shadows of the bells she
+could hear him hunting for her, breathing heavily and making ferocious,
+inarticulate noises, as she swung herself up onto the first beam above and
+continued to crawl upward.
+
+"Where are you, little fool?" he cried at length. "I have business with
+you before I cut your throat--that smooth, white throat of yours that I
+kissed down there by the _lavoir_!" There was no sound from her.
+
+He went back toward the stairs and began hunting about in the starlight
+for his pistol; but there was no parapet on the bell platform, and he
+probably concluded that it had fallen over the edge of the tower into the
+street.
+
+Supporting his wounded hand, he stood glaring blankly about him, and his
+bloodshot eyes presently fell on the door to the stairs. But he must have
+realized that flight would be useless for him if he left this girl alive
+in her bell-tower, ready to alarm the town the moment he ran for the
+stairs.
+
+With his left hand he fumbled under his tunic and disengaged a heavy
+trench knife from its sheath. The loss of blood was making his legs a
+trifle unsteady, but he pulled himself together and moved stealthily under
+the shadows of beam and bell until he came to the spot he selected. And
+there he lay down, the hilt of the knife in his left hand, the blade
+concealed by his opened tunic.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+His heavy groans at last had their effect on the girl, who had climbed
+high up into the darkness, creeping from beam to beam and mounting from
+one tier of bells to another.
+
+Standing on the lowest beam, she cautiously looked out through an
+oubliette and saw him lying on his back near the sheer edge of the roof.
+
+Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted against the stars, for
+he called up to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding to death and
+unable to move.
+
+After a few moments, opening his eyes again, he saw her standing on the
+roof beside him, looking down at him. And he whispered his appeal in the
+name of Christ. And in His name the little bell-mistress responded.
+
+When she had used the blue kerchief at her neck for a tourniquet and had
+checked the hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a better
+opportunity to employ his knife. It would not do to bungle the affair. And
+he thought he knew how it could be properly done--if he could get her head
+in the crook of his muscular elbow.
+
+"Lift me, dear ministering angel," he whispered weakly.
+
+She stooped impulsively, hesitated, then, suddenly terrified at the
+blazing ferocity in his eyes, she shrank back at the same instant that his
+broad knife flashed in her very face.
+
+He was on his feet at a bound, and, as she raised her voice in a startled
+cry for help, he plunged heavily at her, but slipped and fell in his own
+blood. Then the clattering jingle of spurred boots on the stone stairs
+below caught his ear. He was trapped, and he realized it. He slowly got to
+his feet.
+
+As Smith and Glenn appeared, springing out of the low-arched door, the
+muleteer Braun turned and faced them.
+
+There was a silence, then Glenn said, bitterly:
+
+"It’s you, is it, you dirty Dutchman!"
+
+"Hands up!" said Smith quietly. "Come on, now; it’s a case of ’Kamerad’
+for yours."
+
+Braun did not move to comply with the demand. Gradually it dawned on them
+that the man was game.
+
+"Maryette!" he called; "where are you?"
+
+Smith said curiously:
+
+"What do you want with her, Braun?"
+
+"I want to speak to her."
+
+"Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn sullenly.
+
+The girl crept out of the shadows. Her face was ghastly.
+
+Braun looked at her with pallid scorn:
+
+"You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I’d have made you a better lover
+than you’ll ever have now!"
+
+He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt, turned without a glance at
+Smith and Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And as he fell there
+between sky and earth, hurtling downward under the stars, Glenn’s pistol
+flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair while falling.
+
+"Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely, turning on Smith. "Ain’t that me
+all over!--soft-hearted enough to do that skunk a kindness thataway!"
+
+But his youthful voice was shaking, and he stared at the edge of the
+abyss, listening to the far tumult now arising from the street below.
+
+"Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling his nervous voice with an
+effort.
+
+"Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "... Now, Maryette, put one arm around my
+neck, and me and the Kid will take you down them stairs, because you look
+tired--kind o’ peeked and fussed, what with all this funny business going
+on----"
+
+"Oh, Steek! Steek!" she sobbed. "Oh, _mon ami_, Steek!"
+
+She began to cry bitterly. Smith picked her up in his arms.
+
+"What you need is sleep," he said very gently.
+
+But she shook her head: she had business to transact on her knees that
+night--business with the Mother of God that would take all night long--and
+many, many other sleepless nights; and many candles.
+
+She put her left arm around Smith’s neck and hid her tear-wet face on his
+shoulder. And, as he bore her out of the high tower and descended the
+unlighted, interminable stairs of stone, he heard her weeping against his
+breast and softly asking intercession in behalf of a dead young man who
+had tried to be to her a "Kamerad"--as he understood it--including the
+entire gamut, from amorous beast to fiend.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+There was a single candle lighted in the bar of the White Doe. On the
+"zinc," side by side, like birds on a rail, sat the two muleteers. In each
+big, sunburnt fist was an empty glass; their spurred feet dangled; they
+leaned forward where they sat, hunched up over their knees, heads slightly
+turned, as though intently listening. A haze of cigarette smoke dimmed the
+candle flame.
+
+The drone of an aëroplane high in the midnight sky came to them at
+intervals. At last the sound died away under the far stars.
+
+By the smoky candle flame Kid Glenn unfolded and once more read the letter
+that kept them there:
+
+
+    --I ought to get to Sainte Lesse somewhere around midnight. Don’t
+    say a word to Maryette.
+
+                    Jack.
+
+
+Sticky Smith, reading over his shoulder, slowly rolled another cigarette.
+
+"When Jack comes," he drawled, "it’s a-goin’ to he’p a lot. That Maryette
+girl’s plumb done in."
+
+"Sure she’s done in," nodded Kid Glenn. "Wouldn’t it do in anybody to
+shoot up a young man an’ then see him step off the top of a skyscraper?"
+
+Smith admitted that he himself had felt "kind er squeamish." He added:
+"Gawd, how he spread when he hit them flags! You didn’t look at him, did
+you, Kid?"
+
+"Naw. Say, d’ya think Maryette has gone to bed?"
+
+"I dunno. When we left her up there in her room, I turned and took a peek
+to see she was comfy, but she was down onto both knees before that china
+virgin on the niche over her bed."
+
+"She oughter be in bed. You gotta sleep off a thing like that, or you feel
+punk next day," remarked Glenn, meditatively twirling the last drops of
+eau-de-vie around in his tumbler. Then he swallowed them and smacked his
+lips. "She’ll come around all O. K. when she sees Jack," he added.
+
+"Goin’ to let him wake her up?"
+
+"Can you see us stoppin’ him? He’d kick the pants off us----"
+
+"Sh-h-h!" motioned Smith; "there’s a automobile! By gum! It’s
+stopped!----"
+
+The two muleteers set their glasses on the bar, slid to the floor, and
+marched, clanking, into the covered way that led to the street. Smith
+undid the bolts. A young man stood outside in the starlight.
+
+"Well, Jack Burley, you old son of a gun!" drawled Glenn. "Gawd! You look
+fit for a dead one!"
+
+"We ain’t told her!" whispered Smith. "She an’ us done in a Fritz this
+evening, an’ it sorter turned Maryette’s stomach----"
+
+"Not that she ain’t well," explained Glenn hastily; "only a girl feels
+different. Stick an’ me, we just took a few drinks, but Maryette, soon as
+she got home, she just flopped down on her knees and asked that china
+virgin of hers to go easy on that there Fritz----"
+
+They had conducted Burley to the bar; both their arms were draped around
+his shoulders; both talked to him at the same time.
+
+"This here Fritz," began Glenn--but Burley freed himself from their
+embrace.
+
+"Where’s Maryette?" he demanded.
+
+Smith jerked a silent thumb toward the ceiling.
+
+"In bed?"
+
+"Or prayin’."
+
+Burley flushed, hesitated.
+
+"G’wan up, anyway," said Glenn. "I reckon it’ll do her a heap o’ good to
+lamp you, you old son of a gun!"
+
+Burley turned, went up the short flight of stairs to her closed door.
+There was candle-light shining through the transom. He knocked with a
+trembling hand. There was no answer. He knocked again; heard her uncertain
+step; stepped back as her door opened.
+
+The girl, a drooping figure in her night robe, stood listlessly on the
+threshold. Which of the muleteers it was who had come to her door she did
+not notice. She said:
+
+"I am very tired. Death is a dreadful thing. I can’t put it from my mind.
+I am trying to pray----"
+
+She lifted her weary eyes and found herself looking into the face of her
+own lover. She turned very white, lovely eyes dilated.
+
+"Is--is it thou, Djack?"
+
+"C’est moi, ma ploo belle!"
+
+She melted into his tightening arms with a faint cry. Very high overhead,
+under the lustrous stars, an aëroplane droned its uncharted way across a
+blood-soaked world.
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+A. L. Burt Company’s Popular Copyright Fiction
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+*Abner Daniel.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Adventures of Gerard.* By A. Conan Doyle.
+*Adventures of a Modest Man.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.* By A. Conan Doyle.
+*Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.* By Frank L. Packard.
+*After House, The.* By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+*Alisa Paige.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Alton of Somasco.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*A Man’s Man.* By Ian Hay.
+*Amateur Gentleman, The.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Andrew The Glad.* By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+*Ann Boyd.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Anna the Adventuress.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Another Man’s Shoes.* By Victor Bridges.
+*Ariadne of Allan Water.* By Sidney McCall.
+*Armchair at the Inn, The.* By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+*Around Old Chester.* By Margaret Deland.
+*Athalie.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*At the Mercy of Tiberius.* By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+*Auction Block, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Aunt Jane.* By Jeanette Lee.
+*Aunt Jane of Kentucky.* By Eliza C. Hall.
+*Awakening of Helena Richie.* By Margaret Deland.
+
+*Bambi.* By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+*Bandbox, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Barbara of the Snows.* By Harry Irving Green.
+*Bar 20.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Bar 20 Days.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Barrier, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Beasts of Tarzan, The.* By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+*Beechy.* By Bettina Von Hutten.
+*Bella Donna.* By Robert Hichens.
+*Beloved Vagabond, The.* By Wm. J. Locke.
+*Beltane the Smith.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Ben Blair.* By Will Lillibridge.
+*Betrayal, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Better Man, The.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*Beulah.* (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+*Beyond the Frontier.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Black Is White.* By George Barr McCutcheon.
+*Blind Man’s Eyes, The.* By Wm. MacHarg & Edwin Balmer.
+*Bob Hampton of Placer.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Bob, Son of Battle.* By Alfred Ollivant.
+*Britton of the Seventh.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*Broad Highway, The.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Bronze Bell, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Bronze Eagle, The.* By Baroness Orczy.
+*Buck Peters, Ranchman.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Business of Life, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*By Right of Purchase.* By Harold Bindloss.
+
+*Cabbages and Kings.* By O. Henry.
+*Calling of Dan Matthews, The.* By Harold Bell Wright.
+*Cape Cod Stories.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap’n Dan’s Daughter.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap’n Eri.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap’n Warren’s Wards.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cardigan.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Carpet From Bagdad, The.* By Harold MacGrath.
+*Cease Firing.* By Mary Johnson.
+*Chain of Evidence, A.* By Carolyn Wells.
+*Chief Legatee, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Cleek of Scotland Yard.* By T. W. Hanshew.
+*Clipped Wings.* By Rupert Hughes.
+*Coast of Adventure, The.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*Colonial Free Lance, A.* By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+*Coming of Cassidy, The.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Coming of the Law, The.* By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+*Conquest of Canaan, The.* By Booth Tarkington.
+*Conspirators, The.* By Robt. W. Chambers.
+*Counsel for the Defense.* By Leroy Scott.
+*Court of Inquiry, A.* By Grace S. Richmond.
+*Crime Doctor, The.* By E.W. Hornung
+*Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.* By Rex Beach.
+*Cross Currents.* By Eleanor H. Porter.
+*Cry in the Wilderness, A.* By Mary E. Waller.
+*Cynthia of the Minute.* By Louis Jos. Vance.
+
+*Dark Hollow, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Dave’s Daughter.* By Patience Bevier Cole.
+*Day of Days, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Day of the Dog, The.* By George Barr McCutcheon.
+*Depot Master, The.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Desired Woman, The.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Destroying Angel, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Dixie Hart.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Double Traitor, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Drusilla With a Million.* By Elizabeth Cooper.
+
+*Eagle of the Empire, The.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*El Dorado.* By Baroness Orczy.
+*Elusive Isabel.* By Jacques Futrelle.
+*Empty Pockets.* By Rupert Hughes.
+*Enchanted Hat, The.* By Harold MacGrath.
+*Eye of Dread, The.* By Payne Erskine.
+*Eyes of the World, The.* By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+*Felix O’Day.* By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+*54-40 or Fight.* By Emerson Hough.
+*Fighting Chance, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Financier, The.* By Theodore Dreiser.
+*Flamsted Quarries.* By Mary E. Waller.
+*Flying Mercury, The.* By Eleanor M. Ingram.
+*For a Maiden Brave.* By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+*Four Million, The.* By O. Henry.
+*Four Pool’s Mystery, The.* By Jean Webster.
+*Fruitful Vine, The.* By Robert Hichens.
+
+*Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.* By George Randolph Chester.
+*Gilbert Neal.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Girl From His Town, The.* By Marie Van Vorst.
+*Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.* By Payne Erskine.
+*Girl Who Lived in the Woods, The.* By Marjorie Benton Cook.
+*Girl Who Won, The.* By Beth Ellis.
+*Glory of Clementina, The.* By Wm. J. Locke.
+*Glory of the Conquered, The.* By Susan Glaspell.
+*God’s Country and the Woman.* By James Oliver Curwood.
+*God’s Good Man.* By Marie Corelli.
+*Going Some.* By Rex Beach.
+*Gold Bag, The.* By Carolyn Wells.
+*Golden Slipper, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Golden Web, The.* By Anthony Partridge.
+*Gordon Craig.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Greater Love Hath No Man.* By Frank L. Packard.
+*Greyfriars Bobby.* By Eleanor Atkinson.
+*Guests of Hercules, The.* By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
+
+*Halcyone.* By Elinor Glyn.
+*Happy Island* (Sequel to Uncle William). By Jeannette Lee.
+*Havoc.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Heart of Philura, The.* By Florence Kingsley.
+*Heart of the Desert, The.* By Honoré Willsie.
+*Heart of the Hills, The.* By John Fox, Jr.
+*Heart of the Sunset.* By Rex Beach.
+*Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.* By Elfrid A. Bingham.
+*Heather-Moon, The.* By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+*Her Weight in Gold.* By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
+*Hidden Children, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Hoosier Volunteer, The.* By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
+*Hopalong Cassidy.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*How Leslie Loved.* By Anne Warner.
+*Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.* By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
+*Husbands of Edith, The.* By George Barr McCutcheon
+
+*I Conquered.* By Harold Titus.
+*Illustrious Prince, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Idols.* By William J. Locke.
+*Indifference of Juliet, The.* By Grace S. Richmond.
+*Inez.* (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+*Infelice.* By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+*In Her Own Right.* By John Reed Scott.
+*Initials Only.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*In Another Girl’s Shoes.* By Berta Ruck.
+*Inner Law, The.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Innocent.* By Marie Corelli.
+*Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.* By Sax Rohmer.
+*In the Brooding Wild.* By Ridgwell Cullum.
+*Intrigues, The.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*Iron Trail, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Iron Woman, The.* By Margaret Deland.
+*Ishmael.* (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.
+
+
+
+
+
+BARBARIANS
+
+BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+
+In this story Mr. Chambers deals with the early years of the Great War.
+Sickened by what seems to them at that time indifference on the part of
+the American Government, an odd group of men meet on the decks of a mule
+transport. They have been drawn to this common rendezvous by a desire to
+enter the war and purge their souls in the fight for the freedom of the
+world.
+
+There are twelve in the group, eight Americans, three Frenchmen, and a
+Belgian, and prominent among them is Jim Neeland, whose earlier
+experiences Mr. Chambers has related in the "Dark Star."
+
+Barbarians records the adventures of these men, not together, but singly
+or in groups, along the whole western battle front, from the Belgian coast
+to the mountains of Alsace. It is filled with unusual character sketches
+of the lives of the men in the Trenches, and of life in the little towns
+just inside the lines of Battle. Through it all there is great beauty and
+wonderful sense of justice and right that is indeed more precious than
+peace.
+
+Other Books by Robert W. Chambers:
+
+*Adventures of a Modest Man*
+*Alisa Paige*
+*Athalie*
+*Business of Life, The*
+*Cardigan*
+*Conspirators, The*
+*Fighting Chance, The*
+*Hidden Children, The*
+*Girl Phillippa, The*
+*Red Republic, The*
+*Dark Star, The*
+*Who Goes There?*
+*Younger Set, The*
+*Japonette*
+*Streets of Ascalon*
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+Publishers,--New York
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NEWEST BOOKS
+
+IN POPULAR REPRINT FICTION
+
+
+Only Books of Superior Merit and Popularity are Published in this List
+
+*TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR.* By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+
+  The Tarzan books need no introduction. Thousands are waiting for this
+  volume, being further adventures of TARZAN OF THE APES, and volume five
+  of the series.
+
+*LONG LIVE THE KING.* By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+  This is a story of love, intrigue and adventure in a European court. In
+  this story Mrs. Rinehart combines mystery, heart interest, and
+  excitement of her past successes into a story that will be hailed as the
+  most interesting of all her stories.
+
+*WE CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING.* By Rupert Hughes.
+
+  A novel of metropolitan life, of a girl who had never had anything and
+  of a man who had always had everything, and of the manner in which his
+  richness and her poverty colored each other, and the lives of many other
+  persons as well.
+
+*BARBARIANS.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+  Brave, reckless, idealistic chaps--careless of peril, unafraid of
+  death--who deliberately sought danger and the venturesome life as found
+  during the war, over there. The adventures will hold the reader
+  breathless and the romance will delight.
+
+*THE FORFEIT.* By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+  A ranch story of Montana which centers around the fact that the leader
+  of the "Lightfoot Rustlers" and the likeable but devil-may-care brother
+  of the hero are one and the same. Cullum is a "big" western story
+  writer.
+
+*UNDER HANDICAP.* By Jackson Gregory.
+
+  Here is a story which is a strong picture of the changing of a western
+  desert into a land of usefulness, by irrigation. The story has a
+  pleasing romance, yet exciting at times, with adventures of more than
+  one kind. Every reader of "The Outlaw" will want this book.
+
+*THE TRIUMPH.* By Will N. Harben.
+
+  Loyalty is the keynote of this story, loyalty of the hero to his
+  patriotic duty, loyalty of a daughter to her father, and loyalty of a
+  lover to his sweetheart. The followers, of Mr. Harben will enjoy another
+  of his southern stories.
+
+*PIP.* By Ian Hay (Capt. Ian Hay Beith), Author of "The First Hundred
+Thousand."
+
+  A story of English school boys, their pleasures and pains, their sports
+  and escapades, that might be called a modern "Tom Brown," but a Tom
+  Brown brimming with laughter and with the slang of the day.
+
+*MISS MILLION’S MAID.* By Berta Ruck.
+
+  Another ingenious Berta Ruck plot in which a high-spirited girl of
+  twenty-three, well-bred, but penniless, flies in the face of tradition,
+  becoming a maid of a newly-made heiress. So entangled grow the love
+  affairs of mistress and maid that the reader has a merry time with the
+  author in steering the girls on the road to happiness.
+
+*ENOCH CRANE.* By F. Hopkinson and F. Berkeley Smith.
+
+  A story of New York specially. The scene is Waverly Place, in one of the
+  characteristic old houses of that section. In this respect the story is
+  very similar to "Peter," Mr. Smith’s most popular book.
+
+*PARTNERS OF THE NIGHT.* By Leroy Scott.
+
+  Although a detective story, it is one altogether different from those of
+  the ordinary detective story writer. It is a story of the plain-clothes
+  men and criminals of New York, with a splendid romance.
+
+For sale by all booksellers.
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd Street, New York
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARIANS***
+
+
+
+CREDITS
+
+
+May 27, 2008
+
+                Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1
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+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbarians by Robert W. Chambers
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Barbarians
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2008 [Ebook #25623]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARIANS***
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back
+into mid-air.]
+
+BARBARIANS
+
+By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"The Dark Star," "The Girl Philippa," "Who Goes There," Etc.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+With Frontispiece
+
+By A. I. KELLER
+
+                            ------------------
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+
+Publishers New York
+
+Published by arrangement with D. APPLETON & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+TO
+LYLE and MADELEINE MAHAN
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+  "Daughter of Light, the bestial wrath
+  Of Barbary besets thy path!
+  The Hun is beating his painted drum;
+  His war horns blare! The Hun is come!"
+
+  "Father, I feel his foetid breath:
+  The thick air reeks with the stench of death;
+  My will is Thine. Thy will be done
+  On Turk and Bulgar, Czech and Hun!"
+
+II
+
+  _She understands._
+  _Where the dead headland flare_
+  _Mocks sea and sand;_
+  _Where death-lights shed their glare_
+  _On No-Man's-Land._
+  _France takes her stand._
+  _Magnificently fair,_
+  _The Flaming Brand_
+  _Within her slender hand;_
+  _Christ's lilies in her hair._
+
+III
+
+  "Daughter of Grief, thy House is sand!
+  Thy towers are falling athwart the land.
+  They've flayed the earth to its ribs of chalk
+  And over its bones the spectres stalk!"
+
+  "Father, I see my high spires reel;
+  My breast is scarred by the Hun's hoofed heel.
+  What was, shall be! I read Thy sign:
+  Thy ocean yawns for the smitten swine!"
+
+IV
+
+  _Then, from Verdun_
+  _Pealed westward to the Somme_
+  _From every gun_
+  _God's summons: "Daughter! Come!"_
+  _Then the red sun_
+  _Stood still. Grew dumb_
+  _The universal hum_
+  _Of life, and numb_
+  _The lips of Life, undone_
+  _By Death.... And so--France won!_
+
+V
+
+  "Daughter of God, the End is here!
+  The swine rush on: the sea is near!
+  My wild flowers bloom on the trenches' edge;
+  My little birds sing by shore and sedge."
+
+  "Father, raise up my martyred land!
+  Clothe her bones with Thy magic hand;
+  Receive the Brand Thy angel lent,
+  And stanch my blood with Thy sacrament."
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. FED UP
+II. MAROONED
+III. CUCKOO!
+IV. RECONNAISSANCE
+V. PARNASSUS
+VI. IN FINIST�RE
+VII. THE AIRMAN
+VIII. EN OBSERVATION
+IX. L'OMBRE
+X. THE GHOULS
+XI. THE SEED OF DEATH
+XII. FIFTY-FIFTY
+XIII. MULETEERS
+XIV. LA PLOO BELLE
+XV. CARILLONETTE
+XVI. DJACK
+XVII. FRIENDSHIP
+XVIII. THE AVIATOR
+XIX. HONOUR
+XX. LA BRABAN�ONNE
+XXI. THE GARDENER
+XXII. THE SUSPECT
+XXIII. MADAM DEATH
+XXIV. BUBBLES
+XXV. KAMERAD
+Advertisement
+Jacket Flap Text
+Advertisement
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FED UP
+
+
+So this is what happened to the dozen-odd malcontents who could no longer
+stand the dirty business in Europe and the dirtier politicians at home.
+
+There was treachery in the Senate, treason in the House. A plague of liars
+infested the Republic; the land was rotting with plots.
+
+But if the authorities at Washington remained incredulous, stunned into
+impotency, while the din of murder filled the world, a few mere men, fed
+up on the mess, sickened while awaiting executive galvanization, and
+started east to purge their souls.
+
+They came from the four quarters of the continent, drawn to the decks of
+the mule transport by a common sickness and a common necessity. Only two
+among them had ever before met. They represented all sorts, classes,
+degrees of education and of ignorance, drawn to a common rendezvous by
+coincidental nausea incident to the temporary stupidity and poltroonery of
+those supposed to represent them in the Congress of the Great Republic.
+
+The rendezvous was a mule transport reeking with its cargo, still tied up
+to the sun-scorched wharf where scores of loungers loafed and gazed up at
+the rail and exchanged badinage with the supercargo.
+
+The supercargo consisted of this dozen-odd fed-up ones--eight Americans,
+three Frenchmen and one Belgian.
+
+There was a young soldier of fortune named Carfax, recently discharged
+from the Pennsylvania State Constabulary, who seemed to feel rather sure
+of a commission in the British service.
+
+Beside him, leaning on the blistering rail, stood a self-possessed young
+man named Harry Stent. He had been educated abroad; his means were ample;
+his time his own. He had shot all kinds of big game except a Hun, he told
+another young fellow--a civil engineer--who stood at his left and whose
+name was Jim Brown.
+
+A youth on crutches, passing along the deck behind them, lingered,
+listening to the conversation, slightly amused at Stent's game list and
+his further ambition to bag a Boche.
+
+The young man's lameness resulted from a trench acquaintance with the game
+which Stent desired to hunt. His regiment had been, and still was, the 2nd
+Foreign Legion. He was on his way back, now, to finish his convalescence
+in his old home in Finist�re. He had been a writer of stories for
+children. His name was Jacques Wayland.
+
+As he turned away from the group at the rail, still amused, a man
+advancing aft spoke to him by name, and he recognized an American painter
+whom he had met in Brittany.
+
+"You, Neeland?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I'm fed up with watchful waiting."
+
+"Where are you bound, ultimately?"
+
+"I've a hint that an Overseas unit can use me. And you, Wayland?"
+
+"Going to my old home in Finist�re where I'll get well, I hope."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Second Foreign."
+
+"Oh. Get that leg in the trenches?" inquired Neeland.
+
+"Yes. Came over to recuperate. But Finist�re calls me. I've _got_ to smell
+the sea off Eryx before I can get well."
+
+A pleasant-faced, middle-aged man, who stood near, turned his head and
+cast a professionally appraising glance at the young fellow on crutches.
+
+His name was Vail; he was a physician. It did not seem to him that there
+was much chance for the lame man's very rapid recovery.
+
+Three muleteers came on deck from below--all young men, all talking in
+loud, careless voices. They wore uniforms of khaki resembling the regular
+service uniform. They had no right to these uniforms.
+
+One of these young men had invented the costume. His name was Jack Burley.
+His two comrades were, respectively, "Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn. Both
+had figured in the squared circle. All three were fed up. They desired to
+wallop something, even if it were only a leather-rumped mule.
+
+Four other men completed the supercargo--three French youths who were
+returning for military duty and one Belgian. They had been waiters in New
+York. They also were fed up with the administration. They kept by
+themselves during the voyage. Nobody ever learned their names. They left
+the transport at Calais, reported, and were lost to sight in the flood of
+young men flowing toward the trenches.
+
+They completed the odd dozen of fed-up ones who sailed that day on the
+suffocating mule transport in quest of something they needed but could not
+find in America--something that lay somewhere amid flaming obscurity in
+that hell of murder beyond the Somme--their souls' salvation perhaps.
+
+Twelve fed-up men went. And what happened to all except the four French
+youths is known. Fate laid a guiding hand on the shoulder of Carfax and
+gave him a gentle shove toward the Vosges. Destiny linked arms with Stent
+and Brown and led them toward Italy. Wayland's rendezvous with Old Man
+Death was in Finist�re. Neeland sailed with an army corps, but Chance met
+him at Lorient and led him into the strangest paths a young man ever
+travelled.
+
+As for Sticky Smith, Kid Glenn and Jack Burley, they were muleteers. Or
+thought they were. A muleteer has to do with mules. Nothing else is
+supposed to concern him.
+
+But into the lives of these three muleteers came things never dreamed of
+in their philosophy--never imagined by them even in their cups.
+
+As for the others, Carfax, Brown, Stent, Wayland, Neeland, this is what
+happened to each one of them. But the episode of Carfax comes first. It
+happened somewhere north of the neutral Alpine region where the Vosges
+shoulder their way between France and Germany.
+
+After he had exchanged a dozen words with a staff officer, he began to
+realize, vaguely, that he was done in.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MAROONED
+
+
+"Will they do anything for us?" repeated Carfax.
+
+The staff officer thought it very doubtful. He stood in the snow switching
+his wet puttees and looking out across a world of tumbled mountains. Over
+on his right lay Germany; on his left, France; Switzerland towered in ice
+behind him against an arctic blue sky.
+
+It grew warm on the Falcon Peak, almost hot in the sun. Snow was melting
+on black heaps of rocks; a black salamander, swollen, horrible, stirred
+from its stiff lethargy and crawled away blindly across the snow.
+
+"Our case is this," continued Carfax; "somebody's made a mistake. We've
+been forgotten. And if they don't relieve us rather soon some of us will
+go off our bally nuts. Do you get me, Major?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"Do you understand what I've been saying?"
+
+"Oh, yes; quite so."
+
+"Then ask yourself, Major, how long can four men stand it, cooped up here
+on this peak? A month, two months, three, five? But it's going on ten
+months--ten months of solitude--silence--not a sound, except when the
+snowslides go bellowing off into Alsace down there below our feet." His
+bronzed lip quivered. "I'll get aboard one if this keeps on."
+
+He kicked a lump of ice off into space; the staff officer glanced at him
+and looked away hurriedly.
+
+"Listen," said Carfax with an effort; "we're not regulars--not like the
+others. The Canadian division is different. Its discipline is
+different--in spite of Salisbury Plain and K. of K. In my regiment there
+are half-breeds, pelt-hunters, Nome miners, Yankees of all degrees,
+British, Canadians, gentlemen adventurers from Cosmopolis. They're good
+soldiers, but do you think they'd stay here? It is so in the Athabasca
+Battalion; it is the same in every battalion. They wouldn't stay here ten
+months. They couldn't. We are free people; we can't stand indefinite
+caging; we've got to have walking room once every few months."
+
+The staff officer murmured something.
+
+"I know; but good God, man! Four of us have been on this peak for nearly
+ten months. We've never seen a Boche, never heard a shot. Seasons come and
+go, rain falls, snow falls, the winds blow from the Alps, but nothing else
+comes to us except a half-frozen bird or two."
+
+The staff officer looked about him with an involuntary shiver. There was
+nothing to see except the sun on the wet, black rocks and the whitewashed
+observation station of solid stone from which wires sagged into the valley
+on the French side.
+
+"Well--good luck," he said hastily, looking as embarrassed as he felt.
+"I'll be toddling along."
+
+"Will you say a word to the General, like a good chap? Tell him how it is
+with us--four of us all alone up here since the beginning. There's Gary,
+Captain in the Athabasca Battalion, a Yankee if the truth were known;
+there's Flint, a cockney lieutenant in a Calgary battery; there's young
+Gray, a lieutenant and a Prince Edward Islander; and here's me, a major in
+the Yukon Battalion--four of us on the top of a cursed French
+mountain--ten months of each other, of solitude, silence--and the whole
+world rocking with battles--and not a sound up here--not a whisper! I tell
+you we're four sick men! We've got a grip on ourselves yet, but it's
+slipping. We're still fairly civil to each other, but the strain is
+killing. Sullen silences smother irritability, but--" he added in a
+peculiarly pleasant voice, "I expect we are likely to start killing each
+other if somebody doesn't get us out of here very damn quick."
+
+The staff captain's lips formed the words, "Awfully sorry! Good luck!" but
+his articulation was indistinct, and he went off hurriedly, still
+murmuring.
+
+Carfax stood in the snow, watching him clamber down among the rocks, where
+an alpinist orderly joined them.
+
+Gary presently appeared at the door of the observation station. "Has he
+gone?" he inquired, without interest.
+
+"Yes," said Carfax.
+
+"Is he going to do anything for us?"
+
+"I don't know.... _No!_"
+
+Gary lingered, kicked at a salamander, then turned and went indoors.
+Carfax sat down on a rock and sucked at his empty pipe.
+
+Later the three officers in the observation station came out to the door
+again and looked at him, but turned back into the doorway without saying
+anything. And after a while Carfax, feeling slightly feverish, went
+indoors, too.
+
+In the square, whitewashed room Gray and Flint were playing cut-throat
+poker; Gary was at the telephone, but the messages received or transmitted
+appeared to be of no importance. There had never been any message of
+importance from the Falcon Peak or to it. There was likely to be none.
+
+Ennui, inertia, dry rot--and four men, sometimes silently, sometimes
+violently cursing their isolation, but always cursing it--afraid in their
+souls lest they fall to cursing one another aloud as they had begun to
+curse in their hearts.
+
+Months ago rain had fallen; now snow fell, and vast winds roared around
+them from the Alps. But nothing else ever came to the Falcon Peak, except
+a fierce, red-eyed _L�mmergeyer_ sheering above the peak on enormous
+pinions, or a few little migrating birds fluttering down, half frozen,
+from the high air lanes. Now and then, also, came to them a staff officer
+from below, British sometimes, sometimes French, who lingered no longer
+than necessary and then went back again, down into friendly deeps where
+were trees and fields and familiar things and human companionship, leaving
+them to their hell of silence, of solitude, and of each other.
+
+The tide of war had never washed the base of their granite cliffs; the
+highest battle wave had thundered against the Vosges beyond earshot; not
+even a deadened echo of war penetrated those silent heights; not a Taube
+floated in the zenith.
+
+In the squatty, whitewashed ruin which once had been the eyrie of some
+petty predatory despot, and which now served as an observatory for two
+idle divisions below in the valley, stood three telescopes. Otherwise the
+furniture consisted of valises, trunks, a table and chairs, a few books,
+several newspapers, and some tennis balls lying on the floor.
+
+Carfax seated himself at one of the telescopes, not looking through it,
+his heavy eyes partly closed, his burnt-out pipe between his teeth.
+
+Gary rose from the telephone and joined the card players. They shuffled
+and dealt listlessly, seldom speaking save in monosyllables.
+
+After a while Carfax went over to the card table and the young lieutenant
+cashed in and took his place at the telescope.
+
+Below in the Alsatian valley spring had already started the fruit buds,
+and a delicate green edged the lower snow line.
+
+The lieutenant spoke of it wistfully; nobody paid any attention; he rose
+presently and went outdoors to the edge of the precipice--not too near,
+for fear he might be tempted to jump out through the sunshine, down into
+that inviting world of promise below.
+
+Far underneath him--very far down in the valley--a cuckoo called. Out of
+the depths floated the elfin halloo, the gaily malicious challenge of
+spring herself, shouted up melodiously from the plains of
+Alsace--_Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_--You poor, sullen, frozen foreigner
+up there on the snowy rocks!--_Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_
+
+The lieutenant of Yukon infantry, whose name was Gray, came back into the
+room.
+
+"There's a bird of sorts yelling like hell below," he said to the card
+players.
+
+Carfax ran over his cards, rejected three, and nodded. "Well, let him
+yell," he said.
+
+"What is it, a Boche dicky-bird insulting you?" asked Gary, in his Yankee
+drawl.
+
+Flint, declining to draw cards, got up and went out into the sunshine.
+When he returned to the table, he said: "It's a cuckoo.... I wish to God I
+were out of this," he added.
+
+They continued to play for a while without apparent interest. Each man had
+won his comrades' money too many times to care when Carfax added up debit
+and credit and wrote down each man's score. In nine months, alternately
+beggaring one another, they had now, it appeared, broken about even.
+
+Gary, an American in British uniform, twitched a newspaper toward himself,
+slouched in his chair, and continued to read for a while. The paper was
+French and two weeks old; he jerked it about irritably.
+
+Gray, resting his elbows on his knees, sat gazing vacantly out of the
+narrow window. For a smart officer he had grown slovenly.
+
+"If there was any trout fishing to be had," he began; but Flint laughed
+scornfully.
+
+"What are you laughing at? There must be trout in the valley down there
+where that bird is," insisted Gray, reddening.
+
+"Yes, and there are cows and chickens and houses and women. What of it?"
+
+Gary, in his faded service uniform of a captain, scowled over his
+newspaper. "It's bad enough to be here," he said heavily; "so don't let's
+talk about it. Quit disputing."
+
+Flint ignored the order.
+
+"If there was anything sportin' to do----"
+
+"Oh, shut up," muttered Carfax. "Do you expect sport on a hog-back?"
+
+Gray picked up a tennis ball and began to play it against the whitewashed
+stone wall, using the palm of his hand. Flint joined him presently; Gary
+went over to the telephone, set the receiver to his ear and spoke to some
+officer in the distant valley on the French side, continuing a spiritless
+conversation while watching the handball play. After a while he rose,
+shambled out and down among the rocks to the spring where snow lay,
+trodden and filthy, and the big, black salamanders crawled half stupefied
+in the sun. All his loathing and fear of them kindled again as it always
+did at sight of them. "Dirty beasts," he muttered, stumping and stumbling
+among the stunted fir trees; "some day they'll bite some of these damn
+fools who say they can't bite. And that'll end 'em."
+
+Flint and Gray continued to play handball in a perfunctory way while
+Carfax looked on from the telephone without interest. Gary came back, his
+shoes and puttees all over wet snow.
+
+"Unless," he said in a monotonous voice, "something happens within the
+next few days I'll begin to feel queer in my head; and if I feel it coming
+on, I'll blow my bally nut off. Or somebody's." And he touched his service
+automatic in its holster and yawned.
+
+After a dead silence:
+
+"Buck up," remarked Carfax; "think how our men must feel in Belfort, never
+letting off their guns. Ross rifles, too--not a shot at a Boche since the
+damn war began!"
+
+"God!" said Flint, smiting the ball with the palm of his hand, "to think
+of those Ross rifles rusting down there and to think of the pink-skinned
+pigs they could paunch so cleanly. Did you ever paunch a deer? What a mess
+of intestines all over the shop!"
+
+Gary, still standing, began to kick the snow from his shoes. Gray said to
+him: "For a dollar of your Yankee money I'd give you a shot at me with
+your automatic--you're that slack at practice."
+
+"If it goes on much longer like this I'll not have to pay for a shot at
+anybody," returned Gary, with a short laugh.
+
+Gray laughed too, disagreeably, stretching his facial muscles, but no
+sound issued.
+
+"We're all going crazy together up here; that's my idea," he said. "I
+don't know which I can stand most comfortably, your voices or your
+silence. Both make me sick."
+
+"Some day a salamander will nip you; then you'll go loco," observed Gary,
+balancing another tennis ball in his right hand. "Give me a shot at you?"
+he added. "I feel as though I could throw it clean through you. You look
+soft as a pudding to me."
+
+Far, clear, from infinite depths, the elf-like hail of the cuckoo came
+floating up to the window.
+
+To Flint, English born, the call meant more than it did to Canadian or
+Yankee.
+
+"In Devon," he said in an altered voice, "they'll be calling just now.
+There's a world of primroses in Devon.... And the thorn is as white as the
+damned snow is up here."
+
+Gary growled his impatience and his profile of a Greek fighter showed in
+clean silhouette against the window.
+
+"Aw, hell," he said, "did I come out here for this?--nine months of it?"
+He hurled the tennis ball at the wall. "Can the home talk, if you don't
+mind."
+
+The cuckoo was still calling.
+
+"Did you ever play cuckoo," asked Carfax, "at ten shillings a throw? It's
+not a bad game--if you're put to it for amusement."
+
+Nobody replied; Gray's sunken, boyish face betrayed no interest; he
+continued to toss a tennis ball against the wall and catch it on the
+rebound.
+
+Toward sundown the usual Alpine chill set in; a mist hung over the
+snow-edged cliffs; the rocks breathed steam under a foggy and battered
+moon.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CUCKOO!
+
+
+Carfax, on duty, sat hunched up over the telephone, reporting to the
+fortress.
+
+Gray came in, closed the wooden shutters, hung blankets over them, lighted
+an oil stove and then a candle. Flint took up the cards, looked at Gary,
+then flung them aside, muttering.
+
+Nobody attempted to read; nobody touched the cards again. An orderly came
+in with soup. The meal was brief and perfectly silent.
+
+Flint said casually, after the table had been cleared: "I haven't slept
+for a month. If I don't get some sleep I'll go queer. I warn you; that's
+all. I'm sorry to say it, but it's so."
+
+"They're dirty beasts to keep us here like this," muttered Gary--"nine
+months of it, and not a shot."
+
+"There'll be a few shots if things don't change," remarked Flint in a
+colourless voice. "I'm getting wrong in my head. I can feel it."
+
+Carfax turned from the switchboard with a forced laugh: "Thinking of
+shooting up the camp?"
+
+"That or myself," replied Flint in a quiet voice; "ever since that cuckoo
+called I've felt queer."
+
+Gary, brooding in his soiled tunic collar, began to mutter presently: "I
+once knew a man in a lighthouse down in Florida who couldn't stand it
+after a bit and jumped off."
+
+"Oh, we've heard that twenty times," interrupted Carfax wearily.
+
+Gray said: "_What_ a jump!--I mean down into Alsace below----"
+
+"You're all going dotty!" snapped Carfax. "Shut up or you'll be doing
+it--some of you."
+
+"I can't sleep. That's where I'm getting queer," insisted Flint. "If I
+could get a few hours' sleep now----"
+
+"I wish to God the Boches could reach you with a big gun. That would put
+you to sleep, all right!" said Gray.
+
+"This war is likely to end before any of us see a Fritz," said Carfax. "I
+could stand it, too, except being up here with such"--his voice dwindled
+to a mutter, but it sounded to Gary as though he had used the word
+"rotters."
+
+Flint's face had a white, strained expression; he began to walk about,
+saying aloud to himself: "If I could only sleep. That's the idea--sleep it
+off, and wake up somewhere else. It's the silence, or the voices--I don't
+know which. You dollar-crazy Yankees and ignorant Provincials don't
+realize what a cuckoo is. You've no traditions, anyway--no past, nothing
+to care for----"
+
+"Listen to 'Arry!" retorted Gary--"'Arry and his cuckoo!"
+
+Carfax stirred heavily. "Shut up!" he said, with an effort. "The thing is
+to keep doing something--something--anything--except quarrelling."
+
+He picked up a tennis ball. "Come on, you funking brutes! I'll teach you
+how to play cuckoo. Every man takes three tennis balls and stands in a
+corner of the room. I stand in the middle. Then you blow out the candle.
+Then I call 'cuckoo!' in the dark and you try to hit me, aiming by the
+sound of my voice. Every time I'm hit I pay ten shillings to the pool,
+take my place in a corner, and have a shot at the next man, chosen by lot.
+And if you throw three balls apiece and nobody hits me, then you each pay
+ten shillings to me and I'm cuckoo for another round."
+
+"We aim at random?" inquired Gray, mildly interested.
+
+"Certainly. It must be played in pitch darkness. When I call out cuckoo,
+you take a shot at where you think I am. If you all miss, you all pay. If
+I'm hit, I pay."
+
+Gary chose three tennis balls and retired to a corner of the room; Gray
+and Flint, urged into action, took three each, unwillingly.
+
+"Blow out the candle," said Carfax, who had walked into the middle of the
+room. Gary blew it out and the place was in darkness.
+
+They thought they heard Carfax moving cautiously, and presently he called,
+"Cuckoo!" A storm of tennis balls rebounded from the walls; "Cuckoo!"
+shouted Carfax, and the tennis balls rained all around him.
+
+Once more he called; not a ball hit him; and he struck a match where he
+was seated upon the floor.
+
+There was some perfunctory laughter of a feverish sort; the candle was
+relighted, tennis balls redistributed, and Carfax wrote down his winnings.
+
+The next time, however, Gray, throwing low, caught him. Again the candle
+was lighted, scores jotted down, a coin tossed, and Flint went in as
+cuckoo.
+
+It seemed almost impossible to miss a man so near, even in total darkness,
+but Flint lasted three rounds and was hit, finally, a stinging smack on
+the ear. And then Gary went in.
+
+It was hot work, but they kept at it feverishly, grimly, as though their
+very sanity depended upon the violence of their diversion. They threw the
+balls hard, viciously hard. A sort of silent ferocity seemed to seize
+them. A chance hit cut the skin over Flint's cheekbone, and when the
+candle was lighted, one side of his face was bright with blood.
+
+Early in the proceedings somebody had disinterred brandy and Schnapps from
+under a bunk. The room had become close; they all were sweating.
+
+Carfax emptied his iced glass, still breathing hard, tossed a shilling and
+sent in Gary as cuckoo.
+
+Flint, who never could stand spirits, started unsteadily for the candle,
+but could not seem to blow it out. He stood swaying and balancing on his
+heels, puffing out his smooth, boyish cheeks and blowing at hazard.
+
+"You're drunk," said Gray, thickly; but he was as flushed as the boy he
+addressed, only steadier of leg.
+
+"What's that?" retorted Flint, jerking his shoulders around and gazing at
+Gray out of glassy eyes.
+
+"Blow out that candle," said Gary heavily, "or I'll shoot it out! Do you
+get that?"
+
+"Shoot!" repeated Flint, staring vaguely into Gary's bloodshot eyes;
+"_you_ shoot, you old slacker----"
+
+"Shut up and play the game!" cut in Carfax, a menacing roar rising in his
+voice. "You're all slackers--and rotters, too. Play the game! Keep
+playing--hard!--or you'll go clean off your fool nuts!"
+
+Gary walked heavily over and knocked the tennis balls out of Flint's
+hands.
+
+"There's a better game than that," he said, his articulation very thick;
+"but it takes nerve--if you've got it, you spindle-legged little cockney!"
+
+Flint struck at him aimlessly. "I've got nerve," he muttered, "plenty of
+nerve, old top! What d'you want? I'm your man; I'll go you--eh, what?"
+
+"Go on with the game, I tell you!" bawled Carfax.
+
+Gary swung around: "Wait till I explain----"
+
+"No, don't wait! Keep going! Keep playing! Keep doing something, for God's
+sake!"
+
+"Will you wait!" shouted Gary. "I want to tell you----"
+
+Carfax made a hopeless gesture: "It's talk that will do the trick for us
+all----"
+
+"I want to tell you----"
+
+Carfax shrugged, emptied his full glass with a gesture of finality.
+
+"Then talk, damn you! And we'll all be at each other's throats before
+morning."
+
+Gary got Gray by the elbow: "Reggie, it's this way. We flip up for cuckoo.
+Whoever gets stuck takes a shot apiece from our automatics in the
+legs--eh, what?"
+
+"It's perfectly agreeable to me," assented Gray, in the mincing, elaborate
+voice characteristic of him when drunk.
+
+Flint wagged his head. "It's a sportin' game. I'm in," he said.
+
+Gary looked at Carfax. "A shot in the dark at a man's legs. And if he gets
+his--it will be Blighty in exchange for hell."
+
+Carfax, sullen with liquor, shoved his big hand into his pocket, produced
+a shilling, and tossed it.
+
+A brighter flush stained the faces which ringed him; the risky hazard of
+the affair cleared their sick minds to comprehension.
+
+Tails turned uppermost; Flint and Gary were eliminated. It lay between
+Carfax and Gray, and the older man won.
+
+"Mind you fire low," said the young fellow, with an excited laugh, and
+walked into the middle of the room.
+
+Gary blew out the candle. Presently from somewhere in the intense darkness
+Gray called "Cuckoo!" and instantly a slanting red flash lashed out
+through the gloom. And, when the deafening echo had nearly ceased:
+"Cuckoo!"
+
+Another pistol crashed. And after a swimming interval they heard him
+moving. "Cuckoo!" he called; a level flame stabbed the dark; something
+fell, thudding through the staccato uproar of the explosion. At the same
+moment the outer door opened on the crack and Carfax's orderly peeped in.
+
+Carfax struck a match with shaky fingers; the candle guttered, sank,
+flared on Flint, who was laughing without a sound. "Got the beggar, by
+God!" he whispered--"through the head! Look at him. Look at Reggie Gray!
+Tried for his head and got him----"
+
+He reeled back, chuckling foolishly, and levelled at Carfax. "Now I'll get
+you!" he simpered, and shot him through the face.
+
+As Carfax pitched forward, Gary fired.
+
+"Missed me, by God!" laughed Flint. "Shoot? Hell, yes. I'll show you how
+to shoot----"
+
+He struck the lighted candle with his left hand and laughed again in the
+thick darkness.
+
+"Shoot? I'll show you how to shoot, you old slacker----"
+
+Gary fired.
+
+After a silence Flint giggled in the choking darkness as the door opened
+cautiously again, and shot at the terrified orderly.
+
+"I'm a cockney, am I? And you don't think much of the Devon cuckoos, do
+you? Now I'll show you that I understand all kinds of cuckoos----"
+
+Both flashes split the obscurity at the same moment. Flint fell back
+against the wall and slid down to the floor. The outer door began to open
+again cautiously.
+
+But the orderly, half dressed, remained knee-deep in the snow by the
+doorway.
+
+After a long interval Gary struck a match, then went over and lit the
+candle. And, as he turned, Flint fired from where he lay on the floor and
+Gary swung heavily on one heel, took two uncertain steps. Then his pistol
+fell clattering; he sank to his knees and collapsed face downward on the
+stones.
+
+Flint, still lying where he had fallen, partly upright, against the wall,
+began to laugh, and died a few moments later, the wind from the slowly
+opening door stirring his fair hair and extinguishing the candle.
+
+And at last, through the opened door crept Carfax's orderly; peered into
+the darkness within, shivering in his unbuttoned tunic, his boots wet with
+snow.
+
+Dawn already whitened the east; and up out of the ghastly fog edging the
+German Empire, silhouetted, monstrous, against the daybreak, soared a
+_L�mmergeyer_, beating the livid void with enormous, unclean wings.
+
+The orderly heard its scream, shrank, cowering, against the door frame as
+the huge bird's ferocious red and yellow eyes blazed level with his.
+
+Suddenly, above the clamor of the _L�mmergeyer_, the shrill bell of the
+telephone began to ring.
+
+The terrible racket of the _L�mmergeyer_ filled the sky; the orderly
+stumbled into the room, slipped in a puddle of something wet, sent an
+empty bottle rolling and clinking away into the darkness; stumbled twice
+over prostrate bodies; reached the telephone, half fainting; whispered for
+help.
+
+After a long, long while, the horror still thickly clogging vein and
+brain, he scratched a match, hesitated, then holding it high, reeled
+toward the door with face averted.
+
+Outside the sun was already above the horizon, flashing over Haut Alsace
+at his feet.
+
+The _L�mmergeyer_ was a speck in the sky, poised over France.
+
+Up out of the infinite and sunlit chasm came a mocking, joyous hail--up
+through the sheer, misty gulf out of vernal depths: _Cuck_-oo! _Cuck_-oo!
+_Cuck_-oo!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+RECONNAISSANCE
+
+
+And that was the way Carfax ended--a tiny tragedy of incompetence compared
+to the mountainous official fiasco at Gallipoli. Here, a few perished
+among the filthy salamanders in the snow; there, thousands died in the
+burning Turkish gorse----
+
+                            ------------------
+
+But that's history; and its makers are already officially damned.
+
+But now concerning two others of the fed-up dozen on board the mule
+transport--Harry Stent and Jim Brown. Destiny linked arms with them; Fate
+jerked a mysterious thumb over her shoulder toward Italy. Chance detailed
+them for special duty as soon as they landed.
+
+It was a magnificent sight, the disembarking of the British overseas
+military force sent secretly into Italy.
+
+They continued to disembark and entrain at night. Nobody knew that British
+troops were in Italy.
+
+The infernal uproar along the Isonzo never ceased; the din of the guns
+resounded through the Trentino, but British and Canadian noses were
+sniffing at something beyond the Carnic Alps, along the slopes of which
+they continued to concentrate, Rifles, Kilties, and Gunners.
+
+There seemed to be no particular hurry. Details from the Canadian
+contingent were constantly sent out to familiarize themselves with the
+vast waste of tunneled mountains denting the Austrian sky-line to the
+northward; and all day long Dominion reconnoitering parties wandered among
+valleys, alms, forest, and peaks in company sometimes with Italian
+alpinists, sometimes by themselves, prying, poking, snooping about with
+all the emotionless pertinacity of Teuton tourists preoccupied with
+_wanderlust_, _kultur_, and _ewigkeit_.
+
+And one lovely September morning the British Military Observer with the
+Italian army, and his very British aid, sat on a sunny rock on the Col de
+la Reine and watched a Canadian northward reconnaissance--nothing much to
+see, except a solitary moving figure here and there on the mountains,
+crawling like a deerstalker across ledges and stretches of bracken--a few
+dots on the higher slopes, visible for a moment, then again invisible,
+then glimpsed against some lower snow patch, and gone again beyond the
+range of powerful glasses.
+
+"The Athabasca regiment, 13th Battalion," remarked the British Military
+Observer; "lively and rather noisy."
+
+"Really," observed his A. D. C.
+
+"Sturdy, half-disciplined beggars," continued the B. M. O., watching the
+mountain plank through his glasses; "every variety of adventurer in their
+ranks--cattlemen, ranchmen, Hudson Bay trappers, North West police,
+lumbermen, mail carriers, bear hunters, Indians, renegade frontiersmen,
+soldiers of fortune--a sweet lot, Algy."
+
+"Ow."
+
+"--And half of 'em unruly Yankees--the most objectionable half, you know."
+
+"A bad lot," remarked the Honorable Algy.
+
+"Not at all," said the B. M. O. complacently; "I've a relative of sorts
+with 'em--leftenant, I believe--a Yankee brother-in-law, in point of
+fact."
+
+"Ow."
+
+"Married a step-sister in the States. Must look him up some day,"
+concluded the B. M. O., adjusting his field glasses and focussing them on
+two dark dots moving across a distant waste of alpine roses along the edge
+of a chasm.
+
+One of the dots happened to be the "relative of sorts" just mentioned; but
+the B. M. O. could not know that. And a moment afterward the dots became
+invisible against the vast mass of the mountain, and did not again
+reappear within the field of the English officer's limited vision. So he
+never knew he had seen his relative of sorts.
+
+Up there on the alp, one of the dots, which at near view appeared to be a
+good-looking, bronzed young man in khaki, puttees, and mountain shoes,
+said to the other officer who was scrambling over the rocks beside him:
+
+"Did you ever see a better country for sheep?"
+
+"Bear, elk, goats--it's sure a great layout," returned the younger
+officer, a Canadian whose name was Stent.
+
+"Goats," nodded Brown--"sheep and goats. This country was made for them. I
+fancy they _have_ chamois here. Did you ever see one, Harry?"
+
+"Yes. They have a thing out here, too, called an ibex. You never saw an
+ibex, did you, Jim?"
+
+Brown, who had halted, shook his head. Stent stepped forward and stood
+silently beside him, looking out across the vast cleft in the mountains,
+but not using his field glasses.
+
+At their feet the cliffs fell away sheer into tremendous and dizzying
+depths; fir forests far below carpeted the abyss like wastes of velvet
+moss, amid which glistened a twisted silvery thread--a river. A world of
+mountains bounded the horizon.
+
+"Better make a note or two," said Stent briefly.
+
+They unslung their rifles, seated themselves in the warm sun amid a deep
+thicket of alpine roses, and remained silent and busy with pencil and
+paper for a while--two inconspicuous, brownish-grey figures, cuddled close
+among the greyish rocks, with nothing of military insignia about their
+dress or their round grey wool caps to differentiate them from
+sportsmen--wary stalkers of chamois or red deer--except that under their
+unbelted tunics automatics and cartridge belts made perceptible bunches.
+
+Just above them a line of stunted firs edged limits of perpetual snow, and
+rocks and glistening fields of crag-broken white carried the eye on upward
+to the dazzling pinnacle of the Col de la Reine, splitting the vast, calm
+blue above.
+
+Nothing except peaks disturbed the tranquil sky to the northward; not a
+cloud hung there. But westward mist clung to a few mountain flanks, and to
+the east it was snowing on distant crests.
+
+Brown, sketching rapidly but accurately, laughed a little under his
+breath.
+
+"To think," he said, "not a Boche dreams we are in the Carnic Alps. It's
+very funny, isn't it? Our surveyors are likely to be here in a day or two,
+I fancy."
+
+Stent, working more slowly and methodically on his squared map paper, the
+smoke drifting fragrantly from his brier pipe, nodded in silence, glancing
+down now and then at the barometer and compass between them.
+
+"Mentioning big game," he remarked presently, "I started to tell you about
+the ibex, Jim. I've hunted a little in the Eastern Alps."
+
+"I didn't know it," said Brown, interested.
+
+"Yes. A classmate of mine at the Munich Polytechnic invited me--Siurd von
+Glahn--a splendid fellow--educated at Oxford--just like one of us--nothing
+of the Boche about him at all----"
+
+Brown laughed: "A Boche is always a Boche, Harry. The black Prussian
+blood----"
+
+"No; Siurd was all white. Really. A charming, lovable fellow. Anyway, his
+dad had a shooting where there were chamois, reh, hirsch, and the king of
+all Alpine big game--ibex. And Siurd asked me."
+
+"Did you get an ibex?" inquired Brown, sharpening his pencil and glancing
+out across the valley at a cloud which had suddenly formed there.
+
+"I did."
+
+"What manner of beast is it?"
+
+"It has mountain sheep and goats stung to death. Take it from me, Jim,
+it's the last word in mountain sport. The chamois isn't in it. Pooh, I've
+seen chamois within a hundred yards of a mountain macadam highway. But the
+ibex? Not much! The man who stalks and kills an ibex has nothing more to
+learn about stalking. Chamois, red deer, Scotch stag make you laugh after
+you've done your bit in the ibex line."
+
+"How about our sheep and goat?" inquired Brown, staring at his comrade.
+
+"It's harder to get ibex."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"It really is, Jim."
+
+"What does your ibex resemble?"
+
+"It's a handsome beast, ashy grey in summer, furred a brownish yellow in
+winter, and with little chin whiskers and a pair of big, curved, heavily
+ridged horns, thick and flat and looking as though they ought to belong to
+something African, and twice as big."
+
+"Some trophy, what?" commented Brown, working away at his sketches.
+
+"Rather. The devilish thing lives along the perpetual snow line; and, for
+incredible stunts in jumping and climbing, it can give points to any Rocky
+Mountain goat. You try to get above it, spend the night there, and stalk
+it when it returns from nocturnal grazing in the stunted growth below.
+That's how."
+
+"And you got one?"
+
+"Yes. It took six days. We followed it for that length of time across the
+icy mountains, Siurd and I. I thought I'd die."
+
+"Cold work, eh?"
+
+Stent nodded, pocketed his sketch, fished out a packet of bread and
+chocolate from his pocket and, rolling over luxuriously in the sun among
+the alpine roses, lunched leisurely, flat on his back.
+
+Brown presently stretched out and reclined on his elbow; and while he ate
+he lazily watched a kestrel circling deep in the gulf below him.
+
+"I think," he said, half to himself, "that this is the most beautiful
+region on earth."
+
+Stent lifted himself on both elbows and gazed across the chasm at the
+lower slopes of the alm opposite, all ablaze with dewy wild flowers. Down
+it, between fern and crag and bracken, flashed a brook, broken into in
+silvery sections amid depths of velvet green below, where evidently it
+tumbled headlong into that thin, shining thread which was a broad river.
+
+"Yes," mused Stent, "Siurd von Glahn and I were comrades on many a foot
+tour through such mountains as these. He was a delightful fellow, my
+classmate Siurd----"
+
+Brown's swift rigid grip on his arm checked him to silence; there came the
+clink of an iron-shod foot on the ledge; they snatched their rifles from
+the fern patch; two figures stepped around the shelf of rock, looming up
+dark against the dazzling sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PARNASSUS
+
+
+Brown, squatting cross-legged among the alpine roses, squinted along his
+level rifle.
+
+"Halt!" he said with a pleasant, rising inflection in his quiet voice.
+"Stand very still, gentlemen," he added in German.
+
+"Drop your rifles. Drop 'em quick!" he repeated more sharply. "Up with
+your hands--hold them up high! Higher, if you please!--quickly. Now, then,
+what are you doing on this alp?"
+
+What they were doing seemed apparent enough--two gentlemen of Teutonic
+persuasion, out stalking game--deer, rehbok or chamois--one a tall, dark,
+nice-looking young fellow wearing the usual rough gray jacket with
+stag-horn buttons, green felt hat with feather, and leather breeches of
+the alpine hunter. His knees and aristocratic ankles were bare and
+bronzed. He laughed a little as he held up his arms.
+
+The other man was stout and stocky rather than fat. He had the square red
+face and bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and the spectacles of a
+Herr Professor. He held up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers
+spread out wide. They seemed rather soiled.
+
+From his _r�cksack_ stuck out a butterfly net in two sections and the
+deeply scalloped, silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss
+adorned his green felt hat; a green tin box punched full of holes was
+slung from his broad shoulders.
+
+Brown, lowering his rifle cautiously, was already getting to his feet from
+the trampled bracken, when, behind him, he heard Stent's astonished voice
+break forth in pedantic German:
+
+"Siurd! Is it _thou_ then?"
+
+"Harry Stent!" returned the dark, nice-looking young fellow amiably. And,
+in a delightful voice and charming English:
+
+"Pray, am I to offer you a shake hands," he inquired smilingly; "or shall
+I continue to invoke the Olympian gods with classically uplifted and
+imploring arms?"
+
+Brown let Stent pass forward. Then, stepping back, he watched the greeting
+between these two old classmates. His rifle, grasped between stock and
+barrel, hung loosely between both hands. His expression became vacantly
+good humoured; but his brain was working like lightning.
+
+Stent's firm hand encountered Von Glahn's and held it in questioning
+astonishment. Looking him in the eyes he said slowly: "Siurd, it is good
+to see you again. It is amazing to meet you this way. I am glad. I have
+never forgotten you.... Only a moment ago I was speaking to Brown about
+you--of our wonderful ibex hunt! I was telling Brown--my comrade--" he
+turned his head slightly and presented the two young men--"Mr. Brown, an
+American----"
+
+"American?" repeated Von Glahn in his gentle, well-bred voice, offering
+his hand. And, in turn, becoming sponsor, he presented his stocky
+companion as Dr. von Dresslin; and the ceremony instantly stiffened to a
+more rigid etiquette.
+
+Then, in his always gentle, graceful way, Von Glahn rested his hand
+lightly on Stent's shoulder:
+
+"You made us jump--you two Americans--as though you had been British. Of
+what could two Americans be afraid in the Carnic Alps to challenge a pair
+of wandering ibex stalkers?"
+
+"You forget that I am Canadian," replied Stent, forcing a laugh.
+
+"At that, you are practically American and civilian--" He glanced
+smilingly over their equipment, carelessly it seemed to Stent, as though
+verifying all absence of military insignia. "Besides," he added with his
+gentle humour, "there are no British in Italy. And no Italians in these
+mountains, I fancy; they have their own affairs to occupy them on the
+Isonzo I understand. Also, there is no war between Italy and Germany."
+
+Stent smiled, perfectly conscious of Brown's telepathic support in
+whatever was now to pass between them and these two Germans. He knew, and
+Brown knew, that these Germans must be taken back as prisoners; that,
+suspicious or not, they could not be permitted to depart again with a
+story of having met an American and a Canadian after ibex among the Carnic
+Alps.
+
+These two Germans were already their prisoners; but there was no hurry
+about telling them so.
+
+"How do you happen to be here, Siurd?" asked Stent, frankly curious.
+
+Von Glahn lifted his delicately formed eyebrows, then, amused:
+
+"Count von Plessis invites me; and"--he laughed outright--"he must have
+invited you, Harry, unless you are poaching!"
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Stent, for a brief second believing in the part he
+was playing; "I supposed this to be a free alp."
+
+He and Von Glahn laughed; and the latter said, still frankly amused:
+"_Soyez tranquille_, Messieurs; Count von Plessis permits my friends--in
+my company--to shoot the Queen's alm."
+
+With a lithe movement, wholly graceful, he slipped the _r�cksack_ from his
+shoulders, let it fall among the _alpenrosen_ beside his sporting rifle.
+
+"We have a long day and a longer night ahead of us," he said pleasantly,
+looking from Stent to Brown. "The snow limit lies just above us; the ibex
+should pass here at dawn on their way back to the peak. Shall we
+consolidate our front, gentlemen--and make it a Quadruple Entente?"
+
+Stent replied instantly: "We join you with thanks, Siurd. My one ibex hunt
+is no experience at all compared to your record of a veteran--" He looked
+full and significantly at Brown; continuing: "As you say, we have all day
+and--a long night before us. Let us make ourselves comfortable here in the
+sun before we take--our final stations."
+
+And they seated themselves in the lee of the crag, foregathering
+fraternally in the warm alpine sunshine.
+
+The Herr Professor von Dresslin grunted as he sat down. After he had
+lighted his pipe he grunted again, screwed together his butterfly net and
+gazed hard through thick-lensed spectacles at Brown.
+
+"Does it interest you, sir, the pursuit of the diurnal Lepidoptera?" he
+inquired, still staring intently at the American.
+
+"I don't know anything about them," explained Brown. "What are
+Lepidoptera?"
+
+"The _schmetterling_--the butterfly. In Amerika, sir, you have many fine
+species, notably Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus of the four
+varietal forms." His prominent eyes shifted from one detail of Brown's
+costume to another--not apparently an intelligent examination, but a sort
+of protruding and indifferent stare.
+
+His gaze, however, was arrested for a moment where the lump under Brown's
+tunic indicated something concealed--a hunting knife, for example. Brown's
+automatic was strapped there. But the bulging eyes, expressionless still,
+remained fixed for a second only, then travelled on toward the Ross
+rifle--the Athabasca Regiment having been permitted to exchange this
+beloved weapon for the British regulation piece recently issued to the
+Canadians. From behind the thick lenses of his spectacles the Herr
+Professor examined the rifle while his monotonously dreary voice continued
+an entomological monologue for Brown's edification. And all the while Von
+Glahn and Stent, reclining nearby among the ferns, were exchanging what
+appeared to be the frankest of confidences and the happiest of youthful
+reminiscences.
+
+"Of the Parnassians," rumbled on Professor von Dresslin, "here in the Alps
+we possess one notable example--namely, the Parnassus Apollo. It is for
+the capture of this never-to-be-sufficiently studied butterfly that I
+have, upon this ibex-hunting expedition, myself equipped with net and
+suitable paraphernalia."
+
+"I see," nodded Brown, eyeing the green tin box and the net. The Herr
+Professor's pop-eyed attention was now occupied with the service puttees
+worn by Brown. A sportsman also might have worn them, of course.
+
+"The Apollo butterfly," droned on Professor Dresslin, "iss a butterfly of
+the larger magnitude among European Lepidoptera, yet not of the largest.
+The Parnassians, allied to the Papilionid�, all live only in high
+altitudes, and are, by the thinly scaled and always-to-be-remembered red
+and plack ge-spotted wings, to be readily recognized. I haf already two
+specimens captured this morning. I haff the honour, sir, to exhibit them
+for your inspection----"
+
+He fished out a flat green box from his pocket, opened it under Brown's
+nose, leaning close enough to touch Brown with an exploring and furtive
+elbow--and felt the contour of the automatic.
+
+Amid a smell of carbolic and camphor cones Brown beheld, pinned side by
+side upon the cork-lined interior of the box, two curiously pretty
+butterflies.
+
+Their drooping and still pliable wings seemed as thin as white tissue
+paper; their bodies were covered with furry hairs. Brick-red and black
+spots decorated the frail membrane of the wings in a curiously pleasing
+harmony of pattern and of colour.
+
+"Very unusual," he said, with a vague idea he was saying the wrong thing.
+
+Monotonously, paying no attention, Professor von Dresslin continued: "I,
+the life history of the Parnassus Apollo, haff from my early youth
+investigated with minuteness, diligence, and patience."--His protuberant
+eyes were now fixed on Brown's rifle again.--"For many years I haff bred
+this Apollo butterfly from the egg, from the caterpillar, from the
+chrysalis. I have the negroid forms, the albino forms, the dwarf forms,
+the hybrid forms investigated under effery climatic condition. Notes
+sufficient for three volumes of quarto already exist as a residuum of my
+investigations----"
+
+He looked up suddenly into the American's face--which was the first sudden
+movement the Herr Professor had made----
+
+"Ach wass! Three volumes! It is nothing. Here iss material for thirty!--A
+lifetime iss too short to know all the secrets of a single species.... If
+I may inquire, sir, of what pattern is your most interesting and admirable
+rifle?"
+
+"A--Ross," said Brown, startled into a second's hesitation.
+
+"So? And, if I may inquire, of what nationality iss it, a R-r-ross?"
+
+"It's a Canadian weapon. We Americans use it a great deal for big game."
+
+"So?... And it iss also by the Canadian military employed perhaps, sir?"
+
+"I believe," said Brown, carelessly, "that the British Government has
+taken away the Ross rifle from the Canadians and given them the regulation
+weapon."
+
+"So? Permit--that I examine, sir?"
+
+Brown did not seem to hear him or notice the extended
+hand--blunt-fingered, hairy, persistent.
+
+The Professor, not discouraged, repeated: "Sir, _bitte darf ich_, may I be
+permitted?" And Brown's eyes flashed back a lightning shaft of inquiry.
+Then, carelessly smiling, he passed the Ross rifle over to the Herr
+Professor; and, at the same time, drew toward him that gentleman's
+silver-mounted weapon, and carelessly cocked it.
+
+"Permit me," he murmured, balancing it innocently in the hollow of his
+left arm, apparently preoccupied with admiration at the florid workmanship
+of stock and guard. No movement that the Herr Professor made escaped him;
+but presently he thought to himself--"The old dodo is absolutely
+unsuspicious. My nerves are out of order.... What odd eyes that Fritz
+has!"
+
+When Herr Professor von Dresslin passed back the weapon Brown laid the
+German sporting piece beside it with murmured complimentary comment.
+
+"Yess," said the German, "such rifles kill when properly handled. We
+Germans may cordially recommend them for our American--friends--" Here was
+the slightest hesitation--"Pardon! I mean that we may safely guarantee
+this rifle _to_ our friends."
+
+Brown looked thoughtfully at the thick lenses of the spectacles. The
+popeyes remained expressionless, utterly, Teutonically inscrutable. A big
+heather bee came buzzing among the _alpenrosen_. Its droning hum resembled
+the monotone of the Herr Professor.
+
+Behind them Brown heard Stent saying: "Do you remember our ambition to
+wear the laurels of Parnassus, Siurd? Do you remember our notes at the
+lectures on the poets? And our ambition to write at least one deathless
+poem apiece before we died?"
+
+Von Glahn's dark eyes narrowed with merriment and his gentle laugh and
+attractive voice sounded pleasantly in Brown's ears.
+
+"You wrote at least _one_ famous poem to Rosa," he said, still laughing.
+
+"To Rosa? Oh! Rosa of the Caf� Luitpold! By Jove I did, didn't I, Siurd?
+How on earth did you ever remember that?"
+
+"I thought it very pretty." He began to repeat aloud:
+
+  "Rosa with the winsome eyes,
+  When my beer you bring to me;
+  I can see through your disguise!
+  I my goddess recognize--
+  Hebe, young immortally,
+  Sweet nepenthe pouring me!"
+
+Stent laughed outright:
+
+"How funny to think of it now--and to think of Rosa!... And you, Siurd, do
+you forget that you also composed a most wonderful war-poem--to the metre
+of 'Fly, Eagle, Fly!' Do you remember how it began?
+
+  "Slay, Eagle, Slay!
+    They die who dare decry us!
+  Red dawns 'The Day.'
+    The western cliffs defy us!
+  Turn their grey flood
+  To seas of blood!
+  And, as they flee, Slay, Eagle! Slay!
+  For God has willed this German 'Day'!"
+
+"Enough," said Siurd Von Glahn, still laughing, but turning very red.
+"What a terrible memory you have, Harry! For heaven's sake spare my
+modesty such accurate reminiscences."
+
+"I thought it fine poetry--then," insisted Stent with a forced smile. But
+his voice had subtly altered.
+
+They looked at each other in silence, the reminiscent smile still stamped
+upon their stiffening lips.
+
+For a brief moment the years had seemed to fade--time was not--the
+sunshine of that careless golden age had seemed to warm them once again
+there where they sat amid the _alpenrosen_ below the snow line on the Col
+de la Reine.
+
+But it did not endure; everything concerning earth and heaven and life and
+death had so far remained unsaid between these two. And never would be
+said. Both understood that, perhaps.
+
+Then Von Glahn's sidelong and preoccupied glance fell on Stent's field
+glasses slung short around his neck. His rigid smile died out. Soldiers
+wore field glasses that way; hunters, when they carried them instead of
+spyglasses, wore them _en bandouli�re_.
+
+He spoke, however, of other matters in his gentle, thoughtful
+voice--avoiding always any mention of politics and war--chatted on
+pleasantly with the familiarity and insouciance of old acquaintance. Once
+he turned slowly and looked at Brown--addressed him politely--while his
+dark eyes wandered over the American, noting every detail of dress and
+equipment, and the slight bulge at his belt line beneath the tunic.
+
+Twice he found pretext to pick up his rifle, but discarded it carelessly,
+apparently not noticing that Stent and Brown always resumed their own
+weapons when he touched his.
+
+Brown said to Von Glahn:
+
+"Ibex stalking is a new game to me. My friend Stent tells me that you are
+old at it."
+
+"I have followed some few ibex, Mr. Brown," replied the young man
+modestly. "And--other game," he added with a shrug.
+
+"I know how it's done in theory," continued the American; "and I am
+wondering whether we are to lie in this spot until dawn tomorrow or
+whether we climb higher and lie in the snow up there."
+
+"In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly where we shall lie tonight--Mr.
+Brown."
+
+There was an odd look in Siurd's soft brown eyes; he turned and spoke to
+Herr Professor von Dresslin, using dialect--and instantly appearing to
+recollect himself he asked pardon of Stent and Brown in his very perfect
+English.
+
+"I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun dialect: 'Ibex may be stirring,
+as it is already late afternoon. We ought now to use our glasses.' My
+family," he added apologetically, "come from the Traunwald; I forget and
+employ the vernacular at times."
+
+The Herr Professor unslung his telescope, set his rifle upright on the
+moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the
+blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he
+is drawing on the bowstring.
+
+Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of the same thing: the chance that
+these Germans might spy others of the Athabasca regiment prowling among
+the ferns and rocks of neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly at an end,
+anyway.
+
+They exchanged a glance; both picked up their rifles; Brown nodded almost
+imperceptibly. The tragic comedy was approaching its close.
+
+"_Hirsch_" grunted the Herr Professor--"_und st�ck_--on the north
+alm"--staring through his telescope intently.
+
+"Accorded," said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing his spyglass and sweeping the
+distant crags. "_St�ck_ on the western shoulder," he added--"and a stag
+royal among them."
+
+"Of ten?"
+
+"Of twelve."
+
+After a silence: "Why are they galloping--I wonder--the herd-stag and
+_st�ck_?"
+
+Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent's arm.
+
+"A _geier_, perhaps," suggested Siurd, his eye glued to his spyglass.
+
+"No ibex?" asked Stent in a voice a little forced.
+
+"_Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok_--high on the third
+peak--feeding."
+
+"Accorded," grunted the Herr Professor after an interval of search; and he
+closed his spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.
+
+His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually upon Brown, who was laying
+aside his own rifle again--and the German's expression did not alter.
+
+"Ibex!" exclaimed Von Glahn softly.
+
+Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted his field glasses on the
+third peak, and stood there, poised, slim and upright against the sky on
+the chasm's mossy edge.
+
+"I don't see your ibex, Siurd," he said, still searching.
+
+"On the third peak, _mon ami_"--drawing Stent familiarly to his side--the
+lightest caressing contact--merely enough to verify the existence of the
+automatic under his old classmate's tunic.
+
+If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch, neither did Brown notice it,
+watching them. Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not at all
+certain, because at that moment there came flopping along over the bracken
+and _alpenrosen_ a loppy winged butterfly--a large, whitish creature,
+seeming uncertain in its irresolute flight whether to alight at Brown's
+feet or go flapping aimlessly on over Brown's head.
+
+The Herr Professor snatched up his net--struck heavily toward the winged
+thing--a silent, terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle clutched
+together. Brown went down with a crash.
+
+At the shocking sound of the impact Stent wheeled from the abyss, then
+staggered back under the powerful shove from Von Glahn's nervous arm.
+Swaying, fighting frantically for foothold, there on the chasm's awful
+edge, he balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium. Von Glahn,
+rigid, watched him. Then, deathly white, his young eyes looking straight
+into the eyes of his old classmate--Stent lost the fight, fell outward,
+wider, dropping back into mid-air, down through sheer, tremendous
+depths--down there where the broad river seemed only a silver thread and
+the forests looked like beds of tender, velvet moss.
+
+After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus Apollo, still
+winging its erratic way where God willed it--a frail, dainty, translucent,
+wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf--symbol, perhaps of the soul
+already soaring up out of the terrific deeps below.
+
+The Herr Professor sweated and panted as he tugged at the silk
+handkerchief with which he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious
+American behind his back.
+
+"Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!" he grunted--"mit his pockets full of automatic
+clips. A Yankee, eh? What I tell you, Siurd?--English and Yankee they are
+one in blood and one at heart--pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what I
+told you already _gesternabend_? The British _schwein_ are in Italy
+already. Hola! Siurd! Take his feet and we turn him over _mal_!"
+
+But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning heavily against the crag, his
+back to the abyss, his blond head buried in both arms.
+
+So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too, began, with his powerful,
+stubby hands, to pull the unconscious man over on his back. And, as he
+worked, he hummed monotonously but contentedly in his bushy beard
+something about _something_ being "_�ber alles_"--God, perhaps, perhaps
+the blue sky overhead which covered him and his sickened friend alike, and
+the hurt enemy whose closed lids shut out the sky above--and the dead man
+lying very, very far below them--where river and forest and moss and
+Parnassus were now alike to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN FINIST�RE
+
+
+It was a dirty trick that they played Stent and Brown--the three
+Mysterious Sisters, Fate, Chance, and Destiny. But they're always billed
+for any performance, be it vaudeville or tragedy; and there's no use
+hissing them off: they'll dog you from the stage entrance if they take a
+fancy to you.
+
+They dogged Wayland from the dock at Calais, where the mule transport
+landed, all the way to Paris, then on a slow train to Quimperl�, and then,
+by stagecoach, to that little lost house on the moors, where ties held him
+most closely--where all he cared for in this world was gathered under a
+humble roof.
+
+In spite of his lameness he went duck-shooting the week after his arrival.
+It was rather forcing his convalescence, but he believed it would
+accelerate it to go about in the open air, as though there were nothing
+the matter with his shattered leg.
+
+So he hobbled down to the point he knew so well. He had longed for the sea
+off Eryx. It thundered at his feet.
+
+And, now, all around him through clamorous obscurity a watery light
+glimmered; it edged the low-driven clouds hurrying in from the sea; it
+outlined the long point of rocks thrust southward into the smoking
+smother.
+
+The din of the surf filled his ears; through flying patches of mist he
+caught glimpses of rollers bursting white against the reef; heard duller
+detonations along unseen sands, and shattering reports where heavy waves
+exploded among basalt rocks.
+
+His lean face of an invalid glistened with spray; salt water dripped from
+cap and coat, spangled the brown barrels of his fowling-piece, and ran
+down the varnished supports of both crutches where he leaned on them,
+braced forward against an ever-rising wind.
+
+At moments he seemed to catch glimpses of darker specks dotting the
+heaving flank of some huge wave. But it was not until the wild ducks rose
+through the phantom light and came whirring in from the sea that his gun,
+poked stiffly skyward, flashed in the pallid void. And then, sometimes, he
+hobbled back after the dead quarry while it still drove headlong inland,
+slanting earthward before the gale.
+
+Once, amid the endless thundering, in the turbulent desolation around him,
+through the roar of wind in his ears, he seemed to catch deadened sounds
+resembling distant seaward cannonading--_real_ cannonading--as though
+individual shots, dully distinct, dominated for a few moments the unbroken
+uproar of surf and gale.
+
+He listened, straining his ears, alert, intent upon the sounds he ought to
+recognize--the sounds he knew so well.
+
+Only the ceaseless pounding of the sea assailed his ears.
+
+Three wild duck, widgeon, came speeding through the fog; he breasted the
+wind, balanced heavily on both crutches and one leg, and shoved his gun
+upward.
+
+At the same instant the mist in front and overhead became noisy with wild
+fowl, rising in one great, panic-stricken, clamoring cloud. He hesitated;
+a muffled, thudding sound came to him over the unseen sea, growing louder,
+nearer, dominating the gale, increasing to a rattling clatter.
+
+Suddenly a great cloudy shape loomed up through the whirling mist
+ahead--an enormous shadow in the fog--a gigantic spectre rushing inland on
+vast and ghostly pinions.
+
+As the man shrank on his crutches, looking up, the a�roplane swept past
+overhead--a wounded, wavering, unsteady, unbalanced thing, its right
+aileron dangling, half stripped, and almost mangled to a skeleton.
+
+Already it was slanting lower toward the forest like a hard-hit duck,
+wing-crippled, fighting desperately for flight-power to the very end. Then
+the inland mist engulfed it.
+
+And after it hobbled Wayland, painfully, two brace of dead ducks and his
+slung fowling piece bobbing on his back, his rubber-shod crutches groping
+and probing among drenched rocks and gullies full of kelp, his left leg in
+splints hanging heavily.
+
+He could not go fast; he could not go very far. Further inland, foggy
+gorse gave place to broom and blighted bracken, all wet, sagging with
+rain. Then he crossed a swale of brown reeds and tussock set with little
+pools of water, opaque and grey in the rain.
+
+Where the outer moors narrowed he turned westward; then a strip of low,
+thorn-clad cliff confronted him, up which he toiled along a V-shaped cleft
+choked with ferns.
+
+The spectral forest of L�is lay just beyond, its wind-tortured branches
+tossing under a leaden sky.
+
+East and west lonely moors stretched away into the depths of the mist;
+southward spread the sea; to the north lay the wide woods of L�is, equally
+deserted now in this sad and empty land.
+
+He hobbled to the edge of the forest and stood knee deep in discoloured
+ferns, listening. The sombre beech-woods spread thick on either hand, a
+wilderness of crossed limbs and meshed branches to which still clung great
+clots of dull brown leaves.
+
+He listened, peering into sinister, grey depths. In the uncertain light
+nothing stirred except the clashing branches overhead; there was no sound
+except the wind's flowing roar and the ghostly noise of his own voice,
+hallooing through the solitude--a voice in the misty void that seemed to
+carry less sound than the straining cry of a sleeper in his dreams.
+
+If the a�roplane had landed, there was no sign here. How far had it
+struggled on, sheering the tree-tops, before it fell?--if indeed it had
+fallen somewhere in the wood's grey depths?
+
+As long as he had sufficient strength he prowled along the forest,
+entering it here and there, calling, listening, searching the foggy
+corridors of trees. The rotting brake crackled underfoot; the tree tops
+clashed and creaked above him.
+
+At last, having only enough strength left to take him home, he turned
+away, limping through the blotched and broken ferns, his crippled leg
+hanging stiffly in its splints, his gun and the dead ducks bobbing on his
+back.
+
+The trodden way was soggy with little pools full of drenched grasses and
+dead leaves; but at length came rising ground, and the blue-green,
+glimmering wastes of gorse stretching away before him through the
+curtained fog.
+
+A sheep path ran through; and after a little while a few trees loomed
+shadowy in the mist, and a low stone house took shape, whitewashed,
+flanked by barn, pigpen, and a stack of rotting seaweed.
+
+A few wet hens wandered aimlessly by the doorstep; a tiny bed of white
+clove-pinks and tall white phlox exhaled a homely welcome as the lame man
+hobbled up the steps, pulled the leather latchstring, and entered.
+
+In the kitchen an old Breton woman, chopping herbs, looked up at him out
+of aged eyes, shaking her head under its white coiffe.
+
+"It is nearly noon," she said. "You have been out since dawn. Was it wise,
+for a convalescent, Monsieur Jacques?"
+
+"Very wise, Marie-Josephine. Because the more exercise I take the sooner I
+shall be able to go back."
+
+"It is too soon to go out in such weather."
+
+"Ducks fly inland only in such weather," he retorted, smiling. "And we
+like roast widgeon, you and I, Marie-Josephine."
+
+And all the while her aged blue eyes were fixed on him, and over her
+withered cheeks the soft bloom came and faded--that pretty colour which
+Breton women usually retain until the end.
+
+"Thou knowest, Monsieur Jacques," she said, with a curiously quaint
+mingling of familiarity and respect, "that I do not counsel caution
+because I love thee and dread for thee again the trenches. But with thy
+leg hanging there like the broken wing of a _vanneau_----"
+
+He replied good humouredly:
+
+"Thou dost not know the Legion, Marie-Josephine. Every day in our trenches
+we break a comrade into pieces and glue him together again, just to make
+him tougher. Broken bones, once mended, are stronger than before."
+
+He was looking down at her where she sat by the hearth, slicing vegetables
+and herbs, but watching him all the while out of her lovely, faded eyes.
+
+"I understand, Monsieur Jacques, that you are like your father--God knows
+he was hardy and without fear--to the last"--she dropped her head--"Mary,
+glorious--intercede--" she muttered over her bowl of herbs.
+
+Wayland, resting on his crutches, unslung his ducks, laid them on the
+table, smoothed their beautiful heads and breasts, then slipped the
+soaking _bandouli�re_ of his gun from his shoulder and placed the dripping
+piece against the chimney corner.
+
+"After I have scrubbed myself," he said, "and have put on dry clothes, I
+shall come to luncheon; and I shall have something very strange to tell
+you, Marie-Josephine."
+
+He limped away into one of the two remaining rooms--the other was
+hers--and closed his door.
+
+Marie-Josephine continued to prepare the soup. There was an egg for him,
+too; and a slice of cold pork and a _brioche_ and a jug of cider.
+
+In his room Wayland was whistling "Tipperary."
+
+Now and again, pausing in her work, she turned her eyes to his closed
+door--wonderful eyes that became miracles of tenderness as she listened.
+
+He came out, presently, dressed in his odd, ill-fitting uniform of the
+Legion, tunic unbuttoned, collarless of shirt, his bright, thick hair, now
+of decent length, in boyish disorder.
+
+Delicious odours of soup and of Breton cider greeted him; he seated
+himself; Marie-Josephine waited on him, hovered over him, tucked a sack of
+feathers under his maimed leg, placed his crutches in the corner beside
+the gun.
+
+Still eating, leisurely, he began:
+
+"Marie-Josephine--a strange thing has happened on Quesnel Moors which
+troubles me.... Listen attentively. It was while waiting for ducks on the
+Eryx Rocks, that once I thought I heard through the roar of wind and sea
+the sound of a far cannonading. But I said to myself that it was only the
+imagination of a haunted mind; that in my ears still thundered the
+cannonade of Lens."
+
+"Was it nevertheless true?" She had turned around from the fire where her
+own soup simmered in the kettle. As she spoke again she rose and came to
+the table.
+
+He said: "It must have been cannon that I heard. Because, not long
+afterward, out of the fog came a great a�roplane rushing inland from the
+sea--flying swiftly above me--right over me!--and staggering like a
+wounded duck--it had one aileron broken--and sheered away into the fog,
+northward, Marie-Josephine."
+
+Her work-worn hands, tightly clenched, rested now on the table and she
+leaned there, looking down at him.
+
+"Was it an enemy--this airship, Jacques?"
+
+"In the mist flying and the ragged clouds I could not tell. It might have
+been English. It must have been, I think--coming as it came from the sea.
+But I am troubled, Marie-Josephine. Were the guns at sea an enemy's guns?
+Did the a�roplane come to earth in safety? Where? In the Forest of La�s? I
+found no trace of it."
+
+She said, tremulous perhaps from standing too long motionless and intent:
+
+"Is it possible that the Boches would come into these solitary moors,
+where there are no people any more, only the creatures of the La�s woods,
+and the curlew and the lapwings which pass at evening?"
+
+He ate thoughtfully and in silence for a while; then:
+
+"They go, usually--the Boches--where there is plunder--murder to be
+done.... Spying to be done.... God knows what purpose animates the
+Huns.... After all, Lorient is not so far away.... Yet it surely must have
+been an English a�roplane, beaten off by some enemy ship--a submarine
+perhaps. God send that the rocks of the Isle des Chouans take care of
+her--with their teeth!"
+
+He drank his cider--a sip or two only--then, setting aside the glass:
+
+"I went from the Rocks of Eryx to La�s Woods. I called as loudly as I
+could; the wind whirled my voice back into my throat.... I am not yet very
+strong....
+
+"Then I went into the wood as far as my strength permitted. I heard and
+saw nothing, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"Would they be dead?" she asked.
+
+"They were planing to earth. I don't know how much control they had,
+whether they could steer--choose a landing place. There are plenty of safe
+places on these moors."
+
+"If their airship is crippled, what can they do, these English flying men,
+out there on the moors in the rain and wind? When the coast guard passes
+we must tell him."
+
+"After lunch I shall go out again as far as my strength allows.... If the
+rain would cease and the mist lift, one might see something--be of some
+use, perhaps----"
+
+"Ought you to go, Monsieur Jacques?"
+
+"Could I fail to try to find them--Englishmen--and perhaps injured? Surely
+I should go, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"The coast guard----"
+
+"He passed the Eryx Rocks at daylight. He is at Sainte-Ylva now. Tonight,
+when I see his comrade's lantern, I shall stop him and report. But in the
+meanwhile I must go out and search."
+
+"Spare thyself--for the trenches, Jacques. Remain indoors today." She
+began to unpin the coiffe which she always wore ceremoniously at meals
+when he was present.
+
+He smiled: "Thou knowest I must go, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"And if thou come upon them in the forest and they are Huns?"
+
+He laughed: "They are English, I tell thee, Marie-Josephine!"
+
+She nodded; under her breath, staring at the rain-lashed window: "Like thy
+father, thou must go forth," she muttered; "go always where thy spirit
+calls. And once _he_ went. And came no more. And God help us all in
+Finist�re, where all are born to grief."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE AIRMAN
+
+
+She had seated herself on a stool by the hearth. Presently she spread her
+apron with trembling fingers, took the glazed bowl of soup upon her lap
+and began to eat, slowly, casting long, unquiet glances at him from time
+to time where he still at table leaned heavily, looking out into the rain.
+
+When he caught her eye he smiled, summoning her with a nod of his boyish
+head. She set aside her bowl obediently, and, rising, brought him his
+crutches. And at the same moment somebody knocked lightly on the outer
+door.
+
+Marie-Josephine had unpinned her coiffe. Now she pinned it on over her
+_bonnet_ before going to the door, glancing uneasily around at him while
+she tied her tresses and settled the delicate starched wings of her
+bonnet.
+
+"That's odd," he said, "that knocking," staring at the door. "Perhaps it
+is the lost Englishman."
+
+"God send them," she whispered, going to the door and opening it.
+
+It certainly seemed to be one of the lost Englishmen--a big,
+square-shouldered, blond young fellow, tall and powerful, in the leather
+dress of an a�ronaut. His glass mask was lifted like the visor of a
+tilting helmet, disclosing a red, weather-beaten face, wet with rain.
+Strength, youth, rugged health was their first impression of this
+leather-clad man from the clouds.
+
+He stepped inside the house immediately, halted when he caught sight of
+Wayland in his undress uniform, glanced involuntarily at his crutches and
+bandaged leg, cast a quick, penetrating glance right and left; then he
+spoke pleasantly in his hesitating, imperfect French--so oddly imperfect
+that Wayland could not understand him at all.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded in English.
+
+The airman seemed astonished for an instant, then a quick smile broke out
+on his ruddy features:
+
+"I say, this _is_ lucky! Fancy finding an Englishman here!--wherever this
+place may be." He laughed. "Of course I know I'm 'somewhere in France,' as
+the censor has it, but I'm hanged if I know where!"
+
+"Come in and shut the door," said Wayland, reassured. Marie-Josephine
+closed the door. The a�ronaut came forward, stood dripping a moment, then
+took the chair to which Wayland pointed, seating himself as though a
+trifle tired.
+
+"Shot down," he explained, gaily. "An enemy submarine winged us out yonder
+somewhere. I tramped over these bally moors for hours before I found a
+sign of any path. A sheepwalk brought me here."
+
+"You are lucky. There is only one house on these moors--this! Who are
+you?" asked Wayland.
+
+"West--flight-lieutenant, 10th division, Cinque-Ports patrolling
+squadron."
+
+"Good heavens, man! What are you doing in Finist�re?"
+
+"_What!_"
+
+"You are in Brittany, province of Finist�re. Didn't you know it?"
+
+The air-officer seemed astounded. Presently he said: "The dirty weather
+foxed us. Then that fellow out yonder winged us. I was glad enough to see
+a coast line."
+
+"Did you fall?"
+
+"No; we controlled our landing pretty well."
+
+"Where did you land?"
+
+There was a second's hesitation; the airman looked at Wayland, glanced at
+his crippled leg.
+
+"Out there near some woods," he said. "My pilot's there now trying to
+patch up.... You are not French, are you?"
+
+"American."
+
+"Oh! A--volunteer, I presume."
+
+"Foreign Legion--2d."
+
+"I see. Back from the trenches with a leg."
+
+"It's nearly well. I'll be back soon."
+
+"Can you walk?" asked the airman so abruptly that Wayland, looking at him,
+hesitated, he did not quite know why.
+
+"Not very far," he replied, cautiously. "I can get to the window with my
+crutches pretty well."
+
+And the next moment he felt ashamed of his caution when the airman laughed
+frankly.
+
+"I need a guide to some petrol," he said. "Evidently you can't go with
+me."
+
+"Haven't you enough petrol to take you to Lorient?"
+
+"How far is Lorient?"
+
+Wayland told him.
+
+"I don't know," said the flight-lieutenant; "I'll have to try to get
+somewhere. I suppose it is useless for me to ask," he added, "but have
+you, by any chance, a bit of canvas--an old sail or hammock?--I don't need
+much. That's what I came for--and some shellac and wire, and a screwdriver
+of sorts? We need patching as well as petrol; and we're a little short of
+supplies."
+
+Wayland's steady gaze never left him, but his smile was friendly.
+
+"We're in a tearing hurry, too," added the flight-lieutenant, looking out
+of the window.
+
+Wayland smiled. "Of course there's no petrol here. There's nothing here. I
+don't suppose you could have landed in a more deserted region if you had
+tried. There's a ch�teau in the La�s woods, but it's closed; owner and
+servants are at the war and the family in Paris."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody has cleared out; the war has
+stripped the country; and there never were any people on these moors,
+excepting shooting parties and, in the summer, a stray artist or two from
+Quimperl�."
+
+The lieutenant looked at him. "You say there is nobody here--between here
+and Lorient? No--troops?"
+
+"There's nothing to guard. The coast is one vast shoal. Ships pass hull
+down. Once a day a coast guard patrols along the cliffs----"
+
+"When?"
+
+"He has passed, unfortunately. Otherwise he might signal by relay to
+Lorient and have them send you out some petrol. By the way--are you
+hungry?"
+
+The flight-lieutenant showed all his firm, white teeth under a yellow
+mustache, which curled somewhat upward. He laughed in a carefree way, as
+though something had suddenly eased his mind of perplexity--perhaps the
+certainty that there was no possible chance for petrol. Certainty is said
+to be more endurable than suspense.
+
+"I'll stop for a bite--if you don't mind--while my pilot tinkers out
+yonder," he said. "We're not in such a bad way. It might easily have been
+worse. Do you think you could find us a bit of sail, or something, to use
+for patching?"
+
+Wayland indicated an old high-backed chair of oak, quaintly embellished
+with ancient leather in faded blue and gold. It had been a royal chair in
+its day, or the Fleur-de-Lys lied.
+
+The flight-lieutenant seated himself with a rather stiff bow.
+
+"If you need canvas"--Wayland hesitated--then, gravely: "There are, in my
+room, a number of artists' _toiles_--old chassis with the blank canvas
+still untouched."
+
+"Exactly what we need!" exclaimed the other. "What luck, now, to meet a
+painter in such a place as this!"
+
+"They belonged to my father," explained Wayland. "We--Marie-Josephine and
+I--have always kept my father's old canvases and colours--everything of
+his.... I'll be glad to give them to a British soldier.... They're about
+all I have that was his--except that oak chair you sit on."
+
+He rose on his crutches, spoke briefly in Breton to Marie-Josephine, then
+limped slowly away to his room.
+
+When he returned with half a dozen blank canvases the flight-lieutenant,
+at table, was eating pork and black bread and drinking Breton cider.
+
+Wayland seated himself, laid both crutches across his knees, picked up one
+of the chassis, and began to rip from it the dusty canvas. It was like
+tearing muscles from his own bones. But he smiled and chatted on,
+casually, with the air-officer, who ate as though half starved.
+
+"I suppose," said Wayland, "you'll start back across the Channel as soon
+as you secure petrol enough?"
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"You could go by way of Quimper or by Lorient. There's petrol to be had at
+both places for military purposes"--leisurely continuing to rip the big
+squares of canvas from the frames.
+
+The airman, still eating, watched him askance at intervals.
+
+"I've brought what's left of the shellac; it isn't much use, I fear. But
+here is his hammer and canvas stretcher, and the remainder of the nails he
+used for stretching his canvases," said Wayland, with an effort to speak
+carelessly.
+
+"Many thanks. You also are a painter, I take it."
+
+Wayland laid one hand on the sleeve of his uniform and laughed.
+
+"I _was_ a writer. But there are only soldiers in the world now."
+
+"Quite so ... This is an odd place for an American to live in."
+
+"My father bought it years ago. He was a painter of peasant life." He
+added, lowering his voice, although Marie-Josephine understood no English:
+"This old peasant woman was his model many years ago. She also kept house
+for him. He lived here; I was born here."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, but my father desired that I grow up a good Yankee. I was at school
+in America when he--died."
+
+The airman continued to eat very busily.
+
+"He died--out there"--Wayland looked through the window, musingly. "There
+was an Iceland schooner wrecked off the Isle des Chouans. And no
+life-saving crew short of Ylva Light. So my father went out in his little
+American catboat, all alone.... Marie-Josephine saw his sail off Eryx
+Rocks ... for a few moments ... and saw it no more."
+
+The airman, still devouring his bread and meat, nodded in silence.
+
+"That is how it happened," said Wayland. "The French authorities notified
+me. There was a little money and this hut, and--Marie-Josephine. So I came
+here; and I write children's stories--that sort of thing.... It goes well
+enough. I sell a few to American publishers. Otherwise I shoot and fish
+and read ... when war does not preoccupy me...."
+
+He smiled, experiencing the vague relief of talking to somebody in his
+native tongue. Quesnel Moors were sometimes very lonely.
+
+"It's been a long convalescence," he continued, smilingly. "One of their
+'coal-boxes' did this"--touching his leg. "When I was able to move I went
+to America. But the sea off the Eryx called me back; and the authorities
+permitted me to come down here. I'm getting well very fast now."
+
+He had stripped every chassis of its canvas, and had made a roll of the
+material.
+
+"I'm very glad to be of any use to you," he said pleasantly, laying the
+roll on the table.
+
+Marie-Josephine, on her low chair by the hearth, sat listening to every
+word as though she had understood. The expression in her faded eyes varied
+constantly; solicitude, perplexity, vague uneasiness, a recurrent glimmer
+of suspicion were succeeded always by wistful tenderness when her gaze
+returned to Wayland and rested on his youthful face and figure with a
+pride forever new.
+
+Once she spoke in mixed French and Breton:
+
+"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques, _mon ch�ri_?"
+
+"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do you?"
+
+"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"
+
+"He has the tricks of speech. Also his accent is of an English university.
+There is no mistaking it."
+
+"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed in the universities of England?"
+
+"Yes.... But----"
+
+"_Gar � nous, mon p'tit_, Jacques. In Finist�re a stranger is a suspect.
+Since earliest times they have done us harm in Finist�re. The
+strangers--God knows what centuries of evil they have wrought."
+
+"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned again to the airman, who had
+now satisfied his hunger and had already risen to gather up the roll of
+canvas, the hammer, nails, and shellac.
+
+"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially. "I'll take these articles,
+if I may. It's very good of you ... I'm in a tearing hurry----"
+
+"Won't your pilot come over and eat a bit?"
+
+"I'll take him this bread and meat, if I may. Many thanks." He held out
+his heavily gloved hand with a friendly smile, nodded to Marie-Josephine.
+And as he hurriedly turned to go, the ancient carving on the high-backed
+chair caught him between the buttons of his leather coat, tearing it wide
+open over the breast. And Wayland saw the ribbon of the Iron Cross there
+fastened to a sea-grey tunic.
+
+There was a second's frightful silence.
+
+"What's that you wear?" said Wayland hoarsely. "Stop! Stand where you----"
+
+"Halt! Don't touch that shotgun!" cried the airman sharply. But Wayland
+already had it in his hands, and the airman fired twice at him where he
+stood--steadied the automatic to shoot again, but held his fire, seeing it
+would not be necessary. Besides, he did not care to shoot the old woman
+unless military precaution made it advisable; and she was on her knees,
+her withered arms upflung, shielding the prostrate body with her own.
+
+"You Yankee fool," he snapped out harshly--"it is your own fault, not
+mine!... Like the rest of your imbecile nation you poke your nose where it
+has no business! And I--" He ceased speaking, realizing that his words
+remained unheard.
+
+After a moment he backed toward the door, carrying the canvas roll under
+his left arm and keeping his eye carefully on the prostrate man. Also, one
+can never trust the French!--he was quite ready for that old woman there
+on the floor who was holding the dead boy's head to her breast, muttering:
+"My darling! My child!--Oh, little son of Marie-Josephine!--I told thee--I
+warned thee of the stranger in Finist�re!... Marie--holy--intercede!...
+All--all are born to grief in Finist�re!..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EN OBSERVATION
+
+
+The incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from
+Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had
+notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was
+very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.
+
+Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately
+playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle
+and Isole, had seen a werewolf in La�s Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two
+legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two
+enormous eyes.
+
+The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes
+Lighthouse; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of
+Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to
+keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.
+
+That an enemy airman had done murder in Finist�re was now certain; but
+that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very
+improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel,
+at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.
+
+That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des
+Chouettes and Finist�re, and landing men, seemed to be practically an
+impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.
+
+But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been
+established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and
+rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck,
+and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild
+boar roamed and rooted unmolested?
+
+And where in Finist�re was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for
+the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the
+enemy's flag had vanished from the seas?
+
+Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went
+out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British
+expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of
+troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French
+and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines
+put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for
+any possible a�rial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the
+coasts.
+
+Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various
+rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.
+
+And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion,
+Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the
+Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to verify or
+discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.
+
+The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy
+and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers
+and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges
+loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of
+Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.
+
+Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate
+this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become
+temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an
+American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow
+Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental
+Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a
+very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a
+promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman,
+however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.
+
+He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finist�re pretty
+well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and
+because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be
+reasonable as well as original.
+
+It had been a stiff walk across country--fifteen miles, as against thirty
+odd around by road--but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the
+affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield,
+crossing the marshes, skirting _�tangs_, a solitary figure in the waste,
+easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+L'OMBRE
+
+
+Aulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October
+leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered,
+unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns,
+startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound
+except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of
+brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or
+one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly
+along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and
+cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.
+
+It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were
+long past timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen
+branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was
+littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which
+broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the
+acrid odour of decay.
+
+Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but
+he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a
+high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.
+
+It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens
+stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing
+underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.
+
+Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint
+sounds--perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken,
+or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of
+some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily
+conceding him right of way.
+
+After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of
+stone stood, and where there should have been gates.
+
+But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.
+
+He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had
+softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become
+indistinguishable.
+
+Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded
+panes were broken; nobody came to the closed and discoloured door of
+massive oak.
+
+The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away
+between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three
+deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.
+
+Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal
+burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in
+his autumn migration.
+
+The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the
+house--a low, weather-ravaged structure in the grassy glade, ringed by a
+square, wet moat.
+
+There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed
+the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and
+continued on into the forest.
+
+An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned
+and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.
+
+A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching
+his approach.
+
+As he crossed the bridge he took off his cap.
+
+"Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired. "Would you be kind enough
+to say to her that I arrive from Lorient at her request?"
+
+"I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said in flawless English.
+
+He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force."
+
+"May I see your credentials, Captain Neeland?" She had descended the
+single step of crumbling stone.
+
+"Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerning _your_ identity?"
+
+There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown.
+Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made
+her skin seem so white.
+
+"What proof of my identity do you expect?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Only one word, Madame."
+
+She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle toward him. "L'Ombre," she
+whispered.
+
+From his pocket he drew his credentials and offered them. Among them was
+her own letter to the authorities at Lorient.
+
+After she had examined them she handed them back to him.
+
+"Will you come in, Captain Neeland--or, perhaps we had better seat
+ourselves on the bridge--in order to lose no time--because I wish you to
+see for yourself----"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment came into her cheeks:
+"It may seem absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times--what I am going
+to say to you--concerning L'Ombre----"
+
+She had turned; he followed; and at her grave gesture of invitation, he
+seated himself beside her on the coping of mossy stone which ran like a
+bench under the parapet of the little bridge.
+
+"Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did
+not suppose myself to be superstitious.... I really am not--unless--except
+for this one matter of L'Ombre.... My English governess drove superstition
+out of my head.... Still, living in Finist�re--here in this house"--she
+flushed again--"I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but
+I am sure you are too courteous--... It required some courage for me to
+write to Lorient. But, if it might possibly help my country--to risk
+ridicule--of course I do not hesitate."
+
+She looked uncertainly at the young man's pleasant, serious face, and, as
+though reassured:
+
+"I shall have to tell you a little about myself first--so that you may
+understand better."
+
+"Please," he said gravely.
+
+"Then--my father and my only brother died a year ago, in battle.... It
+happened in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had maintained only two men
+servants here. They went with their classes. One old woman remains." She
+looked up with a forced smile. "I need not explain to you that our
+circumstances are much straitened. You have only to look about you to see
+that ... our poverty is not recent; it always has been so within my
+memory--only growing a little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes
+began during the Vend�e.... But that is of no interest ... except
+that--through coincidence, of course--every time a new misfortune comes
+upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still
+mystified, but interested.
+
+"Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked.
+
+"I thought it resembled a fish----"
+
+"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the shadow'."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you know, also, that there is a fish called 'L'Ombre'?"
+
+"No; I did not know that."
+
+"There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L'Ombre does not belong
+here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high altitudes where waters are
+icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord
+me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning
+my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything
+... _everything_...."
+
+"I am interested," he assured her pleasantly.
+
+"Then--it is a legend--perhaps a superstition in our family--that any
+misfortune to us--_and to France_--is always preceded by two invariable
+omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in
+the waters of our moat--" She turned her head slowly and looked down over
+the parapet of the bridge.--"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is
+that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong--all striking the same
+hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really
+is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I,
+myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vend�e the clocks
+persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted
+the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at
+that hour.... L'Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o'clock
+one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong.
+
+"And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L'Ombre appeared in the
+moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week,
+until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the
+light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain
+Neeland----"
+
+"I am intensely interested," he repeated, watching the lovely, sensitive
+face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed
+again.
+
+"It is only to explain--perhaps to justify myself for writing--for asking
+that an officer be sent here from Lorient for a few days----"
+
+"I understand, Countess."
+
+"Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself--for my own fears--my
+personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be
+coincident with my country's mishaps.... So I thought--if they sent an
+officer who would be kind enough to understand----"
+
+"I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?"
+
+"Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o'clock in the afternoon."
+
+"And--the clocks?"
+
+"For a week they have been all wrong."
+
+"What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously.
+
+"Five."
+
+"No matter where the hands point?"
+
+"No matter. I have tried to regulate them. I have done everything I could
+do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I
+have"--a pale smile touched her lips--"I have been a little
+wakeful--perhaps a trifle uneasy--on my country's account. You
+understand...." Pride and courage had permitted her no more than
+uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely
+bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to
+understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the
+race whose name she bore.
+
+The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his
+respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly
+believed what she told him.
+
+But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was
+another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena
+other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in
+medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on
+earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it. And
+this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however
+accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to
+comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood
+of every Breton ever born.
+
+But he merely said with pleasant deference: "I can very easily understand
+your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of
+great nervous tension in France--of heart-racking suspense----"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe me, Monsieur."
+
+"I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a
+natural explanation concerning these matters."
+
+"I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no
+explanation."
+
+"Of course there must be one," he insisted carelessly. "Is there anything
+in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?"
+
+"There are five clocks in the house. Why should they all go wrong at the
+same time and in the same manner?"
+
+He smiled. "I don't know," he said frankly. "I'll investigate, if you will
+permit me."
+
+"Of course.... And, about L'Ombre. What could explain its presence in the
+moat? It is a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited in its
+range. My father has often said that, except L'Ombre which has appeared at
+long intervals in our moat, L'Ombre never has been seen in Brittany."
+
+"From where does this clear water come which fills the moat?" he asked,
+smiling.
+
+"From living springs in the bottom."
+
+"No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long subterranean vein of water
+connects these springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere--in the
+Pyrenees, perhaps--" He hesitated, for the explanation seemed as
+far-fetched as the water.
+
+Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained politely silent.
+
+Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five times. They both sat listening
+intently. From the depths of the ancient mansion, the other clocks
+repeated the strokes, first one, then another, then two sounding their
+clear little bells almost in unison. All struck five. He drew out his
+watch and looked at it. The hour was three in the afternoon.
+
+After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid, relaxed. He muttered
+something about making an examination of the clocks, adding that to adjust
+and regulate them would be a simple matter.
+
+She sat very still beside him on the stone coping--her dark eyes wandered
+toward the forest--wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied--the visionary
+eyes of a Bretonne, full of the mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.
+
+Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence of her thoughts:
+"Madame," he said, "have you heard any rumours concerning enemy
+airships--or, undersea boats?"
+
+The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him: "No, but something has been
+happening in the Aulnes �tang."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't know. But every day the wild ducks rise from it in fright--clouds
+of them--and the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with their clamour."
+
+"A poacher?"
+
+"I know of none remaining here in Finist�re."
+
+"Have you seen anything in the sky? An eagle?"
+
+"Only the wild fowl whirling above the _�tang_."
+
+"You have heard nothing--from the clouds?"
+
+"Only the _vanneaux_ complaining and the wild curlew answering."
+
+"Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely troubled.
+
+She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of
+the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.
+
+For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between
+surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging
+there, colourless, translucent--a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid
+element through which it loomed.
+
+L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the
+stream reflected the fa�ade of that ancient house.
+
+Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming,
+and, seeing them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.
+
+An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with
+the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped--but not yet quite realizing
+it.
+
+In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky
+overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in
+the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant
+tree, a subtle and suspended threat.
+
+He said tritely and with an effort: "For everything there are natural
+causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence....
+Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?"
+
+"Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer
+be sent here? Tell me truthfully, are _you_ annoyed?"
+
+"No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense
+of depression which was creeping over him.
+
+He looked down again at the grey wraith in the water, then, as they turned
+and walked slowly back across the bridge together, he said, suddenly:
+
+"_Something_ is wrong somewhere in Finist�re. That is evident to me. There
+have been too many rumours from too many sources. By sea and land they
+come--rumours of things half seen, half heard--glimpses of enemy aircraft,
+sea-craft. Yet their presence would appear to be an impossibility in the
+light of the military intelligence which we possess.
+
+"But we have investigated every rumour; although I, personally, know of no
+report which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these rumours persist; they
+come thicker and faster day by day. But this--" He hesitated, then
+smiled--"this seems rather different----"
+
+"I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule----"
+
+"Countess----"
+
+"You are too considerate to say so.... And perhaps I have become
+nervous--imagining things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it is the
+sadness of the past year--the strangeness of it, and----"
+
+She sighed unconsciously.
+
+"It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she said.
+
+"Indeed it must be very lonely here," he returned in a low voice.
+
+"Yes.... Aulnes Wood is--too remote for them to send our wounded here for
+their convalescence. I offered Aulnes. Then I offered myself, saying that
+I was ready to go anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there are
+already too many volunteers. They take only the trained in hospitals. I am
+untrained, and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody wanted me."
+
+She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest.
+
+"So there is nothing for me to do," she said, "except to remain here and
+sew for the hospitals." ... She looked out thoughtfully across the
+fern-grown _carrefour_: "Therefore I sew all day by the latticed window
+there--all day long, day after day--and when one is young and when there
+is nobody--nothing to look at except the curlew flying--nothing to hear
+except the _vanneaux_, and the clocks striking the hour----"
+
+Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted her proud little head and
+smiled, and her tone grew firm again:
+
+"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming a trifle morbid. It is entirely
+physical; my heart is quite undaunted."
+
+"You heart, Madame, is but a part of the great, undaunted heart of
+France."
+
+"Yes ... therefore there could be no fear--no doubt of God.... Affairs go
+well with France, Monsieur?--may I ask without military impropriety?"
+
+"France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame. And her destiny is victory
+and light."
+
+"Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing for so long.... Thank you,
+Monsieur."
+
+He said quietly: "The Light shall break. We must not doubt it, we English.
+Nor can you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and hellish Darkness which
+has been let loose upon the world to assail it. You shall live to see
+light, Madame--and I also shall see it--perhaps----"
+
+She looked up at the young man, met his eyes, and looked elsewhere,
+gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.
+
+On the doorstep of the house they paused. "Is it possible," she asked,
+"that an enemy a�roplane could land in the Aulnes �tang?--L'�tang aux
+Vanneaux?"
+
+"In the �tang?" he repeated, a little startled. "How large is it, this
+�tang aux Vanneaux?"
+
+"It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile
+across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds--like a
+man without a face--and only two great eyes--" She forced a pale smile.
+"Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen
+dress that way.... I wondered----"
+
+He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache.
+
+"One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed
+invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions--a
+new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer.
+
+"It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usual
+_Albatross_ type, with a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for
+lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment,
+munitions, and a very large crew.
+
+"And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as
+noiseless as a high-class automobile."
+
+"Has such an one been seen in Brittany?"
+
+"Such a machine has been reported--many, many times--as though not one but
+hundreds were in Finist�re. And, what is very disquieting to us--a report
+has arrived from a distant and totally independent source--from
+Sweden--that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in
+Germany by the hundreds."
+
+After a moment's silence she stepped into the house; he followed.
+
+The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age
+had more than softened and co�rdinated the ancient furnishings, it had
+rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and
+monotonous.
+
+Her chair and workbasket stood by a latticed window; she seated herself
+and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace
+fussing over a little mantel clock--a gilt and ebony affair of the
+consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself
+and containing the works, bell and dial.
+
+When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck
+five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at
+intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his
+attempts with a shrug of annoyance.
+
+"_I_ can't do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across
+the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?"
+
+She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a
+modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he
+gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently
+struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a
+perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him through the
+house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.
+
+When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering
+their striking mechanism--that every clock in the house persisted in
+striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden,
+odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and
+stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.
+
+As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught
+glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors,
+through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts;
+of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted
+the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.
+
+And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable
+things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had
+turned to mould--where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where
+only the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was
+slowly yielding--under the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries, moth
+and dust and rust.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE GHOULS
+
+
+They dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne
+served them--old Anne of F�ouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette,
+her velvet bodice and her _chaussons_ broidered with the rose.
+
+Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver--garrulous,
+deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that
+second infancy which comes before the night.
+
+"_Ouidame!_ It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty
+gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin
+and end in the Woods of Aulnes--alas!--in the Woods and the House of
+Aulnes----"
+
+"The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.
+
+"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young,
+Monsieur--and the world was young, too, _mon Capitaine--h�las!_--but the
+Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is
+older, _beau jeune homme_--only the sea is older--the sea which always was
+and will be."
+
+"Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "--to
+France!--I have the honour--" She touched her glass to his and they
+saluted France with the ancient wine of France--a sip, a faint smile, and
+silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment.
+
+"This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking.
+But--but there will be sun enough another year."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"_B'en oui!_ The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the
+Woods of Aulnes. _Non pas._ There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes
+where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with Our Lady
+of Aulnes in shining vestments all----"
+
+"She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear.
+
+"In shining robes of grace--_oui-da_!--the martyrs and the acolytes of
+God. It is I who tell you, _beau jeune homme_--I, Anne of F�ouette. I saw
+them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the
+brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed
+Lady----"
+
+"She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the ch�telaine of
+Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.
+
+Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit
+returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes--some graceful shade come back out
+of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles--the
+exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vend�e drowned and
+washed it out in blood.
+
+"I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident,
+in months."
+
+Old Anne of F�ouette laid them fresh napkins and set two crystal bowls
+beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat.
+
+"_Ho fois!_" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods
+of Aulnes; they never change--they never change.... The golden people of
+Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."
+
+The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the
+trees."
+
+"_Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine!_
+And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant
+gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth,
+no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair--the Loup-Garou!--O Lady of Aulnes,
+adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"
+
+The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content,
+so full of faith in months----"
+
+A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the
+forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling,
+swinging wide, drifting against the dying light of day, southward toward
+the sea.
+
+"There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.
+
+Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild
+fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds.
+
+"Is there a path to the �tang?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Yes. I will go with you----"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"No. Show me the path."
+
+His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house
+beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the
+house, L'Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not
+speak of it to each other. At the forest's edge he halted: "Is this the
+path?"
+
+"Yes.... May I not go?"
+
+"No--please."
+
+"Is there danger?"
+
+"No.... I don't know if there is any danger."
+
+"Will you be cautious, then?"
+
+He turned and looked at her in the dim light. Standing so for a little
+while they remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet breath. She held
+out one hand, slowly; half way he bent and touched her fingers with his
+lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly at her side.
+
+After he had been gone a long while, she turned away, moving with head
+lowered. At the bridge she waited for him.
+
+A red moon rose low in the east. It became golden above the trees, paler
+higher, and deathly white in mid-heaven.
+
+It was long after midnight when she went into the house to light fresh
+candles. In the intense darkness before dawn she lighted two more and set
+them in an upper window on the chance that they might guide him back.
+
+At five in the morning every clock struck five.
+
+She was not asleep; she was lying on a lounge beside the burning candles,
+listening, when the door below burst open and there came the trampling
+rush of feet, the sound of blows, a fall----
+
+A loud voice cried:--"Because you are armed and not in uniform!--you
+British swine!"--
+
+And the pistol shots crashed through the house.
+
+On the stairs she swayed for an instant, grasped blindly at the rail.
+Through the floating smoke below the dead man lay there by the latticed
+window--where they had sat together--he and she----
+
+Spectres were flitting to and fro--grey shapes without faces--things with
+eyes. A loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely upon her shrinking
+brain:
+
+"You there on the stairs!--do you hear? What are those candles? Signals?"
+
+She looked down at the dead man.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+Through the crackling racket of the fusillade, down, down into roaring
+darkness she fell.
+
+After a few moments her slim hand moved, closed over the dead man's. And
+moved no more.
+
+In the moat L'Ombre still remained, unstirring; old Anne lay in the
+kitchen dying; and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with ghastly shapes
+which had no faces, only eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SEED OF DEATH
+
+
+It was Dr. Vail whose identification secured burial for Neeland, not in
+the American cemetery, but in Aulnes Wood.
+
+When the raid into Finist�re ended, and the unclean birds took flight,
+Vail, at Quimper, ordered north with his unit, heard of the tragedy, and
+went to Aulnes. And so Neeland was properly buried beside the youthful
+ch�telaine. Which was, no doubt, what his severed soul desired. And
+perhaps hers desired it, too.
+
+Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders, got gassed, and came back to New
+York.
+
+He had aged ten years in as many months.
+
+Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing from time to time at Vail's
+pallid face, and the latter understood the professional interest of the
+younger man.
+
+"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally.
+
+"You don't look very fit, Doctor."
+
+"No.... I'm _going West_."
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why do you think that you are--_going West_?"
+
+"There's a thing over there, born of gas. It's a living thing, animal or
+vegetable. I don't know which. It's only recently been recognized. We call
+it the 'Seed of Death.'"
+
+Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older man in silence.
+
+Vail went on, slowly: "It's properly named. It is always fatal. A man may
+live for a few months. But, once gassed, even in the slightest degree, if
+that germ is inhaled, death is certain."
+
+After a silence Gray began: "Do you have any apprehension--" And did not
+finish the sentence.
+
+Vail shrugged. "It's interesting, isn't it?" he said with pleasant
+impersonality.
+
+After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing anything about it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It's working in the dark, of course. I'm feeling rottener every
+day."
+
+He rested his handsome head on one thin hand:
+
+"I don't want to die, Gray, but I don't know how to keep alive. It's odd,
+isn't it? I don't wish to die. It's an interesting world. I want to see
+how the local elections turn out in New York."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Certainly. That is what worries me more than anything. We Allies are sure
+to win. I'm not worrying about that. But I'd like to live to see Tammany a
+dead cock in the pit!"
+
+Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly, and then, solemn again,
+said:
+
+"I'd like to live to see this country aspire to something really noble."
+
+"After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing to stifle aspiration."
+
+It was not only because Vail had been gazing upon death in every phase,
+every degree--on brutal destruction wholesale and in detail; but also he
+had been standing on the outer escarpment of Civilization and had watched
+the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering, undermining,
+gradually engulfing the world itself and all its ancient liberties.
+
+He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to sail to France next day were
+alone together on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the infernal heat
+of a summer day in town.
+
+On the avenue below motor cars moved north and south, hansoms crept slowly
+along the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people passed listlessly under
+the electric lights--the nine--and--seventy sweating tribes.
+
+For, on such summer nights, under the red moon, an exodus from the East
+Side peoples the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle along the
+gilded grilles and still fa�ades of stone, up and down, to and fro, in
+quest of God knows what--of air perhaps, perhaps of happiness, or of
+something even vaguer. But whatever it may be that starts them into
+painful motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration is a part of their
+unrest.
+
+"There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail--"also her inevitable shadow,
+tyranny."
+
+"We need more light; that's all," said Gray.
+
+"When light streams in from every angle no shadow is possible."
+
+"The millennium? I get you.... In this country the main thing is that
+there is _some_ light. A single ray, however feeble, and even coming from
+one fixed angle only, means aspiration, life...."
+
+He lighted a cigar.
+
+"As you know," he remarked, "there is a flower called _Aconitum_. It is
+also known by the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower. Direct
+sunlight kills it. It flourishes only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower it
+also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly poison.... As you say, the
+necessary thing in this world is light from every angle."
+
+His cigar glimmered dully through the silence. Presently he went on;
+"Speaking of tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized and
+tolerated business carried on successfully by those born with a genius for
+it. It flourishes in the shade--like the Helmet-Flower.... But the sun in
+this Western Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually killing
+off our local tyrants--slowly, almost imperceptibly but inexorably,
+killing 'em off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive--tyrants of
+every degree born to the business of tyranny and making a success at it."
+
+He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:
+
+"There are our tyrants of industry," he said; "tyrants of politics,
+tyrants of religion--great and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants,
+all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling under this fierce western
+sun of ours----"
+
+He laughed without mirth, turning his worn and saddened eyes on Gray:
+
+"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also it is a state of mind--a
+delusion, a ruling passion--strong even in death.... The odd part of it is
+that a tyrant never knows he's one.... He invariably mistakes himself for
+a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story if you care to listen....
+Or, we can go to some cheerful show or roof-garden----"
+
+"Go on with your story," said Gray.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+FIFTY-FIFTY
+
+
+Vail began:
+
+Tyranny was purely a matter of business with this little moral shrimp
+about whom I'm going to tell you. I was standing between a communication
+trench and a crater left by a mine which was being "consolidated," as they
+have it in these days.... All around me soldiers of the third line swarmed
+and clambered over the d�bris, digging, hammering, shifting planks and
+sandbags from south to north, lugging new timbers, reels of barbed wire,
+ladders, cases of ammunition, machine guns, trench mortars.
+
+The din of the guns was terrific; overhead our own shells passed with a
+deafening, clattering roar; the Huns continued to shell the town in front
+of us where our first and second lines were still fighting in the streets
+and houses while the third line were reconstructing a few yards of
+trenches and a few craters won.
+
+Stretchers and bearers from my section had not yet returned from the
+emergency dressing station; the crater was now cleared up except of enemy
+dead, whose partly buried arms and legs still stuck out here and there. A
+company of the Third Foreign Legion had just come into the crater and had
+taken station at the loopholes under the parapet of sandbags.
+
+As soon as the telephone wires were stretched as far as our crater a
+message came for me to remain where I was until further orders. I had just
+received this message and was walking along, slowly, behind the rank of
+soldiers, who stood leaning against the parapet with their rifles thrust
+through the loops, when somebody said in English--in East Side New York
+English I mean--"Ah, there, Doc!"
+
+A soldier had turned toward me, both hands still grasping his resting
+rifle. In the "horizon blue" uniform and ugly, iron, shrapnel-proof helmet
+strapped to his bullet head I failed to recognize him.
+
+"It's me, 'Duck' Werner," he said, as I stood hesitating.... You know who
+he is, political leader in the 50th Ward, here. I was astounded.
+
+"What do you know about it?" he added. "Me in a tin derby potting
+Fritzies! And there's Heinie, too, and Pick-em-up Joe--the whole bunch
+sewed up in this here trench, oh my God!"
+
+I went over to him and stood leaning against the parapet beside him.
+
+"Duck," I said, amazed, "how did _you_ come to enlist in the Foreign
+Legion?"
+
+"Aw," he replied with infinite disgust, "I got drunk."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Me and Heinie and Joe was follerin' the races down to Boolong when this
+here war come and put everything on the blink. Aw, hell, sez I, come on
+back to Parus an' look 'em over before we skiddoo home--meanin' the dames
+an' all like that. Say, we done what I said; we come back to Parus, an' we
+got in wrong! Listen, Doc; them dames had went crazy over this here war
+graft. Veeve France, sez they. An' by God! we veeved.
+
+"An' one of 'em at Maxeems got me soused, and others they fixed up Heinie
+an' Joe, an' we was all wavin' little American flags and yellin' 'To hell
+with the Hun!' Then there was a interval for which I can't account to
+nobody.
+
+"All I seem to remember is my marchin' in the boolyvard along with a guy
+in baggy red pants, and my chewin' the rag in a big, hot room full o'
+soldiers; an' Heinie an' Joe they was shoutin', 'Wow! Lemme at 'em. Veeve
+la France!' Wha' d'ye know about me? Ain't I the mark from home?"
+
+"You didn't realize that you were enlisting?"
+
+"Aw, does it make any difference to these here guys what you reelize, or
+what you don't? I ask you, Doc?"
+
+He spat disgustedly upon the sand, rolled his quid into the other cheek,
+wiped his thin lips with the back of his right hand, then his fingers
+mechanically sought the trigger guard again and he cast a perfunctory
+squint up at the parapet.
+
+"Believe me," he said, "a guy can veeve himself into any kind of trouble
+if he yells loud enough. I'm getting mine."
+
+"Well, Duck," I said, "it's a good game----"
+
+"Aw," he retorted angrily, "it ain't my graft an' you know it. What do I
+care who veeves over here?--An' the 50th Ward goin' to hell an' all!"
+
+I strove to readjust my mind to understand what he had said. I was, you
+know, that year, the Citizen's Anti-Graft leader in the 50th Ward.... I
+am, still, if I live; and if I ever can get anything into my head except
+the stupendous din of this war and the cataclysmic problems depending upon
+its outcome.... Well, it was odd to remember that petty political conflict
+as I stood there in the trenches under the gigantic shadow of world-wide
+disaster--to find myself there, talking with this sallow, wiry, shifty
+ward leader--this corrupt little local tyrant whom I had opposed in the
+50th Ward--this ex-lightweight bruiser, ex-gunman--this dirty little
+political procurer who had been and was everything brutal, stealthy, and
+corrupt.
+
+I looked at him curiously; turned and glanced along the line where,
+presently, I recognized his two familiars, Heinie Baum and Pick-em-up Joe
+Brady with whom he had started off to "Parus" on a month's summer junket,
+and with whom he had stumbled so ludicrously into the riff-raff ranks of
+the 3rd Foreign Legion. Doubtless the 1st and 2nd Legions couldn't stand
+him and his two friends, although in one company there were many Americans
+serving.
+
+Thinking of these things, the thunder of the cannonade shaking sand from
+the parapet, I became conscious that the rat eyes of Duck Werner were
+furtively watching me.
+
+"You can do me dirt, now, can't you, Doc?" he said with a leer.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Aw, as if I had to tell you. I got some sense left."
+
+Suddenly his sallow visage under the iron helmet became distorted with
+helpless fury; he fairly snarled; his thin lips writhed as he spat out the
+suspicion which had seized him:
+
+"By God, Doc, if you do that!--if you leave me here caged up an' go home
+an' raise hell in the 50th--with me an' Joe here----"
+
+After a breathless pause: "Well," said I, "what will you do about
+it?"--for he was looking murder at me.
+
+Neither of us spoke again for a few moments; an officer, smoking a
+cigarette, came up between Heinie and Pick-em-up Joe, adjusted a periscope
+and set his eye to it. Through the sky above us the shells raced as though
+hundreds of shaky express trains were rushing overhead on rickety a�rial
+tracks, deafening the world with their outrageous clatter.
+
+"Listen, Doc----"
+
+I looked up into his altered face--a sallow, earnest face, fiercely
+intent. Every atom of the man's intelligence was alert, concentrated on
+me, on my expression, on my slightest movement.
+
+"Doc," he said, "let's talk business. We're men, we are, you an' me. I've
+fought you plenty times. I _know_. An' I guess you are on to me, too. I
+ain't no squealer; you know that anyway. Perhaps I'm everything else you
+claim I am when you make parlor speeches to Gussie an' Reggie an' when you
+stand on a bar'l in Avenoo A an' say: 'my friends' to Billy an' Izzy an'
+Pete the Wop.
+
+"All right. Go to it! I'm it. I got mine. That's what I'm there for.
+But--when I get mine, the guys that back me get theirs, too. My God, Doc,
+let's talk business! What's a little graft between friends?"
+
+"Duck," I said, "you own the 50th Ward. You are no fool. Why is it not
+possible for you to understand that some men don't graft?"
+
+"Aw, can it!" he retorted fiercely. "What else is there to chase except
+graft? What else is there, I ask you? Graft! Ain't there graft into
+everything God ever made? An' don't the smart guy get it an' take his an'
+divide the rest same as you an' me?"
+
+"You can't comprehend that I don't graft, can you, Duck?"
+
+"What do you call it what you get, then? The wages of Reeform? And what do
+you hand out to your lootenants an' your friends?"
+
+"Service."
+
+"Hey? Well, all right. But what's in it for you? Where do you get yours,
+Doc?"
+
+"There's nothing in it for me except to give honest service to the people
+who trust me."
+
+"Listen," he persisted with a sort of ferocious patience; "you ain't on no
+bar'l now; an' you ain't calling no Ginneys and no Kikes your friends.
+You're just talkin' to me like there wasn't nobody else onto this damn
+planet excep' us two guys. Get that?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And I'm tellin' you that I get mine same as any one who ain't a loonatic.
+Get that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"All right. Now I know you ain't no nut. Which means that you get yours,
+whatever you call it. And _now_ will you talk business?"
+
+"What business do you want to talk, Duck?" I added; "I should say that you
+already have your hands rather full of business and Lebel rifles----"
+
+"Aw' Gawd; _this_? This ain't business. I was a damn fool and I'm doin'
+time like any souse what the bulls pinch. Only I get more than thirty
+days, I do. That's what's killin' me, Doc!--Duck Werner in a tin lid,
+suckin' soup an' shootin' Fritzies when I oughter be in Noo York with me
+fren's lookin' after business. Can you beat it?" he ended fiercely.
+
+He chewed hard on his quid for a few moments, staring blankly into space
+with the detached ferocity of a caged tiger.
+
+"What are they a-doin' over there in the 50th?" he demanded. "How do I
+know whose knifin' me with the boys? I don't mean your party. You're here
+same as I am. I mean Mike the Kike, and the regular Reepublican
+nomination, I do.... And, how do I know when _you_ are going back?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+"_Are_ you?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Doc, will you talk business, man to man?"
+
+"Duck, to tell you the truth, the hell that is in full blast over
+here--this gigantic, world-wide battle of nations--leaves me, for the
+time, uninterested in ward politics."
+
+"Stop your kiddin'."
+
+"Can't you comprehend it?"
+
+"Aw, what do you care about what Kink wins? If we was Kinks, you an' me,
+all right. But we ain't Doc. We're little fellows. Our graft ain't big
+like the Dutch Emperor's, but maybe it comes just as regular on pay day.
+Ich ka bibble."
+
+"Duck," I said, "you explain your presence here by telling me that you
+enlisted while drunk. How do you explain my being here?"
+
+"You're a Doc. I guess there must be big money into it," he returned with
+a wink.
+
+"I draw no pay."
+
+"I believe you," he remarked, leering. "Say, don't you do that to me, Doc.
+I may be unfortunit; I'm a poor damn fool an' I know it. But don't tell me
+you're here for your health."
+
+"I won't repeat it, Duck," I said, smiling.
+
+"Much obliged. Now for God's sake let's talk business. You think you've
+got me cinched. You think you can go home an' raise hell in the 50th while
+I'm doin' time into these here trenches. You sez to yourself, 'O there
+ain't nothin' to it!' An' then you tickles yourself under the ribs, Doc.
+You better make a deal with me, do you hear? Gimme mine, and you can have
+yours, too; and between us, if we work together, we can hand one to Mike
+the Kike that'll start every ambulance in the city after him. Get me?"
+
+"There's no use discussing such things----"
+
+"All right. I won't ask you to make it fifty-fifty. Gimme half what I
+oughter have. You can fix it with Curley Tim Brady----"
+
+"Duck, this is no time----"
+
+"Hell! It's all the time I've got! What do you expec' out here, a caffy
+dansong? I don't see no corner gin-mills around neither. Listen, Doc, quit
+up-stagin'! You an' me kick the block off'n this here Kike-Wop if we get
+together. All I ask of you is to talk business----"
+
+I moved aside, and backward a little way, disgusted with the ratty soul of
+the man, and stood looking at the soldiers who were digging out bombproof
+burrows all along the trench and shoring up the holes with heavy, green
+planks.
+
+Everybody was methodically busy in one way or another behind the long rank
+of Legionaries who stood at the loops, the butts of the Lebel rifles
+against their shoulders.
+
+Some sawed planks to shore up dugouts; some were constructing short
+ladders out of the trunks of slender green saplings; some filled sacks
+with earth to fill the gaps on the parapet above; others sharpened pegs
+and drove them into the dirt fa�ade of the trench, one above the other, as
+footholds for the men when a charge was ordered.
+
+Behind me, above my head, wild flowers and long wild grasses drooped over
+the raw edge of the parados, and a few stalks of ripening wheat trailed
+there or stood out against the sky--an opaque, uncertain sky which had
+been so calmly blue, but which was now sickening with that whitish pallor
+which presages a storm.
+
+Once or twice there came the smashing tinkle of glass as a periscope was
+struck and a vexed officer, still holding it, passed it to a rifleman to
+be laid aside.
+
+Only one man was hit. He had been fitting a shutter to the tiny embrasure
+between sandbags where a machine gun was to be mounted; and the bullet
+came through and entered his head in the center of the triangle between
+nose and eyebrows.
+
+A little later when I was returning from that job, walking slowly along
+the trench, Pick-em-up Joe hailed me cheerfully, and I glanced up to where
+he and Heinie stood with their rifles thrust between the sandbags and
+their grimy fists clutching barrel and butt.
+
+"Hello, Heinie!" I said pleasantly. "How are you, Joe?"
+
+"Commong �a va?" inquired Heinie, evidently mortified at his situation and
+condition, but putting on the careless front of a gunman in a strange
+ward.
+
+Pick-em-up Joe added jauntily: "Well, Doc, what's the good word?"
+
+"France," I replied, smiling; "Do you know a better word?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "Noo York. Say, what's your little graft over here, Doc?"
+
+"You and I reverse r�les, Pick-em-up; you _stop_ bullets; _I_ pick 'em
+up--after you're through with 'em."
+
+"The hell you say!" he retorted, grinning. "Well, grab it from me, if it
+wasn't for the Jack Johnsons and the gas, a gun fight in the old 50th
+would make this war look like Luna Park! It listens like it, too, only
+this here show is all fi-_nally_, with Bingle's Band playin' circus tunes
+an' the supes hollerin' like they seen real money."
+
+He was a merry ruffian, and he controlled the "coke" graft in the 50th
+while Heinie was perpetual bondsman for local Magdalenes.
+
+"Well, ain't we in Dutch--us three guys!" he remarked with forced
+carelessness. "We sure done it that time."
+
+"Did you do business with Duck?" inquired Pick-em-up, curiously.
+
+"Not so he noticed it. Joe, can't you and Heinie rise to your
+opportunities? This is the first time in your lives you've ever been
+decent, ever done a respectable thing. Can't you start in and live
+straight--think straight? You're wearing the uniform of God's own
+soldiers; you're standing shoulder to shoulder with men who are fighting
+God's own battle. The fate of every woman, every child, every unborn baby
+in Europe--and in America, too--depends on your bravery. If you don't win
+out, it will be our turn next. If you don't stop the Huns--if you don't
+come back at them and wipe them out, the world will not be worth
+inhabiting."
+
+I stepped nearer: "Heinie," I said, "you know what your trade has been,
+and what it is called. Here's your chance to clean yourself. Joe--you've
+dealt out misery, insanity, death, to women and children. You're called
+the Coke King of the East Side. Joe, we'll get you sooner or later. Don't
+take the trouble to doubt it. Why not order a new pack and a fresh deal?
+Why not resolve to live straight from this moment--here where you have
+taken your place in the ranks among real men--here where this army stands
+for liberty, for the right to live! You've got your chance to become a
+real man; so has Heinie. And when you come back, we'll stand by you----"
+
+"An' gimme a job choppin' tickets in the subway!" snarled Heinie. "Expec'
+me to squeal f'r that? Reeform, hey? Show me a livin' in it an' I carry a
+banner. But there ain't nothing into it. How's a guy to live if there
+ain't no graft into nothin'?"
+
+Joe touched his gas-mask with a sneer: "He's pushin' the yellow stuff at
+us, Heinie," he said; and to me: "You get _yours_ all right. I don't know
+what it is, but you get it, same as me an' Heinie an' Duck. _I_ don't know
+what it is," he repeated impatiently; "maybe it's dough; maybe it's them
+suffragettes with their silk feet an' white gloves what clap their hands
+at you. _I_ ain't saying nothin' to _you_, am I? Then lemme alone an' go
+an' talk business with Duck over there----"
+
+Officers passed rapidly between the speaker and me and continued east and
+west along the ranks of riflemen, repeating in calm, steady voices:
+
+"Fix bayonets, _mes enfants_; make as little noise as possible. Everybody
+ready in ten minutes. Ladders will be distributed. Take them with you. The
+bomb-throwers will leave the trench first. Put on goggles and respirators.
+Fix bayonets and set one foot on the pegs and ladders ... all ready in
+seven minutes. Three mines will be exploded. Take and hold the craters....
+Five minutes!... When the mines explode that is your signal. Bombers lead.
+Give them a leg up and follow.... Three minutes...."
+
+From a communication trench a long file of masked bomb-throwers appeared,
+loaded sacks slung under their left arms, bombs clutched in their right
+hands; and took stations at every ladder and row of freshly driven pegs.
+
+"One minute!" repeated the officers, selecting their own ladders and
+drawing their long knives and automatics.
+
+As I finished adjusting my respirator and goggles a muffled voice at my
+elbow began: "Be a sport, Doc! Gimme a chanst! Make it fifty-fifty----"
+
+"_Allez!_" shouted an officer through his respirator.
+
+Against the sky all along the parapet's edge hundreds of bayonets wavered
+for a second; then dark figures leaped up, scrambled, crawled forward,
+rose, ran out into the sunless, pallid light.
+
+Like surf bursting along a coast a curtain of exploding shells stretched
+straight across the d�bris of what had been a meadow--a long line of livid
+obscurity split with flame and storms of driving sand and gravel. Shrapnel
+leisurely unfolded its cottony coils overhead and the iron helmets rang
+under the hail.
+
+Men fell forward, backward, sideways, remaining motionless, or rolling
+about, or rising to limp on again. There was smoke, now, and mire, and the
+unbroken rattle of machine guns.
+
+Ahead, men were fishing in their sacks and throwing bombs like a pack of
+boys stoning a snake; I caught glimpses of them furiously at work from
+where I knelt beside one fallen man after another, desperately busy with
+my own business.
+
+Bearers ran out where I was at work, not my own company but some French
+ambulance sections who served me as well as their own surgeons where, in a
+shell crater partly full of water, we found some shelter for the wounded.
+
+Over us black smoke from the Jack Johnsons rolled as it rolls out of the
+stacks of soft-coal burning locomotives; the outrageous din never
+slackened, but our deafened ears had become insensible under the repeated
+blows of sound, yet not paralyzed. For I remember, squatting there in that
+shell crater, hearing a cricket tranquilly tuning up between the
+thunderclaps which shook earth and sods down on us and wrinkled the pool
+of water at our feet.
+
+The Legion had taken the trench; but the place was a rabbit warren where
+hundreds of holes and burrows and ditches and communicating runways made a
+bewildering maze.
+
+And everywhere in the dull, flame-shot obscurity, the Legionaries ran
+about like ghouls in their hoods and round, hollow eye-holes; masked
+faces, indistinct in the smoke, loomed grotesque and horrible as Ku-Klux
+where the bayonets were at work digging out the enemy from blind burrows,
+turning them up from their bloody forms.
+
+Rifles blazed down into bomb-proofs, cracked steadily over the heads of
+comrades who piled up sandbags to block communication trenches;
+grenade-bombs rained down through the smoke into trenches, blowing bloody
+gaps in huddling masses of struggling Teutons until they flattened back
+against the parados and lifted arms and gun-butts stammering out,
+"Comrades! Comrades!"--in the ghastly irony of surrender.
+
+A man whose entire helmet, gas-mask, and face had been blown off, and who
+was still alive and trying to speak, stiffened, relaxed, and died in my
+arms. As I rolled him aside and turned to the next man whom the bearers
+were lowering into the crater, his respirator and goggles fell apart, and
+I found myself looking into the ashy face of Duck Werner.
+
+As we laid him out and stripped away iron helmet and tunic, he said in a
+natural and distinct voice.
+
+"Through the belly, Doc. Gimme a drink."
+
+There was no more water or stimulant at the moment and the puddle in the
+crater was bloody. He said, patiently, "All right; I can wait.... It's in
+the belly.... It ain't nothin', is it?"
+
+I said something reassuring, something about the percentage of recovery I
+believe, for I was exceedingly busy with Duck's anatomy.
+
+"Pull me through, Doc?" he inquired calmly.
+
+"Sure...."
+
+"Aw, listen, Doc. Don't hand me no cones of hokey-pokey. Gimme a deck of
+the stuff. Dope out the coke. Do I get mine this trip?"
+
+I looked at him, hesitating.
+
+"Listen, Doc, am I hurted bad? Gimme a hones' deal. Do I croak?"
+
+"Don't talk, Duck----"
+
+"Dope it straight. _Do_ I?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought you'd say that," he returned serenely. "Now I'm goin' to fool
+you, same as I fooled them guys at Bellevue the night that Mike the Kike
+shot me up in the subway."
+
+A pallid sneer stretched his thin and burning lips; in his ratty eyes
+triumph gleamed.
+
+"I've went through worse than this. I ain't hurted bad. I ain't got mine
+just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak--an' that bum, Mike the
+Kike, handin' me fren's the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though
+his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that I'll get up an'--an'
+go--home--" His voice flattened out and he lay silent.
+
+Working over the next man beyond him and glancing around now and then to
+discover a _brancardier_ who might take Duck to the rear, I presently
+caught his eyes fixed on me.
+
+"Say, Doc, will you talk--business?" he asked in a dull voice.
+
+"Be quiet, Duck, the bearers will be here in a minute or two----"
+
+"T'hell wit them guys! I'm askin' you will you make it fifty-fifty--'r'
+somethin'--" Again his voice trailed away, but his bright ratty eyes were
+indomitable.
+
+I was bloodily occupied with another patient when something struck me on
+the shoulder--a human hand, clutching it. Duck was sitting upright, eyes
+a-glitter, the other hand pressed heavily over his abdomen.
+
+"Fifty-fifty!" he cried in a shrill voice. "F'r Christ's sake, Doc, talk
+business--" And life went out inside him--like the flame of a suddenly
+snuffed candle--while he still sat there....
+
+I heard the air escaping from his lungs before he toppled over.... I swear
+to you it sounded like a whispered word--"business."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"Then came their gas--a great, thick, yellow billow of it pouring into our
+shell hole.... I couldn't get my mask on fast enough ... and here I am,
+Gray, wondering, but really knowing.... Are you stopping at the Club
+tonight?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Vail got to his feet unsteadily: "I'm feeling rather done in.... Won't sit
+up any longer, I guess.... See you in the morning?"
+
+"Yes," said Gray.
+
+"Good-night, then. Look in on me if you leave before I'm up."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+And that is how Gray saw him before he sailed--stopped at his door,
+knocked, and, receiving no response, opened and looked in. After a few
+moments' silence he understood that the "Seed of Death" had sprouted.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MULETEERS
+
+
+Lying far to the southwest of the battle line, only when a strong
+northwest wind blew could Sainte Lesse hear the thudding of cannon beyond
+the horizon. And once, when the northeast wind had blown steadily for a
+week, on the wings of the driving drizzle had come a faint but dreadful
+odour which hung among the streets and lanes until the wind changed.
+
+Except for the carillon, nothing louder than the call of a cuckoo, the
+lowing of cattle or a goatherd's piping ever broke the summer silence in
+the little town. Birds sang; a shallow river rippled; breezes ruffled
+green grain into long, silvery waves across the valley; sunshine fell on
+quiet streets, on scented gardens unsoiled by war, on groves and meadows,
+and on the stone-edged brink of brimming pools where washerwomen knelt
+among the wild flowers, splashing amid floating pyramids of snowy suds.
+
+And into the exquisite peace of this little paradise rode John Burley with
+a thousand American mules.
+
+The town had been warned of this impending visitation; had watched
+preparations for it during April and May when a corral was erected down in
+a meadow and some huts and stables were put up among the groves of poplar
+and sycamore, and a small barracks was built to accommodate the negro
+guardians of the mules and a peloton of gendarmes under a fat brigadier.
+
+Sainte Lesse as yet knew nothing personally of the American mule or of
+Burley. Sainte Lesse heard both before it beheld either--Burley's loud,
+careless, swaggering voice above the hee-haw of his trampling herds:
+
+"All I ask for is human food, Smith--not luxuries--just food!--and that of
+the commonest kind."
+
+And now an immense volume of noise and dust enveloped the main street of
+Sainte Lesse, stilling the quiet noon gossip of the town, silencing the
+birds, awing the town dogs so that their impending barking died to amazed
+gurgles drowned in the din of the mules.
+
+Astride a cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule, erect in his saddle, talkative,
+gesticulating, good-humoured, famished but gay, rode Burley at the head of
+the column, his reckless grey eyes glancing amiably right and left at the
+good people of Sainte Lesse who clustered silently at their doorways under
+the trees to observe the passing of this noisy, unfamiliar procession.
+
+Mules, dust; mules, dust, and then more mules, all enveloped in dust,
+clattering, ambling, trotting, bucking, shying, kicking, halting, backing;
+and here and there an American negro cracking a long snake whip with
+strange, aboriginal ejaculations; and three white men in khaki riding
+beside the trampling column, smoking cigarettes.
+
+"Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn rode mules on the column's flank; Burley
+continued to lead on his wall-eyed animal, preceded now by the fat
+brigadier of the gendarmerie, upon whom he had bestowed a cigarette.
+
+Burley, talking all the while from his saddle to whoever cared to listen,
+or to himself if nobody cared to listen, rode on in the van under the
+ancient bell-tower of Sainte Lesse, where a slim, dark-eyed girl looked up
+at him as he passed, a faint smile hovering on her lips.
+
+"Bong jour, Mademoiselle," continued Burley, saluting her _en passant_
+with two fingers at the vizor of his khaki cap, as he had seen British
+officers salute. "I compliment you on your silent but eloquent welcome to
+me, my comrades, my coons, and my mules. Your charming though slightly
+melancholy smile bids us indeed welcome to your fair city. I thank you; I
+thank all the inhabitants for this unprecedented ovation. Doubtless a
+municipal banquet awaits us----"
+
+Sticky Smith spurred up.
+
+"Did you see the inn?" he asked. "There it is, to the right."
+
+"It looks good to me," said Burley. "Everything looks good to me except
+these accursed mules. Thank God, that seems to be the corral--down in the
+meadow there, Brigadeer!"
+
+The fat brigadier drew bridle; Burley burst into French:
+
+"Esker--esker----"
+
+"_Oui_," nodded the brigadier, "that is where we are going."
+
+"Bong!" exclaimed Burley with satisfaction; and, turning to Sticky Smith:
+"Stick, tell the coons to hustle. We're there!"
+
+Then, above the trampling, whip-cracking, and shouting of the negroes,
+from somewhere high in the blue sky overhead, out of limpid, cloudless
+heights floated a single bell-note, then another, another, others
+exquisitely sweet and clear, melting into a fragment of heavenly melody.
+
+Burley looked up into the sky; the negroes raised their sweating, dark
+faces in pleased astonishment; Stick and Kid Glenn lifted puzzled visages
+to the zenith. The fat brigadier smiled and waved his cigarette:
+
+"_Il est midi, messieurs._ That is the carillon of Sainte Lesse."
+
+The angelic melody died away. Then, high in the old bell-tower, a great
+resonant bell struck twelve times.
+
+Said the brigadier:
+
+"When the wind is right, they can hear our big bell, Bayard, out there in
+the first line trenches----"
+
+Again he waved his cigarette toward the northeast, then reined in his
+horse and backed off into the flowering meadow, while the first of the
+American mules entered the corral, the herd following pellmell.
+
+The American negroes went with the mules to a hut prepared for them inside
+the corral--it having been previously and carefully explained to France
+that an American mule without its negro complement was as galvanic and
+unaccountable as a beheaded chicken.
+
+Burley burst into French again, like a shrapnel shell:
+
+"Esker--esker----"
+
+"_Oui_," said the fat brigadier, "there is an excellent inn up the street,
+messieurs." And he saluted their uniform, the same being constructed of
+cotton khaki, with a horseshoe on the arm and an oxidized metal mule on
+the collar. The brigadier wondered at and admired the minute nicety of
+administrative detail characterizing a government which clothed even its
+muleteers so becomingly, yet with such modesty and dignity.
+
+He could not know that the uniform was unauthorized and the insignia an
+invention of Sticky Smith, aiming to counteract any social stigma that
+might blight his sojourn in France.
+
+"For," said Sticky Smith, before they went aboard the transport at New
+Orleans, "if you dress a man in khaki, with some gimcrack on his sleeve
+and collar, you're level with anybody in Europe. Which," he added to
+Burley, "will make it pleasant if any emperors or kings drop in on us for
+a drink or a quiet game behind the lines."
+
+"Also," added Burley, "it goes with the ladies." And he and Kid Glenn
+purchased uniforms similar to Smith's and had the horseshoe and mule
+fastened to sleeve and collar.
+
+"They'll hang you fellows for francs-tireurs," remarked a battered soldier
+of fortune from the wharf as the transport cast off and glided gradually
+away from the sun-blistered docks.
+
+"Hang _who_?" demanded Burley loudly from the rail above.
+
+"What's a frank-tiroor?" inquired Sticky Smith.
+
+"And who'll hang us?" shouted Kid Glenn from the deck of the moving
+steamer.
+
+"The Germans will if they catch you in that uniform," retorted the
+battered soldier of fortune derisively. "You chorus-boy mule drivers will
+wish you wore overalls and one suspender if the Dutch Kaiser nails you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LA PLOO BELLE
+
+
+They had been nearly three weeks on the voyage, three days in port, four
+more on cattle trains, and had been marching since morning from the
+nearest railway station at Estville-sur-Lesse.
+
+Now, lugging their large leather hold-alls, they started up the main
+street of Sainte Lesse, three sunburnt, loud-talking Americans, young,
+sturdy, careless of glance and voice and gesture, perfectly
+self-satisfied.
+
+Their footsteps echoed loudly on the pavement of this still, old town,
+lying so quietly in the shadow of its aged trees and its sixteenth century
+belfry, where the great bell, Bayard, had hung for hundreds of years, and,
+tier on tier above it, clustered in set ranks the fixed bells of the
+ancient carillon.
+
+"Some skyscraper," observed Burley, patronizing the bell-tower with a
+glance.
+
+As he spoke, they came to the inn, a very ancient hostelry built into a
+remnant of the old town wall, and now a part of it. On the signboard was
+painted a white doe; and that was the name of the inn.
+
+So they trooped through the stone-arched tunnel, ushered by a lame
+innkeeper; and Burley, chancing to turn his head and glance back through
+the shadowy stone passage, caught a glimpse in the outer sunshine of the
+girl whose dark eyes had inspired him with jocular eloquence as he rode on
+his mule under the bell-tower of Sainte Lesse.
+
+"A peach," he said to Smith. And the sight of her apparently going to his
+head, he burst into French: "Tray chick! Tray, tray chick! I'm glad I've
+got on this uniform and not overalls and one suspender."
+
+"What's biting you?" inquired Smith.
+
+"Nothing, Stick, nothing. But I believe I've seen the prettiest girl in
+the world right here in this two-by-four town."
+
+Stick glanced over his shoulder, then shrugged:
+
+"She's ornamental, only she's got a sad on."
+
+But Burley trudged on with his leather hold-all, muttering to himself
+something about the prettiest girl in the world.
+
+The "prettiest girl in the world" continued her way unconscious of the
+encomiums of John Burley and the critique of Sticky Smith. Her way,
+however, seemed to be the way of Burley and his two companions, for she
+crossed the sunny street and entered the White Doe by the arched door and
+tunnel-like passage.
+
+Unlike them, however, she turned to the right in the stone corridor,
+opened a low wooden door, crossed the inn parlour, ascended a short
+stairway, and entered a bedroom.
+
+Here, standing before a mirror, she unpinned her straw hat, smoothed her
+dark hair, resting her eyes pensively for a few moments on her reflected
+face. Then she sauntered listlessly about the little room in performance
+of those trivial, aimless offices, entirely feminine, such as opening all
+the drawers in her clothes-press, smoothing out various frilly objects and
+fabrics, investigating a little gilded box and thoughtfully inspecting its
+contents, which consisted of hair-pins. Fussing here, lingering there,
+loitering by her bird-cage, where a canary cheeped its greeting and hopped
+and hopped; bending over a cluster of white phlox in a glass of water to
+inhale the old-fashioned perfume, she finally tied on a fresh apron and
+walked slowly out to the ancient, vaulted kitchen.
+
+An old peasant woman was cooking, while a young one washed dishes.
+
+"Are the American gentlemen still at table, Julie?" she inquired.
+
+"Mademoiselle Maryette, they are devouring everything in the house!"
+exclaimed old Julie, flinging both hands toward heaven. "_Tenez_,
+mamzelle, I have heard of eating in ancient days, I have read of
+Gargantua, I have been told of banquets, of feasting, of appetites! But
+there is one American in there! Mamzelle Maryette, if I should swear to
+you that he is on his third chicken and that a row of six pint bottles of
+'93 Margaux stand empty on the cloth at his elbow, I should do no penance
+for untruthfulness. _Tenez, Mamzelle Maryette, regardez un peu par
+l'oubliette_--" And old Julie slid open the wooden shutter on the crack
+and Maryette bent forward and surveyed the dining room outside.
+
+They were laughing very loud in there, these three Americans--three
+powerful, sun-scorched young men, very much at their ease around the
+table, draining the red Bordeaux by goblets, plying knife and fork with
+joyous and undiminished vigour.
+
+The tall one with the crisp hair and clear, grayish eyes--he of the three
+chickens--was already achieving the third--a crisply browned bird, fresh
+from the spit, fragrant and smoking hot. At intervals he buttered great
+slices of rye bread, or disposed of an entire young potato, washing it
+down with a goblet of red wine, but always he returned to the rich roasted
+fowl which he held, still impaled upon its spit, and which he carved as he
+ate, wings, legs, breast falling in steaming flakes under his skillful
+knife blade.
+
+Sticky Smith finally pushed aside his drained glass and surveyed an empty
+plate frankly and regretfully, unable to continue. He said:
+
+"I'm going to bed and I'm going to sleep twenty-four hours. After that I'm
+going to eat for twenty-four more hours, and then I'll be in good shape.
+Bong soir."
+
+"Aw, stick around with the push!" remonstrated Kid Glenn thickly, impaling
+another potato upon his fork and gesticulating with it.
+
+Smith gazed with surfeited but hopeless envy upon Burley's magnificent
+work with knife and fork, saw him crack a seventh bottle of Bordeaux,
+watched him empty the first goblet.
+
+But even Glenn's eyes began to dull in spite of himself, his head nodded
+mechanically at every mouthful achieved.
+
+"I gotta call it off, Jack," he yawned. "Stick and I need the sleep if you
+don't. So here's where we quit----"
+
+"Let me tell you about that girl," began Burley. "I never saw a
+prettier--" But Glenn had appetite neither for food nor romance:
+
+"Say, listen. Have a heart, Jack! We need the sleep!"
+
+Stick had already risen; Glenn shoved back his chair with a gigantic yawn
+and shambled to his feet.
+
+"I want to tell you," insisted Burley, "that she's what the French call
+tray, tray chick----"
+
+Stick pointed furiously at the fowl:
+
+"Chick? I'm fed up on chick! Maybe she is some chick, as you say, but it
+doesn't interest me. Goo'bye. Don't come battering at my door and wake me
+up, Jack. Be a sport and lemme alone----"
+
+He turned and shuffled out, and Glenn followed, his Mexican spurs
+clanking.
+
+Burley jeered them:
+
+"Mollycoddles! Come on and take in the town with us!"
+
+But they slammed the door behind them, and he heard them stumbling and
+clanking up stairs.
+
+So Burley, gazing gravely at his empty plate, presently emptied the last
+visible bottle of Bordeaux, then stretching his mighty arms and superb
+chest, fished out a cigarette, set fire to it, unhooked the cartridge-belt
+and holster from the back of his chair, buckled it on, rose, pulled on his
+leather-peaked cap, and drew a deep breath of contentment.
+
+For a moment he stood in the centre of the room, as though in pleasant
+meditation, then he slowly strode toward the street door, murmuring to
+himself: "Tray, tray chick. The prettiest girl in the world.... La ploo
+belle fille du monde ... la ploo belle...."
+
+He strolled as far as the corral down in the meadow by the stream, where
+he found the negro muleteers asleep and the mules already watered and fed.
+
+For a while he hobnobbed with the three gendarmes on duty there,
+practicing his kind of French on them and managing to understand and be
+understood more or less--probably less.
+
+But the young man was persistent; he desired to become that easy master of
+the French language that his tongue-tied comrades believed him to be. So
+he practiced garrulously upon the polite, suffering gendarmes.
+
+He related to them his experience on shipboard with a thousand mutinous
+mules to pacify, feed, water, and otherwise cherish. They had, it
+appeared, encountered no submarines, but enjoyed several alarms from
+destroyers which eventually proved to be British.
+
+"A cousin of mine," explained Burley, "Ned Winters, of El Paso, went down
+on the steamer _John B. Doty_, with eleven hundred mules and six niggers.
+The Boches torpedoed the ship and then raked the boats. I'd like to get a
+crack at one Boche before I go back to God's country."
+
+The gendarmes politely but regretfully agreed that it was impracticable
+for Burley to get a crack at a Hun; and the American presently took
+himself off to the corral, after distributing cigarettes and establishing
+cordial relations with the Sainte Lesse Gendarmerie.
+
+He waked up a negro and inspected the mules; that took a long time. Then
+he sought out the negro blacksmith, awoke him, and wrote out some
+directions.
+
+"The idea is," he explained, "that whenever the French in this sector need
+mules they draw on our corral. We are supposed to keep ten or eleven
+hundred mules here all the time and look after them. Shipments come every
+two weeks, I believe. So after you've had another good nap, George, you
+wake up your boys and get busy. And there'll be trouble if things are not
+in running order by tomorrow night."
+
+"Yas, suh, Mistuh Burley," nodded the sleepy blacksmith, still blinking in
+the afternoon sunshine.
+
+"And if you need an interpreter," added Burley, "always call on me until
+you learn French enough to get on. Understand, George?"
+
+"Yas, suh."
+
+"Because," said Burley, walking away, "a thorough knowledge of French
+idioms is necessary to prevent mistakes. When in doubt always apply to me,
+George, for only a master of the language is competent to deal with these
+French people."
+
+It was his one vanity, his one weakness. Perhaps, because he so ardently
+desired proficiency, he had already deluded himself with the belief that
+he was a master of French.
+
+So, belt and loaded holster sagging, and large silver spurs clicking and
+clinking at every step, John Burley sauntered back along the almost
+deserted street of Sainte Lesse, thinking sometimes of his mules,
+sometimes of the French language, and every now and then of a dark-eyed,
+dark-haired girl whose delicately flushed and pensive gaze he had
+encountered as he had ridden into Sainte Lesse under the old belfry.
+
+"Stick Smith's a fool," he thought to himself impatiently. "Tray chick
+doesn't mean 'some chicken.' It means a pretty girl, in French."
+
+He looked up at the belfry as he passed under it, and at the same moment,
+from beneath the high, gilded dragon which crowned its topmost spire, a
+sweet bell-note floated, another, others succeeding in crystalline
+sweetness, linked in a fragment of some ancient melody. Then they ceased;
+then came a brief silence; the great bell he had heard before struck five
+times.
+
+"Lord!--that's pretty," he murmured, moving on and turning into the arched
+tunnel which was the entrance to the White Doe Inn.
+
+Wandering at random, he encountered the innkeeper in the parlour, studying
+a crumpled newspaper through horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose.
+
+"Tray jolie," said Burley affably, seating himself with an idea of further
+practice in French.
+
+"_Plait-il?_"
+
+"The bells--tray beau!"
+
+The old man straightened his bent shoulders a little proudly.
+
+"For thirty years, m'sieu, I have been Carillonneur of Sainte Lesse." He
+smiled; then, saddened, he held out both hands toward Burley. The fingers
+were stiff and crippled with rheumatism.
+
+"No more," he said slowly; "the carillon is ended for me. The great art is
+no more for Jean Courtray, Master of Bells."
+
+"What is a carillon?" inquired John Burley simply.
+
+Blank incredulity was succeeded by a shocked expression on the old man's
+visage. After a silence, in mild and patient protest, he said:
+
+"I am Jean Courtray, Carillonneur of Sainte Lesse.... Have you never heard
+of the carillon of Sainte Lesse, or of me?"
+
+"Never," said Burley. "We don't have anything like that in America."
+
+The old carillonneur, Jean Courtray, began to speak in a low voice of his
+art, his profession, and of the great carillon of forty-six bells in the
+ancient tower of Sainte Lesse.
+
+A carillon, he explained, is a company of fixed bells tuned according to
+the chromatic scale and ranging through several octaves. These bells,
+rising tier above tier in a belfry, the smallest highest, the great,
+ponderous bells of the bass notes lowest, are not free to swing, but are
+fixed to huge beams, and are sounded by clappers connected by a wilderness
+of wires to a keyboard which is played upon by the bell-master or
+carillonneur.
+
+He explained that the office of bell-master was an ancient one and greatly
+honoured; that the bell-master was also a member of the municipal
+government; that his salary was a fixed one; that not only did he play
+upon the carillon on f�te days, market days, and particular occasions, but
+he also travelled and gave concerts upon the few existing carillons of
+other ancient towns and cities, not alone in France where carillons were
+few, but in Belgium and Holland, where they still were comparatively many,
+although the German barbarians had destroyed some of the best at Li�ge,
+Arras, Dixmude, Termonde, and Ypres.
+
+"Monsieur," he went on in a voice which began to grow a little unsteady,
+"the Huns have destroyed the ancient carillons of Louvain and of Mechlin.
+In the superb bell-tower of Saint Rombold I have played for a thousand
+people; and the Carillonneur, Monsieur Vincent, and the great bell-master,
+Josef Denyn, have come to me to congratulate me with tears in their
+eyes--in their eyes----"
+
+There were tears in his own now, and he bent his white head and looked
+down at the worn floor under his crippled feet.
+
+"Alas," he said, "for Denyn--and for Saint Rombold's tower. The Hun has
+passed that way."
+
+After a silence:
+
+"Who is it now plays the carillon in Sainte Lesse!" asked Burley.
+
+"My daughter, Maryette. Sainte Lesse has honoured me in my daughter, whom
+I myself instructed. My daughter--the little child of my old age,
+monsieur--is mistress of the bells of Sainte Lesse.... They call her
+Carillonnette in Sainte Lesse----"
+
+The door opened and the girl came in.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CARILLONETTE
+
+
+Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn remained a week at Sainte Lesse, then left with
+the negroes for Calais to help bring up another cargo of mules, the
+arrival of which was daily expected.
+
+A peloton of the Train-des-Equipages and three Remount troopers arrived at
+Sainte Lesse to take over the corral. John Burley remained to explain and
+interpret the American mule to these perplexed troopers.
+
+Morning, noon, and night he went clanking down to the corral, his
+cartridge belt and holster swinging at his hip. But sometimes he had a
+little leisure.
+
+Sainte Lesse knew him as a mighty eater and as a lusty drinker of good red
+wine; as a mighty and garrulous talker, too, he became known, ready to
+accost anybody in the quiet and subdued old town and explode into French
+at the slightest encouragement.
+
+But Burley had only women and children and old men on whom to practice his
+earnest and voluble French, for everybody else was at the front.
+
+Children adored him--adored his big, silver spurs, his cartridge belt and
+pistol, the metal mule decorating his tunic collar, his six feet two of
+height, his quick smile, the even white teeth and grayish eyes of this
+American muleteer, who always had a stick of barley sugar to give them or
+an amazing trick to perform for them with a handkerchief or coin that
+vanished under their very noses at the magic snap of his finger.
+
+Old men gossiped willingly with him; women liked him and their rare smiles
+in the war-sobered town of Sainte Lesse were often for him as he sauntered
+along the quiet street, clanking, swaggering, affable, ready for
+conversation with anybody, and always ready for the small, confident hands
+that unceremoniously clasped his when he passed by where children played.
+
+As for Maryette Courtray, called Carillonnette, she mounted the bell-tower
+once every hour, from six in the morning until nine o'clock in the
+evening, to play the passing of Time toward that eternity into which it is
+always and ceaselessly moving.
+
+After nine o'clock Carillonnette set the drum and wound it; and through
+the dark hours of the night the bells played mechanically every hour for a
+few moments before Bayard struck.
+
+Between these duties the girl managed the old inn, to which, since the
+war, nobody came any more--and with these occupations her life was
+full--sufficiently full, perhaps, without the advent of John Burley.
+
+They met with enough frequency for her, if not for him. Their encounters
+took place between her duties aloft at the keyboard under the successive
+tiers of bells and his intervals of prowling among his mules.
+
+Sometimes he found her sewing in the parlour--she could have gone to her
+own room, of course; sometimes he encountered her in the corridor, in the
+street, in the walled garden behind the inn, where with basket and pan she
+gathered vegetables in season.
+
+There was a stone seat out there, built against the southern wall, and in
+the shadowed coolness of it she sometimes shelled peas.
+
+During such an hour of liberty from the bell-tower he found the dark-eyed
+little mistress of the bells sorting various vegetables and singing under
+her breath to herself the carillon music of Josef Denyn.
+
+"Tray chick, mademoiselle," he said, with a cheerful self-assertion, to
+hide the embarrassment which always assailed him when he encountered her.
+
+"You know, Monsieur Burley, you should not say '_tr�s chic_' to me," she
+said, shaking her pretty head. "It sounds a little familiar and a little
+common."
+
+"Oh," he exclaimed, very red. "I thought it was the thing to say."
+
+She smiled, continuing to shell the peas, then, with her sensitive and
+slightly flushed face still lowered, she looked at him out of her dark
+blue eyes.
+
+"Sometimes," she said, "young men say '_tr�s chic_.' It depend on when and
+how one says it."
+
+"Are there times when it is all right for me to say it?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes, I think so.... How are your mules today?"
+
+"The same," he said, "--ready to bite or kick or eat their heads off. The
+Remount took two hundred this morning."
+
+"I saw them pass," said the girl. "I thought perhaps you also might be
+departing."
+
+"Without coming to say good-bye--to _you_!" he stammered.
+
+"Oh, conventions must be disregarded in time of war," she returned
+carelessly, continuing to shell peas. "I really thought I saw you riding
+away with the mules."
+
+"That man," said Burley, much hurt, "was a bow-legged driver of the
+Train-des-Equipages. I don't think he resembles me."
+
+As she made no comment and expressed no contrition for her mistake, he
+gazed about him at the sunny garden with a depressed expression. However,
+this changed presently to a bright and hopeful one.
+
+"Vooz ate tray, tray belle, mademoiselle!" he asserted cheerfully.
+
+"Monsieur!" Vexed perhaps as much at her own quick blush as his abrupt
+eulogy, she bit her lip and looked at him with an ominously level gaze.
+Then, suddenly, she smiled.
+
+"Monsieur Burley, one does _not_ so express one's self without reason,
+without apropos, without--without encouragement----"
+
+She blushed again, vividly. Under her wide straw hat her delicate,
+sensitive face and dark blue eyes were beautiful enough to inspire eulogy
+in any young man.
+
+"Pardon," he said, confused by her reprimand and her loveliness. "I shall
+hereafter only _think_ you are pretty, mademoiselle--mais je ne le dirais
+ploo."
+
+"That would be perhaps more--_comme il faut_, monsieur."
+
+"Ploo!" he repeated with emphasis. "Ploo jamais! Je vous jure----"
+
+"_Merci_; it is not perhaps necessary to swear quite so solemnly,
+monsieur."
+
+She raised her eyes from the pan, moving her small, sun-tanned hand
+through the heaps of green peas, filling her palm with them and idly
+letting them run through her slim fingers.
+
+"L'amour," he said with an effort--"how funny it is--isn't it,
+mademoiselle?"
+
+"I know nothing about it," she replied with decision, and rose with her
+pan of peas.
+
+"Are you going, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have I offended you?"
+
+"No."
+
+He trailed after her down the garden path between rows of blue larkspurs
+and hollyhocks--just at her dainty heels, because the brick walk was too
+narrow for both of them.
+
+"Ploo," he repeated appealingly.
+
+Over her shoulder she said with disdain:
+
+"It is not a topic for conversation among the young, monsieur--what you
+call _l'amour_." And she entered the kitchen, where he had not the
+effrontery to follow her.
+
+That evening, toward sunset, returning from the corral, he heard, high in
+the blue sky above him, her bell-music drifting; and involuntarily
+uncovering, he stood with bared head looking upward while the celestial
+melody lasted.
+
+And that evening, too, being the f�te of Alincourt, a tiny neighbouring
+village across the river, the bell-mistress went up into the tower after
+dinner and played for an hour for the little neighbour hamlet across the
+river Lesse.
+
+All the people who remained in Sainte Lesse and in Alincourt brought out
+their chairs and their knitting in the calm, fragrant evening air and
+remained silent, sadly enraptured while the unseen player at her keyboard
+aloft in the belfry above set her carillon music adrift under the summer
+stars--golden harmonies that seemed born in the heavens from which they
+floated; clear, exquisitely sweet miracles of melody filling the world of
+darkness with magic messages of hope.
+
+Those widowed or childless among her listeners for miles around in the
+darkness wept quiet tears, less bitter and less hopeless for the divine
+promise of the sky music which filled the night as subtly as the scent of
+flowers saturates the dusk.
+
+Burley, listening down by the corral, leaned against a post, one powerful
+hand across his eyes, his cap clasped in the other, and in his heart the
+birth of things ineffable.
+
+For an hour the carillon played. Then old Bayard struck ten times. And
+Burley thought of the trenches and wondered whether the mellow thunder of
+the great bell was audible out there that night.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+DJACK
+
+
+There came a day when he did not see Maryette as he left for the corral in
+the morning.
+
+Her father, very stiff with rheumatism, sat in the sun outside the arched
+entrance to the inn.
+
+"No," he said, "she is going to be gone all day today. She has set and
+wound the drum in the belfry so that the carillon shall play every hour
+while she is absent."
+
+"Where has she gone?" inquired Burley.
+
+"To play the carillon at Nivelle."
+
+"Nivelle!" he exclaimed sharply.
+
+"_Oui, monsieur._ The Mayor has asked for her. She is to play for an hour
+to entertain the wounded." He rested his withered cheek on his hand and
+looked out through the window at the sunshine with aged and tragic eyes.
+"It is very little to do for our wounded," he added aloud to himself.
+
+Burley had sent twenty mules to Nivelle the night before, and had heard
+some disquieting rumours concerning that town.
+
+Now he walked out past the dusky, arched passageway into the sunny street
+and continued northward under the trees to the barracks of the
+Gendarmerie.
+
+"_Bon jour l'ami Gargantua!_" exclaimed the fat, jovial brigadier who had
+just emerged with boots shining, pipe-clay very apparent, and all rosy
+from a fresh shave.
+
+"Bong joor, mon vieux copain!" replied Burley, preoccupied with some
+papers he was sorting. "Be good enough to look over my papers."
+
+The brigadier took them and examined them.
+
+"Are they _en r�gle_?" demanded Burley.
+
+"_Parfaitement, mon ami._"
+
+"Will they take me as far as Nivelle?"
+
+"Certainly. But your mules went forward last night with the Remount----"
+
+"I know. I wish to inspect them again before the veterinary sees them.
+Telephone to the corral for a saddle mule."
+
+The brigadier went inside to telephone and Burley started for the corral
+at the same time.
+
+His cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule was saddled and waiting when he
+arrived; he stuffed his papers into the breast of his tunic and climbed
+into the saddle.
+
+"Allongs!" he exclaimed. "Hoop!"
+
+                            ------------------
+
+Half way to Nivelle, on an overgrown, bushy, circuitous path which was the
+only road open between Nivelle and Sainte Lesse, he overtook Maryette,
+driving her donkey and ancient market cart.
+
+"Carillonnette!" he called out joyously. "Maryette! C'est je!"
+
+The girl, astonished, turned her head, and he spurred forward on his
+wall-eyed mount, evincing cordial symptoms of pleasure in the encounter.
+
+"Wee, wee!" he cried. "Je voolay veneer avec voo!" And ere the girl could
+protest, he had dismounted, turning the wall-eyed one's nose southward,
+and had delivered a resounding whack upon the rump of that temperamental
+animal.
+
+"Allez! Go home! Beat it!" he cried.
+
+The mule lost no time but headed for the distant corral at a canter; and
+Burley, grinning like a great, splendid, intelligent dog who has just done
+something to be proud of, stepped into the market cart and seated himself
+beside Maryette.
+
+"Who told you where I am going?" she asked, scarcely knowing whether to
+laugh or let loose her indignation.
+
+"Your father, Carillonnette."
+
+"Why did you follow me?"
+
+"I had nothing else to do----"
+
+"Is that the reason?"
+
+"I like to be with you----"
+
+"Really, monsieur! And you think it was not necessary to consult my
+wishes?"
+
+"Don't you like to be with me?" he asked, so na�vely that the girl blushed
+and bit her lip and shook the reins without replying.
+
+They jogged on through the disused byway, the filbert bushes brushing axle
+and traces; but presently the little donkey relapsed into a walk again,
+and the girl, who had counted on that procedure when she started from
+Sainte Lesse, did not urge him.
+
+"Also," she said in a low voice, "I have been wondering who permits you to
+address me as Carillonnette. Also as Maryette. You have been, heretofore,
+quite correct in assuming that mademoiselle is the proper form of
+address."
+
+"I was so glad to see you," he said, so simply that she flushed again and
+offered no further comment.
+
+For a long while she let him do the talking, which was perfectly agreeable
+to him. He talked on every subject he could think of, frankly practicing
+idioms on her, pleased with his own fluency and his progress in French.
+
+After a while she said, looking around at him with a curiosity quite
+friendly:
+
+"Tell me, Monsieur Burley, _why_ did you desire to come with me today?"
+
+He started to reply, but checked himself, looking into the dark blue and
+engaging eyes. After a moment the engaging eyes became brilliantly
+serious.
+
+"Tell me," she repeated. "Is it because there were some rumours last
+evening concerning Nivelle?"
+
+"Wee!"
+
+"Oh," she nodded, thoughtfully.
+
+After driving for a little while in silence she looked around at him with
+an expression on her face which altered it exquisitely.
+
+"Thank you, my friend," she murmured.... "And if you wish to call me
+Carillonnette--do so."
+
+"I do want to. And my name's Jack.... If you don't mind."
+
+Her eyes were fixed on her donkey's ears.
+
+"Djack," she repeated, musingly. "Jacques--Djack--it's the same, isn't
+it--Djack?"
+
+He turned red and she laughed at him, no longer afraid.
+
+"Listen, my friend," she said, "it is _tr�s beau_--what have you done."
+
+"Vooz �tes tray belle----"
+
+"_Non!_ Please stop! It is not a question of me----"
+
+"Vooz �tes tray chick----"
+
+"Stop, Djack! That is not good manners! No! I was merely saying that--you
+have done something very nice. Which is quite true. You heard rumours that
+Nivelle had become unsafe. People whispered last evening--something about
+the danger of a salient being cut at its base.... I heard the gossip in
+the street. Was that why you came after me?"
+
+"Wee."
+
+"Thank you, Djack."
+
+She leaned a trifle forward in the cart, her dimpled elbows on her knees,
+the reins sagging.
+
+Blue and rosy jays flew up before them, fluttering away through the
+thickets; a bullfinch whistled sweetly from a thorn bush, watching them
+pass under him, unafraid.
+
+"You see," she said, half to herself, "I _had_ to come. Who could refuse
+our wounded? There is no bell-master in our department; and only one
+bell-mistress.... To find anyone else to play the Nivelle carillon one
+would have to pierce the barbarians' lines and search the ruins of
+Flanders for a _Beiaardier_--a _Klokkenist_, as they call a carillonneur
+in the low countries.... But the Mayor asked it, and our wounded are
+waiting. You understand, _mon ami_ Djack, I had to come."
+
+He nodded.
+
+She added, na�vely:
+
+"God watches over our trenches. We shall be quite safe in Nivelle."
+
+A dull boom shook the sunlit air. Even in the cart they could feel the
+vibration.
+
+An hour later, everywhere ahead of them, a vast, confused thundering was
+steadily increasing, deepening with every ominous reverberation.
+
+Where two sandy wood roads crossed, a mounted gendarme halted them and
+examined their papers.
+
+"My poor child," he said to the girl, shaking his head, "the wounded at
+Nivelle were taken away during the night. They are fighting there now in
+the streets."
+
+"In Nivelle streets!" faltered the girl.
+
+"_Oui, mademoiselle._ Of the carillon little remains. The Boches have been
+shelling it since daylight. Turn again. And it is better that you turn
+quickly, because it is not known to us what is going on in that wooded
+district over there. For if they get a foothold in Nivelle on this drive
+they might cross this road before evening."
+
+The girl sat grief-stricken and silent in the cart, staring at the woods
+ahead where the road ran through taller saplings and where, here and
+there, mature trees towered.
+
+All around them now the increasing thunder rolled and echoed and shook the
+ground under them. Half a dozen gendarmes came up at a gallop. Their
+officer drew bridle, seized the donkey's head and turned animal and cart
+southward.
+
+"Go back," he said briefly, recognizing Burley and returning his salute.
+"You may have to take your mules out of Sainte Lesse!" he added, as he
+wheeled his horse. "We are getting into trouble out here, _nom de Dieu_!"
+
+Maryette's head hung as the donkey jogged along, trotting willingly
+because his nose was now pointed homeward.
+
+The girl drove with loose and careless rein and in silence; and beside her
+sat Burley, his troubled gaze always reverting to the despondent form
+beside him.
+
+"Too bad, little girl," he said. "But another time our wounded shall
+listen to your carillon."
+
+"Never at Nivelle.... The belfry is being destroyed.... The sweetest
+carillon in France--the oldest, the most beautiful.... Fifty-six bells,
+Djack--a wondrous wilderness of bells rising above where one stands in the
+belfry, tier on tier, tier on tier, until one's gaze is lost amid the
+heavenly company aloft.... Oh, Djack! And the great bell, Clovis! He hangs
+there--through hundreds of years he has spoken with his great voice of
+God!--so that they heard him for miles and miles across the land----"
+
+"Maryette--I am so sorry for you----"
+
+"Oh! Oh! My carillon of Nivelle! My beloved carillon!"
+
+"Maryette, dear! My little Carillonnette----"
+
+"No--my heart is broken----"
+
+"Vooz ates tray, tray belle----"
+
+The sudden crashing of heavy feet in the bushes checked him; but it was
+too late to heed it now--too late to reach for his holster. For all around
+them swarmed the men in sea-grey, jerking the donkey off his forelegs,
+blocking the little wheels with great, dirty fists, seizing Burley from
+behind and dragging him violently out of the cart.
+
+A near-sighted officer, thin and spare as Death, was talking in a loud,
+nasal voice and squinting at Burley where he still struggled, red and
+exasperated, in the clutches of four soldiers:
+
+"Also! That is no uniform known to us or to any nation at war with us.
+That is not regulation in England--that collar insignia. This is a case of
+a franc-tireur! Now, then, you there in your costume de fantasie! What
+have you to say, eh?"
+
+There was a silence; Burley ceased struggling.
+
+"Answer, do you hear? What are you?"
+
+"American."
+
+"Pig-dog!" shouted the gaunt officer. "So you are one of those Yankee
+muleteers in your uniform, and armed! It is sufficient that you are
+American. If it had not been for America this war would be ended! But it
+is not enough, apparently, that you come here with munitions and food,
+that you insult us at sea, that you lie about us and slander us and send
+your shells and cartridges to England to slay our people! No! Also you
+must come to insult us in your clown's uniform and with your pistol--" The
+man began to choke with fury, unable to continue, except by gesture.
+
+But the jerky gestures were terribly significant: soldiers were already
+pushing Burley across the road toward a great oak tree; six men fell out
+and lined up.
+
+"M-my Government--" stammered the young fellow--but was given no
+opportunity to speak. Very white, the chill sweat standing on his forehead
+and under his eyes, he stood against the oak, lips compressed, grey eyes
+watching what was happening to him.
+
+Suddenly he understood it was all over.
+
+"Djack!"
+
+He turned his gaze toward Maryette, where she struggled toward him, held
+by two soldiers.
+
+"Maryette--Carillonnette--" His voice suddenly became steady, perfectly
+clear. "_Je vous aime_, Carillonnette."
+
+"Oh, Djack! Djack!" she cried in terror.
+
+He heard the orders; was aware of the levelled rifles; but his reckless
+greyish eyes were now fixed on her, and he began to laugh almost
+mischievously.
+
+"Vooz �tes tray belle," he said, "--tray, tray chick----"
+
+"Djack!"
+
+But the clang of the volley precluded any response from him except the
+half tender, half reckless smile that remained on his youthful face where
+he lay looking up at the sky with pleasant, sightless eyes, and a sunbeam
+touching the metal mule on his blood-wet collar.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FRIENDSHIP
+
+
+She tried once more to lift the big, warm, flexible body, exerting all her
+slender strength. It was useless. It was like attempting to lift the
+earth. The weight of the body frightened her.
+
+Again she sank down among the ferns under the great oak tree; once more
+she took his blood-smeared head on her lap, smoothing the bright, wet
+hair; and her tears fell slowly upon his upturned face.
+
+"My friend," she stammered, "--my kind, droll friend.... The first friend
+I ever had----"
+
+The gun thunder beyond Nivelle had ceased; an intense stillness reigned in
+the forest; only a leaf moved here and there on the aspens.
+
+A few forest flies whirled about her, but as yet no ominous green flies
+came--none of those jewelled harbingers of death which appear with
+horrible promptness and as though by magic from nowhere when anything dies
+in the open world.
+
+Her donkey, still attached to the little gaily painted market cart, had
+wandered on up the sandy lane, feeding at random along the fern-bordered
+thickets which walled in the Nivelle byroad on either side.
+
+Presently her ear caught a slight sound; something stirred somewhere in
+the woods behind her. After an interval of terrible stillness there came a
+distant crashing of footsteps among dead leaves and underbrush.
+
+Horror of the Hun still possessed her; the victim of Prussian ferocity
+still lay across her knees. She dared not take the chance that friendly
+ears might hear her call for aid--dared not raise her voice in appeal lest
+she awaken something monstrous, unclean, inconceivable--the unseen thing
+which she could hear at intervals prowling there among dead leaves in the
+demi-light of the woods.
+
+Suddenly her heart leaped with fright; a man stepped cautiously out of the
+woods into the road; another, dressed in leather, with dry blood caked on
+his face, followed.
+
+The first comer, a French gendarme, had already caught sight of the donkey
+and market cart; had turned around instinctively to look for their owner.
+Now he discovered her seated there among the ferns under the oak tree.
+
+"In the name of God," he growled, "what's that child doing there!"
+
+The airman in leather followed him across the road to the oak; the girl
+looked up at them out of dark, tear-marred eyes that seemed dazed.
+
+"Well, little one!" rumbled the big, red-faced gendarme. "What's your
+name?--you who sit here all alone at the wood's edge with a dead man
+across your knees?"
+
+She made an effort to find her voice--to control it.
+
+"I am Maryette Courtray, bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse," she answered,
+trembling.
+
+"And--this young man?"
+
+"They shot him--the Prussians, monsieur."
+
+"My poor child! Was he your lover, then?"
+
+Her tear-filled eyes widened:
+
+"Oh, no," she said na�vely; "it is sadder than that. He was my friend."
+
+The big gendarme scratched his chin; then, with an odd glance at the young
+airman who stood beside him:
+
+"To lose a friend is indeed sadder than to lose a lover. What was your
+friend's name, little one?"
+
+She pressed her hand to her forehead in an effort to search among her
+partly paralyzed thoughts:
+
+"Djack.... That is his name.... He was the first real friend I ever had."
+
+The airman said:
+
+"He is one of my countrymen--an American muleteer, Jack Burley--in charge
+at Sainte Lesse."
+
+At the sound of the young man's name pronounced in English the girl began
+to cry. The big gendarme bent over and patted her cheek.
+
+"_Allons_," he growled; "courage! little mistress of the bells! Let us
+place your friend in your pretty market cart and leave this accursed
+place, in God's name!"
+
+He straightened up and looked over his shoulder.
+
+"For the Boches are in Nivelle woods," he added, with an oath, "and we
+ought to be on our way to Sainte Lesse, if we are to arrive there at all.
+_Allons_, comrade, take him by the head!"
+
+So the wounded airman bent over and took the body by the shoulders; the
+gendarme lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed, holding to
+one of the sagging arms, as though fearing that these strangers might take
+away from her this dead man who had been so much more to her than a mere
+lover.
+
+When they laid him in the market cart she released his sleeve with a sob.
+Still crying, she climbed to the seat of the cart and gathered up the
+reins. Behind her, flat on the floor of the cart, the airman and the
+gendarme had seated themselves, with the young man's body between them.
+They were opening his tunic and shirt now and were whispering together,
+and wiping away blood from the naked shoulders and chest.
+
+"He's still warm, but there's no pulse," whispered the airman. "He's dead
+enough, I guess, but I'd rather hear a surgeon say so."
+
+The gendarme rose, stepped across to the seat, took the reins gently from
+the girl.
+
+"Weep peacefully, little one," he said; "it does one good. Tears are the
+tisane which strengthens the soul."
+
+"Ye-es.... But I am remembering that--that I was not very k-kind to him,"
+she sobbed. "It hurts--_here_--" She pressed a slim hand over her breast.
+
+"_Allons!_ Friends quarrel. God understands. Thy friend back there--he
+also understands now."
+
+"Oh, I hope he does!... He spoke to me so tenderly--yet so gaily. He was
+even laughing at me when they shot him. He was so kind--and droll--" She
+sobbed anew, clasping her hands and pressing them against her quivering
+mouth to check her grief.
+
+"Was it an execution, then?" demanded the gendarme in his growling voice.
+
+"They said he must be a franc-tireur to wear such a uniform----"
+
+"Ah, the scoundrels! Ah, the assassins! And so they murdered him there
+under the tree?"
+
+"Ah, God! Yes! I seem to see him standing there now--his grey, kind
+eyes--and no thought of fear--just a droll smile--the way he had with
+me--" whispered the girl, "the way--_his_ way--with me----"
+
+"Child," said the gendarme, pityingly, "it _was_ love!"
+
+But she shook her head, surprised, the tears still running down her tanned
+cheeks:
+
+"Monsieur, it was more serious than love; it was friendship."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE AVIATOR
+
+
+Where the Fontanes highroad crosses the byroad to Sainte Lesse they were
+halted by a dusty column moving rapidly west--four hundred American mules
+convoyed by gendarmerie and remount troopers.
+
+The sweating riders, passing at a canter, shouted from their saddles to
+the big gendarme in the market cart that neither Nivelle nor Sainte Lesse
+were to be defended at present, and that all stragglers were being
+directed to Fontanes and Le Marronnier. Mules and drivers defiled at a
+swinging trot, enveloped in torrents of white dust; behind them rode a
+peloton of the remount, lashing recalcitrant animals forward; and in the
+rear of these rolled automobile ambulances, red crosses aglow in the rays
+of the setting sun.
+
+The driver of the last ambulance seemed to be ill; his head lay on the
+shoulder of a Sister of Charity who had taken the steering wheel.
+
+The gendarme beside Maryette signalled her to stop; then he got out of the
+market cart and, lifting the body of the American muleteer in his powerful
+arms, strode across the road. The airman leaped from the market cart and
+followed him.
+
+Between them they drew out a stretcher, laid the muleteer on it, and
+shoved it back into the vehicle.
+
+There was a brief consultation, then they both came back to Maryette, who,
+rigid in her seat and very pale, sat watching the procedure in silence.
+
+The gendarme said:
+
+"I go to Fontanes. There's a dressing station on the road. It appears that
+your young man's heart hasn't quite stopped yet----"
+
+The girl rose excitedly to her feet, but the gendarme gently forced her
+back into her seat and laid the reins in her hands. To the airman he
+growled:
+
+"I did not tell this poor child to hope; I merely informed her that her
+friend yonder is still breathing. But he's as full of holes as a pepper
+pot!" He frowned at Maryette: "_Allons!_ My comrade here goes to Sainte
+Lesse. Drive him there now, in God's name, before the Uhlans come
+clattering on your heels!"
+
+He turned, strode away to the ambulance once more, climbed in, and placed
+one big arm around the sick driver's shoulder, drawing the man's head down
+against his breast.
+
+"_Bonne chance!_" he called back to the airman, who had now seated himself
+beside Maryette. "Explain to our little bell-mistress that we're taking
+her friend to a place where they fool Death every day--where to cheat the
+grave is a flourishing business! Good-bye! Courage! En route, brave Sister
+of the World!"
+
+The Sister of Charity turned and smiled at Maryette, made her a friendly
+gesture, threw in the clutch, and, twisting the steering wheel with both
+sun-browned hands, guided the machine out onto the road and sped away
+swiftly after the cloud of receding dust.
+
+"Drive on, mademoiselle," said the airman quietly.
+
+In his accent there was something poignantly familiar to Maryette, and she
+turned with a start and looked at him out of her dark blue, tear-marred
+eyes.
+
+"Are _you_ also American?" she asked.
+
+"Gunner observer, American air squadron, mademoiselle."
+
+"An airman?"
+
+"Yes. My machine was shot down in Nivelle woods an hour ago."
+
+After a silence, as they jogged along between the hazel thickets in the
+warm afternoon sunshine:
+
+"Were you acquainted with my friend?" she asked wistfully.
+
+"With Jack Burley? A little. I knew him in Calais."
+
+The tears welled up into her eyes:
+
+"Could you tell me about him?... He was my first friend.... I did not
+understand him in the beginning, monsieur. Among children it is different;
+I had known boys--as one knows them at school. But a man, never--and,
+indeed, I had not thought I had grown up until--he came--Djack--to live at
+our inn.... The White Doe at Sainte Lesse, monsieur. My father keeps it."
+
+"I see," nodded the airman gravely.
+
+"Yes--that is the way. He came--my first friend, Djack--with mules from
+America, monsieur--one thousand mules. And God knows Sainte Lesse had
+never seen the like! As for me--I thought I was a child still--until--do
+you understand, monsieur?"
+
+"Yes, Maryette."
+
+"Yes, that is how I found I was grown up. He was a man, not a boy--that is
+how I found out. So he became my first friend. He was quite droll, and
+very big and kind--and timid--following me about--oh, it was quite droll
+for both of us, because at first I was afraid, but pretended not to be."
+
+She smiled, then suddenly her eyes filled with the tragedy again, and she
+began to whimper softly to herself, with a faint sound like a hovering
+pigeon.
+
+"Tell me about him," said the airman.
+
+She staunched her tears with the edge of her apron.
+
+"It was that way with us," she managed to say. "I was enchanted and a
+little frightened--it being my first friendship. He was so big, so droll,
+so kind.... We were on our way to Nivelle this morning. I was to play the
+carillon--being mistress of the bells at Sainte Lesse--and there was
+nobody else to play the bells at Nivelle; and the wounded desired to hear
+the carillon."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So Djack came after me--hearing rumours of Prussians in that direction.
+They were true--oh, God!--and the Prussians caught us there where you
+found us."
+
+She bowed her supple figure double on the seat, covering her face with her
+sun-browned hands.
+
+The airman drove on, whistling "La Braban�onne" under his breath, and deep
+in thought. From time to time he glanced at the curved figure beside him;
+but he said no more for a long time.
+
+Toward sunset they drove into the Sainte Lesse highway.
+
+He spoke abruptly, dryly:
+
+"Anybody can weep for a friend. But few avenge their dead."
+
+She looked up, bewildered.
+
+They drove under the old Sainte Lesse gate as he spoke. The sunlight lay
+pink across the walls and tipped the turret of the watch tower with fire.
+
+The town seemed very still; nothing was to be seen on the long main street
+except here and there a Spahi horseman _en vidette_, and the clock-tower
+pigeons circling in their evening flight.
+
+The girl, Maryette, looked dumbly into the fading daylight when the cart
+stopped before her door. The airman took her gently by the arm, and that
+awakened her. As though stiffened by fatigue she rose and climbed to the
+sidewalk. He took her unresisting arm and led her through the tunnelled
+wall and into the White Doe Inn.
+
+"Get me some supper," he said. "It will take your mind off your troubles."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bread, wine, and some meat, if you have any. I'll be back in a few
+moments."
+
+He left her at the inn door and went out into the street, whistling "La
+Braban�onne." A cavalryman directed him to the military telephone
+installed in the house of the notary across the street.
+
+His papers identified him; the operator gave him his connection; they
+switched him to the headquarters of his air squadron, where he made his
+report.
+
+"Shot down?" came the sharp exclamation over the wire.
+
+"Yes, sir, about eleven-thirty this morning on the north edge of Nivelle
+forest."
+
+"The machine?"
+
+"Done for, sir. They have it."
+
+"You?"
+
+"A scratch--nothing. I had to run."
+
+"What else have you to report?"
+
+The airman made his brief report in an unemotional voice. Ending it, he
+asked permission to volunteer for a special service. And for ten minutes
+the officer at the other end of the wire listened to a proposition which
+interested him intensely.
+
+When the airman finished, the officer said:
+
+"Wait till I relay this matter."
+
+For a quarter of an hour the airman waited. Finally the operator half
+turned on his camp chair and made a gesture for him to resume the
+receiver.
+
+"If you choose to volunteer for such service," came the message, "it is
+approved. But understand--you are not ordered on such duty."
+
+"I understand. I volunteer."
+
+"Very well. Munitions go to you immediately by automobile. It is expected
+that the wind will blow from the west by morning. By morning, also, all
+reserves will arrive in the west salient. What is to be your signal?"
+
+"The carillon from the Nivelle belfry."
+
+"What tune?"
+
+"'La Braban�onne.' If not that, then the tocsin on the great bell,
+Clovis."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+In the tiny caf� the crippled innkeeper sat, his aged, wistful eyes
+watching three leather-clad airmen who had been whispering together around
+a table in the corner all the afternoon.
+
+They nodded in silence to the new arrival, and he joined them.
+
+Daylight faded in the room; the drum in the Sainte Lesse belfry, set to
+play before the hour sounded, began to turn aloft; the silvery notes of
+the carillon seemed to shower down from the sky, filling the twilight
+world with angelic melody. Then, in resonant beauty, the great bell,
+Bayard, measured the hour.
+
+The airman who had just arrived went to a sink, washed the caked blood
+from his face and tied it up with a first-aid bandage. Then he began to
+pace the caf�, his head bent in thought, his nervous hands clasped behind
+him.
+
+The room was dusky when he came back to the table where his three comrades
+still sat consulting in whispers. The old innkeeper had fallen asleep on
+his chair by the window. There was no light in the room except what came
+from stars.
+
+"Well," said one of the airmen in a carefully modulated voice, "what are
+you going to do, Jim?"
+
+"Stay."
+
+"What's the idea?"
+
+The bandaged airman rested both hands on the stained table-top:
+
+"We quit Nivelle tonight, but our reserves are already coming up and we
+are to retake Nivelle tomorrow. You flew over the town this morning,
+didn't you?"
+
+All three said yes.
+
+"You took photographs?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then you know that our trenches pass under the bell-tower?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. The wind is north. When the Boches enter our trenches they'll
+try to gas our salient while the wind holds. But west winds are predicted
+after sunrise tomorrow. I'm going to get into the Nivelle belfry tonight
+with a sack of bombs. I'm going to try to explode their gas cylinders if I
+can. The tocsin is the signal for our people in the salient."
+
+"You're crazy!" remarked one of the airmen.
+
+"No; I'll bluff it out. I'm to have a Boche uniform in a few moments."
+
+"You _are_ crazy! You know what they'll do to you, don't you, Jim?"
+
+The bandaged airman laughed, but in his eyes there was an odd flicker like
+a tiny flame. He whistled "La Braban�onne" and glanced coolly about the
+room.
+
+One of the airmen said to another in a whisper:
+
+"There you are. Ever since they got his brother he's been figuring on
+landing a whole bunch of Huns at one clip. This is going to finish him,
+this business."
+
+Another said:
+
+"Don't try anything like that, Jim----"
+
+"Sure, I'll try it," interrupted the bandaged airman pleasantly. "When are
+you fellows going?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"All right. Take my report. Wait a moment----"
+
+"For God's sake, Jim, act sensibly!"
+
+The bandaged airman laughed, fished out from his clothing somewhere a note
+book and pencil. One of the others turned an electric torch on the table;
+the bandaged man made a little sketch, wrote a few lines which the others
+studied.
+
+"You can get that note to headquarters in half an hour, can't you, Ed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right. I'll wait here for my answer."
+
+"You know what risk you run, Jim?" pleaded the youngest of the airmen.
+
+"Oh, certainly. All right, then. You'd better be on your way."
+
+After they had left the room, the bandaged airman sat beside the table,
+thinking hard in the darkness.
+
+Presently from somewhere across the dusky river meadow the sudden roar of
+an airplane engine shattered the silence; then another whirring racket
+broke out; then another.
+
+He heard presently the loud rattle of his comrades' machines from high
+above him in the star-set sky; he heard the stertorous breathing of the
+old innkeeper; he heard again the crystalline bell-notes break out aloft,
+linger in linked harmonies, die away; he heard Bayard's mellow thunder
+proclaim the hour once more.
+
+There was a watch on his wrist, but it had been put out of business when
+his machine fell in Nivelle woods. Glancing at it mechanically he saw the
+phosphorescent dial glimmer faintly under shattered hands that remained
+fixed.
+
+An hour later Bayard shook the starlit silence ten times.
+
+As the last stroke boomed majestically through the darkness an automobile
+came racing into the long, unlighted street of Sainte Lesse and halted,
+panting, at the door of the White Doe Inn.
+
+The airman went out to the doorstep, saluted the staff captain who leaned
+forward from the tonneau and turned a flash on him. Then, satisfied, the
+officer lifted a bundle from the tonneau and handed it to the airman. A
+letter was pinned to the bundle.
+
+After the airman had read the letter twice, the staff captain leaned a
+trifle nearer.
+
+"Do you think it can be done?" he demanded bluntly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Very well. Here are your munitions, too."
+
+He lifted from the tonneau a bomb-thrower's sack, heavy and full. The
+airman took it and saluted.
+
+"It means the cross," said the staff captain dryly. And to the engineer
+chauffeur: "Let loose!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HONOUR
+
+
+For a moment the airman stood watching and listening. The whir of the
+receding car died away in the night.
+
+Then, carrying his bundle and his bomber's sack, heavy with latent death,
+he went into the inn and through the caf�, where the sleeping innkeeper
+sat huddled, and felt his way cautiously to the little dining room.
+
+The wooden shutters had been closed; a candle flared on the table.
+Maryette sat beside it, her arms extended across the cloth, her head
+bowed.
+
+He thought she was asleep, but she looked up as his footfall sounded on
+the bare floor.
+
+She was so pale that he asked her if she felt ill.
+
+"No. I have been thinking of my friend," she replied in a low but steady
+voice.
+
+"He may live," said the airman. "He was alive when we lifted him."
+
+The girl nodded as though preoccupied--an odd, mysterious little nod, as
+though assenting to some intimate, inward suggestion of her own mind.
+
+Then she raised her dark blue eyes to the airman, who was still standing
+beside the table, the sack of bombs hanging from his left shoulder, the
+bundle under his arm.
+
+"Here is supper," she said, looking around absently at the few dishes.
+Then she folded her hands on the table's edge and sat silent, as though
+lost in thought.
+
+He placed the sack carefully on a cane chair beside him, the bundle on the
+floor, and seated himself opposite her. There was bread, meat, and a
+bottle of red wine. The girl declined to eat, saying that she had supped.
+
+"Your friend Jack," he said again, after a long silence, "--I have seen
+worse cases. He may live, mademoiselle."
+
+"That," she said musingly, in her low, even voice, "is now in God's
+hands." She gave the slightest movement to her shoulders, as though easing
+them a trifle of that burden. "I have prayed. You saw me weep. That is
+ended--so much. Now--" and across her eyes shot a blue gleam, "--now I am
+ready to listen to _you_! In the cart--out on the road there--you said
+that anybody can weep, but that few dare avenge."
+
+"Yes," he drawled, "I said that."
+
+"Very well, then; tell me _how_!"
+
+"What do _you_ want to avenge? Your friend?"
+
+"His country's honour, and mine! If he had been slain--otherwise--I should
+have perhaps mourned him, confident in the law of France. But--I have seen
+the Rhenish swine on French soil--I saw the Boches do this thing in
+France. It is not merely my friend I desire to avenge; it is the triple
+crime against his life, against the honour of his country and of mine."
+She had not raised her voice; had not stirred in her chair.
+
+The airman, who had stopped eating, sat with fork in hand, listening,
+regarding her intently.
+
+"Yes," he said, resuming his meal, "I understand quite well what you mean.
+Some such philosophy sent my elder brother and me over here from New
+York--the wild hogs trampling through Belgium--the ferocious herds from
+the Rhine defacing, defiling, rending, obliterating all that civilized man
+has reverenced for centuries.... That's the idea--the world-wide menace of
+these unclean hordes--and the murderous filth of them!... They got my
+brother."
+
+He shrugged, realizing that his face had flushed with the heat of inner
+fires.
+
+"Coolness does it," he added, almost apologetically, "--method and
+coolness. The world must keep its head clear: yellow fever and smallpox
+have been nearly stamped out; the Hun can be eliminated--with intelligence
+and clear thinking.... And I'm only an American airman who has been shot
+down like a winged heron whose comrades have lingered a little to comfort
+him and have gone on.... Yes, but a winged heron can still stab, little
+mistress of the bells.... And every blow counts.... Listen
+attentively--for Jack's sake ... and for the sake of France. For I am
+going to explain to you how you can strike--if you want to."
+
+"I am listening," said Maryette serenely.
+
+"We may not live through it. Even my orders do not send me to do this
+thing; they merely permit it. Are you contented to go with me?"
+
+She nodded, the shadow of a smile on her lips.
+
+"Very well. You play the carillon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You can play 'La Braban�onne'?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On the bells?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He rose, went around the table, carrying his chair with him, and seated
+himself beside her. She inclined her pale, pretty head; he placed his lips
+close to her ear, speaking very slowly and distinctly, explaining his plan
+in every minute detail.
+
+While he was still speaking in a whisper, the street outside filled with
+the trample of arriving cavalry. The Spahis were leaving the environs of
+Sainte Lesse; _chasseurs � cheval_ followed from still farther afield,
+escorting ambulances from the Nivelle hospitals now being abandoned.
+
+"The trenches at Nivelle are being emptied," said the airman.
+
+"And do you mean that you and I are to go there, to Nivelle?" she asked.
+
+"That is exactly what I mean. In an hour I shall be in the Nivelle belfry.
+Will you be there with me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "You can play 'La Braban�onne' on the bells
+while I blow hell out of them in the redoubt below us!"
+
+The infantry from the Nivelle trenches began to pass. There were a few
+wagons, a battery of seventy-fives, a soup kitchen or two and a long
+column of mules from Fontanes.
+
+Two American muleteers knocked at the inn door and came stamping into the
+hallway, asking for a loaf and a bottle of red wine. Maryette rose from
+the table to find provisions; the airman got up also, saying in English:
+
+"Where do you come from, boys?"
+
+"From Fontanes corral," they replied, surprised to hear their own tongue
+spoken.
+
+"Do you know Jack Burley, one of your people?"
+
+"Sure. He's just been winged bad."
+
+"The Huns done him up something fierce," added the other.
+
+"Very bad?"
+
+Maryette came back with a loaf and two bottles.
+
+"I seen him at Fontanes," replied the muleteer, taking the provisions from
+the girl. "He's all shot to pieces, but they say he'll pull through."
+
+The airman turned to Maryette:
+
+"Jack will get well," he translated bluntly.
+
+The girl, who had just refused the money offered by the American muleteer,
+turned sharply, became deadly white for a second, then her face flamed
+with a hot and splendid colour.
+
+One of the muleteers said:
+
+"Is this here his girl?"
+
+"Yes," nodded the airman.
+
+The muleteer became voluble, patting Maryette on one arm and then on the
+other:
+
+"J'ai vue Jack Burley, mamzelle, toot a l'heure! Il est bien, savvy voo!
+Il est tray, tray bien! Bocoo de trou! N'importe! Il va tray bien! Savvy
+voo? Jack Burley, l'ami de voo! Comprenny? On va le guerir toot sweet!
+Wee! Wee! Wee!----"
+
+The girl flung her arms around the amazed muleteer's neck and kissed him
+impetuously on both cheeks. The muleteer blushed and his comrade fidgeted.
+Only the girl remained unembarrassed.
+
+Half laughing, half crying, terribly excited, and very lovely to look
+upon, she caught both muleteers by their sleeves and poured out a torrent
+of questions. With the airman's aid she extracted what information they
+had to offer; and they went their way, flustered, still blushing, clasping
+bread and bottles to their agitated breasts.
+
+The airman looked her keenly in the eyes as she came back from the door,
+still intensely excited, adorably transfigured. She opened her lips to
+speak--the happy exclamation on her lips, already half uttered, died
+there.
+
+"Well?" inquired the airman quietly.
+
+Dumb, still breathing rapidly, she returned his gaze in silence.
+
+"Now that your friend Jack is going to live--what next?" asked the airman
+pleasantly.
+
+For a full minute she continued to stare at him without a word.
+
+"No need to avenge him now," added the airman, watching her.
+
+"No." She turned, gazed vaguely into space. After a moment she said, as
+though to herself: "But his country's honour--and mine? That reckoning
+still remains! Is it not true?"
+
+The airman said, with a trace of pity in his voice, for the girl seemed
+very young:
+
+"You need not go with me to Nivelle just because you promised."
+
+"Oh," she said simply, "I must go, of course--it being a question of our
+country's honour."
+
+"I do not ask it. Nor would Jack, your friend. Nor would your own country
+ask it of you, Maryette Courtray."
+
+She replied serenely:
+
+"But _I_ ask it--of _myself_. Do you understand, monsieur?"
+
+"Perfectly." He glanced mechanically at his useless wrist watch, then
+inquired the time. She went to her room, returned, wearing a little jacket
+and carrying a pair of big, wooden gloves.
+
+"It is after eleven o'clock," she said. "I brought my jacket because it is
+cold in all belfries. It will be cold in Nivelle, up there in the tower
+under Clovis."
+
+"You really mean to go with me?"
+
+She did not even trouble to reply to the question. So he picked up his
+packet and his sack of bombs, and they went out, side by side, under the
+tunnelled wall.
+
+Infantry from Nivelle trenches were still plodding along the dark street
+under the trees; dull gleams came from their helmets and bayonets in the
+obscure light of the stars.
+
+The girl stood watching them for a few moments, then her hand sought the
+airman's arm:
+
+"If there is to be a battle in the street here, my father cannot remain."
+
+The airman nodded, went out into the street and spoke to a passing
+officer. He, in turn, signalled the driver of a motor omnibus to halt.
+
+The little bell-mistress entered the tavern, followed by two soldiers. In
+a few moments they came out bearing, chair-fashion between them, the
+crippled innkeeper.
+
+The old man was much alarmed, but his daughter followed beside him to the
+omnibus, in which were several lamed soldiers.
+
+"_Et toi?_" he quavered as they lifted him in. "What of thee, Maryette?"
+
+"I follow," she called out cheerily. "I rejoin thee--" the bus moved
+on--"God knows when or where!" she added under her breath.
+
+The airman was whispering to a fat staff officer when she rejoined him.
+All three looked up in silence at the belfry of Sainte Lesse, looming
+above them, a monstrous shadow athwart the stars. A moment later an
+automobile, arriving from the south, drew up in front of the inn.
+
+"_Bonne chance_," said the fat officer abruptly; he turned and waddled
+swiftly away in the darkness. They saw him mount his horse. His legs stuck
+out sideways.
+
+"Now," whispered the airman, with a nod to the chauffeur.
+
+The little bell-mistress entered the car, her wooden gloves tucked under
+one arm. The airman followed with his packet and his sack of bombs. The
+chauffeur started his engine.
+
+The middle of the road was free to him; the edges were occupied by the
+retreating infantry. As the car started, very slowly, cautiously feeling
+its way out of Sainte Lesse, the fat staff officer turned his horse and
+trotted up alongside. The car stopped, the engine still running.
+
+"It's understood?" asked the officer in a low voice. "It's to be when we
+hear 'La Braban�onne'?"
+
+"When you hear 'La Braban�onne.'"
+
+"Understood," said the staff officer crisply, saluted and drew bridle. And
+the car moved out into the starlit night along an endless column of
+retreating soldiers, who were laughing, smoking, and chatting as though
+not in the least depressed by their withdrawal from the dry and cosy
+trenches of Nivelle which they were abandoning.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"LA BRABAN�ONNE"
+
+
+No shells were falling in Nivelle as they left the car on the outskirts of
+the town and entered the long main street. That was all of Nivelle, a
+long, treeless main street from which branched a few alleys.
+
+Smouldering d�bris of what had been houses illuminated the street. There
+were no other lights. Nothing stirred except a gaunt cat flitting like a
+shadow along the gutter. There was not a sound save the faint stirring of
+the cinders over which pale flames played fitfully.
+
+Abandoned trenches ditched the little town in every direction; temporary
+shelters made of boughs, sheds, and broken-down wagons stood along the
+street. Otherwise, all impedimenta, materials, and stores had apparently
+been removed by the retreating columns. There was little wreckage except
+the burning d�bris of the few shell-struck houses--a few rags, a few piles
+of firewood, a bundle of straw and hay here and there.
+
+High, mounting toward the stars, the ancient tower with its gilded
+hippogriff dominated the place--a vast, vague shape brooding over the
+single mile-long street and grimy alleys branching from it.
+
+Nobody guarded the portal; the ancient doors stood wide open; pitch
+darkness reigned within.
+
+"Do you know the way?" whispered the airman.
+
+"Yes. Take hold of my hand."
+
+He dared not use his flash. Carrying bundle and bombsack under one arm, he
+sought for her hand and encountered it. Cool, slim fingers closed over
+his.
+
+After a few moments' stealthy advance, she whispered:
+
+"Here are the stairs. Be careful; they twist."
+
+She started upward, feeling with her feet for every stone step. The ascent
+appeared to be interminable; the narrowing stone spiral seemed to have no
+end. Her hand grew warm within his own.
+
+But at last they felt a fresh wind blowing and caught a glimpse of stars
+above them.
+
+Then, tier on tier, the bells of the carillon, fixed to their great beams,
+appeared above them--a shadowy, bewildering wilderness of bells, rising,
+rank above rank, until they vanished in the darkness overhead. Beside
+them, almost touching them, loomed the great bell Clovis, a gigantic mass
+bulking enormously in that shadowy place.
+
+A sonorous wind flowed through the open tower, eddying among the bells--a
+strong, keen night wind blowing from the north.
+
+The airman walked to the south parapet and looked down. Below him in the
+starlight, like an indistinct map spread out, lay the Nivelle redoubt and
+the trench with its gabions, its sand bags, its timbers, its dugouts.
+
+Very far away to the southeast they could see the glare of rockets and
+exploding shells, but the sound of the bombardment did not reach them.
+North, a single searchlight played and switched across the clouds; west,
+all was dark.
+
+"They'll arrive just before dawn," said the airman, placing his sack of
+bombs on the pavement under the parapet. "Come, little bell-mistress, take
+me to see your keyboard."
+
+"It is below--a few steps. This way--if you will follow me----"
+
+She turned to the stone stairs again, descended a dozen steps, opened a
+door on a narrow landing.
+
+And there, in the starlight, he saw the keyboard and the bewildering maze
+of wires running up and branching like a huge web toward the tiers of
+bells above.
+
+He looked at the keyboard curiously. The little mistress of the bells
+displayed the two wooden gloves with which she encased her hands when she
+played the carillon.
+
+"It would be impossible for one to play unless one's hands are armoured,"
+she explained.
+
+"It is almost a lost art," he mused aloud, "--this playing the
+carillon--this wonderful bell-music of the middle ages. There are few
+great bell-masters in this day."
+
+"Few," she said dreamily.
+
+"And"--he turned and stared at her--"few mistresses of the bells, I
+imagine."
+
+"I think I am the only one in France or in Flanders.... And there are few
+carillons left. The Huns are battering them down. Towers of the ancient
+ages are falling everywhere in Flanders and in France under their shell
+fire. Very soon there will be no more of the old carillons left; no more
+bell-music in the world." She sighed heavily. "It is a pity."
+
+She seated herself at the keyboard.
+
+"Dare I play?" she asked, looking up over her shoulder.
+
+"No; it would only mean a shell from the Huns."
+
+She nodded, laid the wooden gloves beside her and let her delicate hands
+wander over the mute keys.
+
+Leaning beside her the airman quietly explained the plan they were to
+follow.
+
+"With dawn they will come creeping into Nivelle--the Huns," he said. "I
+have one of their officers' uniforms in that bundle above. I shall try to
+pass as a general officer. You see, I speak German. My education was
+partly ruined in Germany. So I'll get on very well, I expect.
+
+"And directly under us is the trench and the main redoubt. They'll occupy
+that first thing. They'll swarm there--the whole trench will be crawling
+with them. They'll install their gas cylinders at once, this wind being
+their wind.
+
+"But with sunrise the wind changes--and whether it changes or not, I don't
+care," he added. "I've got them at last where I want them."
+
+The girl looked up at him. He smiled that terrifying smile of his:
+
+"With the explosion of my first bomb among their gas cylinders you are to
+start these bells above us. Are you afraid?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are to play 'La Braban�onne.' That is the signal to our trenches."
+
+"I have often played it," she said coolly.
+
+"Not in the teeth of a barbarian army. Not in the faces of a murderous
+soldiery."
+
+The girl sat quite still for a few moments; then looking up at him, and
+very pale in the starlight:
+
+"Do you think they will tear me to pieces, monsieur?"
+
+He said:
+
+"I mean to hold those stairs with my sack of bombs until our people enter
+the trenches. If they can do it in an hour we will be all right."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is only a half-hour affair from our salient. I allow our people an
+hour."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But if, even now, you had rather go back----"
+
+"_No!_"
+
+"There is no disgrace in going back."
+
+"You said once, 'anybody can weep for friend and country. Few avenge
+either.' I am--happy--to be among the few."
+
+He nodded. After a moment he said:
+
+"I'll bet you something. My country is all right, but it's sick. It's
+got a nauseous dose of verbiage to spew up--something it's
+swallowed--something about being too proud to fight.... My brother and I
+couldn't stand it, so we came to France.... He was in the photo air
+service. He was in mufti--and about two miles up, I believe. Six Huns went
+for him.... And winged him. He had to land behind their lines.... In
+mufti.... Well--I've never found courage to hear the details. I can't
+stand them--yet."
+
+"Your brother--is dead, monsieur?" she asked timidly.
+
+"Oh, yes. With--circumstances. Well, then--after that, from an ordinary,
+commonplace man I became a machine for the extermination of vermin. That's
+all I am--an animated magazine of Persian powder--or I do it in any handy
+way. It's not a sporting proposition, you see, just get rid of them any
+old way. You don't understand, do you?"
+
+"A--little."
+
+"But it's slow work--slow work," he muttered vaguely, "--and the world is
+crawling--crawling with them. But if God guides my bomb this time and if I
+hit one of their gas cylinders--_that_ ought to be worth while."
+
+In the starlight his features became tense and terrible; she shivered in
+her threadbare jacket.
+
+After a few moments' silence he went away up the steps to put on his
+German uniform. When he descended again she had a troubled question for
+him to answer:
+
+"But how shall you account for me, a French girl, monsieur, if they come
+to the belfry?"
+
+A heavy flush darkened his face:
+
+"Little mistress of the bells, I shall pretend to be what the Huns are. Do
+you know how they treat French women?"
+
+"I have heard," she said faintly.
+
+"Then if they come and find you here as my--_prisoner_--they will think
+they understand."
+
+The colour flamed in her face and she bowed it, resting her elbows on the
+keyboard.
+
+"Come," he said, "don't be distressed. Does it matter what a Hun thinks?
+Come; let's be cheerful. Can you hum for me 'La Braban�onne'?"
+
+She did not reply.
+
+"Well, never mind," he said. "But it's a grand battle anthem.... We
+Americans have one.... It's out of fashion. And after all, I had rather
+hear 'La Braban�onne' when the time comes.... What a terrible admission!
+But what Americans have done to my country is far more terrible. The
+nation's sick--sick!... I prefer 'La Braban�onne' for the time being."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The Prussians entered Nivelle a little before dawn. The airman had been
+watching the street below. Down there in the slight glow from the cinders
+of what once had been a cottage a cat had been squatting, staring at the
+bed of coals, as though she were once more installed upon the family
+hearthstone.
+
+Then something unseen as yet by the airman attracted the animal's
+attention. Alert, crouching, she stared down the vista of dark, deserted
+houses, then turned and fled like a ghost.
+
+For a long while the airman perceived nothing. Suddenly close to the house
+fa�ades on either side of the street, shadowy forms came gliding forward.
+
+They passed the glowing embers and went on toward Sainte-Lesse; j�gers,
+with knapsacks on back and rifles trailing; and on their heads oddly
+shaped pot helmets with battered looking visors.
+
+One or two motorcyclists followed, whizzing through the desolate street
+and into the country beyond.
+
+After a few minutes, out of the throat of the darkness emerged a solid
+column of infantry. In a moment, beneath the bell tower, the ground was
+swarming with Huns; every inch of the earth became infested with them;
+fields, hedges, alleys crawled alive with Germans. They overran every
+road, every street, every inch of open country; their wagons choked the
+main thoroughfare, they were already establishing themselves in the
+redoubt below, in the trench, running in and out of dugouts and all over
+scarp, counter-scarp, parades and parapet, ant-like in energy, busy with
+machine gun, trench mortar, installing telephones, searchlights,
+periscopes, machine guns.
+
+Automobiles arrived--two armoured cars and grey passenger machines in
+which there were officers.
+
+The airman laid his hand on Maryette's arm.
+
+"Little bell-mistress," he said, "German officers are coming into the
+tower. I want them to find you in my arms when they come up into this
+belfry. Understand me, and forgive me."
+
+"I--understand," she whispered.
+
+"Play your part bravely. Will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He put his arms around her; they stood rigid, listening.
+
+"Now!" he whispered, and drew her close, kissing her.
+
+Spurred boots clattered on the stone floor:
+
+"Herr Je!" exclaimed an astonished voice. Somebody laughed. But the airman
+coolly pushed the girl aside, and as the faint grey light of dawn fell on
+his field uniform bearing the ribbon of the iron cross, two pairs of
+spurred heels hastily clinked together and two hands flew to the oddly
+shaped helmet visors.
+
+"Also!" exclaimed the airman in a mincing Berlin accent. "When I require a
+corps of observers I usually send my aide. That being now quite perfectly
+understood, you gentlemen will give yourselves the trouble to descend as
+you have come. Further, you will place a sentry at the tower door, and
+inform enquirers that General Count von Gierdorff and his staff are
+occupying the Nivelle belfry for purposes of observation."
+
+The astounded officers saluted steadily; and if they imagined that the
+mythical staff of this general officer was clustered aloft somewhere up
+there where the bells hung it was impossible to tell by the strained
+expressions on their wooden countenances.
+
+However, it was evidently perfectly plain to them what the high Excellenz
+was about in this vaulted room where wires led aloft to an unseen carillon
+on the landing in the belfry above.
+
+The airman nodded; they went. And when their clattering steps echoed far
+below on the spiral stone stairs, the airman motioned to the little
+bell-mistress. She followed him up the short flight to where the bells
+hung.
+
+"We're in for it now," he said. "If High Command comes into this place to
+investigate then I shall have to hold those stairs.... It's growing quite
+light in the east. Which way is the wind?"
+
+"North," she said in a steady voice. She was terribly pale.
+
+He went to the parapet and looked over, half wondering, perhaps, whether
+he would receive a rifle shot through the head.
+
+Far below at the foot of the bell-tower the dimly discerned Nivelle
+redoubt, swarming with men, was being armed; and, to the south, wired he
+thought, but could not see distinctly.
+
+Then, as the dusk of early dawn grew greyer, the first rifle shots rattled
+out in the west. The French salient was saluting the wire-stringers.
+
+Back under shelter they tumbled; whistles sounded distantly; a trench
+mortar crashed; then the accentless tattoo of machine guns broke from
+every emplacement.
+
+"The east is turning a little yellow," he said calmly. "I believe this
+matter is going through. Toss some dust into the air. Which way?"
+
+"North," said the girl.
+
+"Good. I think they're placing their cylinders. I think I can see them
+laying their coils. I'm certain of it. What luck!"
+
+The airman was becoming excited and his voice trembled a little with the
+effort to control it.
+
+"It's growing pink in the east. Try a handful of dust again," he suggested
+almost gaily.
+
+"North," she said briefly, watching the dust aloft.
+
+"Luck's with us! Look at the east! If their High Command keeps his nose
+out of this place!--if he _does_!--Look at the east, little bell-mistress!
+It's all gold! There's pink up higher. I can see a faint tinge of blue,
+too. Can you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+A minute dragged like a year in prison. Then:
+
+"Try the wind again," he said in a strained voice.
+
+"North."
+
+"Oh, luck! Luck!" he muttered, slinging his sack of bombs over his
+shoulder. "We've got them! We've certainly got them! What's that! An
+airplane! Look, little girl--one of our planes is up. There's another!
+Which way is the wind?"
+
+"North."
+
+"Got 'em!" he snapped between his teeth. "Run over to the stairs. Listen!
+Is anybody coming up?"
+
+"I can hear nothing."
+
+"Stand there and listen. Never mind the row the guns are making; listen
+for somebody on the stairs. Look how light it's getting! The sun will push
+up before many minutes. We've got 'em! _Got 'em!_ Wet your finger and try
+the wind!"
+
+"North."
+
+"North here, too. What do you know about that! Luck! Luck's with us! And
+we've got 'em--!" he lifted his clenched hand and laughed at her. "Like
+that!" he said, his blue eyes blazing. "They're getting ready to gas
+below. Look at 'em! Glory to God! I can see two cylinders directly under
+me. They're manning the nozzles! Every man is masking at his post! Anybody
+on the stairs! Any sound?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Are you certain?"
+
+"It is as still as death below."
+
+"Try the dust. The wind's changing, I think. Quick! Which way?"
+
+"_West._"
+
+"Oh, glory! Glory to God! They feel it below! They know. The wind has
+changed. Off came their respirators. No gas this morning, eh? Yes, by God,
+there will be gas enough for all----!"
+
+He caught up a bomb, leaned over the parapet, held it aloft, poised,
+aiming steadily for one second of concentrated co�rdination of mind and
+muscle. Then straight down he launched it. The cylinder beneath him was
+shattered and a green geyser of gas burst from it deluging the trench.
+
+Already a second bomb followed the first, then another, and then a third;
+and with the last report another cylinder in the trench below burst into
+thick green billows of death and flowed over the ground, _west_.
+
+Two more bombs whirled down, bursting on a machine gun; then the airman
+turned with a cry of triumph, and at the same instant the sun rose above
+the hills and flung a golden ray straight across his face.
+
+To Maryette the man stood transfigured, like the Blazing Guardian of the
+Flaming Sword.
+
+"Ring out your Braban�onne!" he cried. "Let the Huns hear the war song of
+the land they've trampled! Now! Little bell-mistress, arm your white hands
+with your wooden gloves and make this old carillon speak in brass and
+iron!"
+
+He caught her by the arm; they ran down the short flight of steps; she
+drew on her wooden gloves and sprang to the keyboard.
+
+"I'll hold the stairs!" he cried. "I can hold these stairs for an hour
+against the whole world in arms. Now, then! The Braban�onne!"
+
+Above the roaring confusion and the explosions far below, from high up in
+the sky a clear bell note floated as though out of Heaven itself--another,
+others, crystalline clear, imperious, filling all the sky with their
+amazing and terrible beauty.
+
+The mistress of the bells struck the keyboard with armoured
+hands--beautiful, slender, avenging hands; the bells above her crashed out
+into the battle-song of Flanders, filling sky and earth with its splendid
+defiance of the Hun.
+
+The airman, bomb in hand, stood at the head of the stone stairs; the
+ancient tower rocked with the fiercely magnificent anthem of revolt--the
+war cry of a devastated land--the land that died to save the world--the
+martyr, Belgium, still prone in the deathly trance awaiting her certain
+resurrection.
+
+The rising sun struck the tower where three score ancient bells poured
+from metal throats their heavenly summons to battle!
+
+The Hun heard it, tumbling, clawing, strangling below in the hellish
+vapours of his own death-fog; and now, from the rear his sky-guns hurled
+shrapnel at the carillon in the belfry of Nivelle.
+
+Clouds possessed the tower--soft, white, fleecy clouds rolling, unfolding,
+floating about the ancient buttresses and gargoyles. An iron hail rained
+on slate and parapet and resounding bell-metal. But the bells pealed and
+pealed in clear-voiced beauty, and Clovis, the great iron giant, hung,
+scarcely sonorous under the shrapnel rain.
+
+Suddenly there were bayonets on the stairs--the clatter of heavy
+feet--alien faces on the threshold. Then a bomb flew, and the terrible
+crash cleared the stairs.
+
+Twice more the clatter came with the clank of bayonets and guttural cries;
+but both died out in the infernal roar of the grenades exploding inside
+that stony spiral. And no more bayonets flickered on the stairs.
+
+The airman, frozen to a statue, listened. Again and again he thought he
+could hear bugles, but the roar from below blotted out the distant call.
+
+"Little bell-mistress!"
+
+She turned her head, her hands still striking the keyboard. He spoke
+through the confusion of the place:
+
+"Sound the tocsin!"
+
+Then Clovis thundered from the belfry like a great gun fired, booming out
+over the world. Around the iron colossus shrapnel swept in gusts; Clovis
+thundered on, annihilating all sound except his own tremendous voice,
+heedless of shell and bullet, disdainful of the hell's shambles below,
+where masked French infantry were already leaping the parapets of Nivelle
+Redoubt into the squirming masses below.
+
+The airman shouted at her through the tumult:
+
+"They murdered my brother. Did I tell you? They hacked him to slivers with
+their bayonets. I've settled the reckoning down in the gas there--their
+own green gas, damn them! You don't understand what I say, do you? He was
+my brother----"
+
+A frightful explosion blew in the oubliette; the room rattled and
+clattered with shrapnel.
+
+The airman swayed where he stood in the swirling smoke, lurched up against
+the stone coping, slid down to his knees.
+
+When his eyes opened the little bell-mistress was bending over him.
+
+"They got me," he gasped. All the front of his tunic was sopping red.
+
+"They said it meant the cross--if I made good.... Are you hurt?"
+
+"Oh, no!" she whispered. "But you----"
+
+"Go on and play!" he whispered with a terrible effort.
+
+"But you----"
+
+"The Braban�onne! Quick!"
+
+She went, whimpering. Standing before the keyboard she pulled on her
+wooden gloves and struck the keys.
+
+Out over the infernal uproar below pealed the bells; the morning sky rang
+with the noble summons to all brave men. Once more the ancient tower
+trembled with the mighty out-crash of the battle hymn.
+
+With the last note she turned and looked down at him where he lay against
+the wall. He opened his glazing eyes and tried to smile at her.
+
+"Bully," he whispered. "Could you recite--the words--to me--just so I
+could hear them on my way--West?"
+
+She left the keyboard, came and dropped on her knees beside him; and
+closing her eyes to check the tears sang in a low, tremulous, girlish
+voice, De Lonlay's words, to the battle anthem of revolution.
+
+"Bully," he sighed. And spoke no more on earth.
+
+But the little mistress of the bells did not know his soul had passed.
+
+And the French officer who came leaping up the stairs, pistol lifted,
+halted in astonishment to see a dead man lying beside a sack of bombs and
+a young girl on her knees beside him, weeping and tremblingly intoning "La
+Braban�onne."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE GARDENER
+
+
+A week later, toward noon, as usual, the two American, muleteers, Smith
+and Glenn, sauntered over from their corral to the White Doe Tavern where,
+it being a meatless day, they ate largely of potato soup and of a tench,
+smoking hot.
+
+The tench had been caught that morning off the back doorstep, which was an
+ancient and mossy slab of limestone let into the coping of the river wall.
+
+Jean Courtray, the crippled inn-keeper, caught it. All that morning he had
+sat there in the sun on the river wall, half dozing, opening his dim eyes
+at intervals to gaze at his painted quill afloat among the water weeds of
+the little river Lesse. At intervals, too, he turned his head with that
+peculiar movement of the old, and peered at his daughter, Maryette, and
+the Belgian gardener who were working among the potatoes in the garden.
+
+And at last he had hooked his fish and the emaciated young Belgian dropped
+his hoe and came over and released it from the hook where it lay flopping
+and quivering and glittering among the wild grasses on the river bank. And
+that was how Kid Glenn and Sticky Smith, American muleteers on duty at
+Saint Lesse, came to lunch on freshly caught tench at the Inn of the White
+Doe.
+
+After luncheon, agreeably satiated, they rose from the table in the little
+dining room and strolled out to the garden in the rear of the inn, their
+Mexican spurs clanking. Maryette heard them; they tipped their caps to
+her; she acknowledged their salute gravely and continued to cultivate her
+garden with a hoe, the blond, consumptive Belgian trundling a rickety
+cultivator at her heels.
+
+"Look, Stick," drawled Glenn. "Maryette's got her decoration on."
+
+From where they lounged by the river wall they could see the cross of the
+Legion pinned to the girl's blouse.
+
+Both muleteers had been present at the investment the day before, when a
+general officer arrived from Paris and the entire garrison of Sainte Lesse
+had been paraded--an impressive total of three dozen men--six gendarmes
+and a brigadier; one remount sub-lieutenant and twenty troopers; a
+veterinary, two white American muleteers, and five American negro hostlers
+from Baton Rouge.
+
+The girl had nearly died of shyness during the ceremony, had endured the
+accolade with crimson cheeks, had stammered a whispered response to the
+congratulations of neighbors who had gathered to see the little
+bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse honoured by the country which she had served
+in the belfry of Nivelle.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+As she came past Smith and Glenn, trailing her hoe, the latter now
+sufficiently proficient in French, said gaily:
+
+"Have you heard from Jack again, Mamzelle Maryette?"
+
+The girl blushed:
+
+"I hear from Djack by every mail," she said, with all the transparent
+honesty that characterized her.
+
+Smith grinned:
+
+"Just like that! Well, tell him from me to quit fooling away his time in a
+hospital and come and get you or somebody is going to steal you."
+
+The girl was very happy; she stood there in the September sunshine leaning
+on her hoe and gazing half shyly, half humorously down the river where a
+string of American mules was being watered.
+
+Mellow Ethiopian laughter sounded from the distance as the Baton Rouge
+negroes exchanged pleasantries in limited French with a couple of
+gendarmes on the bank above them. And there, in the sunshine of the little
+garden by the river, war and death seemed very far away. Only at intervals
+the veering breeze brought to Sainte Lesse the immense vibration of the
+cannonade; only at intervals the high sky-clatter of an airplane reminded
+the village that the front was only a little north of Nivelle, and that
+what had been Nivelle was not so very far away.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"If you were _my_ girl, Maryette," remarked Smith, "I'd die of worry in
+that hospital."
+
+"_You_ might have reason to, Monsieur," retorted the girl demurely. "But
+you see it's Djack who is convalescing, not you."
+
+She had become accustomed to the ceaseless banter of Burley's two
+comrades--a banter entirely American, and which at first she was unable to
+understand. But now all things American, including accent and odd,
+perverted humour, had become very dear to her. The clink-clank of the
+muleteer's big spurs always set her heart beating; the sight of an
+arriving convoy from the Channel port thrilled her, and to her the trample
+of mules, the shouts of foreign negroes, the drawling, broken French
+spoken by the white muleteers made heavenly real to her the dream which
+love had so suddenly invaded, and into which, as suddenly, strode Death,
+clutching at Love.
+
+She had beaten him off--she had--or God had--routed Death, driven him from
+the dream. For it was a dream to her still, and she thought she could
+never be able to comprehend the magic reality of it, even when at last her
+man, "Djack," came back to prove the blessed miracle which held her in the
+magic of its thrall.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"Who's the guy with the wheelbarrow?" inquired Sticky Smith, rolling a
+cigarette.
+
+"Karl, his name is," she answered; "--a Belgian refugee."
+
+"He looks like a Hun to me," remarked Glenn, bluntly.
+
+"He has his papers," said the girl.
+
+Glenn shrugged.
+
+"With his little pink eyes of a pig and his whitish hair and
+eyebrows--well, maybe they make 'em like that in Belgium."
+
+"Papers," added Smith, "_can_ be swiped."
+
+The girl shook her head:
+
+"He's an invalid student from Ypres. He looks quite ill, I think."
+
+"He looks the lunger, all right. But Huns have it, too. What does he
+do--wander about town at will?"
+
+"He works for us, monsieur. Your suspicions are harsh. Karl is quite
+harmless, poor boy."
+
+"What does he do after hours?" demanded Sticky Smith, watching the
+manoeuvres of the sickly blond youth and the wheelbarrow.
+
+"Monsieur Smith, if you knew how innocent is his pastime!" she exclaimed,
+laughing. "He collects and studies moths and butterflies. Is there, if you
+please, a mania more harmless in the world?... And now I must return to my
+work, messieurs."
+
+As the two muleteers strode clanking away toward the canal in the meadow,
+the blond youth turned his head and looked after them out of eyes which
+were naturally pale and small, and which, as he watched the two Americans,
+seemed to grow paler and smaller yet.
+
+That afternoon old Courtray, swathed in a shawl, sat on the mossy doorstep
+and fished among the water weeds of the river. The sun was low; work in
+the garden had ended.
+
+Maryette had gone up into her belfry to play the sunset hymn on the noble
+old carillon. Through the sunset sky the lovely bell-notes floated far and
+wide, exquisitely chaste and aloof as the high-showering ecstasy of a
+skylark.
+
+As always the little village looked upward and listened, pausing in its
+humble duties as long as their little bell-mistress remained in her tower.
+
+After the hymn she played "Myn hart is vol verlangen" and "Het Lied der
+Vlamingen," and ended with the delicate, bewitching little folk-song, "Myn
+Vryer," by Hasselt.
+
+Then in the red glow of the setting sun the girl laid aside her wooden
+gloves, rose from the ancient keyboard, wound up the drum, and, her duty
+done for the evening, came down out of the tower among the transparent
+evening shadows of the tree-lined village street.
+
+The sun hung over Nivelle hills, which had turned to amethyst. Sunbeams
+laced the little river in a red net through which old Courtray's quill
+stemmed the ripples. He still clutched his fishing pole, but his eyes were
+closed, his chin resting on his chest.
+
+Maryette came silently into the garden and looked at her father--looked at
+the blond Karl seated on the river wall beside the dozing angler. The
+blond youth had a box on his knees into which he was intently peering.
+
+The girl came to the river wall and seated herself at her father's feet.
+The Belgian refugee student had already risen to attention, his heels
+together, but Maryette signed him to be seated again.
+
+"What have you found now, Karl?" she inquired in a cautiously modulated
+voice.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle, fancy! I haff by chance with my cultivator among your
+potatoes already twenty pup� of the magnificent moth, Sphinx Atropos,
+upturned! See! Regard them, mademoiselle! What lucky chance! What fortune
+for me, an entomologist, this wonderful sphinx moth to discover encased
+within its chrysalis!"
+
+The girl smiled at his enthusiasm:
+
+"But, Karl, those funny, smooth brown things which resemble little
+polished evergreen-cones are not rare in my garden. Often, when spading or
+hoeing among the potato vines, I uncover them."
+
+"Mademoiselle, the caterpillar which makes this chrysalis feeds by night
+on the leaves of the potato, and, when ready to transform, burrows into
+the earth to become a chrysalis or pupa, as we call it. That iss why
+mademoiselle has often disinterred the pup� of this largest and strangest
+of our native sphinx-moths."
+
+Maryette leaned over and looked into the wooden box, where lay the
+chrysalides.
+
+"What kind of moth do they make?" she asked.
+
+He blinked his small, pale eyes:
+
+"The Death's Head," he said, complacently.
+
+The girl recoiled involuntarily:
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, "--_that_ creature!"
+
+For everywhere in France the great moth, with its strange and ominous
+markings, is perfectly well known. To the superstitious it is a creature
+of evil omen in its fulvous, black and lead-coloured livery of death. For
+the broad, furry thorax bears a skull, and the big, mousy body the yellow
+ribs of a skeleton.
+
+Measuring often more than five inches across the expanded wings, its
+formidable size alone might be sufficient to inspire alarm, but in
+addition it possesses a horrid attribute unknown among other moths and
+butterflies; it can utter a cry--a tiny shrill, shuddering complaint.
+Small wonder, perhaps, that the peasant holds it in horror--this sleek,
+furry, powerfully winged creature marked with skull and bones, which
+whirrs through the night and comes thudding against the window, and
+shrieks horridly when touched by a human hand.
+
+"So _that_ is what turns into the Death's Head moth," said the girl in a
+low voice as though to herself. "I never knew it. I thought those things
+were legless cock-chafers when I dug them out of potato hills. Karl, why
+do you keep them?"
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle! To study them. To breed from them the moth. The Death's
+Head is magnificent."
+
+"God made it," admitted the girl with a faint shudder, "but I am afraid I
+could not love it. When do they hatch out?"
+
+"It is time now. It is not like others of the sphinx family. Incubation
+requires but a few weeks. These are nearly ready to emerge, mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh. And then what do they do?"
+
+"They mate."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"The males seek the females," he said in his pedantic, monotonous voice.
+"And so ardent are the lovers that although there be no female moth within
+five, eight, perhaps ten miles, yet will her lover surely search through
+the night for her and find her."
+
+Maryette shuddered again in spite of herself. The thought of this creature
+marked with the emblems of death and possessed of ardour, too, was
+distasteful.
+
+"Amour macabre--what an unpleasant thought, Karl. I do not care for your
+Death's Head and for the history of their amours."
+
+She turned and gently laid her head on her father's knees. The young man
+regarded her with a pallid sneer.
+
+Addressing her back, still holding his boxful of pup� on his bony knees,
+he said with the sneer quite audible in his voice:
+
+"Your famous savant, Fabre, first inspired me to study the sex habits of
+the Death's Head."
+
+She made no reply, her cheek resting on her father's knees.
+
+"It was because of his wonderful experiments with the Great Peacock moth
+and with others of the genus that I have studied to acquaint myself
+concerning the amours of the Death's Head. _And I have discovered that he
+will find the female even if she be miles and miles away._"
+
+The man was grinning now in the dusk--grinning like a skull; but the
+girl's back was still turned and she merely found something in his voice
+not quite agreeable.
+
+"I think," she said in a low, quiet voice, "that I have now heard
+sufficient about the Death's Head moth."
+
+"Ah--have I offended mademoiselle? I ask a thousand pardons----"
+
+Old Courtray awoke in the dusk.
+
+"My quill, Maryette," he muttered, "--see if it floats yet?"
+
+The girl bent over the water and strained her eyes. Her father tested the
+line with shaky hands. There was no fish on the hook.
+
+"_Voyons!_ The _asticot_ also is gone. Some robber fish has been
+nibbling!" exclaimed the girl cheerfully, reeling in the line. "Father,
+one cannot fish and doze at the same time."
+
+"Eternal vigilance is the price of success--in peace as well as in war,"
+said Karl, the student, as he aided Maryette to raise her father from the
+chair.
+
+"Vigilance," repeated the girl. "Yes, always now in France. Because always
+the enemy is listening." ... Her strong young arm around her father, she
+traversed the garden slowly toward the house. A pleasant odour came from
+the kitchen of the White Doe, where an old peasant woman was cooking.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE SUSPECT
+
+
+That night she wrote to her lover at the great hospital in the south,
+where he lay slowly growing well:
+
+
+    MY DJACK:
+
+    Today has been very beautiful, made so for me by my thoughts of
+    you and by a warm September sun which makes for human happiness,
+    too.
+
+    I am wearing my ribbon of the Legion. Ah, my Djack, it belongs
+    more rightly to you, who would not let me go alone to Nivelle that
+    dreadful day. Why do they not give you the cross? They must be
+    very stupid in Paris.
+
+    All day my happy thoughts have been with you, my Djack. It all
+    seems a blessed dream that we love each other. And I--oh, how
+    could I have been so ignorant, so silly, not to know it sooner
+    than I did!
+
+    I don't know; I thought it was friendship. And that was so
+    wonderful to me that I never dreamed any other miracle possible!
+
+    _Allons_, my Djack. Come and instruct me quickly, because my
+    desire for further knowledge is very ardent.
+
+    The news? _Cher ami_, there is little. Always the far thunder
+    beyond Nivelle in ruins; sometimes a battle-plane high in the
+    blue; a convoy of your beloved mules arriving from the coast;
+    nothing more exciting.
+
+    Monsieur Smeet and Monsieur Glenn inquire always concerning you.
+    They are brave and kind; their odd jests amuse me.
+
+    My father caught a tench in the Lesse this morning.
+
+    My gardener, Karl, collected many unpleasant creatures while
+    hoeing our potatoes. Poor lad, he seems unhealthy. I am glad I
+    could offer him employment.
+
+    My Djack, there could not possibly be any mistake about him, could
+    there? His papers are en r�gle. He is what he pretends, a Belgian
+    student from Ypres in distress and ill health, is he not?
+
+    But how can you answer me, you who lie there all alone in a
+    hospital at Nice? Also, I am ashamed of myself for doubting the
+    unfortunate young man. I am too happy to doubt anybody, perhaps.
+
+    And so good night, my Djack. Sleep sweetly, guarded by powerful
+    angels.
+
+                    Thy devoted,
+                    MARYETTE.
+
+
+She had been writing in the deserted caf�. Now she took a candle and went
+slowly upstairs. On the white plaster wall of her bedroom was a Death's
+Head moth.
+
+The girl, startled for an instant, stood still; an unfeigned shiver of
+displeasure passed over her. Not that the Death's Head was an unfamiliar
+or terrifying sight to her; in late summer she usually saw one or two
+which had flown through some lighted window.
+
+But it was the amorous history of this creature which the student Karl had
+related that now repelled her. This night creature with the skull on its
+neck, once scarcely noticed, had now become a trifle repulsive.
+
+She went nearer, lifting the lighted candle. The thing crouched there with
+slanted wings. It was newly hatched, its sleek body still wet with the
+humors of incubation--wet as a soaked mouse. Its abdomen, too, seemed
+enormous, all swelled and distended with unfertilized eggs. No, there
+could be no question concerning the sex of the thing; this was a female,
+and her tumefied body was almost bursting with eggs.
+
+In startling design the yellow skull stood out; the ribs of the skeleton.
+Two tiny, fiery eyes glimmered at the base of the antenn�--two minute
+jewelled sparks of glowing, lambent fire. They seemed to be watching her,
+maliciously askance.
+
+The very horrid part of it was that, if touched, the creature would cry
+out. The girl knew this, hesitated, looked at the open window through
+which it must have crawled, and sat down on her bed to consider the
+situation.
+
+"After all," she said to herself resolutely. "God made it. It is harmless.
+If God thought fit to paint one of his lesser creatures like a skeleton,
+perhaps it was to remind us that life is brief and that we should lose no
+time to live it nobly in His sight.... I think that perhaps explains it."
+
+However, she did not undress.
+
+"I am quite foolish to be afraid of this poor moth. I repeat that I am
+foolish. _Allez_--I am _not_ afraid. I am no longer afraid. I--I admire
+this handiwork of God."
+
+She sat looking at the creature, her hands lying clasped in her lap.
+
+"It's a very odd thing," she said to herself, "that a lover can find this
+creature even if he be miles and miles away.... Maybe he's on his way
+now----"
+
+Instinctively she sprang up and closed her bedroom window.
+
+"No," she said, looking severely at the motionless moth, "you shall have
+no visitors in my room. You may remain here; I shall not disturb you; and
+tomorrow you will go away of your own accord. But I cannot permit you to
+receive company----"
+
+A heavy fall on the floor above checked her. Breathless, listening, she
+crept to her door.
+
+"Karl!" she called.
+
+Listening again, she could hear distant and vaguely dreadful sounds from
+the gardener-student's room above.
+
+She was frightened but she went up. The youth had had a bad hemorrhage.
+She sat beside him late into the night. After his breathing grew quieter,
+sitting there in silence she could hear odd sounds, rustling, squeaking
+sounds from the box of Death's Head chrysalids on the night table beside
+his bed.
+
+The pup� of the Death's Head were making merry in anticipation of the
+rapidly approaching change--the Great Adventure of their lives--the coming
+metamorphosis.
+
+The youth lay asleep now. As she extinguished the candle and stole from
+the room, all the pup� of the Death's Head began to squeak in the
+darkness.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The student-gardener could do no more work for the present. He lay propped
+up in bed, pasty, scarlet lipped, and he seemed bald and lidless, so
+colourless were hair and eye-lashes.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, Karl?" asked Maryette, coming in for a moment
+as usual in the intervals of her many duties.
+
+"The ink, if you would be so condescending--and a pen," he said, watching
+her out of hollow, sallow eyes of watery blue.
+
+She fetched both from the caf�.
+
+She came again in another hour, knocking at his door, but he said rather
+sharply that he wished to sleep.
+
+Scarcely noticing the querulous tone, she departed. She had much to do
+besides her duties in the belfry. Her father was an invalid who required
+constant care; there was only one servant, an old peasant woman who
+cooked. The Government required her father to keep open the White Doe
+Tavern, and there was always a little business from the scanty garrison of
+Sainte Lesse, always a few meals to get, a few drinks to serve, and nobody
+now to do it except herself.
+
+Then, in the belfry she had duties other than playing, than practice.
+Always at night the clock-drum was to be wound.
+
+She had no assistant. The town maintained none, and her salary as Mistress
+of the Bells of Sainte Lesse did not permit her to engage anybody to help
+her.
+
+So she oiled and wound all the machinery herself, adjusted and cared for
+the clock, swept the keyboard clean, inspected and looked after the wires
+leading to the tiers of bells overhead.
+
+Then there was work to do in the garden--a few minutes snatched between
+other duties. And when night arrived at last she was rather tired--quite
+weary on this night in particular, having managed to fulfill all the
+duties of the sick youth as well as her own.
+
+The night was warm and fragrant. She sat in the dark at her open window
+for a while, looking out into the north where, along the horizon, heat
+lightning seemed to play. But it was only the reflected flashes of the
+guns. When the wind was right, she could hear them.
+
+She had even managed to write to her lover. Now, seated beside the open
+window, she was thinking of him. A dreamy, happy lethargy possessed her;
+she was on the first delicate verge of slumber, so close to it that all
+earthly sounds were dying out in her ears. Then, suddenly, she was awake,
+listening.
+
+A window had been opened in the room overhead.
+
+She went to the stars and called:
+
+"Karl!"
+
+"What?" came the impatient reply.
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"No. N-no, I thank you--" His voice became urbane with an apparent effort.
+"Thank you for inquiring----"
+
+"I heard your window open--" she said.
+
+"Thank you. I am quite well. The air is mild and grateful.... I thank
+mademoiselle for her solicitude."
+
+She returned to her room and lighted her candle. On the white plaster wall
+sat the Death's Head moth.
+
+She had not been in her room all day. She was astonished that the moth had
+not left.
+
+"Shall I have to put you out?" she thought dubiously. "Really, I can not
+keep my window closed for fear of visitors for you, Madam Death! I
+certainly shall be obliged to put you out."
+
+So she found a sheet of paper and a large glass tumbler. Over the moth she
+placed the tumbler, then slipped the sheet of paper under the glass
+between moth and wall.
+
+The thing cried and cried, beating at the glass with wings as powerful as
+a bird's, and the girl, startled and slightly repelled, placed the moth on
+her night table, imprisoned under the tumbler.
+
+For a while it fluttered and flapped and cried out in its strange, uncanny
+way, then settled on the sheet of paper, quivering its wings, both eyes
+like living coals.
+
+Seated on the bedside, Maryette looked at it, schooling herself to think
+of it kindly as one of God's creatures before she released it at her open
+window.
+
+And, as she sat there, something came whizzing into the room through her
+window, circled around her at terrific speed with a humming, whispering
+whirr, then dropped with a solid thud on the night table beside the
+imprisoned female moth.
+
+It was the first suitor arrived from outer darkness--a big, powerful
+Death's Head moth with eyes aglow, the yellow skull displayed in startling
+contrast on his velvet-black body.
+
+The girl watched him, fascinated. He scrambled over to the tumbler, tested
+it with heavy antenn�; then, ardent and impatient, beat against the glass
+with muscular wings that clattered in the silence.
+
+But it was not the amorous fury of the creature striking the tumbler with
+resounding wings, not the glowing eyes, the strong, clawed feet, the
+Death's Head staring from its funereal black thorax that held the girl's
+attention. It was something else; something entirely different riveted her
+eyes on the creature.
+
+For the cigar-shaped body, instead of bearing the naked ribs of a
+skeleton, was snow white.
+
+And now she began to understand. Somebody had already caught the moth, had
+wrapped around its body a cylinder of white tissue paper--tied it on with
+a fine, white silk thread.
+
+The moth was very still now, exploring the interstices between tumbler and
+table with heavy, pectinated antenn�.
+
+Cautiously Maryette bent forward and dropped both hands on the moth.
+
+Instantly the creature cried out horribly; it was like a mouse between her
+shrinking fingers; but she slipped the cylinder of tissue paper from its
+abdomen and released it with a shiver; and it darted and whizzed around
+the room, gyrating in whistling circles around her head until, unnerved,
+she struck at it again and again with empty hands, following, driving it
+toward the open window, out of which it suddenly darted.
+
+But now there was another Death's Head in the room, a burly, headlong,
+infatuated male which drove headlong at the tumbler and clung to it,
+slipping, sliding, filling the room with a feathery tattoo of wings.
+
+It, also, had a snow-white body; and before she had seized the squeaking
+thing and had slipped the tissue wrapper from its body, another Death's
+Head whirred through the window; then another, then two; then others. The
+room swarmed; they were crawling all over the tumbler, the table, the bed.
+The room was filled with the soft, velvety roar of whirring wings beating
+on wall and ceiling and against the tumbler where Madam Death sat
+imprisoned, quivering her wings, her eyes two molten rubies, and the
+ghastly skull staring from her back.
+
+How Maryette ever brought herself to do it; how she did it at last, she
+had no very clear idea. The touch of the slippery, mousy bodies was
+fearsomely repugnant to her; the very sight of the great, skull-bearing
+things began to sicken her physically. A dreadful, almost impalpable floss
+from their handled wings and bodies smeared her hands; the place vibrated
+with their tiny goblin cries.
+
+Somehow she managed to strip them of the tissue cylinders, drive them from
+where they crawled on ceiling, wall and sill into whistling flight. Amid a
+whirlwind of wings she fought them toward the open window; whizzing,
+flitting, circling they sped in widening spirals to escape her blows,
+where she stood half blinded in the vortex of the ghostly maelstrom.
+
+One by one they darted through the open window out into the night; and
+when the last spectral streak of grey had sped into outer darkness the
+girl slammed the windowpanes shut and leaned against the sill enervated,
+exhausted, revolted.
+
+The room was misty with the microscopic dust from the creatures' wings; on
+her palms and fingers were black stains and stains of livid orange; and
+across wall and ceiling streaks and smudges of rusty colour.
+
+She was still trembling when she washed the smears from her hands. Her
+fingers were still unsteady as she smoothed out each tiny sheet of tissue
+paper and laid it on her night table. Then, seated on the bed's edge
+beside the lighted candle, she began to read the messages written in ink
+on these frail, translucent tissue missives.
+
+Every bit of tissue bore a message; the writing was microscopic, the
+script German, the language Flemish. Slowly, with infinite pains, the
+little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse translated to herself each message as
+she deciphered it.
+
+She was trembling more than ever when she finished. Every trace of colour
+had fled from her cheeks.
+
+Then, as she sat there, struggling to keep her mind clear of the horror of
+the thing, striving to understand what was to be done, there came upon her
+window pane a sudden muffled drumming sound, and her frightened gaze fell
+upon a Death's Head moth outside, its eyes like coals, its misty wings
+beating furiously for admittance. And around its body was tied a cylinder
+of white tissue.
+
+But the girl needed no more evidence. The wretched youth in the room
+overhead had already sealed his own doom with any one of these tissue
+cylinders. Better for him if the hemorrhage had slain him. Now a firing
+squad must do that much for him.
+
+Yet, even still, the girl hesitated, almost incredulous, trying to
+comprehend the monstrous grotesquerie of the abominable plot.
+
+Intuition pointed to the truth; logic proved it; somewhere in the German
+trenches a comrade of this spy was awaiting these messages with a caged
+Death's Head female as the bait--a living loadstone wearing the terrific
+emblems of death--an unfailing magnet to draw the skull-bearing messengers
+for miles--had it not been that a _nearer magnet deflected them in their
+flight!_
+
+That was it! That was what the miserable youth upstairs had not counted
+on. Chance had ruined him; destiny had sent Madam Death into the room
+below him to draw, with her macabre charms, every ardent winged messenger
+which he liberated from his bedroom window.
+
+The subtle effluvia permeating the night air for miles around might have
+guided these messengers into the German trenches had not a nearer and more
+imperious perfume annihilated it. Headlong, amorous, impatient they had
+whirled toward the embraces of Madam Death; the nearer and more powerful
+perfume had drawn the half-maddened, half-drugged messengers. The spy in
+the room upstairs, like many Germans, had reasoned wrongly on sound
+premises. His logic had broken down, not his amazing scientific
+foundation. His theory was correct; his application stupid.
+
+And now this young man was about to die. Maryette understood that. She
+comprehended that his death was necessary; that it was the unavoidable
+sequence of what he had attempted to do. Trapped rats must be drowned;
+vermin exterminated by easiest and quickest methods; spies who betray
+one's native land pass naturally the same route.
+
+But this thing, this grotesque, incredible, terrible attempt to engraft
+treachery on one of nature's most amazing laws--this secret, cunning
+Teutonic reasoning, this scientific scoundrelism, this criminal enterprise
+based on patient, plodding and German efficiency, still bewildered the
+girl.
+
+And yet she vaguely realized how science had been already prostituted to
+Prussian malignancy and fury; she had heard of flame jets, of tear-bombs,
+of bombs containing deadly germs; she herself had beheld the poison gas
+rolling back into the trenches at Nivelle under the town tower. Dimly she
+began to understand that the Hun, in his cunning savagery, had tricked,
+betrayed and polluted civilization itself into lending him her own secrets
+with which she was ultimately to be destroyed.
+
+The very process of human thinking had been imitated by these monkeys of
+Europe--apes with the ferocity of hogs--and no souls, none--nothing to
+lift them inside the pale where dwells the human race.
+
+There came a rapping on the caf� door. The girl rose wearily; an immense
+weight seemed to crush her shoulders so that her knees had become
+unsteady.
+
+She opened the caf� door; it was Sticky Smith, come for his nightcap
+before turning in.
+
+"The man upstairs is a German spy," she said listlessly. "Had you not
+better go over and get a gendarme?"
+
+"Who's a spy? That Dutch shrimp you had in your garden?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he?" demanded the muleteer with an oath.
+
+She placed her lighted candle on the bar.
+
+"Wait," she said. "Read these first--we must be quite certain about what
+we do."
+
+She laid the squares of tissue paper out on the bar.
+
+"Do you read Flemish?" she whispered.
+
+"No, ma'am----"
+
+"Then I will translate into French for you. And first of all I must tell
+you how I came to possess these little letters written upon tissue. Please
+listen attentively."
+
+He rested his palm on the butt of his dangling automatic.
+
+"Go on," he said.
+
+She told him the circumstances.
+
+As she commenced to translate the tissue paper messages in a low,
+tremulous voice, the sound of a door being closed and locked in the room
+overhead silenced her.
+
+The next instant she had stepped out to the stairs and called:
+
+"Karl!"
+
+There was no reply. Smith came out to the stair-well and listened.
+
+"It is his custom," she whispered, "to lock his door before retiring. That
+is what we heard."
+
+"Call again."
+
+"He can't hear me. He is in bed."
+
+"Call, all the same."
+
+"Karl!" she cried out in an unsteady voice.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MADAM DEATH
+
+
+There was no reply, because the young man was hanging out over his window
+sill in the darkness trying to switch away, from her closed window below,
+the big, clattering Death's Head moth which obstinately and persistently
+fluttered there.
+
+What possessed the moth to continue battering its wings at the window of
+the room below? Had the other moths which he released done so, too? They
+had darted out of his room into the night, each garnished with a tissue
+robe. He supposed they had flown north; he had not looked out to see.
+
+What had gone wrong with this moth, then?
+
+He took his emaciated blond head between his bony fingers and pondered,
+probing for reason with German thoroughness--that celebrated thoroughness
+which is invariably riddled with flaws.
+
+Of all contingencies he had thought--or so it seemed to him. He could not
+recollect any precaution neglected. He had come to Sainte Lesse for a
+clearly defined object and to make certain reports concerning matters of
+interest to the German military authorities north of Nivelle.
+
+The idea, inspired by the experiments of Henri Fabre, was original with
+him. Patiently, during the previous year, he had worked it out--had proved
+his theory by a series of experiments with moths of this species.
+
+He had arranged with his staff comrade, Dr. Gl�ck, for a forced hatching
+of the pup� which the latter had patiently bred from the enormous green
+and violet-banded caterpillars.
+
+At least one female Death's Head must be ready, caged in the trenches
+beyond Nivelle. Hundreds of pup� could not have died. Where, then, was his
+error--if, indeed, he had made any?
+
+Leaning from the window, he looked down at the frantic moth, perplexed, a
+little uneasy now.
+
+"Swine!" he muttered. "What, then, ails you that you do not fly to the
+mistress awaiting you over yonder?"
+
+He could see the cylinder of white tissue shining on the creature's body,
+where it fluttered against the pane, illuminated by the rays of the candle
+from within the young girl's room.
+
+Could it be possible that the candle-light was proving the greater
+attraction?
+
+Even as the possibility entered his mind, he saw another Death's Head dart
+at the window below and join the first one. But this newcomer wore no
+tissue jacket.
+
+Then, out of the darkness the Death's Heads began to come to the window
+below, swarms of them, startling him with the racket of their wings.
+
+From where did they arrive? They could not be the moths he liberated.
+But.... _Were they?_ Had some accident robbed their bodies of the tissue
+missives? Had they blundered into somebody's room and been robbed?
+
+Mystified, uneasy, he hung over his window sill, staring with sickening
+eyes at the winged tumult below.
+
+With patient, plodding logic he began to seek for the solution. What
+attracted these moths to the room below? Was it the candle-light? That
+alone could not be sufficient--could not contend with the more imperious
+attraction, the subtle effluvia stealing out of the north and appealing to
+the ruling passion which animated the frantic winged things below him.
+
+Patiently, methodically in his mind he probed about for some clue to the
+solution. The ruling passion animating the feathery whirlwind below was
+the necessity for mating and perpetuating the species.
+
+That was the dominant passion; the lure of candle-light a secondary
+attraction.... Then, if this were so--and it had been proven to be a
+fact--then--then--_what_ was in that young girl's bedroom just below him?
+
+Even as the question flashed in his mind he left the window, went to his
+door, listened, noiselessly unlocked it.
+
+A low murmur of voices came from the caf�.
+
+He drew off both shoes, descended the stairs on the flat pads of his
+large, bony feet, listening all the while.
+
+Candle-light streamed out into the corridor from her open bedroom door;
+and he crept to the sill and peered in, searching the place with small,
+pale eyes.
+
+At first he noticed nothing to interest him, then, all in an instant, his
+gaze fell upon Madam Death under her prison of glass.
+
+There she sat, her great bulging abdomen distended with eggs, her lambent
+eyes shining with the terrible passion of anticipation. For one thing only
+she had been created. That accomplished she died. And there she crouched
+awaiting the fulfillment of her life's cycle with the blazing eyes of a
+demon.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+From the caf� below came the cautious murmur of voices. The young man
+already knew what they were whispering about; or, if he did not know he no
+longer cared.
+
+The patches of bright colour in his sunken cheeks had died out in an ashen
+pallor. As far as he was concerned the world was now ended. And he knew
+it.
+
+He went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed's edge. His little, pale
+eyes wandered about the white room; the murmur of voices below was audible
+all the while.
+
+After a few moments' patient waiting, his gaze rested again on Madam
+Death, squatting there with wings sloped, and the skull and bones staring
+at him from her head and distended abdomen.
+
+After all there was an odd resemblance between himself and Madam Death. He
+had been born to fulfill one function, it appeared. So had she. And now,
+in his case as in hers, death was immediately to follow. This was
+sentiment, not science--the blind lobe of the German brain balancing
+grotesquely the reasoning lobe.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The voices below had ceased. Presently he heard a cautious step on the
+stair.
+
+He had a little pill-box in his pocket. Methodically, without haste, he
+drew it out, chose one white pellet, and, holding it between his bony
+thumb and forefinger, listened.
+
+Yes, somebody was coming up the stairs, very careful to make no sound.
+
+Well--there were various ways for a Death's Head Hussar to die for his War
+Lord. All were equally laudable. God--the God of Germany--the celestial
+friend and comrade of his War Lord--would presently correct him if he was
+transgressing military discipline or the etiquette of Kultur. As for the
+levelled rifles of the execution squad, he preferred another way....
+_This_ way!...
+
+His eyes were already glazing when the burly form of Sticky Smith filled
+the doorway.
+
+He looked down at Madam Death under the tumbler beside him, then lifted
+his head and gazed at Smith with blinded eyes.
+
+"Swine!" he said complacently, swaying gently forward and striking the
+floor with his face.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BUBBLES
+
+
+An east wind was very likely to bring gas to the trenches north of the
+Sainte Lesse salient. A north wind, according to season, brought snow or
+rain or fog upon British, French, Belgian and Boche alike. Winds of the
+south carried distant exhalations from orchards and green fields into the
+pitted waste of ashes where that monstrous desolation stretched away
+beneath a thundering iron rain which beat all day, all night upon the dead
+flesh of the world.
+
+But the west wind was the vital wind, flowing melodiously through the
+trees--a clean, aromatic, refreshing wind, filling the sickened world with
+life again.
+
+Sometimes, too, it brought the pleasant music of the bells into far-away
+trenches, when the little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse played the
+carillon. And when her friend, the great bell, Bayard, spoke through the
+resounding sky of France to a million men-at-arms in blue and steel, who
+were steadily forging hell's manacles for the uncaged Hun, the loyal
+western wind carried far beyond the trenches an ominous iron vibration
+that meant doom for the Beast.
+
+And the Beast heard, leering skyward out of pale pig-eyes, but did not
+comprehend.
+
+At the base corral down in the meadow, mules had been scarce recently,
+because a transport had been torpedoed. But the next transport from New
+Orleans escaped; the dusty column had arrived at Sainte Lesse from the
+Channel port, convoyed by American muleteers, as usual; new mules, new
+negroes, new Yankee faces invaded the town once more.
+
+However, it signified little to the youthful mistress-of-the-bells,
+Maryette Courtray, called "Carillonnette," for her Yankee lover still lay
+in his distant hospital--her muleteer, "Djack." So mules might bray, and
+negroes fill the Sainte Lesse meadows with their shouting laughter; and
+the lank, hawk-nosed Yankee muleteers might saunter clanking into the
+White Doe in search of meat or drink or tobacco, or a glimpse of the
+pretty bell-mistress, for all it meant to her.
+
+Her Djack lived; that was what occupied her mind; other men were merely
+men--even his comrades, Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn, assumed individuality
+to distinguish them from other men only because they were Djack's friends.
+And as for all other muleteers, they seemed to her as alike as Chinamen,
+leaving upon her young mind a general impression of long, thin legs and
+necks and the keen eyes of hunting falcons.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+She had washing to do that morning. Very early she climbed up into the
+ancient belfry, wound the drum so that the bells would play a few bars at
+the quarters and before each hour struck; and also in order that the
+carillon might ring mechanically at noon in case she had not returned to
+take her place at the keyboard with her wooden gloves.
+
+There was a light west wind rippling through the tree tops; and everywhere
+sunshine lay brilliant on pasture and meadow under the purest of cobalt
+skies.
+
+In the garden her crippled father, swathed in shawls, dozed in his deep
+chair beside the river-wall, waking now and then to watch the quill on his
+long bamboo fish-pole, stemming the sparkling current of the little river
+Lesse.
+
+Sticky Smith, off duty and having filled himself to repletion with
+caf�-au-lait at the inn, volunteered to act as nurse, attendant, remover
+of fish and baiter of hook, while Maryette was absent at the stone-rimmed
+pool where the washing of all Sainte Lesse laundry had been accomplished
+for hundreds of years.
+
+"You promise not to go away?" she cautioned him in the simple, first-aid
+French she employed in speaking to him, and pausing with both arms raised
+to balance the loaded clothes-basket on her head.
+
+"Wee--wee!" he assured her with dignity. "Je fume mong peep! Je regard le
+vieux p�cher. Voo poovay allay, Mademoiselle Maryette."
+
+She hesitated, then removed the basket from her head and set it on the
+grass.
+
+"You are very kind, Monsieur Steek-Smeet. I shall wash your underwear the
+very first garments I take out of my basket. Thank you a thousand times."
+She bent over with sweet solicitude and pressed her lips to her father's
+withered cheek:
+
+"Au revoir, my father _ch�ri_. An hour or two at the meadow-_lavoir_ and I
+shall return to find thee. _Bonne chance, mon p�re!_ Thou shalt surely
+catch a large and beautiful fish for luncheon before I return with my
+wash."
+
+She swung the basket of wash to her head again without effort, and went
+her way, following the deeply trodden sheep-path behind the White Doe Inn.
+
+The path wound down through a sloping pasture, across a footbridge
+spanning an arm of the Lesse which washed the base of the garden wall,
+then ascended a gentle aclivity among hazel thicket and tall sycamores,
+becoming for a little distance a shaded wood-path where thrushes sang
+ceaselessly in the sun-flecked undergrowth.
+
+But at the eastern edge of the copse the little hill fell away into an
+open, sunny meadow, fragrant with wild-flowers and clover, through which a
+rivulet ran deep and cold between grassy banks.
+
+It supplied the drinking water of Sainte Lesse; and a branch of it poured
+bubbling into the stone-rimmed _lavoir_ where generations of Sainte Lesse
+maids had scrubbed the linen of the community, kneeling there amid wild
+flowers and fluttering butterflies in the shade of three tall elms.
+
+There was nobody at the pool; Maryette saw that as she came out of the
+hazel copse through the meadow. And very soon she was on her knees at the
+clear pool's edge, bare of arm and throat and bosom, her blue wool skirts
+trussed up, and elbow deep in snowy suds.
+
+Overhead the sky was a quivering, royal blue; the earth shimmered in its
+bath of sunshine; the west wind blowing carried away eastward the
+reverberations of the distant cannonade, so that not even the vibration of
+the concussions disturbed Sainte Lesse.
+
+A bullfinch was piping lustily in a young tree as she began her task; a
+blackbird answered from somewhere among the hawthorns with a bewildering
+series of complicated trills.
+
+As the little mistress-of-the-bells scrubbed and beat the clothes with her
+paddle, and rinsed and wrung them and soaped them afresh, she sang softly
+under her breath, to an ancient air of her _pays_, words that she
+improvised to fit it--_vrai chanson de laveuse_:
+
+  "A blackbird whistles
+            I love!
+  Over the thistles
+  Butterflies hover,
+  Each with her lover
+            In love.
+  Blue Demoiselles that glisten,
+            Listen, I love!
+  Wind of the west, oh, listen,
+            I am in love!
+  Sing my song, ye little gold bees!
+  Opal bubbles around my knees
+  All afloat in the soap-sud broth,
+  Whisper it low to the snowy froth;
+  And Thou who rulest the skies above,
+  Mary, adored--I love--I love!"
+
+Slap-slap! went her paddle; the sud-spume flew like shreds of cotton;
+iridescent foam set with bubbles swirled in the stone-edged basin,
+constantly swept away down stream by the current, constantly renewed as
+she soaped and scrubbed, kneeling there in the meadow grass above the
+pool.
+
+The blackbird came quite near to watch her; the bullfinch, attracted by
+her childish voice as she sang the song she was making, whistled bold
+response, silent only when the echoing slap of the paddle startled him
+where he sat on the trembling tip of an aspen.
+
+Blue dragon flies drifted on glimmering wings; she put them into her song;
+the meadow was gay with butterflies' painted wings; she sang about them,
+too. Cloud and azure sky, tree tops and clover, the tiny rivulet dancing
+through deep grasses, the wind furrowing the fields, all these she put
+into her _chansonnette de laveuse_. And always in the clear glass of the
+stream she seemed to see the smiling face of her friend, Djack--her lover
+who had opened her eyes of a child to all things beautiful in the world.
+
+Once or twice, from very far away, she fancied she heard the distant
+singing of the negro muleteers sunning themselves down by the corral. She
+heard, at quarter-hour intervals, her bells melodiously recording time as
+it sped by; then there were intervals of that sweet stillness which is but
+a composite harmony of summer--the murmur of insects, the whisper of
+leaves and water, capricious seconds of intense silence, then the hushed
+voice of life exquisitely audible again.
+
+War, wickedness, the rage and cruelty of the Beast--all the vile and
+filthy ferocity of the ferocious Swine of the North became to her as
+unreal as a tragic legend half-forgotten. And death seemed very far away.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+Her washing was done; the wet clothing piled in her basket. Perspiration
+powdered her forehead and delicate little nose.
+
+Hot, flushed, breathing deeply and irregularly from her efforts under a
+vertical sun, she stood erect, loosening the blouse over her bosom to the
+breeze and pushing back the clustering masses of hair above her brow.
+
+The water laughed up at her, invitingly; the last floating castle of white
+foam swept past her feet down stream. On the impulse of the moment she
+unlaced her blue wool skirt, dropped it around her feet, stepped from it;
+unbuckled both garters, stripped slippers and stockings from her feet, and
+waded out into the pool.
+
+The fresh, delicious coolness of the water thrilled and encouraged her to
+further adventure; she twisted up her splendid hair, bound it with her
+blue kerchief, flung blouse and chemisette from her, and gave herself to
+the sparkling stream with a sigh of ecstasy.
+
+Alders swept the eastern edges of the current where the rivulet widened
+beyond the basin and ran south along the meadow's edge to the Wood of
+Sainte Lesse--a cool, unruffled flow, breast deep, floored with sand as
+soft as silver velvet.
+
+She waded, floated, swam a little, or, erect, roamed leisurely along the
+alder fringe, exploring the dim green haunts of frog and water-hen, stoat
+and b�cassine--a slim, wet dryad, gliding silently through sun and dappled
+shadow.
+
+Where the stream comes to Sainte Lesse Wood, there is a hill set thick
+with hazel and clumps of fern, haunted by one roe-deer and numerous
+rabbits and pheasants.
+
+She was close to its base, now, gliding through the shade like some lithe
+creature of the forest; making no sound save where the current curled
+around her supple body in twisted necklaces of liquid light.
+
+Then, as she stood, peering cautiously through tangled branches for a
+glimpse of the little roe-deer, she heard a curious sound up on the
+hill--an inexplicable sound like metal striking stone.
+
+She stood as though frozen; clink, clink came the distant sound. Then all
+was still. But presently she saw a scared cock-pheasant, crouching low
+with flattened neck outstretched, run like a huge rat through the hazel
+growth, out across the meadow.
+
+She remained motionless, scarcely daring to draw her breath. Somebody had
+passed over the hill--if, indeed, he or she had actually continued on
+their mysterious way. Had they? But finally the intense quiet reassured
+her, and she concluded that whoever had made that metallic sound had
+continued on toward Sainte Lesse Wood.
+
+She had taken with her a cake of soap. Now, here in the green shade, she
+made her ablutions, soaping herself from head to foot, turning her head
+leisurely from time to time to survey her leafy environment, or watch the
+flight of some tiny woodland bird, or study with pretty and speculative
+eyes the soap-suds swirling in a dimpled whirlpool around her thighs.
+
+The bubbles fascinated her; she played with them, capriciously, touching
+one here, one there, with tentative finger to see them explode in a tiny
+rainbow shower.
+
+Finally she chose a hollow stem from among a cluster of scented rushes,
+cleared it with a vigorous breath, soaped one end, and, touching it to the
+water, blew from it a prodigious bubble, all swimming with gold and purple
+hues.
+
+Into the air she tossed it, from the end of the hollow reed; the breeze
+caught it and wafted it upward until it burst.
+
+_Then a strange thing happened!_ Before her upturned eyes another bubble
+slowly arose from a clump of aspens out of the hazel thickets on the
+hill--a big, pearl-tinted, translucent bubble, as large as a melon. Upward
+it floated, slowly ascending to the tree-tops. There the wind caught it,
+drove it east, but it still mounted skyward, higher, higher, sailing
+always eastward, until it dwindled to the size of a thistledown and faded
+away in mid-air.
+
+Astounded, the little mistress-of-the-bells stood motionless, waist deep
+in the stream, lips parted, eyes straining to pierce the dazzling ether
+above.
+
+And then, before her incredulous gaze, another pearl-tinted, translucent
+bubble slowly floated upward from the thicket near the aspens, mounted
+until the breeze struck it, then soared away skyward and melted like a
+snowflake into the east.
+
+Moving as stealthily as some sinuous creature of the water-weeds, the girl
+stole forward, threading her way among the rushes, gliding, twisting
+around tussock and alder, creeping along fern-set banks, her eyes ever
+focused on the clump of aspens quivering against the sky above the hazel.
+
+She could see nobody, hear not a sound from the thicket on the little
+hill. But another bubble rose above the aspens as she looked.
+
+Naked, she dared not advance into the woods--scarcely dared linger where
+she was, yet found enough courage to creep out on a carpet of moss and lie
+flat under a young fir, listening and watching.
+
+No more bubbles rose above the aspens; there was not a sound, not a
+movement in the hazel.
+
+For an hour or more she lay there; then, with infinite caution, she
+slipped back into the stream, waded across, crept into the meadow, and
+sped like a scared fawn along the bank until she stood panting by the
+stone-rimmed pool again.
+
+Sun and wind had dried her skin; she dressed rapidly, swung her basket to
+her head, and started swiftly for Sainte Lesse.
+
+Before she came in sight of the White Doe Tavern, she could hear the negro
+muleteers singing down by the corral. Sticky Smith still squatted in the
+garden by the river-wall, smoking his pipe. Her father lay asleep in his
+chair, his wrinkled hands still clasping the fishing pole, the warm breeze
+blowing his white hair at the temples.
+
+She disposed of the wash; then she and Sticky Smith gently aroused the
+crippled bell-master and aided him into the house.
+
+The old peasant woman who cooked for the inn had soup ready. The noonday
+meal in Sainte Lesse had become an extremely simple affair.
+
+"Monsieur Steek," said the girl carelessly, "did you ever, as a child, fly
+toy balloons?"
+
+"Sure, Maryette. A old Eyetalian wop used to come 'round town selling
+them. He had a stick with about a hundred little balloons tied to it--red,
+blue, green, yellow--all kinds and colours. Whenever I had the price I
+bought one."
+
+"Did it fly?"
+
+"Yes. The gas in it wasn't much good unless you got a fresh one."
+
+"Would it fly high?"
+
+"Sure. Sky-high. I've seen 'em go clean out of sight when you got a fresh
+one."
+
+"Nobody uses them here, do they?"
+
+"Here? No, it wouldn't be allowed. A spy could send a message by one of
+those toy balloons."
+
+"Oh," nodded Maryette thoughtfully.
+
+Smith shook his head:
+
+"No, children wouldn't be permitted to play with them things now,
+Maryette."
+
+"Then there are not any toy balloons to be had here in Sainte Lesse?"
+
+"I rather guess not! Farther north there are."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"The artillery uses them."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don't know. The balloon and flying service use 'em, too. I've seen
+officers send them up. Probably it is to find out about upper air
+currents."
+
+"_Our_ flying service?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"_Ballons d'essai_," she nodded carelessly. But she was not yet entirely
+convinced regarding the theory she was pondering.
+
+After lunch she continued to be very busy in the laundry for a time, but
+the memory of those three little balloons above the aspens troubled her.
+
+Smith had gone on duty at the corral; Kid Glenn sauntered clanking into
+the bar and was there regaled with a _bock_ and a _tranche_.
+
+"Monsieur Keed," said Maryette, "are any of our airmen in Sainte Lesse
+today?"
+
+Glenn drained his glass and smacked his lips:
+
+"No, ma'am," he said.
+
+"No balloonists, either?"
+
+"I don't guess so, Maryette. We've got the Boche flyers scared stiff. They
+don't come over our first lines anymore, and our own people are out
+yonder."
+
+"Keed," she said, winningly sweet, "do you, in fact, love me a little--for
+Djack's sake?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"I borrow of you that automatic pistol. Yes?" She smiled at him
+engagingly.
+
+"Sure. Anything you want! What's the trouble, Maryette?"
+
+She shrugged her pretty shoulders:
+
+"Nothing. It just came into my cowardly head that the path to the _lavoir_
+is lonely at sundown. And there are new muleteers in Sainte Lesse. And I
+must wash my clothes."
+
+"I reckon," he said gravely, unbuckling his weapon-filled holster and
+quietly strapping it around her shoulder with its pocketed belt of clips.
+
+"You will not require it this afternoon?" she asked.
+
+"No fear. You won't either. Them mule-whacking coons is white."
+
+She understood.
+
+"Some men who seem whitest are blacker than any negro," she remarked.
+"_Eh, bien!_ I thank you, Keed, _mon ami_, for your complaisance. You are
+very amiable to submit to the whim of a silly girl who suddenly becomes
+afraid of her own shadow."
+
+Glenn grinned and glanced significantly at the cross dangling from her
+bosom:
+
+"Sure," he said, "your government decorates cowards. That's why it gave
+you the Legion."
+
+She blushed but looked up at him seriously:
+
+"Keed, if I flew a little toy balloon in the air, where would the west
+wind carry it?"
+
+"Into the Boche trenches," he replied, much interested in the idea. "If
+you've got one, we'll paint 'To hell with Willie' on it and set it afloat!
+But we'll have to get permission from the gendarmes first."
+
+She said, smiling:
+
+"I'm sorry, but I haven't any toy balloons."
+
+She picked up her basket with its new load of soiled linen, swung it
+gracefully to her head, ignoring his offered assistance, gave him a
+beguiling glance, and went away along the sheep-path.
+
+Once more she followed the deep-trodden and ancient trail through copse
+and pasture and over the stream down into the meadow, where the west wind
+furrowed the wild-flowers and the early afternoon sun fell hot.
+
+She set her clothes to soak, laid paddle and soap beside them, then,
+straightening up, remained erect on her knees, her intent gaze fixed on
+the distant clump of aspens, delicate as mist above the hazel copse on the
+little hill beyond.
+
+It was a whole hour before her eyes caught the high glimmer of a tiny
+balloon. Only for a moment was it visible at that distance, then it became
+merged in the dazzling blue above the woods.
+
+She waited. At last she concluded that there were to be no more balloons.
+Then a sudden fear assailed her lest she had waited too long to
+investigate; and she sprang to her feet, hurried over the single plank
+used as a footbridge, and sped down through the alders.
+
+Here and there a pheasant ran headlong across her path; a rabbit or two
+scuttled through the ferns. Nearing the hazel copse she slackened speed
+and advanced with caution, scanning the thicket ahead.
+
+Suddenly, on the ground in front of her, she caught sight of a small iron
+cylinder. Evidently it had rolled down there from the slope above.
+
+Very gingerly she approached and picked it up. It was not very heavy, not
+too big for her skirt pocket.
+
+As she slipped it into the pocket of her blue woolen peasant-skirt, her
+quick eye caught a movement among the hazel bushes on the hillside to her
+right. She sank to the ground and lay huddled there.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+KAMERAD
+
+
+Down the slope, through the thicket, came a man. She could see his legs
+only. He wore dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like Sticky Smith's
+and Kid Glenn's, only he wore no big, clanking Mexican spurs.
+
+The man passed in front of her, his burly body barely visible through the
+leaves, but not his features.
+
+She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried through the ferns of the
+warren, retracing her steps, and arrived breathless at the _lavoir_. And
+scarcely had she dropped to her knees and seized soap and paddle, than a
+squat, bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared on the opposite bank
+of the stream, stepping briskly out of the bushes.
+
+He did not notice her at first. He looked about for a place to jump, found
+one, leaped safely across, and came on at a swinging stride across the
+meadow.
+
+The girl, bending above the water, suddenly struck sharply with her
+paddle.
+
+Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee deep in clover.
+
+Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence, continued to soap and
+scrub and slap her wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of a child
+the chansonette she had made that morning. But out of the corner of her
+eyes she kept him in view--saw him come sauntering forward as though
+reassured, became aware that he had approached very near, was standing
+behind her.
+
+Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick up another soiled garment, she
+suddenly encountered his dark gaze; and her start and slight exclamation
+were entirely genuine.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" she said, with offended emphasis, "one does not approach
+people that way, without a word!"
+
+"Did I frighten mademoiselle?" he asked, in recognizable French, but with
+an accent unpleasantly familiar to her. "If I did, I am very sorry and I
+offer mademoiselle a thousand excuses and apologies."
+
+The girl, kneeling there in the clover, flashed a smile at him over her
+shoulder. The quick colour reddened his face and powerful neck. The girl
+had been right; her smile had been an answer that he was not going to
+ignore.
+
+"What a pretty spot for a _lavoir_," he said, stepping to the edge of the
+pool; "and what a pretty girl to adorn it!"
+
+Maryette tossed her head:
+
+"Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur. Do you not perceive that I am
+busy?"
+
+"It is not impossible to exchange a polite word or two when people are
+busy, is it, mademoiselle?" he asked, laughing and showing a white and
+perfect set of teeth under a short, dark mustache.
+
+She continued to wring out her wash; but there was now a slight smile on
+her lips.
+
+"May I not say who I am?" he asked persuasively. "May I not venture to
+speak?"
+
+"_Mon dieu_, monsieur, there is liberty of speech for all in France. That
+blackbird might be glad to know your name if you choose to tell him."
+
+"But I ask _your_ permission to speak to _you_!" There seemed to be no
+sense of humour in this young man.
+
+She laughed:
+
+"I am not curious to hear who you are!... But if it affords you any relief
+to explain to the west wind what your name may be--" She ended with a
+disdainful shrug. After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes to
+his--lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes. But they were studying the
+stranger closely.
+
+He was a powerfully built, dark-skinned young man in the familiar khaki of
+the American muleteers, wearing their insignia, their cap, their holster
+and belt, and an extra pouch or wallet, loaded evidently with something
+heavy.
+
+She said, coolly:
+
+"You must be one of the new Yankee muleteers who came with that beautiful
+new herd of mules."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Yes, I'm an American muleteer. My name is Charles Braun. I came over in
+the last transport."
+
+"You know Steek?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Steek! Monsieur Steekee Smeete?"
+
+"Sticky Smith?"
+
+"_Mais oui?_"
+
+"I've met him," he replied curtly.
+
+"And Monsieur Keed Glenn?"
+
+"I've met Kid Glenn, too. Why?"
+
+"They are friends of mine--very intimate friends. Of course," she added,
+nose up-tilted, "if they are not also _your_ friends, any acquaintance
+with me will be very difficult for _you_, Monsieur Braun."
+
+He laughed easily and seated himself on the grass beside her; and, as he
+sat down, a metallic clinking sounded in his wallet.
+
+"_Tenez_," she remarked, "you carry old iron and bottles about with you, I
+notice."
+
+"Snaffles, curbs and stirrup irons," he replied carelessly. And in the
+girl's heart there leaped the swift, fierce flame of certainty in
+suspicion.
+
+"Why do you bring all that ironmongery down here?" she inquired, with
+frankly childish curiosity, leisurely wringing out her linen.
+
+"A mule got away from the corral. I've been wandering around in the bushes
+trying to find him," he explained, so naturally and in such a friendly
+voice that she raised her eyes to look again at this young gallant who
+lingered here at the _lavoir_ for the sake of her _beaux yeux_.
+
+Could this dark-eyed, smiling youth be a Hun spy? His smooth, boyish
+features, his crisp short hair and tiny mustache shading lips a trifle too
+red and overfull did not displease her. In his way he was handsome.
+
+His voice, too, was attractive, gaily persuasive, but it was his
+pronunciation of the letters c and d which had instantly set her on her
+guard.
+
+Seated on the bank near her, his roving eyes full of bold curiosity bent
+on her from time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little wreath out of
+long-stemmed clover and _boutons d'or_, he appeared merely an intrusive,
+irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse himself with a few moments'
+rustic courtship here before he continued on his way.
+
+"You are exceedingly pretty," he said. "Will you tell me your name in
+exchange for mine?"
+
+"Maryette Courtray."
+
+"Oh," he exclaimed in quick recognition; "you are bell-mistress in Sainte
+Lesse, then! _You_ are the celebrated carillonnette! I have heard about
+you. I suspected that you might be the little mistress of Sainte Lesse
+bells, because you wear the Legion--" He nodded his handsome head toward
+the decoration on her blouse.
+
+"And to think," he added effusively, "that it is just a mere slip of a
+girl who was decorated for bravery by France!"
+
+She smiled at him with all the beguilingly _b�te_ innocence of the young
+when flattered:
+
+"You are too amiable, monsieur. I really do not understand why they gave
+me the Legion. To encourage all French children, perhaps--because I really
+am a dreadful coward." She tapped the holster on her thigh and gazed at
+him quite guilelessly out of wide and trustful eyes. "You see? I dare not
+even come here to wash my clothes unless I carry this--in case some Boche
+comes prowling."
+
+"Whose pistol is it?" he asked.
+
+"The weapon belongs to Monsieur Steek. When I come to wash here I borrow
+it."
+
+"Are you the sweetheart of Monsieur Steek?" he inquired, mimicking her
+pronunciation of "Stick," and at the same time fixing his dark eyes boldly
+and expressively on hers.
+
+"Does a young girl of my age have sweethearts?" she demanded scornfully.
+
+"If she hasn't had one, it's time," he returned, staring hard at her with
+a persistent and fixed smile that had become almost offensive.
+
+"Oh, la!" she exclaimed with a shrug of her youthful shoulders. "Perhaps
+you think I have time for such foolishness--what with housework to do and
+washing, and caring for my father, and my duties in the belfry every day!"
+
+"Youth passes swiftly, belle Maryette."
+
+"Imitate him, beau monsieur, and swiftly pass your way!"
+
+"_L'amour est doux, petite Marie!_"
+
+"_Je m'en moque!_"
+
+He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his knees beside her, and rolled
+back his cuffs.
+
+"Come," he said, "I'll help you wash. We two should finish quickly."
+
+"I am in no haste."
+
+"But it will give you an hour's leisure, belle Maryette."
+
+"Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?"
+
+"I shall try to instruct you why, when we have our hour together."
+
+"Do you mean to pay court to me?"
+
+"I am doing that now. My ardent courtship will already be accomplished, so
+that we need not waste our hour together!" He began to laugh and wring out
+the linen.
+
+"Monsieur," she expostulated smilingly, "your apropos disturbs me. Have
+you the assurance to believe that you already appeal to my heart?"
+
+"Have I not appealed to it a little, Maryette?"
+
+The girl averted her head coquettishly. For a few minutes they scrubbed
+away there together, side by side on their knees above the rim of the
+pool. Then, without warning, his hot, red lips burned her neck. Her swift
+recoil was also a shudder; her face flushed.
+
+"Don't do that!" she said sharply, straightening up in the grass where she
+was kneeling.
+
+"You are so adorable!" he pleaded in a low, tense voice.
+
+There was a long silence. She had moved aside and away from him on her
+knees; her head remained turned, too, and her features were set as though
+carven out of rosy marble.
+
+She was summoning every atom of resolution, every particle of courage to
+do what she must do. Every fibre in her revolted with the effort; but she
+steeled herself, and at last the forced smile was stamped on her lips, and
+she dared turn her head and meet his burning gaze.
+
+"You frighten me," she said--and her unsteady voice was convincing. "A
+young girl is not courted so abruptly."
+
+"Forgive me," he murmured. "I could not help myself--your neck is so
+fragrant, so childlike----"
+
+"Then you should treat me as you would a child!" she retorted pettishly.
+"Amuse me, if you aspire to any comradeship with me. Your behaviour does
+not amuse me at all."
+
+"We shall become comrades," he said confidently, "and you shall be
+sufficiently amused."
+
+"It requires time for two people to become comrades."
+
+"Will you give me an hour this evening?"
+
+"What? A rendezvous?" she exclaimed, laughing.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You mean somewhere alone with you?"
+
+"Will you, Maryette?"
+
+"But why? I am not yet old enough for such foolishness. It would not amuse
+me at all to be alone with you for an hour." She pouted and shrugged and
+absently plucked a hollow stem from the sedge.
+
+"It would amuse me much more to sit here and blow bubbles," she added,
+clearing the stem with a quick breath and soaping the end of it.
+
+Then, with tormenting malice, she let her eyes rest sideways on him while
+she plunged the hollow stem into the water, withdrew it, dripping, and
+deliberately blew an enormous golden bubble from the end.
+
+"Look!" she cried, detaching the bubble, apparently enchanted to see it
+float upward. "Is it not beautiful, my fairy balloon?"
+
+On her knees there beside the basin she blew bubble after bubble,
+detaching each with a slight movement of her wrist, and laughing
+delightedly to see them mount into the sunshine.
+
+"You _are_ a child," he said, worrying his red underlip with his teeth.
+"You're a baby, after all."
+
+She said:
+
+"Very well, then, children require toys to amuse them, not sighs and
+kisses and bold, brown eyes to frighten and perplex them. Have you any
+toys to amuse me if I give you an hour with me?"
+
+"Maryette, I can easily teach you----"
+
+"No! Will you bring me a toy to amuse me?--a clay pipe to blow bubbles? I
+adore bubbles."
+
+"If I promise to amuse you, will you give me an hour?" he asked.
+
+"How can I?" she demanded with sudden caprice. "I have my wash to finish;
+then I have to see that my father has his soup; then I must attend to
+customers at the inn, go up to the belfry, oil the machinery, play the
+carillon later, wind the drum for the night----"
+
+"I shall come to you in the tower after the angelus," he said eagerly.
+
+"I shall be too busy----"
+
+"After the carillon, then! Promise, Maryette!"
+
+"And sit up there alone with you in the dark for an hour? _Ma foi!_ How
+amusing!" She laughed in pretty derision. "I shall not even be able to
+blow bubbles!"
+
+Watching her pouting face intently, he said:
+
+"Suppose I bring some toy balloons for you to fly from the clock tower?
+Would that amuse you--you beautiful, perverse child?"
+
+"Little toy balloons!" she echoed, enchanted. "What pleasure to set them
+afloat from the belfry! Do you really promise to bring me some little toy
+balloons to fly?"
+
+"Yes. But _you_ must promise not to speak about it to anybody."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because the gendarmes wouldn't let us fly any balloons."
+
+"You mean that they might think me a spy?" she inquired na�vely.
+
+"Or me," he rejoined with a light laugh. "So we shall have to be very
+discreet and go cautiously about our sport. And it ought to be great fun,
+Maryette, to sail balloons out over the German trenches. We'll tie a
+message to every one! Shall we, little comrade?"
+
+She clapped her hands.
+
+"That _will_ enrage the Boches!" she cried, "You won't forget to bring the
+balloons?"
+
+"After the carillon," he nodded, staring at her intently.
+
+"Half past ten," she said; "not one minute earlier. I cannot be disturbed
+when playing. Do you understand? Do you promise?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I promise not to bother you before half past ten."
+
+"Very well. Now let me do my washing here in peace."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+She was still scrubbing her linen when he went reluctantly away across the
+meadow toward Sainte Lesse. And when she finally stood up, swung the
+basket to her head, and left the meadow, the sun hung low behind Sainte
+Lesse Wood and a rose and violet glow possessed the world.
+
+At the White Doe Inn she flew feverishly about her duties, aiding the
+ancient peasant woman with the simple preparations for dinner, giving her
+father his soup and helping him to bed, swallowing a mouthful herself as
+she hastened to finish her household tasks.
+
+Kid Glenn came in as usual for an _aperitif_ while she was gathering up
+her wooden gloves.
+
+"Did a mule stray today from your corral?" she asked, filling his glass
+for him.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Dead certain. Why?"
+
+"Do you know one of the new muleteers named Braun?"
+
+"I know him by sight."
+
+"Keed!" she said, going up to him and placing both hands on his broad
+shoulders; "I play the carillon after the angelus. Bring Steek to the
+bell-tower half an hour after you hear the carillon end. You will hear it
+end; you will hear the quarter hour strike presently. Half an hour later,
+after the third quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring pistols. Do
+you promise?"
+
+"Sure! What's the row, Maryette?"
+
+"I don't know yet. I _think_ we shall find a spy in the tower."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the belfry, _parbleu_! And you and Steek shall come up the stairs and
+you shall wait in the dark, there where the keyboard is, and where you see
+all the wires leading upward. You shall listen attentively, and I will be
+on the landing above, among my bells. And when you hear me cry out to you,
+then you shall come running with pistols!"
+
+"For heaven's sake----"
+
+"Is it understood? Give me your word, Keed!"
+
+"Sure!----"
+
+"_Allons! Assez!_" she whispered excitedly. "Make prisoner any man you see
+there!--_any_ man! You understand?"
+
+"You bet!"
+
+"_Any man!_" she repeated slowly, "even if he wears the same uniform _you_
+wear."
+
+There was a silence. Then:
+
+"By God!" said Glenn under his breath.
+
+"You suspect?"
+
+"Yes. And if it _is_ one of our German-American muleteers, we'll lynch
+him!" he whispered in a white rage.
+
+But Maryette shook her head.
+
+"No," she said in a dull, even voice, "let the gendarmerie take him in
+charge. Spy or suspect, he must have his chance. That is the law in
+France."
+
+"You don't give rats a chance, do you?"
+
+"I give everything its chance," she said simply. "And so does my country."
+
+She drew the automatic pistol from her holster, examined it, raised her
+eyes gravely to the American beside her:
+
+"This is terrible for me," she added, in a low but steady voice. "If it
+were not for my country--" She made a grave gesture, turned, and went
+slowly out through the arched stone passage into the main street of the
+town. A few minutes later the angelus sounded sweetly over the woods and
+meadows of Sainte Lesse.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+At ten, as the last stroke of the hour ended, there came a charming,
+intimate little murmur of awakening bells; it grew sweeter, clearer,
+filling the starry sky, growing, exquisitely increasing in limpid,
+transparent volume, sweeping through the high, dim belfry like a great
+wind from Paradise carrying Heaven's own music out over the darkened
+earth.
+
+All Sainte Lesse came to its doorways to listen to the playing of their
+beloved Carillonnette; the bell-music ebbed and swelled under the stars;
+the ancient Flemish masterpiece, written by some carillonneur whose bones
+had long been dust, became magnificently vital again under the enchanted
+hands of the little mistress of the bells.
+
+In fifteen minutes the carillon ended; a slight pause followed, then the
+quarter hour struck.
+
+With the last stroke of the bell, the girl drew off her wooden gloves,
+laid them on the keyboard, turned slowly in her seat, listening. A slight
+sound coming from the spiral staircase of stone set her heart beating
+violently. Had the suspected man violated his word? She drew the automatic
+pistol from her holster, rose, and stole up to the stone platform
+overhead, where, rising tier on tier into the darkness, the great carillon
+of Sainte Lesse loomed overhead.
+
+She listened uneasily. Had the man lied? It seemed to her as though her
+hammering heart must burst from her bosom with the terrible suspense of
+the moment.
+
+Suddenly a shadowy form appeared at the head of the stairs, reaching the
+platform at one bound. And her heart seemed to stop as she realized that
+this man had arrived too early for her friends to be of any use to her. He
+had lied to her. And now she must take him unaided, or kill him there in
+the starlight under the looming bells.
+
+"Maryette!" he called. She did not stir.
+
+"Maryette!" he whispered. "Where are you, little sweetheart? Forgive me, I
+could not wait any longer. I adore you----"
+
+All at once he discovered her standing motionless in the shadow of the
+great bell Bayard--sprang toward her, eager, ardent, triumphant.
+
+"Maryette," he whispered, "I love you! I shall teach you what a lover
+is----"
+
+Suddenly he caught a glimpse of her face; the terrible expression in her
+eyes checked him.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked, bewildered. And then he caught sight of the
+pistol in her hand.
+
+"What's that for?" he demanded harshly. "Are you afraid to love me? Do you
+think I'm the kind of lover to stop for a thing like that----"
+
+She said, in a low, distinct voice:
+
+"Don't move! Put up both hands instantly!"
+
+"What!" he snapped out, like the crack of a lash.
+
+"I know who you are. You're a Boche and no Yankee! Turn your back and
+raise your arms!"
+
+For a moment they looked at each other.
+
+"I think," she said, steadily, "you had better explain your gas cylinders
+and balloons to the gendarmes at the Poste."
+
+"No," he said, "I'll explain them to you, _now_!----"
+
+"If you touch your pistol, I fire!----"
+
+But already he had whipped out his pistol; and she fired instantly,
+smashing his right hand to pulp.
+
+"You damned hell-cat!" he screamed, stretching out his shattered hand in
+an agony of impotent fury. Blood rained from it on the stone flags.
+Suddenly he started toward her.
+
+"Don't stir!" she whispered. "Turn your back and raise both arms!"
+
+His face became ghastly.
+
+"Let me go, in God's name!" he burst out in a strangled voice. "Don't send
+me before a firing squad! Listen to me, little comrade--I surrender myself
+to your mercy----"
+
+"Then keep away from me! Keep your distance!" she cried, retreating. He
+followed, fawning:
+
+"Listen! We were such good comrades----"
+
+"Don't come any nearer to me!" she called out sharply; but he still
+shuffled toward her, whimpering, drenched in blood, both hands uplifted.
+
+"Kamerad!" he whined, "Kamerad--" and suddenly launched a kick at her.
+
+She just avoided it, springing behind the bell Bayard; and he rushed at
+her and struck with both uplifted arms, showering her with blood, but not
+quite reaching her.
+
+In the darkness among the beams and the deep shadows of the bells she
+could hear him hunting for her, breathing heavily and making ferocious,
+inarticulate noises, as she swung herself up onto the first beam above and
+continued to crawl upward.
+
+"Where are you, little fool?" he cried at length. "I have business with
+you before I cut your throat--that smooth, white throat of yours that I
+kissed down there by the _lavoir_!" There was no sound from her.
+
+He went back toward the stairs and began hunting about in the starlight
+for his pistol; but there was no parapet on the bell platform, and he
+probably concluded that it had fallen over the edge of the tower into the
+street.
+
+Supporting his wounded hand, he stood glaring blankly about him, and his
+bloodshot eyes presently fell on the door to the stairs. But he must have
+realized that flight would be useless for him if he left this girl alive
+in her bell-tower, ready to alarm the town the moment he ran for the
+stairs.
+
+With his left hand he fumbled under his tunic and disengaged a heavy
+trench knife from its sheath. The loss of blood was making his legs a
+trifle unsteady, but he pulled himself together and moved stealthily under
+the shadows of beam and bell until he came to the spot he selected. And
+there he lay down, the hilt of the knife in his left hand, the blade
+concealed by his opened tunic.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+His heavy groans at last had their effect on the girl, who had climbed
+high up into the darkness, creeping from beam to beam and mounting from
+one tier of bells to another.
+
+Standing on the lowest beam, she cautiously looked out through an
+oubliette and saw him lying on his back near the sheer edge of the roof.
+
+Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted against the stars, for
+he called up to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding to death and
+unable to move.
+
+After a few moments, opening his eyes again, he saw her standing on the
+roof beside him, looking down at him. And he whispered his appeal in the
+name of Christ. And in His name the little bell-mistress responded.
+
+When she had used the blue kerchief at her neck for a tourniquet and had
+checked the hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a better
+opportunity to employ his knife. It would not do to bungle the affair. And
+he thought he knew how it could be properly done--if he could get her head
+in the crook of his muscular elbow.
+
+"Lift me, dear ministering angel," he whispered weakly.
+
+She stooped impulsively, hesitated, then, suddenly terrified at the
+blazing ferocity in his eyes, she shrank back at the same instant that his
+broad knife flashed in her very face.
+
+He was on his feet at a bound, and, as she raised her voice in a startled
+cry for help, he plunged heavily at her, but slipped and fell in his own
+blood. Then the clattering jingle of spurred boots on the stone stairs
+below caught his ear. He was trapped, and he realized it. He slowly got to
+his feet.
+
+As Smith and Glenn appeared, springing out of the low-arched door, the
+muleteer Braun turned and faced them.
+
+There was a silence, then Glenn said, bitterly:
+
+"It's you, is it, you dirty Dutchman!"
+
+"Hands up!" said Smith quietly. "Come on, now; it's a case of 'Kamerad'
+for yours."
+
+Braun did not move to comply with the demand. Gradually it dawned on them
+that the man was game.
+
+"Maryette!" he called; "where are you?"
+
+Smith said curiously:
+
+"What do you want with her, Braun?"
+
+"I want to speak to her."
+
+"Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn sullenly.
+
+The girl crept out of the shadows. Her face was ghastly.
+
+Braun looked at her with pallid scorn:
+
+"You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I'd have made you a better lover
+than you'll ever have now!"
+
+He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt, turned without a glance at
+Smith and Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And as he fell there
+between sky and earth, hurtling downward under the stars, Glenn's pistol
+flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair while falling.
+
+"Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely, turning on Smith. "Ain't that me
+all over!--soft-hearted enough to do that skunk a kindness thataway!"
+
+But his youthful voice was shaking, and he stared at the edge of the
+abyss, listening to the far tumult now arising from the street below.
+
+"Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling his nervous voice with an
+effort.
+
+"Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "... Now, Maryette, put one arm around my
+neck, and me and the Kid will take you down them stairs, because you look
+tired--kind o' peeked and fussed, what with all this funny business going
+on----"
+
+"Oh, Steek! Steek!" she sobbed. "Oh, _mon ami_, Steek!"
+
+She began to cry bitterly. Smith picked her up in his arms.
+
+"What you need is sleep," he said very gently.
+
+But she shook her head: she had business to transact on her knees that
+night--business with the Mother of God that would take all night long--and
+many, many other sleepless nights; and many candles.
+
+She put her left arm around Smith's neck and hid her tear-wet face on his
+shoulder. And, as he bore her out of the high tower and descended the
+unlighted, interminable stairs of stone, he heard her weeping against his
+breast and softly asking intercession in behalf of a dead young man who
+had tried to be to her a "Kamerad"--as he understood it--including the
+entire gamut, from amorous beast to fiend.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+There was a single candle lighted in the bar of the White Doe. On the
+"zinc," side by side, like birds on a rail, sat the two muleteers. In each
+big, sunburnt fist was an empty glass; their spurred feet dangled; they
+leaned forward where they sat, hunched up over their knees, heads slightly
+turned, as though intently listening. A haze of cigarette smoke dimmed the
+candle flame.
+
+The drone of an a�roplane high in the midnight sky came to them at
+intervals. At last the sound died away under the far stars.
+
+By the smoky candle flame Kid Glenn unfolded and once more read the letter
+that kept them there:
+
+
+    --I ought to get to Sainte Lesse somewhere around midnight. Don't
+    say a word to Maryette.
+
+                    Jack.
+
+
+Sticky Smith, reading over his shoulder, slowly rolled another cigarette.
+
+"When Jack comes," he drawled, "it's a-goin' to he'p a lot. That Maryette
+girl's plumb done in."
+
+"Sure she's done in," nodded Kid Glenn. "Wouldn't it do in anybody to
+shoot up a young man an' then see him step off the top of a skyscraper?"
+
+Smith admitted that he himself had felt "kind er squeamish." He added:
+"Gawd, how he spread when he hit them flags! You didn't look at him, did
+you, Kid?"
+
+"Naw. Say, d'ya think Maryette has gone to bed?"
+
+"I dunno. When we left her up there in her room, I turned and took a peek
+to see she was comfy, but she was down onto both knees before that china
+virgin on the niche over her bed."
+
+"She oughter be in bed. You gotta sleep off a thing like that, or you feel
+punk next day," remarked Glenn, meditatively twirling the last drops of
+eau-de-vie around in his tumbler. Then he swallowed them and smacked his
+lips. "She'll come around all O. K. when she sees Jack," he added.
+
+"Goin' to let him wake her up?"
+
+"Can you see us stoppin' him? He'd kick the pants off us----"
+
+"Sh-h-h!" motioned Smith; "there's a automobile! By gum! It's
+stopped!----"
+
+The two muleteers set their glasses on the bar, slid to the floor, and
+marched, clanking, into the covered way that led to the street. Smith
+undid the bolts. A young man stood outside in the starlight.
+
+"Well, Jack Burley, you old son of a gun!" drawled Glenn. "Gawd! You look
+fit for a dead one!"
+
+"We ain't told her!" whispered Smith. "She an' us done in a Fritz this
+evening, an' it sorter turned Maryette's stomach----"
+
+"Not that she ain't well," explained Glenn hastily; "only a girl feels
+different. Stick an' me, we just took a few drinks, but Maryette, soon as
+she got home, she just flopped down on her knees and asked that china
+virgin of hers to go easy on that there Fritz----"
+
+They had conducted Burley to the bar; both their arms were draped around
+his shoulders; both talked to him at the same time.
+
+"This here Fritz," began Glenn--but Burley freed himself from their
+embrace.
+
+"Where's Maryette?" he demanded.
+
+Smith jerked a silent thumb toward the ceiling.
+
+"In bed?"
+
+"Or prayin'."
+
+Burley flushed, hesitated.
+
+"G'wan up, anyway," said Glenn. "I reckon it'll do her a heap o' good to
+lamp you, you old son of a gun!"
+
+Burley turned, went up the short flight of stairs to her closed door.
+There was candle-light shining through the transom. He knocked with a
+trembling hand. There was no answer. He knocked again; heard her uncertain
+step; stepped back as her door opened.
+
+The girl, a drooping figure in her night robe, stood listlessly on the
+threshold. Which of the muleteers it was who had come to her door she did
+not notice. She said:
+
+"I am very tired. Death is a dreadful thing. I can't put it from my mind.
+I am trying to pray----"
+
+She lifted her weary eyes and found herself looking into the face of her
+own lover. She turned very white, lovely eyes dilated.
+
+"Is--is it thou, Djack?"
+
+"C'est moi, ma ploo belle!"
+
+She melted into his tightening arms with a faint cry. Very high overhead,
+under the lustrous stars, an a�roplane droned its uncharted way across a
+blood-soaked world.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POPULAR COPYRIGHT NOVELS
+
+AT MODERATE PRICES
+
+
+Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of
+A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction
+
+*Abner Daniel.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Adventures of Gerard.* By A. Conan Doyle.
+*Adventures of a Modest Man.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.* By A. Conan Doyle.
+*Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.* By Frank L. Packard.
+*After House, The.* By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+*Alisa Paige.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Alton of Somasco.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*A Man's Man.* By Ian Hay.
+*Amateur Gentleman, The.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Andrew The Glad.* By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+*Ann Boyd.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Anna the Adventuress.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Another Man's Shoes.* By Victor Bridges.
+*Ariadne of Allan Water.* By Sidney McCall.
+*Armchair at the Inn, The.* By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+*Around Old Chester.* By Margaret Deland.
+*Athalie.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*At the Mercy of Tiberius.* By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+*Auction Block, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Aunt Jane.* By Jeanette Lee.
+*Aunt Jane of Kentucky.* By Eliza C. Hall.
+*Awakening of Helena Richie.* By Margaret Deland.
+
+*Bambi.* By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+*Bandbox, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Barbara of the Snows.* By Harry Irving Green.
+*Bar 20.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Bar 20 Days.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Barrier, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Beasts of Tarzan, The.* By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+*Beechy.* By Bettina Von Hutten.
+*Bella Donna.* By Robert Hichens.
+*Beloved Vagabond, The.* By Wm. J. Locke.
+*Beltane the Smith.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Ben Blair.* By Will Lillibridge.
+*Betrayal, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Better Man, The.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*Beulah.* (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+*Beyond the Frontier.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Black Is White.* By George Barr McCutcheon.
+*Blind Man's Eyes, The.* By Wm. MacHarg & Edwin Balmer.
+*Bob Hampton of Placer.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Bob, Son of Battle.* By Alfred Ollivant.
+*Britton of the Seventh.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*Broad Highway, The.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Bronze Bell, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Bronze Eagle, The.* By Baroness Orczy.
+*Buck Peters, Ranchman.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Business of Life, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*By Right of Purchase.* By Harold Bindloss.
+
+*Cabbages and Kings.* By O. Henry.
+*Calling of Dan Matthews, The.* By Harold Bell Wright.
+*Cape Cod Stories.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap'n Dan's Daughter.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap'n Eri.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap'n Warren's Wards.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cardigan.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Carpet From Bagdad, The.* By Harold MacGrath.
+*Cease Firing.* By Mary Johnson.
+*Chain of Evidence, A.* By Carolyn Wells.
+*Chief Legatee, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Cleek of Scotland Yard.* By T. W. Hanshew.
+*Clipped Wings.* By Rupert Hughes.
+*Coast of Adventure, The.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*Colonial Free Lance, A.* By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+*Coming of Cassidy, The.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Coming of the Law, The.* By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+*Conquest of Canaan, The.* By Booth Tarkington.
+*Conspirators, The.* By Robt. W. Chambers.
+*Counsel for the Defense.* By Leroy Scott.
+*Court of Inquiry, A.* By Grace S. Richmond.
+*Crime Doctor, The.* By E.W. Hornung
+*Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.* By Rex Beach.
+*Cross Currents.* By Eleanor H. Porter.
+*Cry in the Wilderness, A.* By Mary E. Waller.
+*Cynthia of the Minute.* By Louis Jos. Vance.
+
+*Dark Hollow, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Dave's Daughter.* By Patience Bevier Cole.
+*Day of Days, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Day of the Dog, The.* By George Barr McCutcheon.
+*Depot Master, The.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Desired Woman, The.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Destroying Angel, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Dixie Hart.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Double Traitor, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Drusilla With a Million.* By Elizabeth Cooper.
+
+*Eagle of the Empire, The.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*El Dorado.* By Baroness Orczy.
+*Elusive Isabel.* By Jacques Futrelle.
+*Empty Pockets.* By Rupert Hughes.
+*Enchanted Hat, The.* By Harold MacGrath.
+*Eye of Dread, The.* By Payne Erskine.
+*Eyes of the World, The.* By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+*Felix O'Day.* By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+*54-40 or Fight.* By Emerson Hough.
+*Fighting Chance, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Financier, The.* By Theodore Dreiser.
+*Flamsted Quarries.* By Mary E. Waller.
+*Flying Mercury, The.* By Eleanor M. Ingram.
+*For a Maiden Brave.* By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+*Four Million, The.* By O. Henry.
+*Four Pool's Mystery, The.* By Jean Webster.
+*Fruitful Vine, The.* By Robert Hichens.
+
+*Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.* By George Randolph Chester.
+*Gilbert Neal.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Girl From His Town, The.* By Marie Van Vorst.
+*Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.* By Payne Erskine.
+*Girl Who Lived in the Woods, The.* By Marjorie Benton Cook.
+*Girl Who Won, The.* By Beth Ellis.
+*Glory of Clementina, The.* By Wm. J. Locke.
+*Glory of the Conquered, The.* By Susan Glaspell.
+*God's Country and the Woman.* By James Oliver Curwood.
+*God's Good Man.* By Marie Corelli.
+*Going Some.* By Rex Beach.
+*Gold Bag, The.* By Carolyn Wells.
+*Golden Slipper, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Golden Web, The.* By Anthony Partridge.
+*Gordon Craig.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Greater Love Hath No Man.* By Frank L. Packard.
+*Greyfriars Bobby.* By Eleanor Atkinson.
+*Guests of Hercules, The.* By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
+
+*Halcyone.* By Elinor Glyn.
+*Happy Island* (Sequel to Uncle William). By Jeannette Lee.
+*Havoc.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Heart of Philura, The.* By Florence Kingsley.
+*Heart of the Desert, The.* By Honor� Willsie.
+*Heart of the Hills, The.* By John Fox, Jr.
+*Heart of the Sunset.* By Rex Beach.
+*Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.* By Elfrid A. Bingham.
+*Heather-Moon, The.* By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+*Her Weight in Gold.* By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
+*Hidden Children, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Hoosier Volunteer, The.* By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
+*Hopalong Cassidy.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*How Leslie Loved.* By Anne Warner.
+*Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.* By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
+*Husbands of Edith, The.* By George Barr McCutcheon
+
+*I Conquered.* By Harold Titus.
+*Illustrious Prince, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Idols.* By William J. Locke.
+*Indifference of Juliet, The.* By Grace S. Richmond.
+*Inez.* (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+*Infelice.* By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+*In Her Own Right.* By John Reed Scott.
+*Initials Only.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*In Another Girl's Shoes.* By Berta Ruck.
+*Inner Law, The.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Innocent.* By Marie Corelli.
+*Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.* By Sax Rohmer.
+*In the Brooding Wild.* By Ridgwell Cullum.
+*Intrigues, The.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*Iron Trail, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Iron Woman, The.* By Margaret Deland.
+*Ishmael.* (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.
+
+
+
+
+
+BARBARIANS
+
+BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+
+In this story Mr. Chambers deals with the early years of the Great War.
+Sickened by what seems to them at that time indifference on the part of
+the American Government, an odd group of men meet on the decks of a mule
+transport. They have been drawn to this common rendezvous by a desire to
+enter the war and purge their souls in the fight for the freedom of the
+world.
+
+There are twelve in the group, eight Americans, three Frenchmen, and a
+Belgian, and prominent among them is Jim Neeland, whose earlier
+experiences Mr. Chambers has related in the "Dark Star."
+
+Barbarians records the adventures of these men, not together, but singly
+or in groups, along the whole western battle front, from the Belgian coast
+to the mountains of Alsace. It is filled with unusual character sketches
+of the lives of the men in the Trenches, and of life in the little towns
+just inside the lines of Battle. Through it all there is great beauty and
+wonderful sense of justice and right that is indeed more precious than
+peace.
+
+Other Books by Robert W. Chambers:
+
+*Adventures of a Modest Man*
+*Alisa Paige*
+*Athalie*
+*Business of Life, The*
+*Cardigan*
+*Conspirators, The*
+*Fighting Chance, The*
+*Hidden Children, The*
+*Girl Phillippa, The*
+*Red Republic, The*
+*Dark Star, The*
+*Who Goes There?*
+*Younger Set, The*
+*Japonette*
+*Streets of Ascalon*
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+Publishers,--New York
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NEWEST BOOKS
+
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+
+
+Only Books of Superior Merit and Popularity are Published in this List
+
+*TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR.* By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+
+  The Tarzan books need no introduction. Thousands are waiting for this
+  volume, being further adventures of TARZAN OF THE APES, and volume five
+  of the series.
+
+*LONG LIVE THE KING.* By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+  This is a story of love, intrigue and adventure in a European court. In
+  this story Mrs. Rinehart combines mystery, heart interest, and
+  excitement of her past successes into a story that will be hailed as the
+  most interesting of all her stories.
+
+*WE CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING.* By Rupert Hughes.
+
+  A novel of metropolitan life, of a girl who had never had anything and
+  of a man who had always had everything, and of the manner in which his
+  richness and her poverty colored each other, and the lives of many other
+  persons as well.
+
+*BARBARIANS.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+  Brave, reckless, idealistic chaps--careless of peril, unafraid of
+  death--who deliberately sought danger and the venturesome life as found
+  during the war, over there. The adventures will hold the reader
+  breathless and the romance will delight.
+
+*THE FORFEIT.* By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+  A ranch story of Montana which centers around the fact that the leader
+  of the "Lightfoot Rustlers" and the likeable but devil-may-care brother
+  of the hero are one and the same. Cullum is a "big" western story
+  writer.
+
+*UNDER HANDICAP.* By Jackson Gregory.
+
+  Here is a story which is a strong picture of the changing of a western
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+
+*THE TRIUMPH.* By Will N. Harben.
+
+  Loyalty is the keynote of this story, loyalty of the hero to his
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+
+*PIP.* By Ian Hay (Capt. Ian Hay Beith), Author of "The First Hundred
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+
+  A story of English school boys, their pleasures and pains, their sports
+  and escapades, that might be called a modern "Tom Brown," but a Tom
+  Brown brimming with laughter and with the slang of the day.
+
+*MISS MILLION'S MAID.* By Berta Ruck.
+
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+  twenty-three, well-bred, but penniless, flies in the face of tradition,
+  becoming a maid of a newly-made heiress. So entangled grow the love
+  affairs of mistress and maid that the reader has a merry time with the
+  author in steering the girls on the road to happiness.
+
+*ENOCH CRANE.* By F. Hopkinson and F. Berkeley Smith.
+
+  A story of New York specially. The scene is Waverly Place, in one of the
+  characteristic old houses of that section. In this respect the story is
+  very similar to "Peter," Mr. Smith's most popular book.
+
+*PARTNERS OF THE NIGHT.* By Leroy Scott.
+
+  Although a detective story, it is one altogether different from those of
+  the ordinary detective story writer. It is a story of the plain-clothes
+  men and criminals of New York, with a splendid romance.
+
+For sale by all booksellers.
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+A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd Street, New York
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+</style></head><body class="tei">
+  
+
+
+  
+     
+
+
+<div class="tei tei-text" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em; margin-top: 2.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-front" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 2.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+  <div id="pgheader" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em">The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbarians by Robert W. Chambers</p></div><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
+          and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
+          give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
+          Gutenberg License <a href="#pglicense" class="tei tei-ref">included with this
+          eBook</a> or online at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license" class="tei tei-xref">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a></p></div><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">Title: Barbarians
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2008 [Ebook #25623]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARIANS***
+</pre></div>
+</div>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+  
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pageii">[pg ii]</span><a name="Pgii" id="Pgii" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+  
+  
+    <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="text-align: center"><img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="403" height="640" alt="Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back into mid-air." title="Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back into mid-air. [Page 62]" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back into mid-air. [<a href="#Pg62" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: center">Page 62</a>]</div></div>
+  
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pageiii">[pg iii]</span><a name="Pgiii" id="Pgiii" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.73em"><span style="font-size: 173%; font-weight: 700">BARBARIANS</span></p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.44em"><span style="font-size: 144%; font-weight: 700">By </span><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 144%; font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: 700">Robert W. Chambers</span></span></p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase">Author of</span></span></p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: 700">"The Dark Star," "The Girl Philippa," "Who Goes There," Etc.</span></p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+
+
+  
+  
+    <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="text-align: center"><img src="images/i001_1.jpg" width="200" height="202" alt="Ornament" /></div>
+  
+ 
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: 700">With Frontispiece</span></p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: 700">By </span><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase">A. I. Keller</span></span></p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase">A. L. Burt Company</span></p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: 700">Publishers New York</span></p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: 700">Published by arrangement with </span><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: 700">D. Appleton &amp; Company</span></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pagev">[pg v]</span><a name="Pgv" id="Pgv" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">TO</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">LYLE and MADELEINE MAHAN</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pagevii">[pg vii]</span><a name="Pgvii" id="Pgvii" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+  
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">I</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"Daughter of Light, the bestial wrath</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Of Barbary besets thy path!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">The Hun is beating his painted drum;</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">His war horns blare! The Hun is come!"</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"Father, I feel his fœtid breath:</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">The thick air reeks with the stench of death;</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">My will is Thine. Thy will be done</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">On Turk and Bulgar, Czech and Hun!"</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">II</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">She understands.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Where the dead headland flare</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Mocks sea and sand;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Where death-lights shed their glare</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">On No-Man's-Land.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">France takes her stand.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Magnificently fair,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">The Flaming Brand</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Within her slender hand;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Christ's lilies in her hair.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">III</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"Daughter of Grief, thy House is sand!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Thy towers are falling athwart the land.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">They've flayed the earth to its ribs of chalk</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">And over its bones the spectres stalk!"</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"Father, I see my high spires reel;</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">My breast is scarred by the Hun's hoofed heel.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">What was, shall be! I read Thy sign:</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Thy ocean yawns for the smitten swine!"</div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pageviii">[pg viii]</span><a name="Pgviii" id="Pgviii" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">IV</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Then, from Verdun</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Pealed westward to the Somme</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">From every gun</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">God's summons: "Daughter! Come!"</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Then the red sun</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Stood still. Grew dumb</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">The universal hum</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Of life, and numb</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">The lips of Life, undone</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">By Death.... And so—France won!</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">V</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"Daughter of God, the End is here!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">The swine rush on: the sea is near!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">My wild flowers bloom on the trenches' edge;</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">My little birds sing by shore and sedge."</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"Father, raise up my martyred land!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Clothe her bones with Thy magic hand;</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Receive the Brand Thy angel lent,</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">And stanch my blood with Thy sacrament."</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+  <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Contents</span></h1>
+  <ul class="tei tei-index tei-index-toc"><li><a href="#toc2">I. FED UP</a></li><li><a href="#toc4">II. MAROONED</a></li><li><a href="#toc6">III. CUCKOO!</a></li><li><a href="#toc8">IV. RECONNAISSANCE</a></li><li><a href="#toc10">V. PARNASSUS</a></li><li><a href="#toc12">VI. IN FINISTÈRE</a></li><li><a href="#toc14">VII. THE AIRMAN</a></li><li><a href="#toc16">VIII. EN OBSERVATION</a></li><li><a href="#toc18">IX. L'OMBRE</a></li><li><a href="#toc20">X. THE GHOULS</a></li><li><a href="#toc22">XI. THE SEED OF DEATH</a></li><li><a href="#toc24">XII. FIFTY-FIFTY</a></li><li><a href="#toc26">XIII. MULETEERS</a></li><li><a href="#toc28">XIV. LA PLOO BELLE</a></li><li><a href="#toc30">XV. CARILLONETTE</a></li><li><a href="#toc32">XVI. DJACK</a></li><li><a href="#toc34">XVII. FRIENDSHIP</a></li><li><a href="#toc36">XVIII. THE AVIATOR</a></li><li><a href="#toc38">XIX. HONOUR</a></li><li><a href="#toc40">XX. LA BRABANÇONNE</a></li><li><a href="#toc42">XXI. THE GARDENER</a></li><li><a href="#toc44">XXII. THE SUSPECT</a></li><li><a href="#toc46">XXIII. MADAM DEATH</a></li><li><a href="#toc48">XXIV. BUBBLES</a></li><li><a href="#toc50">XXV. KAMERAD</a></li><li><a href="#toc51">Advertisement</a></li><li><a href="#toc54">Jacket Flap Text</a></li><li><a href="#toc55">Advertisement</a></li></ul>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-body" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 6.00em">
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page1">[pg 1]</span><a name="Pg1" id="Pg1" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf1" id="pdf1"></a>
+<a name="toc2" id="toc2"></a>
+
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER I</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+FED UP</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So this is what happened to the dozen-odd
+malcontents who could no longer stand the
+dirty business in Europe and the dirtier politicians
+at home.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was treachery in the Senate, treason
+in the House. A plague of liars infested the
+Republic; the land was rotting with plots.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But if the authorities at Washington remained
+incredulous, stunned into impotency,
+while the din of murder filled the world, a few
+mere men, fed up on the mess, sickened while
+awaiting executive galvanization, and started
+east to purge their souls.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They came from the four quarters of the continent,
+drawn to the decks of the mule transport
+by a common sickness and a common necessity.
+Only two among them had ever before<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page2">[pg 2]</span><a name="Pg2" id="Pg2" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+met. They represented all sorts, classes, degrees
+of education and of ignorance, drawn to
+a common rendezvous by coincidental nausea
+incident to the temporary stupidity and poltroonery
+of those supposed to represent them
+in the Congress of the Great Republic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The rendezvous was a mule transport reeking
+with its cargo, still tied up to the sun-scorched
+wharf where scores of loungers loafed
+and gazed up at the rail and exchanged badinage
+with the supercargo.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The supercargo consisted of this dozen-odd
+fed-up ones—eight Americans, three Frenchmen
+and one Belgian.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a young soldier of fortune named
+Carfax, recently discharged from the Pennsylvania
+State Constabulary, who seemed to feel
+rather sure of a commission in the British
+service.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Beside him, leaning on the blistering rail,
+stood a self-possessed young man named Harry
+Stent. He had been educated abroad; his
+means were ample; his time his own. He had
+shot all kinds of big game except a Hun, he told
+another young fellow—a civil engineer—who<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page3">[pg 3]</span><a name="Pg3" id="Pg3" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+stood at his left and whose name was Jim
+Brown.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A youth on crutches, passing along the deck
+behind them, lingered, listening to the conversation,
+slightly amused at Stent's game list and
+his further ambition to bag a Boche.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The young man's lameness resulted from a
+trench acquaintance with the game which Stent
+desired to hunt. His regiment had been, and
+still was, the 2nd Foreign Legion. He was on
+his way back, now, to finish his convalescence
+in his old home in Finistère. He had been a
+writer of stories for children. His name was
+Jacques Wayland.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As he turned away from the group at the
+rail, still amused, a man advancing aft spoke to
+him by name, and he recognized an American
+painter whom he had met in Brittany.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You, Neeland?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, yes. I'm fed up with watchful waiting."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where are you bound, ultimately?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I've a hint that an Overseas unit can use
+me. And you, Wayland?"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page4">[pg 4]</span><a name="Pg4" id="Pg4" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Going to my old home in Finistère where
+I'll get well, I hope."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And then?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Second Foreign."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh. Get that leg in the trenches?" inquired
+Neeland.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. Came over to recuperate. But Finistère
+calls me. I've <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">got</span></span> to smell the sea off
+Eryx before I can get well."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A pleasant-faced, middle-aged man, who
+stood near, turned his head and cast a professionally
+appraising glance at the young
+fellow on crutches.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His name was Vail; he was a physician.
+It did not seem to him that there was much
+chance for the lame man's very rapid recovery.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Three muleteers came on deck from below—all
+young men, all talking in loud, careless
+voices. They wore uniforms of khaki resembling
+the regular service uniform. They
+had no right to these uniforms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One of these young men had invented the
+costume. His name was Jack Burley. His
+two comrades were, respectively, "Sticky"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page5">[pg 5]</span><a name="Pg5" id="Pg5" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Smith and "Kid" Glenn. Both had figured
+in the squared circle. All three were fed
+up. They desired to wallop something, even
+if it were only a leather-rumped mule.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Four other men completed the supercargo—three
+French youths who were returning
+for military duty and one Belgian. They
+had been waiters in New York. They also
+were fed up with the administration. They
+kept by themselves during the voyage. Nobody
+ever learned their names. They left
+the transport at Calais, reported, and were
+lost to sight in the flood of young men flowing
+toward the trenches.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They completed the odd dozen of fed-up
+ones who sailed that day on the suffocating
+mule transport in quest of something they
+needed but could not find in America—something
+that lay somewhere amid flaming obscurity
+in that hell of murder beyond the
+Somme—their souls' salvation perhaps.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Twelve fed-up men went. And what happened
+to all except the four French youths
+is known. Fate laid a guiding hand on the
+shoulder of Carfax and gave him a gentle<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page6">[pg 6]</span><a name="Pg6" id="Pg6" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+shove toward the Vosges. Destiny linked
+arms with Stent and Brown and led them
+toward Italy. Wayland's rendezvous with Old
+Man Death was in Finistère. Neeland sailed
+with an army corps, but Chance met him at Lorient
+and led him into the strangest paths a
+young man ever travelled.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As for Sticky Smith, Kid Glenn and Jack
+Burley, they were muleteers. Or thought
+they were. A muleteer has to do with mules.
+Nothing else is supposed to concern him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But into the lives of these three muleteers
+came things never dreamed of in their
+philosophy—never imagined by them even in
+their cups.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As for the others, Carfax, Brown, Stent,
+Wayland, Neeland, this is what happened to
+each one of them. But the episode of Carfax
+comes first. It happened somewhere
+north of the neutral Alpine region where the
+Vosges shoulder their way between France
+and Germany.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After he had exchanged a dozen words
+with a staff officer, he began to realize,
+vaguely, that he was done in.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page7">[pg 7]</span><a name="Pg7" id="Pg7" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf3" id="pdf3"></a>
+<a name="toc4" id="toc4"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER II</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+MAROONED</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Will they do anything for us?" repeated
+Carfax.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The staff officer thought it very doubtful.
+He stood in the snow switching his wet puttees
+and looking out across a world of tumbled
+mountains. Over on his right lay Germany;
+on his left, France; Switzerland towered
+in ice behind him against an arctic
+blue sky.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It grew warm on the Falcon Peak, almost
+hot in the sun. Snow was melting on black
+heaps of rocks; a black salamander, swollen,
+horrible, stirred from its stiff lethargy and
+crawled away blindly across the snow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Our case is this," continued Carfax; "somebody's
+made a mistake. We've been forgotten.
+And if they don't relieve us rather soon<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page8">[pg 8]</span><a name="Pg8" id="Pg8" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+some of us will go off our bally nuts. Do
+you get me, Major?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I beg your pardon——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you understand what I've been saying?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, yes; quite so."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then ask yourself, Major, how long can
+four men stand it, cooped up here on this
+peak? A month, two months, three, five?
+But it's going on ten months—ten months of
+solitude—silence—not a sound, except when
+the snowslides go bellowing off into Alsace
+down there below our feet." His bronzed
+lip quivered. "I'll get aboard one if this keeps
+on."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He kicked a lump of ice off into space;
+the staff officer glanced at him and looked
+away hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Listen," said Carfax with an effort; "we're
+not regulars—not like the others. The Canadian
+division is different. Its discipline
+is different—in spite of Salisbury Plain and
+K. of K. In my regiment there are half-breeds,
+pelt-hunters, Nome miners, Yankees
+of all degrees, British, Canadians, gentlemen<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page9">[pg 9]</span><a name="Pg9" id="Pg9" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+adventurers from Cosmopolis. They're good
+soldiers, but do you think they'd stay here?
+It is so in the Athabasca Battalion; it is the
+same in every battalion. They wouldn't stay
+here ten months. They couldn't. We are
+free people; we can't stand indefinite caging;
+we've got to have walking room once every
+few months."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The staff officer murmured something.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I know; but good God, man! Four of
+us have been on this peak for nearly ten
+months. We've never seen a Boche, never
+heard a shot. Seasons come and go, rain
+falls, snow falls, the winds blow from the
+Alps, but nothing else comes to us except a
+half-frozen bird or two."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The staff officer looked about him with an
+involuntary shiver. There was nothing to
+see except the sun on the wet, black rocks
+and the whitewashed observation station of
+solid stone from which wires sagged into the
+valley on the French side.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Well—good luck," he said hastily, looking
+as embarrassed as he felt. "I'll be toddling
+along."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page10">[pg 10]</span><a name="Pg10" id="Pg10" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Will you say a word to the General, like
+a good chap? Tell him how it is with us—four
+of us all alone up here since the beginning.
+There's Gary, Captain in the Athabasca
+Battalion, a Yankee if the truth were
+known; there's Flint, a cockney lieutenant in
+a Calgary battery; there's young Gray, a
+lieutenant and a Prince Edward Islander;
+and here's me, a major in the Yukon Battalion—four
+of us on the top of a cursed
+French mountain—ten months of each other,
+of solitude, silence—and the whole world
+rocking with battles—and not a sound up
+here—not a whisper! I tell you we're four
+sick men! We've got a grip on ourselves
+yet, but it's slipping. We're still fairly civil
+to each other, but the strain is killing. Sullen
+silences smother irritability, but—" he
+added in a peculiarly pleasant voice, "I expect
+we are likely to start killing each other
+if somebody doesn't get us out of here very
+damn quick."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The staff captain's lips formed the words,
+"Awfully sorry! Good luck!" but his articu<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page11">[pg 11]</span><a name="Pg11" id="Pg11" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>lation
+was indistinct, and he went off hurriedly,
+still murmuring.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax stood in the snow, watching him
+clamber down among the rocks, where an
+alpinist orderly joined them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary presently appeared at the door of
+the observation station. "Has he gone?" he
+inquired, without interest.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," said Carfax.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is he going to do anything for us?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't know.... <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">No!</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary lingered, kicked at a salamander,
+then turned and went indoors. Carfax sat
+down on a rock and sucked at his empty
+pipe.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Later the three officers in the observation
+station came out to the door again and
+looked at him, but turned back into the doorway
+without saying anything. And after a
+while Carfax, feeling slightly feverish, went
+indoors, too.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the square, whitewashed room Gray and
+Flint were playing cut-throat poker; Gary
+was at the telephone, but the messages received
+or transmitted appeared to be of no<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page12">[pg 12]</span><a name="Pg12" id="Pg12" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+importance. There had never been any message
+of importance from the Falcon Peak or
+to it. There was likely to be none.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ennui, inertia, dry rot—and four men,
+sometimes silently, sometimes violently cursing
+their isolation, but always cursing it—afraid
+in their souls lest they fall to cursing
+one another aloud as they had begun to curse
+in their hearts.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Months ago rain had fallen; now snow
+fell, and vast winds roared around them from
+the Alps. But nothing else ever came to the
+Falcon Peak, except a fierce, red-eyed <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Lämmergeyer</span></span>
+sheering above the peak on enormous
+pinions, or a few little migrating birds
+fluttering down, half frozen, from the high
+air lanes. Now and then, also, came to
+them a staff officer from below, British sometimes,
+sometimes French, who lingered no
+longer than necessary and then went back
+again, down into friendly deeps where were
+trees and fields and familiar things and human
+companionship, leaving them to their
+hell of silence, of solitude, and of each other.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The tide of war had never washed the base<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page13">[pg 13]</span><a name="Pg13" id="Pg13" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of their granite cliffs; the highest battle wave
+had thundered against the Vosges beyond
+earshot; not even a deadened echo of war
+penetrated those silent heights; not a Taube
+floated in the zenith.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the squatty, whitewashed ruin which once
+had been the eyrie of some petty predatory
+despot, and which now served as an observatory
+for two idle divisions below in the valley,
+stood three telescopes. Otherwise the
+furniture consisted of valises, trunks, a table
+and chairs, a few books, several newspapers,
+and some tennis balls lying on the floor.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax seated himself at one of the telescopes,
+not looking through it, his heavy eyes
+partly closed, his burnt-out pipe between his
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary rose from the telephone and joined
+the card players. They shuffled and dealt
+listlessly, seldom speaking save in monosyllables.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a while Carfax went over to the
+card table and the young lieutenant cashed in
+and took his place at the telescope.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Below in the Alsatian valley spring had<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page14">[pg 14]</span><a name="Pg14" id="Pg14" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+already started the fruit buds, and a delicate
+green edged the lower snow line.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The lieutenant spoke of it wistfully; nobody
+paid any attention; he rose presently
+and went outdoors to the edge of the precipice—not
+too near, for fear he might be
+tempted to jump out through the sunshine,
+down into that inviting world of promise
+below.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Far underneath him—very far down in the
+valley—a cuckoo called. Out of the depths
+floated the elfin halloo, the gaily malicious
+challenge of spring herself, shouted up melodiously
+from the plains of Alsace—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuckoo!</span></span>
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuckoo!</span></span> <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuckoo!</span></span>—You poor, sullen, frozen
+foreigner up there on the snowy rocks!—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuckoo!</span></span>
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuckoo!</span></span> <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuckoo!</span></span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The lieutenant of Yukon infantry, whose
+name was Gray, came back into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There's a bird of sorts yelling like hell
+below," he said to the card players.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax ran over his cards, rejected three,
+and nodded. "Well, let him yell," he said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What is it, a Boche dicky-bird insulting
+you?" asked Gary, in his Yankee drawl.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page15">[pg 15]</span><a name="Pg15" id="Pg15" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint, declining to draw cards, got up and
+went out into the sunshine. When he returned
+to the table, he said: "It's a cuckoo....
+I wish to God I were out of this," he
+added.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They continued to play for a while without
+apparent interest. Each man had won
+his comrades' money too many times to care
+when Carfax added up debit and credit and
+wrote down each man's score. In nine
+months, alternately beggaring one another,
+they had now, it appeared, broken about even.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary, an American in British uniform,
+twitched a newspaper toward himself,
+slouched in his chair, and continued to read
+for a while. The paper was French and two
+weeks old; he jerked it about irritably.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gray, resting his elbows on his knees, sat
+gazing vacantly out of the narrow window.
+For a smart officer he had grown slovenly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If there was any trout fishing to be had,"
+he began; but Flint laughed scornfully.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What are you laughing at? There must
+be trout in the valley down there where that
+bird is," insisted Gray, reddening.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page16">[pg 16]</span><a name="Pg16" id="Pg16" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, and there are cows and chickens and
+houses and women. What of it?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary, in his faded service uniform of a
+captain, scowled over his newspaper. "It's
+bad enough to be here," he said heavily; "so
+don't let's talk about it. Quit disputing."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint ignored the order.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If there was anything sportin' to do——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, shut up," muttered Carfax. "Do you
+expect sport on a hog-back?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gray picked up a tennis ball and began to
+play it against the whitewashed stone wall,
+using the palm of his hand. Flint joined him
+presently; Gary went over to the telephone, set
+the receiver to his ear and spoke to some officer
+in the distant valley on the French side, continuing
+a spiritless conversation while watching
+the handball play. After a while he rose,
+shambled out and down among the rocks to the
+spring where snow lay, trodden and filthy, and
+the big, black salamanders crawled half stupefied
+in the sun. All his loathing and fear of
+them kindled again as it always did at sight
+of them. "Dirty beasts," he muttered, stumping
+and stumbling among the stunted fir<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page17">[pg 17]</span><a name="Pg17" id="Pg17" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+trees; "some day they'll bite some of these
+damn fools who say they can't bite. And
+that'll end 'em."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint and Gray continued to play handball
+in a perfunctory way while Carfax looked on
+from the telephone without interest. Gary
+came back, his shoes and puttees all over wet
+snow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Unless," he said in a monotonous voice,
+"something happens within the next few days
+I'll begin to feel queer in my head; and if I
+feel it coming on, I'll blow my bally nut off.
+Or somebody's." And he touched his service
+automatic in its holster and yawned.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a dead silence:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Buck up," remarked Carfax; "think how
+our men must feel in Belfort, never letting
+off their guns. Ross rifles, too—not a shot
+at a Boche since the damn war began!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"God!" said Flint, smiting the ball with
+the palm of his hand, "to think of those Ross
+rifles rusting down there and to think of the
+pink-skinned pigs they could paunch so
+cleanly. Did you ever paunch a deer? What
+a mess of intestines all over the shop!"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page18">[pg 18]</span><a name="Pg18" id="Pg18" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary, still standing, began to kick the snow
+from his shoes. Gray said to him: "For a
+dollar of your Yankee money I'd give you a
+shot at me with your automatic—you're that
+slack at practice."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If it goes on much longer like this I'll
+not have to pay for a shot at anybody," returned
+Gary, with a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gray laughed too, disagreeably, stretching
+his facial muscles, but no sound issued.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We're all going crazy together up here;
+that's my idea," he said. "I don't know which
+I can stand most comfortably, your voices or
+your silence. Both make me sick."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Some day a salamander will nip you;
+then you'll go loco," observed Gary, balancing
+another tennis ball in his right hand.
+"Give me a shot at you?" he added. "I feel
+as though I could throw it clean through you.
+You look soft as a pudding to me."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Far, clear, from infinite depths, the elf-like
+hail of the cuckoo came floating up to the
+window.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">To Flint, English born, the call meant
+more than it did to Canadian or Yankee.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page19">[pg 19]</span><a name="Pg19" id="Pg19" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In Devon," he said in an altered voice,
+"they'll be calling just now. There's a world
+of primroses in Devon.... And the thorn is
+as white as the damned snow is up here."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary growled his impatience and his profile
+of a Greek fighter showed in clean silhouette
+against the window.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw, hell," he said, "did I come out here
+for this?—nine months of it?" He hurled the
+tennis ball at the wall. "Can the home talk,
+if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The cuckoo was still calling.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you ever play cuckoo," asked Carfax,
+"at ten shillings a throw? It's not a bad
+game—if you're put to it for amusement."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nobody replied; Gray's sunken, boyish face
+betrayed no interest; he continued to toss a
+tennis ball against the wall and catch it on
+the rebound.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Toward sundown the usual Alpine chill set
+in; a mist hung over the snow-edged cliffs;
+the rocks breathed steam under a foggy and
+battered moon.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page20">[pg 20]</span><a name="Pg20" id="Pg20" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf5" id="pdf5"></a>
+<a name="toc6" id="toc6"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER III</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+CUCKOO!</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax, on duty, sat hunched up over the
+telephone, reporting to the fortress.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gray came in, closed the wooden shutters,
+hung blankets over them, lighted an oil stove
+and then a candle. Flint took up the cards,
+looked at Gary, then flung them aside, muttering.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nobody attempted to read; nobody touched
+the cards again. An orderly came in with
+soup. The meal was brief and perfectly
+silent.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint said casually, after the table had been
+cleared: "I haven't slept for a month. If I
+don't get some sleep I'll go queer. I warn
+you; that's all. I'm sorry to say it, but
+it's so."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They're dirty beasts to keep us here like<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page21">[pg 21]</span><a name="Pg21" id="Pg21" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+this," muttered Gary—"nine months of it, and
+not a shot."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There'll be a few shots if things don't
+change," remarked Flint in a colourless voice.
+"I'm getting wrong in my head. I can feel
+it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax turned from the switchboard with
+a forced laugh: "Thinking of shooting up the
+camp?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"That or myself," replied Flint in a quiet
+voice; "ever since that cuckoo called I've felt
+queer."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary, brooding in his soiled tunic collar,
+began to mutter presently: "I once knew a
+man in a lighthouse down in Florida who
+couldn't stand it after a bit and jumped off."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, we've heard that twenty times," interrupted
+Carfax wearily.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gray said: "<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">What</span></span> a jump!—I mean down
+into Alsace below——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You're all going dotty!" snapped Carfax.
+"Shut up or you'll be doing it—some of you."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I can't sleep. That's where I'm getting
+queer," insisted Flint. "If I could get a few
+hours' sleep now——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page22">[pg 22]</span><a name="Pg22" id="Pg22" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I wish to God the Boches could reach you
+with a big gun. That would put you to sleep,
+all right!" said Gray.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"This war is likely to end before any of
+us see a Fritz," said Carfax. "I could stand
+it, too, except being up here with such"—his
+voice dwindled to a mutter, but it sounded
+to Gary as though he had used the word
+"rotters."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint's face had a white, strained expression;
+he began to walk about, saying aloud
+to himself: "If I could only sleep. That's
+the idea—sleep it off, and wake up somewhere
+else. It's the silence, or the voices—I don't
+know which. You dollar-crazy Yankees and
+ignorant Provincials don't realize what a
+cuckoo is. You've no traditions, anyway—no
+past, nothing to care for——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Listen to 'Arry!" retorted Gary—"'Arry
+and his cuckoo!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax stirred heavily. "Shut up!" he
+said, with an effort. "The thing is to keep
+doing something—something—anything—except
+quarrelling."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He picked up a tennis ball. "Come on, you<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page23">[pg 23]</span><a name="Pg23" id="Pg23" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+funking brutes! I'll teach you how to play
+cuckoo. Every man takes three tennis balls
+and stands in a corner of the room. I stand
+in the middle. Then you blow out the candle.
+Then I call 'cuckoo!' in the dark and you
+try to hit me, aiming by the sound of my
+voice. Every time I'm hit I pay ten shillings
+to the pool, take my place in a corner, and
+have a shot at the next man, chosen by lot.
+And if you throw three balls apiece and nobody
+hits me, then you each pay ten shillings
+to me and I'm cuckoo for another round."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We aim at random?" inquired Gray,
+mildly interested.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Certainly. It must be played in pitch
+darkness. When I call out cuckoo, you take
+a shot at where you think I am. If you all
+miss, you all pay. If I'm hit, I pay."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary chose three tennis balls and retired
+to a corner of the room; Gray and Flint,
+urged into action, took three each, unwillingly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Blow out the candle," said Carfax, who
+had walked into the middle of the room.
+Gary blew it out and the place was in darkness.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page24">[pg 24]</span><a name="Pg24" id="Pg24" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They thought they heard Carfax moving
+cautiously, and presently he called, "Cuckoo!"
+A storm of tennis balls rebounded from the
+walls; "Cuckoo!" shouted Carfax, and the
+tennis balls rained all around him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Once more he called; not a ball hit him;
+and he struck a match where he was seated
+upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was some perfunctory laughter of a
+feverish sort; the candle was relighted, tennis
+balls redistributed, and Carfax wrote down
+his winnings.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The next time, however, Gray, throwing
+low, caught him. Again the candle was
+lighted, scores jotted down, a coin tossed,
+and Flint went in as cuckoo.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It seemed almost impossible to miss a man
+so near, even in total darkness, but Flint
+lasted three rounds and was hit, finally, a
+stinging smack on the ear. And then Gary
+went in.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was hot work, but they kept at it feverishly,
+grimly, as though their very sanity depended
+upon the violence of their diversion.
+They threw the balls hard, viciously hard. A<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page25">[pg 25]</span><a name="Pg25" id="Pg25" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+sort of silent ferocity seemed to seize them.
+A chance hit cut the skin over Flint's cheekbone,
+and when the candle was lighted, one
+side of his face was bright with blood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Early in the proceedings somebody had
+disinterred brandy and Schnapps from under
+a bunk. The room had become close; they
+all were sweating.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax emptied his iced glass, still breathing
+hard, tossed a shilling and sent in Gary
+as cuckoo.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint, who never could stand spirits, started
+unsteadily for the candle, but could not seem
+to blow it out. He stood swaying and balancing
+on his heels, puffing out his smooth, boyish
+cheeks and blowing at hazard.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You're drunk," said Gray, thickly; but he
+was as flushed as the boy he addressed, only
+steadier of leg.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What's that?" retorted Flint, jerking his
+shoulders around and gazing at Gray out of
+glassy eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Blow out that candle," said Gary heavily,
+"or I'll shoot it out! Do you get that?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Shoot!" repeated Flint, staring vaguely<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page26">[pg 26]</span><a name="Pg26" id="Pg26" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+into Gary's bloodshot eyes; "<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> shoot, you
+old slacker——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Shut up and play the game!" cut in Carfax,
+a menacing roar rising in his voice.
+"You're all slackers—and rotters, too. Play
+the game! Keep playing—hard!—or you'll
+go clean off your fool nuts!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary walked heavily over and knocked the
+tennis balls out of Flint's hands.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There's a better game than that," he said,
+his articulation very thick; "but it takes
+nerve—if you've got it, you spindle-legged
+little cockney!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint struck at him aimlessly. "I've got
+nerve," he muttered, "plenty of nerve, old
+top! What d'you want? I'm your man; I'll
+go you—eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Go on with the game, I tell you!" bawled
+Carfax.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary swung around: "Wait till I explain——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No, don't wait! Keep going! Keep
+playing! Keep doing something, for God's
+sake!"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page27">[pg 27]</span><a name="Pg27" id="Pg27" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Will you wait!" shouted Gary. "I want
+to tell you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax made a hopeless gesture: "It's talk
+that will do the trick for us all——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I want to tell you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax shrugged, emptied his full glass
+with a gesture of finality.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then talk, damn you! And we'll all be
+at each other's throats before morning."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary got Gray by the elbow: "Reggie, it's
+this way. We flip up for cuckoo. Whoever
+gets stuck takes a shot apiece from our automatics
+in the legs—eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's perfectly agreeable to me," assented
+Gray, in the mincing, elaborate voice characteristic
+of him when drunk.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint wagged his head. "It's a sportin'
+game. I'm in," he said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary looked at Carfax. "A shot in the
+dark at a man's legs. And if he gets his—it
+will be Blighty in exchange for hell."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax, sullen with liquor, shoved his big
+hand into his pocket, produced a shilling, and
+tossed it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A brighter flush stained the faces which<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page28">[pg 28]</span><a name="Pg28" id="Pg28" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+ringed him; the risky hazard of the affair
+cleared their sick minds to comprehension.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tails turned uppermost; Flint and Gary
+were eliminated. It lay between Carfax and
+Gray, and the older man won.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Mind you fire low," said the young fellow,
+with an excited laugh, and walked into
+the middle of the room.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary blew out the candle. Presently from
+somewhere in the intense darkness Gray
+called "Cuckoo!" and instantly a slanting red
+flash lashed out through the gloom. And,
+when the deafening echo had nearly ceased:
+"Cuckoo!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Another pistol crashed. And after a swimming
+interval they heard him moving.
+"Cuckoo!" he called; a level flame stabbed
+the dark; something fell, thudding through
+the staccato uproar of the explosion. At
+the same moment the outer door opened on
+the crack and Carfax's orderly peeped in.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Carfax struck a match with shaky fingers;
+the candle guttered, sank, flared on
+Flint, who was laughing without a sound.
+"Got the beggar, by God!" he whispered<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page29">[pg 29]</span><a name="Pg29" id="Pg29" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>—"through
+the head! Look at him. Look at
+Reggie Gray! Tried for his head and got
+him——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He reeled back, chuckling foolishly, and
+levelled at Carfax. "Now I'll get you!"
+he simpered, and shot him through the
+face.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As Carfax pitched forward, Gary fired.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Missed me, by God!" laughed Flint.
+"Shoot? Hell, yes. I'll show you how to
+shoot——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He struck the lighted candle with his left
+hand and laughed again in the thick darkness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Shoot? I'll show you how to shoot, you
+old slacker——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gary fired.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a silence Flint giggled in the choking
+darkness as the door opened cautiously
+again, and shot at the terrified orderly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'm a cockney, am I? And you don't
+think much of the Devon cuckoos, do you?
+Now I'll show you that I understand all
+kinds of cuckoos——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page30">[pg 30]</span><a name="Pg30" id="Pg30" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Both flashes split the obscurity at the same
+moment. Flint fell back against the wall
+and slid down to the floor. The outer door
+began to open again cautiously.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But the orderly, half dressed, remained
+knee-deep in the snow by the doorway.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a long interval Gary struck a match,
+then went over and lit the candle. And, as he
+turned, Flint fired from where he lay on the
+floor and Gary swung heavily on one heel, took
+two uncertain steps. Then his pistol fell clattering;
+he sank to his knees and collapsed face
+downward on the stones.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Flint, still lying where he had fallen, partly
+upright, against the wall, began to laugh,
+and died a few moments later, the wind
+from the slowly opening door stirring his
+fair hair and extinguishing the candle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And at last, through the opened door crept
+Carfax's orderly; peered into the darkness
+within, shivering in his unbuttoned tunic, his
+boots wet with snow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Dawn already whitened the east; and up
+out of the ghastly fog edging the German
+Empire, silhouetted, monstrous, against<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page31">[pg 31]</span><a name="Pg31" id="Pg31" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the daybreak, soared a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Lämmergeyer</span></span>, beating
+the livid void with enormous, unclean
+wings.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The orderly heard its scream, shrank, cowering,
+against the door frame as the huge
+bird's ferocious red and yellow eyes blazed
+level with his.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly, above the clamor of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Lämmergeyer</span></span>,
+the shrill bell of the telephone
+began to ring.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The terrible racket of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Lämmergeyer</span></span>
+filled the sky; the orderly stumbled into the
+room, slipped in a puddle of something wet,
+sent an empty bottle rolling and clinking
+away into the darkness; stumbled twice over
+prostrate bodies; reached the telephone, half
+fainting; whispered for help.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a long, long while, the horror still
+thickly clogging vein and brain, he scratched
+a match, hesitated, then holding it high,
+reeled toward the door with face averted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Outside the sun was already above the
+horizon, flashing over Haut Alsace at his
+feet.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page32">[pg 32]</span><a name="Pg32" id="Pg32" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Lämmergeyer</span></span> was a speck in the sky,
+poised over France.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Up out of the infinite and sunlit chasm
+came a mocking, joyous hail—up through the
+sheer, misty gulf out of vernal depths:
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuck</span></span>-oo! <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuck</span></span>-oo! <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cuck</span></span>-oo!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page33">[pg 33]</span><a name="Pg33" id="Pg33" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf7" id="pdf7"></a>
+<a name="toc8" id="toc8"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER IV</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+RECONNAISSANCE</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And that was the way Carfax ended—a
+tiny tragedy of incompetence compared to the
+mountainous official fiasco at Gallipoli. Here,
+a few perished among the filthy salamanders
+in the snow; there, thousands died in the
+burning Turkish gorse——</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But that's history; and its makers are
+already officially damned.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But now concerning two others of the fed-up
+dozen on board the mule transport—Harry
+Stent and Jim Brown. Destiny linked
+arms with them; Fate jerked a mysterious
+thumb over her shoulder toward Italy.
+Chance detailed them for special duty as
+soon as they landed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was a magnificent sight, the disembark<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page34">[pg 34]</span><a name="Pg34" id="Pg34" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ing
+of the British overseas military force
+sent secretly into Italy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They continued to disembark and entrain
+at night. Nobody knew that British troops
+were in Italy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The infernal uproar along the Isonzo never
+ceased; the din of the guns resounded through
+the Trentino, but British and Canadian noses
+were sniffing at something beyond the Carnic
+Alps, along the slopes of which they continued
+to concentrate, Rifles, Kilties, and
+Gunners.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There seemed to be no particular hurry.
+Details from the Canadian contingent were
+constantly sent out to familiarize themselves
+with the vast waste of tunneled mountains
+denting the Austrian sky-line to the northward;
+and all day long Dominion reconnoitering
+parties wandered among valleys, alms,
+forest, and peaks in company sometimes with
+Italian alpinists, sometimes by themselves,
+prying, poking, snooping about with all the
+emotionless pertinacity of Teuton tourists
+preoccupied with <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">wanderlust</span></span>, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">kultur</span></span>, and
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">ewigkeit</span></span>.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page35">[pg 35]</span><a name="Pg35" id="Pg35" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And one lovely September morning the
+British Military Observer with the Italian
+army, and his very British aid, sat on a
+sunny rock on the Col de la Reine and
+watched a Canadian northward reconnaissance—nothing
+much to see, except a solitary
+moving figure here and there on the mountains,
+crawling like a deerstalker across
+ledges and stretches of bracken—a few dots
+on the higher slopes, visible for a moment,
+then again invisible, then glimpsed against
+some lower snow patch, and gone again beyond
+the range of powerful glasses.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The Athabasca regiment, 13th Battalion,"
+remarked the British Military Observer;
+"lively and rather noisy."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Really," observed his A. D. C.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sturdy, half-disciplined beggars," continued
+the B. M. O., watching the mountain
+plank through his glasses; "every variety of
+adventurer in their ranks—cattlemen, ranchmen,
+Hudson Bay trappers, North West police,
+lumbermen, mail carriers, bear hunters,
+Indians, renegade frontiersmen, soldiers of
+fortune—a sweet lot, Algy."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page36">[pg 36]</span><a name="Pg36" id="Pg36" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ow."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"—And half of 'em unruly Yankees—the
+most objectionable half, you know."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A bad lot," remarked the Honorable Algy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Not at all," said the B. M. O. complacently;
+"I've a relative of sorts with 'em—leftenant,
+I believe—a Yankee brother-in-law,
+in point of fact."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ow."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Married a step-sister in the States. Must
+look him up some day," concluded the B. M. O.,
+adjusting his field glasses and focussing
+them on two dark dots moving across a distant
+waste of alpine roses along the edge
+of a chasm.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One of the dots happened to be the "relative
+of sorts" just mentioned; but the
+B. M. O. could not know that. And a moment
+afterward the dots became invisible
+against the vast mass of the mountain, and
+did not again reappear within the field of
+the English officer's limited vision. So he
+never knew he had seen his relative of sorts.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Up there on the alp, one of the dots, which
+at near view appeared to be a good-looking,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page37">[pg 37]</span><a name="Pg37" id="Pg37" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+bronzed young man in khaki, puttees, and
+mountain shoes, said to the other officer who
+was scrambling over the rocks beside him:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you ever see a better country for
+sheep?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Bear, elk, goats—it's sure a great layout,"
+returned the younger officer, a Canadian
+whose name was Stent.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Goats," nodded Brown—"sheep and goats.
+This country was made for them. I fancy
+they <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">have</span></span> chamois here. Did you ever see
+one, Harry?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. They have a thing out here, too,
+called an ibex. You never saw an ibex, did
+you, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown, who had halted, shook his head.
+Stent stepped forward and stood silently beside
+him, looking out across the vast cleft in
+the mountains, but not using his field glasses.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At their feet the cliffs fell away sheer
+into tremendous and dizzying depths; fir
+forests far below carpeted the abyss like
+wastes of velvet moss, amid which glistened
+a twisted silvery thread—a river. A world
+of mountains bounded the horizon.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page38">[pg 38]</span><a name="Pg38" id="Pg38" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Better make a note or two," said Stent
+briefly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They unslung their rifles, seated themselves
+in the warm sun amid a deep thicket of
+alpine roses, and remained silent and busy
+with pencil and paper for a while—two inconspicuous,
+brownish-grey figures, cuddled
+close among the greyish rocks, with nothing
+of military insignia about their dress or their
+round grey wool caps to differentiate them
+from sportsmen—wary stalkers of chamois
+or red deer—except that under their unbelted
+tunics automatics and cartridge belts made
+perceptible bunches.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Just above them a line of stunted firs
+edged limits of perpetual snow, and rocks
+and glistening fields of crag-broken white
+carried the eye on upward to the dazzling
+pinnacle of the Col de la Reine, splitting the
+vast, calm blue above.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nothing except peaks disturbed the tranquil
+sky to the northward; not a cloud hung
+there. But westward mist clung to a few
+mountain flanks, and to the east it was snowing
+on distant crests.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page39">[pg 39]</span><a name="Pg39" id="Pg39" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown, sketching rapidly but accurately,
+laughed a little under his breath.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"To think," he said, "not a Boche dreams
+we are in the Carnic Alps. It's very funny,
+isn't it? Our surveyors are likely to be here
+in a day or two, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stent, working more slowly and methodically
+on his squared map paper, the smoke
+drifting fragrantly from his brier pipe,
+nodded in silence, glancing down now and
+then at the barometer and compass between
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Mentioning big game," he remarked presently,
+"I started to tell you about the ibex,
+Jim. I've hunted a little in the Eastern
+Alps."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I didn't know it," said Brown, interested.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. A classmate of mine at the Munich
+Polytechnic invited me—Siurd von Glahn—a
+splendid fellow—educated at Oxford—just
+like one of us—nothing of the Boche about
+him at all——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown laughed: "A Boche is always
+a Boche, Harry. The black Prussian
+blood——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page40">[pg 40]</span><a name="Pg40" id="Pg40" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No; Siurd was all white. Really. A
+charming, lovable fellow. Anyway, his dad
+had a shooting where there were chamois,
+reh, hirsch, and the king of all Alpine big
+game—ibex. And Siurd asked me."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you get an ibex?" inquired Brown,
+sharpening his pencil and glancing out across
+the valley at a cloud which had suddenly
+formed there.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I did."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What manner of beast is it?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It has mountain sheep and goats stung
+to death. Take it from me, Jim, it's the last
+word in mountain sport. The chamois isn't
+in it. Pooh, I've seen chamois within a hundred
+yards of a mountain macadam highway.
+But the ibex? Not much! The man
+who stalks and kills an ibex has nothing
+more to learn about stalking. Chamois, red
+deer, Scotch stag make you laugh after you've
+done your bit in the ibex line."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"How about our sheep and goat?" inquired
+Brown, staring at his comrade.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's harder to get ibex."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Nonsense!"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page41">[pg 41]</span><a name="Pg41" id="Pg41" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It really is, Jim."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What does your ibex resemble?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's a handsome beast, ashy grey in summer,
+furred a brownish yellow in winter, and
+with little chin whiskers and a pair of big,
+curved, heavily ridged horns, thick and flat
+and looking as though they ought to belong
+to something African, and twice as big."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Some trophy, what?" commented Brown,
+working away at his sketches.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Rather. The devilish thing lives along the
+perpetual snow line; and, for incredible stunts
+in jumping and climbing, it can give points
+to any Rocky Mountain goat. You try to get
+above it, spend the night there, and stalk it
+when it returns from nocturnal grazing in the
+stunted growth below. That's how."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And you got one?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. It took six days. We followed it for
+that length of time across the icy mountains,
+Siurd and I. I thought I'd die."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Cold work, eh?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stent nodded, pocketed his sketch, fished out
+a packet of bread and chocolate from his pocket
+and, rolling over luxuriously in the sun among<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page42">[pg 42]</span><a name="Pg42" id="Pg42" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the alpine roses, lunched leisurely, flat on his
+back.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown presently stretched out and reclined
+on his elbow; and while he ate he lazily watched
+a kestrel circling deep in the gulf below him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I think," he said, half to himself, "that this
+is the most beautiful region on earth."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stent lifted himself on both elbows and gazed
+across the chasm at the lower slopes of the alm
+opposite, all ablaze with dewy wild flowers.
+Down it, between fern and crag and bracken,
+flashed a brook, broken into in silvery sections
+amid depths of velvet green below, where evidently
+it tumbled headlong into that thin, shining
+thread which was a broad river.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," mused Stent, "Siurd von Glahn and
+I were comrades on many a foot tour through
+such mountains as these. He was a delightful
+fellow, my classmate Siurd——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown's swift rigid grip on his arm checked
+him to silence; there came the clink of an
+iron-shod foot on the ledge; they snatched their
+rifles from the fern patch; two figures stepped
+around the shelf of rock, looming up dark
+against the dazzling sky.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page43">[pg 43]</span><a name="Pg43" id="Pg43" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf9" id="pdf9"></a>
+<a name="toc10" id="toc10"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER V</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+PARNASSUS</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown, squatting cross-legged among the
+alpine roses, squinted along his level rifle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Halt!" he said with a pleasant, rising inflection
+in his quiet voice. "Stand very still,
+gentlemen," he added in German.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Drop your rifles. Drop 'em quick!" he
+repeated more sharply. "Up with your hands—hold
+them up high! Higher, if you please!—quickly.
+Now, then, what are you doing on this
+alp?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">What they were doing seemed apparent
+enough—two gentlemen of Teutonic persuasion,
+out stalking game—deer, rehbok or chamois—one
+a tall, dark, nice-looking young fellow
+wearing the usual rough gray jacket with
+stag-horn buttons, green felt hat with feather,
+and leather breeches of the alpine hunter. His<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page44">[pg 44]</span><a name="Pg44" id="Pg44" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+knees and aristocratic ankles were bare and
+bronzed. He laughed a little as he held up his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The other man was stout and stocky rather
+than fat. He had the square red face and
+bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and
+the spectacles of a Herr Professor. He held
+up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers
+spread out wide. They seemed rather soiled.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">From his <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">rücksack</span></span> stuck out a butterfly
+net in two sections and the deeply scalloped,
+silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss
+adorned his green felt hat; a green tin
+box punched full of holes was slung from his
+broad shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown, lowering his rifle cautiously, was already
+getting to his feet from the trampled
+bracken, when, behind him, he heard Stent's
+astonished voice break forth in pedantic German:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Siurd! Is it <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">thou</span></span> then?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Harry Stent!" returned the dark, nice-looking
+young fellow amiably. And, in a delightful
+voice and charming English:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Pray, am I to offer you a shake hands," he<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page45">[pg 45]</span><a name="Pg45" id="Pg45" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+inquired smilingly; "or shall I continue to invoke
+the Olympian gods with classically uplifted
+and imploring arms?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown let Stent pass forward. Then, stepping
+back, he watched the greeting between
+these two old classmates. His rifle, grasped
+between stock and barrel, hung loosely between
+both hands. His expression became vacantly
+good humoured; but his brain was working like
+lightning.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stent's firm hand encountered Von Glahn's
+and held it in questioning astonishment. Looking
+him in the eyes he said slowly: "Siurd, it
+is good to see you again. It is amazing to
+meet you this way. I am glad. I have never
+forgotten you.... Only a moment ago I was
+speaking to Brown about you—of our wonderful
+ibex hunt! I was telling Brown—my
+comrade—" he turned his head slightly and
+presented the two young men—"Mr. Brown,
+an American——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"American?" repeated Von Glahn in his gentle,
+well-bred voice, offering his hand. And, in
+turn, becoming sponsor, he presented his stocky
+companion as Dr. von Dresslin; and the cere<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page46">[pg 46]</span><a name="Pg46" id="Pg46" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>mony
+instantly stiffened to a more rigid etiquette.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, in his always gentle, graceful way,
+Von Glahn rested his hand lightly on Stent's
+shoulder:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You made us jump—you two Americans—as
+though you had been British. Of what could
+two Americans be afraid in the Carnic Alps
+to challenge a pair of wandering ibex stalkers?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You forget that I am Canadian," replied
+Stent, forcing a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"At that, you are practically American and
+civilian—" He glanced smilingly over their
+equipment, carelessly it seemed to Stent, as
+though verifying all absence of military insignia.
+"Besides," he added with his gentle
+humour, "there are no British in Italy. And
+no Italians in these mountains, I fancy; they
+have their own affairs to occupy them on the
+Isonzo I understand. Also, there is no war between
+Italy and Germany."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stent smiled, perfectly conscious of Brown's
+telepathic support in whatever was now to
+pass between them and these two Germans. He<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page47">[pg 47]</span><a name="Pg47" id="Pg47" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+knew, and Brown knew, that these Germans
+must be taken back as prisoners; that, suspicious
+or not, they could not be permitted
+to depart again with a story of having met
+an American and a Canadian after ibex among
+the Carnic Alps.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">These two Germans were already their prisoners;
+but there was no hurry about telling
+them so.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"How do you happen to be here, Siurd?"
+asked Stent, frankly curious.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Von Glahn lifted his delicately formed eyebrows,
+then, amused:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Count von Plessis invites me; and"—he
+laughed outright—"he must have invited you,
+Harry, unless you are poaching!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Good Lord!" exclaimed Stent, for a brief
+second believing in the part he was playing;
+"I supposed this to be a free alp."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He and Von Glahn laughed; and the latter
+said, still frankly amused: "<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Soyez tranquille</span></span>,
+Messieurs; Count von Plessis permits my
+friends—in my company—to shoot the Queen's
+alm."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">With a lithe movement, wholly graceful, he<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page48">[pg 48]</span><a name="Pg48" id="Pg48" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+slipped the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">rücksack</span></span> from his shoulders, let
+it fall among the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">alpenrosen</span></span> beside his sporting
+rifle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We have a long day and a longer night
+ahead of us," he said pleasantly, looking from
+Stent to Brown. "The snow limit lies just
+above us; the ibex should pass here at dawn
+on their way back to the peak. Shall we consolidate
+our front, gentlemen—and make it
+a Quadruple Entente?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stent replied instantly: "We join you with
+thanks, Siurd. My one ibex hunt is no experience
+at all compared to your record of a
+veteran—" He looked full and significantly
+at Brown; continuing: "As you say, we have
+all day and—a long night before us. Let us
+make ourselves comfortable here in the sun
+before we take—our final stations."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And they seated themselves in the lee of the
+crag, foregathering fraternally in the warm
+alpine sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Herr Professor von Dresslin grunted
+as he sat down. After he had lighted his pipe
+he grunted again, screwed together his butter<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page49">[pg 49]</span><a name="Pg49" id="Pg49" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>fly
+net and gazed hard through thick-lensed
+spectacles at Brown.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Does it interest you, sir, the pursuit of the
+diurnal Lepidoptera?" he inquired, still staring
+intently at the American.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't know anything about them," explained
+Brown. "What are Lepidoptera?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">schmetterling</span></span>—the butterfly. In Amerika,
+sir, you have many fine species, notably
+Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus
+of the four varietal forms." His prominent
+eyes shifted from one detail of Brown's costume
+to another—not apparently an intelligent
+examination, but a sort of protruding and
+indifferent stare.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His gaze, however, was arrested for a moment
+where the lump under Brown's tunic indicated
+something concealed—a hunting knife,
+for example. Brown's automatic was strapped
+there. But the bulging eyes, expressionless
+still, remained fixed for a second only, then
+travelled on toward the Ross rifle—the Athabasca
+Regiment having been permitted to exchange
+this beloved weapon for the British
+regulation piece recently issued to the Can<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page50">[pg 50]</span><a name="Pg50" id="Pg50" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>adians.
+From behind the thick lenses of his
+spectacles the Herr Professor examined the
+rifle while his monotonously dreary voice continued
+an entomological monologue for Brown's
+edification. And all the while Von Glahn and
+Stent, reclining nearby among the ferns, were
+exchanging what appeared to be the frankest
+of confidences and the happiest of youthful
+reminiscences.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Of the Parnassians," rumbled on Professor
+von Dresslin, "here in the Alps we possess
+one notable example—namely, the Parnassus
+Apollo. It is for the capture of this never-to-be-sufficiently
+studied butterfly that I have,
+upon this ibex-hunting expedition, myself
+equipped with net and suitable paraphernalia."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I see," nodded Brown, eyeing the green tin
+box and the net. The Herr Professor's pop-eyed
+attention was now occupied with the service
+puttees worn by Brown. A sportsman also
+might have worn them, of course.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The Apollo butterfly," droned on Professor
+Dresslin, "iss a butterfly of the larger magnitude
+among European Lepidoptera, yet not of
+the largest. The Parnassians, allied to the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page51">[pg 51]</span><a name="Pg51" id="Pg51" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Papilionidæ, all live only in high altitudes,
+and are, by the thinly scaled and always-to-be-remembered
+red and plack ge-spotted wings,
+to be readily recognized. I haf already two
+specimens captured this morning. I haff the
+honour, sir, to exhibit them for your inspection——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He fished out a flat green box from his pocket,
+opened it under Brown's nose, leaning close
+enough to touch Brown with an exploring and
+furtive elbow—and felt the contour of the
+automatic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Amid a smell of carbolic and camphor cones
+Brown beheld, pinned side by side upon the
+cork-lined interior of the box, two curiously
+pretty butterflies.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Their drooping and still pliable wings
+seemed as thin as white tissue paper; their
+bodies were covered with furry hairs. Brick-red
+and black spots decorated the frail membrane
+of the wings in a curiously pleasing
+harmony of pattern and of colour.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very unusual," he said, with a vague idea
+he was saying the wrong thing.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Monotonously, paying no attention, Professor<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page52">[pg 52]</span><a name="Pg52" id="Pg52" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+von Dresslin continued: "I, the life history of
+the Parnassus Apollo, haff from my early
+youth investigated with minuteness, diligence,
+and patience."—His protuberant eyes were now
+fixed on Brown's rifle again.—"For many years
+I haff bred this Apollo butterfly from the egg,
+from the caterpillar, from the chrysalis. I have
+the negroid forms, the albino forms, the dwarf
+forms, the hybrid forms investigated under
+effery climatic condition. Notes sufficient for
+three volumes of quarto already exist as a
+residuum of my investigations——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looked up suddenly into the American's
+face—which was the first sudden movement the
+Herr Professor had made——</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ach wass! Three volumes! It is nothing.
+Here iss material for thirty!—A lifetime iss
+too short to know all the secrets of a single
+species.... If I may inquire, sir, of what
+pattern is your most interesting and admirable
+rifle?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A—Ross," said Brown, startled into a second's
+hesitation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"So? And, if I may inquire, of what nationality
+iss it, a R-r-ross?"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page53">[pg 53]</span><a name="Pg53" id="Pg53" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's a Canadian weapon. We Americans use
+it a great deal for big game."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"So?... And it iss also by the Canadian
+military employed perhaps, sir?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I believe," said Brown, carelessly, "that the
+British Government has taken away the Ross
+rifle from the Canadians and given them the
+regulation weapon."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"So? Permit—that I examine, sir?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown did not seem to hear him or notice
+the extended hand—blunt-fingered, hairy, persistent.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Professor, not discouraged, repeated:
+"Sir, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bitte darf ich</span></span>, may I be permitted?"
+And Brown's eyes flashed back a lightning
+shaft of inquiry. Then, carelessly smiling, he
+passed the Ross rifle over to the Herr Professor;
+and, at the same time, drew toward him
+that gentleman's silver-mounted weapon, and
+carelessly cocked it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Permit me," he murmured, balancing it innocently
+in the hollow of his left arm, apparently
+preoccupied with admiration at the florid
+workmanship of stock and guard. No movement
+that the Herr Professor made escaped<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page54">[pg 54]</span><a name="Pg54" id="Pg54" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+him; but presently he thought to himself—"The
+old dodo is absolutely unsuspicious. My
+nerves are out of order.... What odd eyes
+that Fritz has!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When Herr Professor von Dresslin passed
+back the weapon Brown laid the German sporting
+piece beside it with murmured complimentary
+comment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yess," said the German, "such rifles kill
+when properly handled. We Germans may
+cordially recommend them for our American—friends—"
+Here was the slightest hesitation—"Pardon!
+I mean that we may safely
+guarantee this rifle <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">to</span></span> our friends."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown looked thoughtfully at the thick lenses
+of the spectacles. The popeyes remained expressionless,
+utterly, Teutonically inscrutable.
+A big heather bee came buzzing among the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">alpenrosen</span></span>. Its droning hum resembled the
+monotone of the Herr Professor.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Behind them Brown heard Stent saying: "Do
+you remember our ambition to wear the laurels
+of Parnassus, Siurd? Do you remember our
+notes at the lectures on the poets? And our<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page55">[pg 55]</span><a name="Pg55" id="Pg55" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+ambition to write at least one deathless poem
+apiece before we died?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Von Glahn's dark eyes narrowed with merriment
+and his gentle laugh and attractive voice
+sounded pleasantly in Brown's ears.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You wrote at least <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">one</span></span> famous poem to
+Rosa," he said, still laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"To Rosa? Oh! Rosa of the Café Luitpold!
+By Jove I did, didn't I, Siurd? How on earth
+did you ever remember that?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I thought it very pretty." He began to repeat
+aloud:</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"Rosa with the winsome eyes,</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">When my beer you bring to me;</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">I can see through your disguise!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">I my goddess recognize—</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Hebe, young immortally,</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Sweet nepenthe pouring me!"</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stent laughed outright:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"How funny to think of it now—and to think
+of Rosa!... And you, Siurd, do you forget
+that you also composed a most wonderful
+war-poem—to the metre of 'Fly, Eagle, Fly!'
+Do you remember how it began?</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page56">[pg 56]</span><a name="Pg56" id="Pg56" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"Slay, Eagle, Slay!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.00em">They die who dare decry us!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Red dawns 'The Day.'</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.00em">The western cliffs defy us!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Turn their grey flood</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">To seas of blood!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">And, as they flee, Slay, Eagle! Slay!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">For God has willed this German 'Day'!"</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Enough," said Siurd Von Glahn, still laughing,
+but turning very red. "What a terrible
+memory you have, Harry! For heaven's sake
+spare my modesty such accurate reminiscences."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I thought it fine poetry—then," insisted
+Stent with a forced smile. But his voice had
+subtly altered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They looked at each other in silence, the
+reminiscent smile still stamped upon their stiffening
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a brief moment the years had seemed
+to fade—time was not—the sunshine of that
+careless golden age had seemed to warm them
+once again there where they sat amid the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">alpenrosen</span></span> below the snow line on the Col de
+la Reine.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page57">[pg 57]</span><a name="Pg57" id="Pg57" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But it did not endure; everything concerning
+earth and heaven and life and death had
+so far remained unsaid between these two.
+And never would be said. Both understood
+that, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then Von Glahn's sidelong and preoccupied
+glance fell on Stent's field glasses slung short
+around his neck. His rigid smile died out.
+Soldiers wore field glasses that way; hunters,
+when they carried them instead of spyglasses,
+wore them <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">en bandoulière</span></span>.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He spoke, however, of other matters in his
+gentle, thoughtful voice—avoiding always any
+mention of politics and war—chatted on pleasantly
+with the familiarity and insouciance of
+old acquaintance. Once he turned slowly and
+looked at Brown—addressed him politely—while
+his dark eyes wandered over the American,
+noting every detail of dress and equipment, and
+the slight bulge at his belt line beneath the
+tunic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Twice he found pretext to pick up his rifle,
+but discarded it carelessly, apparently not noticing
+that Stent and Brown always resumed
+their own weapons when he touched his.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page58">[pg 58]</span><a name="Pg58" id="Pg58" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown said to Von Glahn:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ibex stalking is a new game to me. My
+friend Stent tells me that you are old at it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I have followed some few ibex, Mr. Brown,"
+replied the young man modestly. "And—other
+game," he added with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I know how it's done in theory," continued
+the American; "and I am wondering whether
+we are to lie in this spot until dawn tomorrow
+or whether we climb higher and lie in the
+snow up there."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly
+where we shall lie tonight—Mr. Brown."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was an odd look in Siurd's soft brown
+eyes; he turned and spoke to Herr Professor
+von Dresslin, using dialect—and instantly appearing
+to recollect himself he asked pardon
+of Stent and Brown in his very perfect English.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun
+dialect: 'Ibex may be stirring, as it is already
+late afternoon. We ought now to use our
+glasses.' My family," he added apologetically,
+"come from the Traunwald; I forget and employ
+the vernacular at times."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page59">[pg 59]</span><a name="Pg59" id="Pg59" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Herr Professor unslung his telescope,
+set his rifle upright on the moss, and, kneeling,
+balanced the long spyglass alongside of
+the blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand
+as an archer fits the arrow he is drawing on
+the bowstring.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of
+the same thing: the chance that these Germans
+might spy others of the Athabasca regiment
+prowling among the ferns and rocks of
+neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly
+at an end, anyway.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They exchanged a glance; both picked up
+their rifles; Brown nodded almost imperceptibly.
+The tragic comedy was approaching its
+close.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Hirsch</span></span>" grunted the Herr Professor—"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">und
+stück</span></span>—on the north alm"—staring through his
+telescope intently.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Accorded," said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing
+his spyglass and sweeping the distant crags.
+"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Stück</span></span> on the western shoulder," he added—"and
+a stag royal among them."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Of ten?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Of twelve."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page60">[pg 60]</span><a name="Pg60" id="Pg60" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a silence: "Why are they galloping—I
+wonder—the herd-stag and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">stück</span></span>?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent's
+arm.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">geier</span></span>, perhaps," suggested Siurd, his eye
+glued to his spyglass.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No ibex?" asked Stent in a voice a little
+forced.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok</span></span>—high
+on the third peak—feeding."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Accorded," grunted the Herr Professor
+after an interval of search; and he closed his
+spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually
+upon Brown, who was laying aside his own
+rifle again—and the German's expression did
+not alter.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ibex!" exclaimed Von Glahn softly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted
+his field glasses on the third peak, and
+stood there, poised, slim and upright against
+the sky on the chasm's mossy edge.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't see your ibex, Siurd," he said, still
+searching.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"On the third peak, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mon ami</span></span>"—drawing<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page61">[pg 61]</span><a name="Pg61" id="Pg61" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Stent familiarly to his side—the lightest caressing
+contact—merely enough to verify the
+existence of the automatic under his old classmate's
+tunic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch,
+neither did Brown notice it, watching them.
+Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not
+at all certain, because at that moment there
+came flopping along over the bracken and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">alpenrosen</span></span>
+a loppy winged butterfly—a large, whitish
+creature, seeming uncertain in its irresolute
+flight whether to alight at Brown's feet or
+go flapping aimlessly on over Brown's head.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Herr Professor snatched up his net—struck
+heavily toward the winged thing—a silent,
+terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle
+clutched together. Brown went down with a
+crash.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the shocking sound of the impact Stent
+wheeled from the abyss, then staggered back
+under the powerful shove from Von Glahn's
+nervous arm. Swaying, fighting frantically for
+foothold, there on the chasm's awful edge, he
+balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium.
+Von Glahn, rigid, watched him. Then, deathly<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page62">[pg 62]</span><a name="Pg62" id="Pg62" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+white, his young eyes looking straight into the
+eyes of his old classmate—Stent lost the fight,
+fell outward, wider, dropping back into mid-air,
+down through sheer, tremendous depths—down
+there where the broad river seemed only
+a silver thread and the forests looked like beds
+of tender, velvet moss.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus
+Apollo, still winging its erratic way
+where God willed it—a frail, dainty, translucent,
+wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf—symbol,
+perhaps of the soul already soaring
+up out of the terrific deeps below.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Herr Professor sweated and panted as
+he tugged at the silk handkerchief with which
+he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious
+American behind his back.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!" he grunted—"mit
+his pockets full of automatic clips. A Yankee,
+eh? What I tell you, Siurd?—English and
+Yankee they are one in blood and one at
+heart—pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what
+I told you already <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">gesternabend</span></span>? The British
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">schwein</span></span> are in Italy already. Hola! Siurd!
+Take his feet and we turn him over <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mal</span></span>!"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page63">[pg 63]</span><a name="Pg63" id="Pg63" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning
+heavily against the crag, his back to the abyss,
+his blond head buried in both arms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too,
+began, with his powerful, stubby hands, to pull
+the unconscious man over on his back. And,
+as he worked, he hummed monotonously but
+contentedly in his bushy beard something about
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">something</span></span> being "<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">über alles</span></span>"—God, perhaps,
+perhaps the blue sky overhead which covered
+him and his sickened friend alike, and the hurt
+enemy whose closed lids shut out the sky above—and
+the dead man lying very, very far below
+them—where river and forest and moss and
+Parnassus were now alike to him.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page64">[pg 64]</span><a name="Pg64" id="Pg64" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf11" id="pdf11"></a>
+<a name="toc12" id="toc12"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER VI</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+IN FINISTÈRE</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was a dirty trick that they played Stent
+and Brown—the three Mysterious Sisters, Fate,
+Chance, and Destiny. But they're always billed
+for any performance, be it vaudeville or tragedy;
+and there's no use hissing them off:
+they'll dog you from the stage entrance if they
+take a fancy to you.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They dogged Wayland from the dock at
+Calais, where the mule transport landed, all
+the way to Paris, then on a slow train to Quimperlé,
+and then, by stagecoach, to that little
+lost house on the moors, where ties held him
+most closely—where all he cared for in this
+world was gathered under a humble roof.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In spite of his lameness he went duck-shooting
+the week after his arrival. It was rather
+forcing his convalescence, but he believed it<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page65">[pg 65]</span><a name="Pg65" id="Pg65" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+would accelerate it to go about in the open air,
+as though there were nothing the matter with
+his shattered leg.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So he hobbled down to the point he knew so
+well. He had longed for the sea off Eryx.
+It thundered at his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And, now, all around him through clamorous
+obscurity a watery light glimmered; it
+edged the low-driven clouds hurrying in from
+the sea; it outlined the long point of rocks
+thrust southward into the smoking smother.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The din of the surf filled his ears; through
+flying patches of mist he caught glimpses of
+rollers bursting white against the reef; heard
+duller detonations along unseen sands, and
+shattering reports where heavy waves exploded
+among basalt rocks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His lean face of an invalid glistened with
+spray; salt water dripped from cap and coat,
+spangled the brown barrels of his fowling-piece,
+and ran down the varnished supports of
+both crutches where he leaned on them, braced
+forward against an ever-rising wind.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At moments he seemed to catch glimpses of
+darker specks dotting the heaving flank of some<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page66">[pg 66]</span><a name="Pg66" id="Pg66" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+huge wave. But it was not until the wild ducks
+rose through the phantom light and came whirring
+in from the sea that his gun, poked stiffly
+skyward, flashed in the pallid void. And then,
+sometimes, he hobbled back after the dead
+quarry while it still drove headlong inland,
+slanting earthward before the gale.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Once, amid the endless thundering, in the
+turbulent desolation around him, through the
+roar of wind in his ears, he seemed to catch
+deadened sounds resembling distant seaward
+cannonading—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">real</span></span> cannonading—as though
+individual shots, dully distinct, dominated
+for a few moments the unbroken uproar of
+surf and gale.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He listened, straining his ears, alert, intent
+upon the sounds he ought to recognize—the
+sounds he knew so well.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Only the ceaseless pounding of the sea
+assailed his ears.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Three wild duck, widgeon, came speeding
+through the fog; he breasted the wind, balanced
+heavily on both crutches and one leg,
+and shoved his gun upward.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the same instant the mist in front and<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page67">[pg 67]</span><a name="Pg67" id="Pg67" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+overhead became noisy with wild fowl, rising
+in one great, panic-stricken, clamoring
+cloud. He hesitated; a muffled, thudding
+sound came to him over the unseen sea, growing
+louder, nearer, dominating the gale, increasing
+to a rattling clatter.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly a great cloudy shape loomed up
+through the whirling mist ahead—an enormous
+shadow in the fog—a gigantic spectre
+rushing inland on vast and ghostly pinions.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As the man shrank on his crutches, looking
+up, the aëroplane swept past overhead—a
+wounded, wavering, unsteady, unbalanced
+thing, its right aileron dangling, half stripped,
+and almost mangled to a skeleton.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Already it was slanting lower toward the
+forest like a hard-hit duck, wing-crippled,
+fighting desperately for flight-power to the
+very end. Then the inland mist engulfed it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And after it hobbled Wayland, painfully,
+two brace of dead ducks and his slung fowling
+piece bobbing on his back, his rubber-shod
+crutches groping and probing among
+drenched rocks and gullies full of kelp, his
+left leg in splints hanging heavily.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page68">[pg 68]</span><a name="Pg68" id="Pg68" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He could not go fast; he could not go
+very far. Further inland, foggy gorse gave
+place to broom and blighted bracken, all wet,
+sagging with rain. Then he crossed a swale
+of brown reeds and tussock set with little
+pools of water, opaque and grey in the rain.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Where the outer moors narrowed he turned
+westward; then a strip of low, thorn-clad
+cliff confronted him, up which he toiled along
+a V-shaped cleft choked with ferns.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The spectral forest of Läis lay just beyond,
+its wind-tortured branches tossing under
+a leaden sky.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">East and west lonely moors stretched away
+into the depths of the mist; southward spread
+the sea; to the north lay the wide woods of
+Läis, equally deserted now in this sad and
+empty land.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He hobbled to the edge of the forest and
+stood knee deep in discoloured ferns, listening.
+The sombre beech-woods spread thick
+on either hand, a wilderness of crossed limbs
+and meshed branches to which still clung
+great clots of dull brown leaves.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He listened, peering into sinister, grey<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page69">[pg 69]</span><a name="Pg69" id="Pg69" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+depths. In the uncertain light nothing stirred
+except the clashing branches overhead; there
+was no sound except the wind's flowing roar
+and the ghostly noise of his own voice, hallooing
+through the solitude—a voice in the misty
+void that seemed to carry less sound than
+the straining cry of a sleeper in his dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">If the aëroplane had landed, there was no
+sign here. How far had it struggled on,
+sheering the tree-tops, before it fell?—if indeed
+it had fallen somewhere in the wood's
+grey depths?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As long as he had sufficient strength he
+prowled along the forest, entering it here
+and there, calling, listening, searching the
+foggy corridors of trees. The rotting brake
+crackled underfoot; the tree tops clashed and
+creaked above him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At last, having only enough strength left
+to take him home, he turned away, limping
+through the blotched and broken ferns, his
+crippled leg hanging stiffly in its splints, his
+gun and the dead ducks bobbing on his back.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The trodden way was soggy with little
+pools full of drenched grasses and dead<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page70">[pg 70]</span><a name="Pg70" id="Pg70" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+leaves; but at length came rising ground,
+and the blue-green, glimmering wastes of
+gorse stretching away before him through the
+curtained fog.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A sheep path ran through; and after a little
+while a few trees loomed shadowy in the
+mist, and a low stone house took shape,
+whitewashed, flanked by barn, pigpen, and a
+stack of rotting seaweed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A few wet hens wandered aimlessly by the
+doorstep; a tiny bed of white clove-pinks
+and tall white phlox exhaled a homely welcome
+as the lame man hobbled up the steps,
+pulled the leather latchstring, and entered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the kitchen an old Breton woman, chopping
+herbs, looked up at him out of aged
+eyes, shaking her head under its white coiffe.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is nearly noon," she said. "You have
+been out since dawn. Was it wise, for a convalescent,
+Monsieur Jacques?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very wise, Marie-Josephine. Because the
+more exercise I take the sooner I shall be
+able to go back."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is too soon to go out in such weather."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ducks fly inland only in such weather,"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page71">[pg 71]</span><a name="Pg71" id="Pg71" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+he retorted, smiling. "And we like roast
+widgeon, you and I, Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And all the while her aged blue eyes were
+fixed on him, and over her withered cheeks
+the soft bloom came and faded—that pretty
+colour which Breton women usually retain
+until the end.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Thou knowest, Monsieur Jacques," she
+said, with a curiously quaint mingling of
+familiarity and respect, "that I do not counsel
+caution because I love thee and dread
+for thee again the trenches. But with thy
+leg hanging there like the broken wing of a
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vanneau</span></span>——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He replied good humouredly:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Thou dost not know the Legion, Marie-Josephine.
+Every day in our trenches we
+break a comrade into pieces and glue him
+together again, just to make him tougher.
+Broken bones, once mended, are stronger
+than before."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was looking down at her where she sat
+by the hearth, slicing vegetables and herbs,
+but watching him all the while out of her
+lovely, faded eyes.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page72">[pg 72]</span><a name="Pg72" id="Pg72" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I understand, Monsieur Jacques, that you
+are like your father—God knows he was
+hardy and without fear—to the last"—she
+dropped her head—"Mary, glorious—intercede—"
+she muttered over her bowl of herbs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wayland, resting on his crutches, unslung
+his ducks, laid them on the table, smoothed
+their beautiful heads and breasts, then
+slipped the soaking <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bandoulière</span></span> of his gun
+from his shoulder and placed the dripping
+piece against the chimney corner.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"After I have scrubbed myself," he said,
+"and have put on dry clothes, I shall come to
+luncheon; and I shall have something very
+strange to tell you, Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He limped away into one of the two remaining
+rooms—the other was hers—and
+closed his door.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Marie-Josephine continued to prepare the
+soup. There was an egg for him, too; and
+a slice of cold pork and a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">brioche</span></span> and a jug
+of cider.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In his room Wayland was whistling "Tipperary."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now and again, pausing in her work, she<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page73">[pg 73]</span><a name="Pg73" id="Pg73" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+turned her eyes to his closed door—wonderful
+eyes that became miracles of tenderness
+as she listened.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He came out, presently, dressed in his odd,
+ill-fitting uniform of the Legion, tunic unbuttoned,
+collarless of shirt, his bright, thick
+hair, now of decent length, in boyish disorder.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Delicious odours of soup and of Breton
+cider greeted him; he seated himself; Marie-Josephine
+waited on him, hovered over him,
+tucked a sack of feathers under his maimed
+leg, placed his crutches in the corner beside
+the gun.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Still eating, leisurely, he began:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Marie-Josephine—a strange thing has
+happened on Quesnel Moors which troubles
+me.... Listen attentively. It was while
+waiting for ducks on the Eryx Rocks, that
+once I thought I heard through the roar of
+wind and sea the sound of a far cannonading.
+But I said to myself that it was only
+the imagination of a haunted mind; that in
+my ears still thundered the cannonade of
+Lens."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page74">[pg 74]</span><a name="Pg74" id="Pg74" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Was it nevertheless true?" She had
+turned around from the fire where her own
+soup simmered in the kettle. As she spoke
+again she rose and came to the table.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He said: "It must have been cannon that
+I heard. Because, not long afterward, out
+of the fog came a great aëroplane rushing
+inland from the sea—flying swiftly above me—right
+over me!—and staggering like a
+wounded duck—it had one aileron broken—and
+sheered away into the fog, northward,
+Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her work-worn hands, tightly clenched,
+rested now on the table and she leaned there,
+looking down at him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Was it an enemy—this airship, Jacques?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In the mist flying and the ragged clouds
+I could not tell. It might have been English.
+It must have been, I think—coming as
+it came from the sea. But I am troubled,
+Marie-Josephine. Were the guns at sea an
+enemy's guns? Did the aëroplane come to
+earth in safety? Where? In the Forest of
+Laïs? I found no trace of it."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page75">[pg 75]</span><a name="Pg75" id="Pg75" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She said, tremulous perhaps from standing
+too long motionless and intent:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is it possible that the Boches would come
+into these solitary moors, where there are
+no people any more, only the creatures of the
+Laïs woods, and the curlew and the lapwings
+which pass at evening?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He ate thoughtfully and in silence for a
+while; then:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They go, usually—the Boches—where
+there is plunder—murder to be done....
+Spying to be done.... God knows what purpose
+animates the Huns.... After all, Lorient
+is not so far away.... Yet it surely
+must have been an English aëroplane, beaten
+off by some enemy ship—a submarine perhaps.
+God send that the rocks of the Isle
+des Chouans take care of her—with their
+teeth!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He drank his cider—a sip or two only—then,
+setting aside the glass:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I went from the Rocks of Eryx to Laïs
+Woods. I called as loudly as I could; the
+wind whirled my voice back into my throat....
+I am not yet very strong....</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page76">[pg 76]</span><a name="Pg76" id="Pg76" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then I went into the wood as far as my
+strength permitted. I heard and saw nothing,
+Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Would they be dead?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They were planing to earth. I don't know
+how much control they had, whether they
+could steer—choose a landing place. There
+are plenty of safe places on these moors."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If their airship is crippled, what can they
+do, these English flying men, out there on
+the moors in the rain and wind? When the
+coast guard passes we must tell him."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"After lunch I shall go out again as far
+as my strength allows.... If the rain would
+cease and the mist lift, one might see something—be
+of some use, perhaps——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ought you to go, Monsieur Jacques?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Could I fail to try to find them—Englishmen—and
+perhaps injured? Surely I should
+go, Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The coast guard——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He passed the Eryx Rocks at daylight.
+He is at Sainte-Ylva now. Tonight, when
+I see his comrade's lantern, I shall stop him<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page77">[pg 77]</span><a name="Pg77" id="Pg77" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and report. But in the meanwhile I must go
+out and search."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Spare thyself—for the trenches, Jacques.
+Remain indoors today." She began to unpin
+the coiffe which she always wore ceremoniously
+at meals when he was present.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He smiled: "Thou knowest I must go,
+Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And if thou come upon them in the forest
+and they are Huns?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He laughed: "They are English, I tell thee,
+Marie-Josephine!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She nodded; under her breath, staring at
+the rain-lashed window: "Like thy father,
+thou must go forth," she muttered; "go always
+where thy spirit calls. And once <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">he</span></span>
+went. And came no more. And God help
+us all in Finistère, where all are born to
+grief."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page78">[pg 78]</span><a name="Pg78" id="Pg78" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf13" id="pdf13"></a>
+<a name="toc14" id="toc14"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER VII</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+THE AIRMAN</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had seated herself on a stool by the
+hearth. Presently she spread her apron with
+trembling fingers, took the glazed bowl of
+soup upon her lap and began to eat, slowly,
+casting long, unquiet glances at him from
+time to time where he still at table leaned
+heavily, looking out into the rain.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he caught her eye he smiled, summoning
+her with a nod of his boyish head.
+She set aside her bowl obediently, and, rising,
+brought him his crutches. And at the same
+moment somebody knocked lightly on the
+outer door.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Marie-Josephine had unpinned her coiffe.
+Now she pinned it on over her <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bonnet</span></span> before
+going to the door, glancing uneasily around
+at him while she tied her tresses and settled<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page79">[pg 79]</span><a name="Pg79" id="Pg79" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the delicate starched wings of her bonnet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"That's odd," he said, "that knocking,"
+staring at the door. "Perhaps it is the lost
+Englishman."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"God send them," she whispered, going to
+the door and opening it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It certainly seemed to be one of the lost
+Englishmen—a big, square-shouldered, blond
+young fellow, tall and powerful, in the leather
+dress of an aëronaut. His glass mask was
+lifted like the visor of a tilting helmet,
+disclosing a red, weather-beaten face, wet
+with rain. Strength, youth, rugged health
+was their first impression of this leather-clad
+man from the clouds.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He stepped inside the house immediately,
+halted when he caught sight of Wayland in
+his undress uniform, glanced involuntarily at
+his crutches and bandaged leg, cast a quick,
+penetrating glance right and left; then he
+spoke pleasantly in his hesitating, imperfect
+French—so oddly imperfect that Wayland
+could not understand him at all.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Who are you?" he demanded in English.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman seemed astonished for an in<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page80">[pg 80]</span><a name="Pg80" id="Pg80" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>stant,
+then a quick smile broke out on his
+ruddy features:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I say, this <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">is</span></span> lucky! Fancy finding an
+Englishman here!—wherever this place may
+be." He laughed. "Of course I know I'm
+'somewhere in France,' as the censor has it,
+but I'm hanged if I know where!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Come in and shut the door," said Wayland,
+reassured. Marie-Josephine closed the
+door. The aëronaut came forward, stood
+dripping a moment, then took the chair to
+which Wayland pointed, seating himself as
+though a trifle tired.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Shot down," he explained, gaily. "An
+enemy submarine winged us out yonder somewhere.
+I tramped over these bally moors
+for hours before I found a sign of any path.
+A sheepwalk brought me here."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You are lucky. There is only one house
+on these moors—this! Who are you?" asked
+Wayland.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"West—flight-lieutenant, 10th division, Cinque-Ports
+patrolling squadron."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Good heavens, man! What are you doing
+in Finistère?"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page81">[pg 81]</span><a name="Pg81" id="Pg81" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">What!</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You are in Brittany, province of Finistère.
+Didn't you know it?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The air-officer seemed astounded. Presently
+he said: "The dirty weather foxed us.
+Then that fellow out yonder winged us. I
+was glad enough to see a coast line."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you fall?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No; we controlled our landing pretty
+well."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where did you land?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a second's hesitation; the airman
+looked at Wayland, glanced at his crippled
+leg.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Out there near some woods," he said.
+"My pilot's there now trying to patch up....
+You are not French, are you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"American."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh! A—volunteer, I presume."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Foreign Legion—2d."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I see. Back from the trenches with a
+leg."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's nearly well. I'll be back soon."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Can you walk?" asked the airman so<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page82">[pg 82]</span><a name="Pg82" id="Pg82" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+abruptly that Wayland, looking at him, hesitated,
+he did not quite know why.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Not very far," he replied, cautiously. "I
+can get to the window with my crutches
+pretty well."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And the next moment he felt ashamed of
+his caution when the airman laughed frankly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I need a guide to some petrol," he said.
+"Evidently you can't go with me."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Haven't you enough petrol to take you to
+Lorient?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"How far is Lorient?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wayland told him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't know," said the flight-lieutenant;
+"I'll have to try to get somewhere. I suppose
+it is useless for me to ask," he added,
+"but have you, by any chance, a bit of canvas—an
+old sail or hammock?—I don't need
+much. That's what I came for—and some
+shellac and wire, and a screwdriver of sorts?
+We need patching as well as petrol; and
+we're a little short of supplies."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wayland's steady gaze never left him, but
+his smile was friendly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We're in a tearing hurry, too," added the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page83">[pg 83]</span><a name="Pg83" id="Pg83" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+flight-lieutenant, looking out of the window.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wayland smiled. "Of course there's no
+petrol here. There's nothing here. I don't
+suppose you could have landed in a more
+deserted region if you had tried. There's a
+château in the Laïs woods, but it's closed;
+owner and servants are at the war and the
+family in Paris."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody
+has cleared out; the war has stripped the
+country; and there never were any people
+on these moors, excepting shooting parties
+and, in the summer, a stray artist or two
+from Quimperlé."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The lieutenant looked at him. "You say
+there is nobody here—between here and
+Lorient? No—troops?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There's nothing to guard. The coast is
+one vast shoal. Ships pass hull down. Once a
+day a coast guard patrols along the cliffs——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"When?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He has passed, unfortunately. Otherwise
+he might signal by relay to Lorient and have
+them send you out some petrol. By the way—are
+you hungry?"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page84">[pg 84]</span><a name="Pg84" id="Pg84" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The flight-lieutenant showed all his firm,
+white teeth under a yellow mustache, which
+curled somewhat upward. He laughed in a
+carefree way, as though something had suddenly
+eased his mind of perplexity—perhaps
+the certainty that there was no possible
+chance for petrol. Certainty is said to be
+more endurable than suspense.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'll stop for a bite—if you don't mind—while
+my pilot tinkers out yonder," he said.
+"We're not in such a bad way. It might
+easily have been worse. Do you think you
+could find us a bit of sail, or something, to
+use for patching?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wayland indicated an old high-backed chair
+of oak, quaintly embellished with ancient
+leather in faded blue and gold. It had been
+a royal chair in its day, or the Fleur-de-Lys
+lied.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The flight-lieutenant seated himself with a
+rather stiff bow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If you need canvas"—Wayland hesitated—then,
+gravely: "There are, in my room, a
+number of artists' <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">toiles</span></span>—old chassis with
+the blank canvas still untouched."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page85">[pg 85]</span><a name="Pg85" id="Pg85" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Exactly what we need!" exclaimed the
+other. "What luck, now, to meet a painter
+in such a place as this!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They belonged to my father," explained
+Wayland. "We—Marie-Josephine and I—have
+always kept my father's old canvases
+and colours—everything of his.... I'll be
+glad to give them to a British soldier....
+They're about all I have that was his—except
+that oak chair you sit on."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He rose on his crutches, spoke briefly in
+Breton to Marie-Josephine, then limped
+slowly away to his room.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he returned with half a dozen blank
+canvases the flight-lieutenant, at table, was
+eating pork and black bread and drinking
+Breton cider.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wayland seated himself, laid both crutches
+across his knees, picked up one of the chassis,
+and began to rip from it the dusty canvas.
+It was like tearing muscles from his own
+bones. But he smiled and chatted on, casually,
+with the air-officer, who ate as though
+half starved.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I suppose," said Wayland, "you'll start<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page86">[pg 86]</span><a name="Pg86" id="Pg86" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+back across the Channel as soon as you secure
+petrol enough?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, of course."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You could go by way of Quimper or by
+Lorient. There's petrol to be had at both
+places for military purposes"—leisurely continuing
+to rip the big squares of canvas from
+the frames.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman, still eating, watched him
+askance at intervals.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I've brought what's left of the shellac;
+it isn't much use, I fear. But here is his
+hammer and canvas stretcher, and the remainder
+of the nails he used for stretching
+his canvases," said Wayland, with an effort
+to speak carelessly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Many thanks. You also are a painter, I
+take it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wayland laid one hand on the sleeve of
+his uniform and laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">was</span></span> a writer. But there are only soldiers
+in the world now."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Quite so ... This is an odd place for an
+American to live in."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"My father bought it years ago. He was<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page87">[pg 87]</span><a name="Pg87" id="Pg87" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a painter of peasant life." He added, lowering
+his voice, although Marie-Josephine understood
+no English: "This old peasant
+woman was his model many years ago. She
+also kept house for him. He lived here; I
+was born here."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Really?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, but my father desired that I grow
+up a good Yankee. I was at school in America
+when he—died."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman continued to eat very busily.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He died—out there"—Wayland looked
+through the window, musingly. "There was
+an Iceland schooner wrecked off the Isle des
+Chouans. And no life-saving crew short of
+Ylva Light. So my father went out in his
+little American catboat, all alone.... Marie-Josephine
+saw his sail off Eryx Rocks ... for
+a few moments ... and saw it no more."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman, still devouring his bread and
+meat, nodded in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"That is how it happened," said Wayland.
+"The French authorities notified me. There
+was a little money and this hut, and—Marie-Josephine.
+So I came here; and I write<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page88">[pg 88]</span><a name="Pg88" id="Pg88" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+children's stories—that sort of thing....
+It goes well enough. I sell a few to American
+publishers. Otherwise I shoot and fish
+and read ... when war does not preoccupy
+me...."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He smiled, experiencing the vague relief of
+talking to somebody in his native tongue.
+Quesnel Moors were sometimes very lonely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's been a long convalescence," he continued,
+smilingly. "One of their 'coal-boxes'
+did this"—touching his leg. "When I was
+able to move I went to America. But the sea
+off the Eryx called me back; and the authorities
+permitted me to come down here. I'm
+getting well very fast now."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had stripped every chassis of its canvas,
+and had made a roll of the material.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'm very glad to be of any use to you,"
+he said pleasantly, laying the roll on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Marie-Josephine, on her low chair by the
+hearth, sat listening to every word as though
+she had understood. The expression in her
+faded eyes varied constantly; solicitude, perplexity,
+vague uneasiness, a recurrent glim<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page89">[pg 89]</span><a name="Pg89" id="Pg89" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>mer
+of suspicion were succeeded always by
+wistful tenderness when her gaze returned to
+Wayland and rested on his youthful face and
+figure with a pride forever new.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Once she spoke in mixed French and
+Breton:</p>
+
+
+
+  
+  
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques,
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mon </span><span class="tei tei-corr"><span style="font-style: italic">chéri</span></span></span>?"</p>
+  
+
+
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do
+you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He has the tricks of speech. Also his
+accent is of an English university. There
+is no mistaking it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed
+in the universities of England?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes.... But——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Gar à nous, mon p'tit</span></span>, Jacques. In Finistère
+a stranger is a suspect. Since earliest
+times they have done us harm in Finistère.
+The strangers—God knows what centuries of
+evil they have wrought."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned
+again to the airman, who had now satisfied<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page90">[pg 90]</span><a name="Pg90" id="Pg90" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+his hunger and had already risen to gather
+up the roll of canvas, the hammer, nails, and
+shellac.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially.
+"I'll take these articles, if I may.
+It's very good of you ... I'm in a tearing
+hurry——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Won't your pilot come over and eat a
+bit?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'll take him this bread and meat, if I
+may. Many thanks." He held out his heavily
+gloved hand with a friendly smile, nodded
+to Marie-Josephine. And as he hurriedly
+turned to go, the ancient carving on the high-backed
+chair caught him between the buttons
+of his leather coat, tearing it wide open over
+the breast. And Wayland saw the ribbon
+of the Iron Cross there fastened to a sea-grey
+tunic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a second's frightful silence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What's that you wear?" said Wayland
+hoarsely. "Stop! Stand where you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Halt! Don't touch that shotgun!" cried
+the airman sharply. But Wayland already
+had it in his hands, and the airman fired twice<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page91">[pg 91]</span><a name="Pg91" id="Pg91" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+at him where he stood—steadied the automatic
+to shoot again, but held his fire, seeing
+it would not be necessary. Besides, he did
+not care to shoot the old woman unless military
+precaution made it advisable; and she
+was on her knees, her withered arms upflung,
+shielding the prostrate body with her own.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You Yankee fool," he snapped out
+harshly—"it is your own fault, not mine!...
+Like the rest of your imbecile nation
+you poke your nose where it has no business!
+And I—" He ceased speaking, realizing that
+his words remained unheard.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a moment he backed toward the
+door, carrying the canvas roll under his left
+arm and keeping his eye carefully on the
+prostrate man. Also, one can never trust
+the French!—he was quite ready for that
+old woman there on the floor who was holding
+the dead boy's head to her breast, muttering:
+"My darling! My child!—Oh, little
+son of Marie-Josephine!—I told thee—I
+warned thee of the stranger in Finistère!...
+Marie—holy—intercede!... All—all are
+born to grief in Finistère!..."</p>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page92">[pg 92]</span><a name="Pg92" id="Pg92" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf15" id="pdf15"></a>
+<a name="toc16" id="toc16"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER VIII</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+EN OBSERVATION</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The incredible rumour that German airmen
+were in Brittany first came from Plouharnel
+in Morbihan; then from Bannalec,
+where an old Icelander had notified the
+Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the
+Icelander was very drunk. A thimble of
+cognac did it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Again came an unconfirmed report that a
+shepherd lad while alternately playing on his
+Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence
+of the Elle and Isole, had seen a werewolf
+in Laïs Woods. The Loup Garou walked on
+two legs and had assumed the shape of a
+man with no features except two enormous
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The following week a coast guard near
+Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes Light<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page93">[pg 93]</span><a name="Pg93" id="Pg93" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>house;
+the keeper of the light telephoned to
+Lorient the story of Wayland, and was instructed
+to extinguish the great flash again
+and to keep watch from the lantern until an
+investigation could be made.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That an enemy airman had done murder
+in Finistère was now certain; but that a
+Boche submarine had come into the Bay of
+Biscay seemed very improbable, considering
+the measures which had been taken in the
+Channel, at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring
+somewhere between the Isle des Chouettes
+and Finistère, and landing men, seemed
+to be practically an impossibility. Yet, there
+were the rumours. And murder had been
+done.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But an enemy undersea boat required a
+base. Had such a base been established
+somewhere along those lonely and desolate
+wastes of bog and rock and moor and gorse-set
+cliff haunted only by curlew and wild
+duck, and bounded inland by a silent barrier
+of forest through which the wild boar roamed
+and rooted unmolested?</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page94">[pg 94]</span><a name="Pg94" id="Pg94" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And where in Finistère was an enemy seaplane
+to come from, when, save for the few
+remaining submarines still skulking near
+British waters, the enemy's flag had vanished
+from the seas?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and
+on the Isle des Chouettes went out; the Commandant
+at Lorient and the General in command
+of the British expeditionary troops in
+the harbour consulted; and the fleet of troop-laden
+transports did not sail as scheduled,
+but a swarm of French and British cruisers,
+trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines
+put out from the great warport to
+comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for any
+possible aërial or amphibious Hun who might
+venture to haunt the coasts.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Inland, too, officers were sent hither and
+thither to investigate various rumours and
+doubtful reports at their several sources.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And it happened in that way that Captain
+Neeland of the 6th Battalion, Athabasca
+Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent,
+found himself in the Forest of Aulnes, with
+instructions to stay there long enough to<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page95">[pg 95]</span><a name="Pg95" id="Pg95" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+verify or discredit a disturbing report which
+had just arrived by mail.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The report was so strange and the investigation
+required so much secrecy and caution
+that Captain Neeland changed his uniform
+for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed
+a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges
+loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun
+under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient
+town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting
+enthusiast.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Several reasons influenced his superiors in
+sending Neeland to investigate this latest and
+oddest report: for one thing, although he had
+become temporarily a Canadian for military
+purposes only, in reality he was an American
+artist who, like scores and scores of his
+artistic fellow Yankees, had spent many
+years industriously painting those sentimental
+Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if
+not their critics. He was a very bad painter,
+but he did not know it; he had already become
+a promising soldier, but he did not
+realize that either. As a sportsman, however,
+Neeland was rather pleased with himself.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page96">[pg 96]</span><a name="Pg96" id="Pg96" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was sent because he knew the sombre
+and lovely land of Finistère pretty well, because
+he was more or less of a naturalist and
+a sportsman, and because the plan which he
+had immediately proposed appeared to be
+reasonable as well as original.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It had been a stiff walk across country—fifteen
+miles, as against thirty odd around
+by road—but neither cart nor motor was to
+enter into the affair. If anybody should
+watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield,
+crossing the marshes, skirting <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">étangs</span></span>, a solitary
+figure in the waste, easily reconcilable
+with his wide and melancholy surroundings.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page97">[pg 97]</span><a name="Pg97" id="Pg97" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf17" id="pdf17"></a>
+<a name="toc18" id="toc18"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER IX</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+L'OMBRE</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Aulnes Woods were brown and still under
+their unshed canopy of October leaves.
+Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks
+and beeches towered, unstirred by any wind;
+in the subdued light among the trees, ferns,
+startlingly green, spread delicate plumed
+fronds; there was no sound except the soft
+crash of his own footsteps through shriveling
+patches of brake; no movement save
+when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above
+or one of those little silvery grey moths took
+wing and fluttered aimlessly along the forest
+aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted
+tree and cling there, slowly waving its delicate,
+translucent wings.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of
+Aulnes, and the old trees were long past<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page98">[pg 98]</span><a name="Pg98" id="Pg98" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+timber value. Even those gleaners of dead
+wood and fallen branches seemed to have
+passed a different way, for the forest floor
+was littered with material that seldom goes
+to waste in Europe, and which broke under
+foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils
+with the acrid odour of decay.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here
+and there through the woods, but he took
+none of these, keeping straight on toward the
+northwest until a high, moss-grown wall
+checked his progress.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It ran west through the silent forest; damp
+green mould and lichens stained it; patches
+of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing
+underneath the roughly dressed stones. He
+followed the wall.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly,
+he heard faint sounds—perhaps the
+cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the
+bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry
+leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some
+wild boar, winding man in the depths of his
+own domain, and sulkily conceding him right
+of way.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page99">[pg 99]</span><a name="Pg99" id="Pg99" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a while there came a break in the
+wall where four great posts of stone stood,
+and where there should have been gates.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But only the ancient and rusting hinges
+remained of either gate or wicket.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looked up at the carved escutcheons;
+the moss of many centuries had softened and
+smothered the sculptured device, so that its
+form had become indistinguishable.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had
+fallen from the ancient roof; leaded panes
+were broken; nobody came to the closed and
+discoloured door of massive oak.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The avenue, which was merely an unkempt,
+overgrown ride, curved away between the
+great gateposts into the woods; and, as he
+entered it, three deer left stealthily, making
+no sound in the forest.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper
+nor woodchopper nor charcoal burner. Nothing
+moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent
+bird belated in his autumn migration.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The ride curved to the east; and abruptly
+he came into view of the house—a low,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page100">[pg 100]</span><a name="Pg100" id="Pg100" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+weather-ravaged structure in the grassy
+glade, ringed by a square, wet moat.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was no terrace; the ride crossed a
+permanent bridge of stone, passed the carved
+and massive entrance, crossed a second
+crumbling causeway, and continued on into
+the forest.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">An old Breton woman, who was drawing
+a jug of water from the moat, turned and
+looked at Neeland, and then went silently
+into the house.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A moment later a younger woman appeared
+on the doorstep and stood watching his approach.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As he crossed the bridge he took off his
+cap.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired.
+"Would you be kind enough to say
+to her that I arrive from Lorient at her
+request?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said
+in flawless English.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland
+of the British Expeditionary force."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"May I see your credentials, Captain Nee<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page101">[pg 101]</span><a name="Pg101" id="Pg101" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>land?"
+She had descended the single step of
+crumbling stone.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain
+concerning <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">your</span></span> identity?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a silence. To Neeland she
+seemed very young in her black gown. Perhaps
+it was that sombre setting and her dark
+eyes and hair which made her skin seem so
+white.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What proof of my identity do you expect?"
+she asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Only one word, Madame."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle
+toward him. "L'Ombre," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">From his pocket he drew his credentials
+and offered them. Among them was her own
+letter to the authorities at Lorient.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After she had examined them she handed
+them back to him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Will you come in, Captain Neeland—or,
+perhaps we had better seat ourselves on the
+bridge—in order to lose no time—because I
+wish you to see for yourself——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment
+came into her cheeks: "It may seem<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page102">[pg 102]</span><a name="Pg102" id="Pg102" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times—what
+I am going to say to you—concerning
+L'Ombre——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had turned; he followed; and at her
+grave gesture of invitation, he seated himself
+beside her on the coping of mossy stone
+which ran like a bench under the parapet of
+the little bridge.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne,
+but, until recently, I did not suppose
+myself to be superstitious.... I really am
+not—unless—except for this one matter of
+L'Ombre.... My English governess drove
+superstition out of my head.... Still, living
+in Finistère—here in this house"—she flushed
+again—"I shall have to leave it to you....
+I dread ridicule; but I am sure you are too
+courteous—... It required some courage
+for me to write to Lorient. But, if it might
+possibly help my country—to risk ridicule—of
+course I do not hesitate."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She looked uncertainly at the young man's
+pleasant, serious face, and, as though reassured:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I shall have to tell you a little about<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page103">[pg 103]</span><a name="Pg103" id="Pg103" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+myself first—so that you may understand
+better."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Please," he said gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then—my father and my only brother
+died a year ago, in battle.... It happened
+in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had
+maintained only two men servants here.
+They went with their classes. One old
+woman remains." She looked up with a
+forced smile. "I need not explain to you
+that our circumstances are much straitened.
+You have only to look about you to see that ... our
+poverty is not recent; it always has
+been so within my memory—only growing a
+little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes
+began during the Vendée.... But
+that is of no interest ... except that—through
+coincidence, of course—every time a
+new misfortune comes upon our family, misfortune
+also falls on France." He nodded,
+still mystified, but interested.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you happen to notice the device
+carved on the gatepost?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I thought it resembled a fish——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page104">[pg 104]</span><a name="Pg104" id="Pg104" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the
+shadow'."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you know, also, that there is a fish
+called 'L'Ombre'?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No; I did not know that."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There is. It looks like a shadow in the
+water. L'Ombre does not belong here in Brittany.
+It is a northern fish of high altitudes
+where waters are icy and rapid and always
+tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord
+me a little more patience, Monsieur, if
+I seem to be garrulous concerning my own
+family? It is merely because I want you to
+understand everything ... <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">everything</span></span>...."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am interested," he assured her pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then—it is a legend—perhaps a superstition
+in our family—that any misfortune to
+us—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">and to France</span></span>—is always preceded by two
+invariable omens. One of these dreaded signs
+is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page105">[pg 105]</span><a name="Pg105" id="Pg105" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+waters of our moat—" She turned her head
+slowly and looked down over the parapet of
+the bridge.—"The other omen," she continued
+quietly, "is that the clocks in our house
+suddenly go wrong—all striking the same
+hour, no matter where the hands point, no
+matter what time it really is.... These
+things have always happened in our family,
+they say. I, myself, have never before witnessed
+them. But during the Vendée the
+clocks persisted in striking four times every
+hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted the scaffold
+at that hour; the Vicomte died under
+Charette at Fontenay at that hour.... L'Ombre
+appeared in the waters of the moat at
+four o'clock one afternoon. And then the
+clocks went wrong.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And all this happened again, they say, in
+1870. L'Ombre appeared in the moat. Every
+clock continued to strike six, day after day
+for a whole week, until the battle of Sedan
+ended.... My grandfather died there with
+the light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am
+taxing your courtesy, Captain Neeland——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am intensely interested," he repeated,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page106">[pg 106]</span><a name="Pg106" id="Pg106" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+watching the lovely, sensitive face which pride
+and dread of misinterpretation had slightly
+flushed again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is only to explain—perhaps to justify
+myself for writing—for asking that an officer
+be sent here from Lorient for a few days——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I understand, Countess."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Thank you.... Had it been merely for
+myself—for my own fears—my personal safety,
+I should not have written. But our misfortunes
+seem to be coincident with my country's
+mishaps.... So I thought—if they
+sent an officer who would be kind enough to
+understand——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in
+the moat again, has it not?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at
+five o'clock in the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And—the clocks?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"For a week they have been all wrong."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Five."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No matter where the hands point?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No matter. I have tried to regulate them.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page107">[pg 107]</span><a name="Pg107" id="Pg107" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+I have done everything I could do. But they
+continue to strike five every hour of the day
+and night.... I have"—a pale smile touched
+her lips—"I have been a little wakeful—perhaps
+a trifle uneasy—on my country's account.
+You understand...." Pride and courage had
+permitted her no more than uneasiness, it
+seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there
+in her lonely bedroom through the still watches
+of the night, she desired him to understand
+that her solicitude was for France, not for
+any daughter of the race whose name she
+bore.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The simplicity and directness of her amazing
+narrative had held his respect and attention;
+there could be no doubt that she implicitly
+believed what she told him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance
+of the story was another. There
+must be, of course, an explanation for these
+phenomena other than a supernatural one.
+Such things do not happen except in medieval
+romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And
+of all regions on earth Brittany swarms with
+such tales and superstitions. He knew it.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page108">[pg 108]</span><a name="Pg108" id="Pg108" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+And this young girl was Bretonne after all,
+however educated, however accomplished, however
+honest and modern and sincere. And
+he began to comprehend that the germs of
+superstition and credulity were in the blood
+of every Breton ever born.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But he merely said with pleasant deference:
+"I can very easily understand your uneasiness
+and perplexity, Madame. It is a time
+of mental stress, of great nervous tension in
+France—of heart-racking suspense——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe
+me, Monsieur."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I believe what you have told me. But I
+believe, also, that there is a natural explanation
+concerning these matters."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over
+them in vain; I can find no explanation."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Of course there must be one," he insisted
+carelessly. "Is there anything in the world
+more likely to go queer than a clock?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There are five clocks in the house. Why
+should they all go wrong at the same time and
+in the same manner?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He smiled. "I don't know," he said frankly.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page109">[pg 109]</span><a name="Pg109" id="Pg109" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+"I'll investigate, if you will permit me."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Of course.... And, about L'Ombre. What
+could explain its presence in the moat? It is
+a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited
+in its range. My father has often said
+that, except L'Ombre which has appeared at
+long intervals in our moat, L'Ombre never has
+been seen in Brittany."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"From where does this clear water come
+which fills the moat?" he asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"From living springs in the bottom."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long
+subterranean vein of water connects these
+springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere—in
+the Pyrenees, perhaps—" He hesitated,
+for the explanation seemed as far-fetched
+as the water.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained
+politely silent.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five
+times. They both sat listening intently. From
+the depths of the ancient mansion, the other
+clocks repeated the strokes, first one, then
+another, then two sounding their clear little
+bells almost in unison. All struck five. He<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page110">[pg 110]</span><a name="Pg110" id="Pg110" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+drew out his watch and looked at it. The
+hour was three in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid,
+relaxed. He muttered something about making
+an examination of the clocks, adding that
+to adjust and regulate them would be a simple
+matter.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She sat very still beside him on the stone
+coping—her dark eyes wandered toward the
+forest—wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied—the
+visionary eyes of a Bretonne, full of the
+mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence
+of her thoughts: "Madame," he said,
+"have you heard any rumours concerning enemy
+airships—or, undersea boats?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him:
+"No, but something has been happening in
+the Aulnes <span class="tei tei-corr">Étang</span>."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't know. But every day the wild
+ducks rise from it in fright—clouds of them—and
+the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with
+their clamour."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A poacher?"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page111">[pg 111]</span><a name="Pg111" id="Pg111" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I know of none remaining here in Finistère."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Have you seen anything in the sky? An
+eagle?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Only the wild fowl whirling above the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">étang</span></span>."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You have heard nothing—from the
+clouds?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Only the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vanneaux</span></span> complaining and the
+wild curlew answering."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely
+troubled.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She rose; he followed her across the bridge
+and along the mossy border of the moat.
+Presently she stood still and pointed down in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a while he saw nothing in the moat;
+then, suspended midway between surface and
+bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a
+shadow, hanging there, colourless, translucent—a
+phantom vaguely detached from the limpid
+element through which it loomed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey
+depths where the glass of the stream reflected
+the façade of that ancient house.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page112">[pg 112]</span><a name="Pg112" id="Pg112" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple;
+a rat appeared, swimming, and, seeing
+them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland,
+and he looked up abruptly with the instinct
+of a creature suddenly trapped—but not
+yet quite realizing it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the grey forest walling that silent place,
+in the monotonous sky overhead, there seemed
+something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too,
+in the intense stillness; and, in the twisted,
+uplifted limbs of every giant tree, a subtle
+and suspended threat.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He said tritely and with an effort: "For
+everything there are natural causes. These
+may always be discovered with ingenuity and
+persistence.... Shall we examine your clocks,
+Madame?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes.... Will your General be annoyed
+because I have asked that an officer be sent
+here? Tell me truthfully, are <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> annoyed?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile
+away the inexplicable sense of depression
+which was creeping over him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looked down again at the grey wraith<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page113">[pg 113]</span><a name="Pg113" id="Pg113" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+in the water, then, as they turned and walked
+slowly back across the bridge together, he
+said, suddenly:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Something</span></span> is wrong somewhere in Finistère.
+That is evident to me. There have
+been too many rumours from too many sources.
+By sea and land they come—rumours of things
+half seen, half heard—glimpses of enemy aircraft,
+sea-craft. Yet their presence would
+appear to be an impossibility in the light of
+the military intelligence which we possess.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But we have investigated every rumour;
+although I, personally, know of no report
+which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these
+rumours persist; they come thicker and faster
+day by day. But this—" He hesitated, then
+smiled—"this seems rather different——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Countess——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You are too considerate to say so.... And
+perhaps I have become nervous—imagining
+things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it
+is the sadness of the past year—the strangeness
+of it, and——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page114">[pg 114]</span><a name="Pg114" id="Pg114" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She sighed unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Indeed it must be very lonely here," he
+returned in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes.... Aulnes Wood is—too remote for
+them to send our wounded here for their convalescence.
+I offered Aulnes. Then I offered
+myself, saying that I was ready to go
+anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there
+are already too many volunteers. They take
+only the trained in hospitals. I am untrained,
+and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody
+wanted me."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"So there is nothing for me to do," she said,
+"except to remain here and sew for the hospitals." ... She
+looked out thoughtfully across
+the fern-grown <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">carrefour</span></span>: "Therefore I sew
+all day by the latticed window there—all day
+long, day after day—and when one is young
+and when there is nobody—nothing to look
+at except the curlew flying—nothing to hear
+except the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vanneaux</span></span>, and the clocks striking
+the hour——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page115">[pg 115]</span><a name="Pg115" id="Pg115" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted
+her proud little head and smiled, and her tone
+grew firm again:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming
+a trifle morbid. It is entirely physical; my
+heart is quite undaunted."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You heart, Madame, is but a part of the
+great, undaunted heart of France."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes ... therefore there could be no fear—no
+doubt of God.... Affairs go well with
+France, Monsieur?—may I ask without military
+impropriety?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame.
+And her destiny is victory and light."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing
+for so long.... Thank you, Monsieur."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He said quietly: "The Light shall break.
+We must not doubt it, we English. Nor can
+you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and
+hellish Darkness which has been let loose upon
+the world to assail it. You shall live to see
+light, Madame—and I also shall see it—perhaps——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She looked up at the young man, met his<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page116">[pg 116]</span><a name="Pg116" id="Pg116" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+eyes, and looked elsewhere, gravely. A slight
+flush lingered on her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On the doorstep of the house they paused.
+"Is it possible," she asked, "that an enemy
+aëroplane could land in the Aulnes Étang?—L'Étang
+aux Vanneaux?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In the Étang?" he repeated, a little startled.
+"How large is it, this Étang aux Vanneaux?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and
+three-quarters of a mile across. My old servant,
+Anne, had seen the werewolf in the
+reeds—like a man without a face—and only
+two great eyes—" She forced a pale smile.
+"Of course, if it were anything she saw, it
+was a real man.... And, airmen dress that
+way.... I wondered——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He stood looking at her absently, worrying
+his short mustache.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"One of the rumours we have heard," he
+began, "concerns a supposed invasion by a huge
+fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions—a
+new biplane type which is steered
+from the bridge like an ocean steamer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is supposed to be three or four times
+as large as their usual <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Albatross</span></span> type, with<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page117">[pg 117]</span><a name="Pg117" id="Pg117" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for
+lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great
+weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and
+a very large crew.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And the most disturbing thing about it is
+that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class
+automobile."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Has such an one been seen in Brittany?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Such a machine has been reported—many,
+many times—as though not one but hundreds
+were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting
+to us—a report has arrived from a distant
+and totally independent source—from Sweden—that
+air-crafts of this general type have been
+secretly built in Germany by the hundreds."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a moment's silence she stepped into
+the house; he followed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping
+with the grey exterior; age had more than
+softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings,
+it had rendered them colourless, without
+accent, making the place empty and monotonous.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her chair and workbasket stood by a lat<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page118">[pg 118]</span><a name="Pg118" id="Pg118" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ticed
+window; she seated herself and took
+up her sewing, watching him where he stood
+before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel
+clock—a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate,
+shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the
+clock itself and containing the works, bell and
+dial.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction
+he tested it. It still struck five. He continued
+to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at
+intervals, but it always struck five times, and
+finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug
+of annoyance.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I</span></span> can't do anything with it," he admitted,
+smiling cheerfully across the room at her; "is
+there another clock on this floor?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She directed him; he went into an adjoining
+room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled
+clock was ticking busily. But after a
+little while he gave up his tinkering; he could
+do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck
+five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting
+failure with a perplexed and uneasy
+smile; and she rose and accompanied him<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page119">[pg 119]</span><a name="Pg119" id="Pg119" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+through the house, where he tried, in turn,
+every one of the other clocks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When, at length, he realized that he could
+accomplish nothing by altering their striking
+mechanism—that every clock in the house persisted
+in striking five times no matter where
+the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and
+inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks
+at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of
+mechanism out of them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As they returned together through the
+hushed and dusky house, he caught glimpses
+of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast,
+tarnished mirrors, through the dim depths of
+which their passing figures moved like ghosts;
+of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay
+figures where cobwebs clotted the slitted visors
+and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners
+drooped.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And he understood why any woman might
+believe in strange inexplicable things here in
+the haunting stillness of this house where splendour
+had turned to mould—where form had become
+effaced and colour dimmed; where only<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page120">[pg 120]</span><a name="Pg120" id="Pg120" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the shadowy film of texture still remained,
+and where even that was slowly yielding—under
+the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries,
+moth and dust and rust.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page121">[pg 121]</span><a name="Pg121" id="Pg121" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf19" id="pdf19"></a>
+<a name="toc20" id="toc20"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER X</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+THE GHOULS</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They dined by the latticed window; two
+candles lighted them; old Anne served them—old
+Anne of Fäouette in her wide white
+coiffe and collarette, her velvet bodice and her
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">chaussons</span></span> broidered with the rose.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Always she talked as she moved about with
+dish and salver—garrulous, deaf, and aged,
+and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow
+of that second infancy which comes before
+the night.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Ouidame!</span></span> It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell
+you this, my pretty gentleman. I have lived
+through eighty years and I have seen life
+begin and end in the Woods of Aulnes—alas!—in
+the Woods and the House of Aulnes——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The red wine, Anne," said her mistress,
+gently.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page122">[pg 122]</span><a name="Pg122" id="Pg122" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Madame the Countess is served.... These
+grapes grew when I was young, Monsieur—and
+the world was young, too, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mon Capitaine—hélas!</span></span>—but
+the Woods of Aulnes were
+old, old as the headland yonder. Only the
+sea is older, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">beau jeune homme</span></span>—only the sea
+is older—the sea which always was and will
+be."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Madame," he said, turning toward the
+young girl beside him, "—to France!—I have
+the honour—" She touched her glass to his
+and they saluted France with the ancient
+wine of France—a sip, a faint smile, and silence
+through which their eyes still lingered
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he
+said. "Light is lacking. But—but there will
+be sun enough another year."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">B'en oui!</span></span> The sun must shine again,"
+muttered old Anne, "but not in the Woods
+of Aulnes. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Non pas.</span></span> There is no sunlight
+in the Woods of Aulnes where all is dim and
+still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page123">[pg 123]</span><a name="Pg123" id="Pg123" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Our Lady of Aulnes in shining vestments
+all——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"She has seen thin mists rising there,"
+whispered the Countess in his ear.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In shining robes of grace—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">oui-da</span></span>!—the
+martyrs and the acolytes of God. It is I who
+tell you, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">beau jeune homme</span></span>—I, Anne of Fäouette.
+I saw them pass where, on my two
+knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the
+brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud,
+hymns of our blessed Lady——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"She heard a throstle singing by the brook,"
+whispered the châtelaine of Aulnes. Her
+breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Against the grey dusk at the window she
+looked to him like a slim spirit returned to
+haunt the halls of Aulnes—some graceful
+shade come back out of the hazy and forgotten
+years of gallantry and courts and battles—the
+exquisite apparation of that golden
+time before the Vendée drowned and washed
+it out in blood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am so glad you came," she said. "I
+have not felt so calm, so confident, in months."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Old Anne of Fäouette laid them fresh nap<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page124">[pg 124]</span><a name="Pg124" id="Pg124" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>kins
+and set two crystal bowls beside them
+and filled the bowls with fresh water from the
+moat.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Ho fois!</span></span>" she said, "love and the heart
+may change, but not the Woods of Aulnes;
+they never change—they never change....
+The golden people of Ker-Ys come out of the
+sea to walk among the trees."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Countess whispered: "She has seen
+the sunbeams slanting through the trees."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous
+dites cela, mon Capitaine!</span></span> And, in the Woods
+of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen
+him, gallant gentleman. He walks upright, and,
+in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth, no
+teeth, no nostrils, and no hair—the Loup-Garou!—O
+Lady of Aulnes, adored and blessed,
+protect us from the Loup-Barou!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Countess said again to him: "I have not
+felt so confident, so content, so full of faith
+in months——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A far faint clamour came to their ears;
+high in the fading sky above the forest
+vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling,
+circling, swinging wide, drifting against<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page125">[pg 125]</span><a name="Pg125" id="Pg125" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the dying light of day, southward toward the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There is something wrong there," he said,
+under his breath.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Minute after minute they watched in silence.
+The last misty shred of wild fowl floated seaward
+and was lost against the clouds.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is there a path to the Étang?" he asked
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. I will go with you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Why?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No. Show me the path."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His shotgun stood by the door; he took
+it with him as he left the house beside her.
+In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing
+toward the house, L'Ombre lay motionless.
+They saw it as they passed, but did not speak of
+it to each other. At the forest's edge he
+halted: "Is this the path?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes.... May I not go?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No—please."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is there danger?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No.... I don't know if there is any danger."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page126">[pg 126]</span><a name="Pg126" id="Pg126" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Will you be cautious, then?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He turned and looked at her in the dim
+light. Standing so for a little while they
+remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet
+breath. She held out one hand, slowly; half
+way he bent and touched her fingers with
+his lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly
+at her side.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After he had been gone a long while, she
+turned away, moving with head lowered. At
+the bridge she waited for him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A red moon rose low in the east. It became
+golden above the trees, paler higher,
+and deathly white in mid-heaven.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was long after midnight when she went
+into the house to light fresh candles. In the
+intense darkness before dawn she lighted two
+more and set them in an upper window on
+the chance that they might guide him back.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At five in the morning every clock struck
+five.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was not asleep; she was lying on a
+lounge beside the burning candles, listening,
+when the door below burst open and there<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page127">[pg 127]</span><a name="Pg127" id="Pg127" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+came the trampling rush of feet, the sound
+of blows, a fall——</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A loud voice cried:—"Because you are armed
+and not in uniform!—you British swine!"—</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And the pistol shots crashed through the
+house.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On the stairs she swayed for an instant,
+grasped blindly at the rail. Through the floating
+smoke below the dead man lay there by
+the latticed window—where they had sat together—he
+and she——</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Spectres were flitting to and fro—grey
+shapes without faces—things with eyes. A
+loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely
+upon her shrinking brain:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You there on the stairs!—do you hear?
+What are those candles? Signals?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She looked down at the dead man.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," she said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Through the crackling racket of the fusillade,
+down, down into roaring darkness she
+fell.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a few moments her slim hand moved,
+closed over the dead man's. And moved no
+more.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page128">[pg 128]</span><a name="Pg128" id="Pg128" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the moat L'Ombre still remained, unstirring;
+old Anne lay in the kitchen dying;
+and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with
+ghastly shapes which had no faces, only
+eyes.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page129">[pg 129]</span><a name="Pg129" id="Pg129" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf21" id="pdf21"></a>
+<a name="toc22" id="toc22"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XI</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+THE SEED OF DEATH</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was Dr. Vail whose identification secured
+burial for Neeland, not in the American cemetery,
+but in Aulnes Wood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When the raid into Finistère ended, and
+the unclean birds took flight, Vail, at Quimper,
+ordered north with his unit, heard of the
+tragedy, and went to Aulnes. And so Neeland
+was properly buried beside the youthful châtelaine.
+Which was, no doubt, what his severed
+soul desired. And perhaps hers desired it, too.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders,
+got gassed, and came back to New York.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had aged ten years in as many months.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing
+from time to time at Vail's pallid face, and
+the latter understood the professional interest
+of the younger man.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page130">[pg 130]</span><a name="Pg130" id="Pg130" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You don't look very fit, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No.... I'm <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">going West</span></span>."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You mean it?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Why do you think that you are—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">going
+West</span></span>?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There's a thing over there, born of gas.
+It's a living thing, animal or vegetable. I don't
+know which. It's only recently been recognized.
+We call it the 'Seed of Death.'"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older
+man in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Vail went on, slowly: "It's properly named.
+It is always fatal. A man may live for a
+few months. But, once gassed, even in the
+slightest degree, if that germ is inhaled, death
+is certain."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a silence Gray began: "Do you have
+any apprehension—" And did not finish the
+sentence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Vail shrugged. "It's interesting, isn't it?"
+he said with pleasant impersonality.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing
+anything about it?"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page131">[pg 131]</span><a name="Pg131" id="Pg131" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, yes. It's working in the dark, of course.
+I'm feeling rottener every day."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He rested his handsome head on one thin
+hand:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't want to die, Gray, but I don't know
+how to keep alive. It's odd, isn't it? I don't
+wish to die. It's an interesting world. I want
+to see how the local elections turn out in New
+York."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Certainly. That is what worries me more
+than anything. We Allies are sure to win.
+I'm not worrying about that. But I'd like to
+live to see Tammany a dead cock in the pit!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly,
+and then, solemn again, said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'd like to live to see this country aspire
+to something really noble."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing
+to stifle aspiration."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was not only because Vail had been gazing
+upon death in every phase, every degree—on
+brutal destruction wholesale and in detail;
+but also he had been standing on the outer
+escarpment of Civilization and had watched<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page132">[pg 132]</span><a name="Pg132" id="Pg132" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering,
+undermining, gradually engulfing the
+world itself and all its ancient liberties.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to
+sail to France next day were alone together
+on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the
+infernal heat of a summer day in town.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On the avenue below motor cars moved
+north and south, hansoms crept slowly along
+the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people
+passed listlessly under the electric lights—the
+nine—and—seventy sweating tribes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For, on such summer nights, under the red
+moon, an exodus from the East Side peoples
+the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle
+along the gilded grilles and still façades of
+stone, up and down, to and fro, in quest of
+God knows what—of air perhaps, perhaps of
+happiness, or of something even vaguer. But
+whatever it may be that starts them into painful
+motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration
+is a part of their unrest.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail—"also
+her inevitable shadow, tyranny."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We need more light; that's all," said Gray.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page133">[pg 133]</span><a name="Pg133" id="Pg133" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"When light streams in from every angle no
+shadow is possible."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The millennium? I get you.... In this
+country the main thing is that there is <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">some</span></span>
+light. A single ray, however feeble, and even
+coming from one fixed angle only, means aspiration,
+life...."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He lighted a cigar.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"As you know," he remarked, "there is a
+flower called <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Aconitum</span></span>. It is also known by
+the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower.
+Direct sunlight kills it. It flourishes
+only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower
+it also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly
+poison.... As you say, the necessary thing
+in this world is light from every angle."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His cigar glimmered dully through the silence.
+Presently he went on; "Speaking of
+tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized
+and tolerated business carried on successfully
+by those born with a genius for it.
+It flourishes in the shade—like the Helmet-Flower....
+But the sun in this Western
+Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually
+killing off our local tyrants—slowly, al<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page134">[pg 134]</span><a name="Pg134" id="Pg134" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>most
+<span class="tei tei-corr">imperceptibly</span> but inexorably, killing 'em
+off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive—tyrants
+of every degree born to the business
+of tyranny and making a success at it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There are our tyrants of industry," he said;
+"tyrants of politics, tyrants of religion—great
+and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants,
+all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling
+under this fierce western sun of ours——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He laughed without mirth, turning his worn
+and saddened eyes on Gray:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also
+it is a state of mind—a delusion, a ruling
+passion—strong even in death.... The odd
+part of it is that a tyrant never knows he's
+one.... He invariably mistakes himself for
+a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story
+if you care to listen.... Or, we can go to
+some cheerful show or roof-garden——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Go on with your story," said Gray.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page135">[pg 135]</span><a name="Pg135" id="Pg135" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf23" id="pdf23"></a>
+<a name="toc24" id="toc24"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XII</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+FIFTY-FIFTY</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Vail began:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tyranny was purely a matter of business
+with this little moral shrimp about whom I'm
+going to tell you. I was standing between
+a communication trench and a crater left by
+a mine which was being "consolidated," as they
+have it in these days.... All around me soldiers
+of the third line swarmed and clambered
+over the débris, digging, hammering, shifting
+planks and sandbags from south to north,
+lugging new timbers, reels of barbed wire, ladders,
+cases of ammunition, machine guns, trench
+mortars.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The din of the guns was terrific; overhead
+our own shells passed with a deafening, clattering
+roar; the Huns continued to shell the
+town in front of us where our first and second<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page136">[pg 136]</span><a name="Pg136" id="Pg136" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+lines were still fighting in the streets and
+houses while the third line were reconstructing
+a few yards of trenches and a few craters
+won.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stretchers and bearers from my section had
+not yet returned from the emergency dressing
+station; the crater was now cleared up
+except of enemy dead, whose partly buried
+arms and legs still stuck out here and there.
+A company of the Third Foreign Legion had
+just come into the crater and had taken station
+at the loopholes under the parapet of
+sandbags.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As soon as the telephone wires were
+stretched as far as our crater a message came
+for me to remain where I was until further
+orders. I had just received this message and
+was walking along, slowly, behind the rank of
+soldiers, who stood leaning against the parapet
+with their rifles thrust through the loops,
+when somebody said in English—in East Side
+New York English I mean—"Ah, there, Doc!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A soldier had turned toward me, both hands
+still grasping his resting rifle. In the "horizon
+blue" uniform and ugly, iron, shrapnel-proof<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page137">[pg 137]</span><a name="Pg137" id="Pg137" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+helmet strapped to his bullet head I failed
+to recognize him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's me, 'Duck' Werner," he said, as I
+stood hesitating.... You know who he is, political
+leader in the 50th Ward, here. I was astounded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What do you know about it?" he added.
+"Me in a tin derby potting Fritzies! And
+there's Heinie, too, and Pick-em-up Joe—the
+whole bunch sewed up in this here trench, oh
+my God!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I went over to him and stood leaning against
+the parapet beside him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Duck," I said, amazed, "how did <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> come
+to enlist in the Foreign Legion?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw," he replied with infinite disgust, "I got
+drunk."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Me and Heinie and Joe was follerin' the
+races down to Boolong when this here war
+come and put everything on the blink. Aw,
+hell, sez I, come on back to Parus an' look
+'em over before we skiddoo home—meanin'
+the dames an' all like that. Say, we done
+what I said; we come back to Parus, an' we<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page138">[pg 138]</span><a name="Pg138" id="Pg138" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+got in wrong! Listen, Doc; them dames had
+went crazy over this here war graft. Veeve
+France, sez they. An' by God! we veeved.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"An' one of 'em at Maxeems got me soused,
+and others they fixed up Heinie an' Joe, an'
+we was all wavin' little American flags and
+yellin' 'To hell with the Hun!' Then there
+was a interval for which I can't account to
+nobody.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"All I seem to remember is my marchin'
+in the boolyvard along with a guy in baggy
+red pants, and my chewin' the rag in a big,
+hot room full o' soldiers; an' Heinie an' Joe
+they was shoutin', 'Wow! Lemme at 'em.
+Veeve la France!' Wha' d'ye know about me?
+Ain't I the mark from home?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You didn't realize that you were enlisting?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw, does it make any difference to these
+here guys what you reelize, or what you don't?
+I ask you, Doc?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He spat disgustedly upon the sand, rolled
+his quid into the other cheek, wiped his thin
+lips with the back of his right hand, then his
+fingers mechanically sought the trigger guard<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page139">[pg 139]</span><a name="Pg139" id="Pg139" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+again and he cast a perfunctory squint up at
+the parapet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Believe me," he said, "a guy can veeve himself
+into any kind of trouble if he yells loud
+enough. I'm getting mine."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Well, Duck," I said, "it's a good game——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw," he retorted angrily, "it ain't my graft
+an' you know it. What do I care who veeves
+over here?—An' the 50th Ward goin' to hell
+an' all!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I strove to readjust my mind to understand
+what he had said. I was, you know, that year,
+the Citizen's Anti-Graft leader in the 50th
+Ward.... I am, still, if I live; and if I
+ever can get anything into my head except the
+stupendous din of this war and the cataclysmic
+problems depending upon its outcome....
+Well, it was odd to remember that petty political
+conflict as I stood there in the trenches
+under the gigantic shadow of world-wide disaster—to
+find myself there, talking with this
+sallow, wiry, shifty ward leader—this corrupt
+little local tyrant whom I had opposed in the
+50th Ward—this ex-lightweight bruiser, ex-gunman—this
+dirty little political procurer who<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page140">[pg 140]</span><a name="Pg140" id="Pg140" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+had been and was everything brutal, stealthy,
+and corrupt.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I looked at him curiously; turned and glanced
+along the line where, presently, I recognized
+his two familiars, Heinie Baum and Pick-em-up
+Joe Brady with whom he had started off to
+"Parus" on a month's summer junket, and with
+whom he had stumbled so ludicrously into the
+riff-raff ranks of the 3rd Foreign Legion.
+Doubtless the 1st and 2nd Legions couldn't
+stand him and his two friends, although in one
+company there were many Americans serving.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Thinking of these things, the thunder of the
+cannonade shaking sand from the parapet, I became
+conscious that the rat eyes of Duck Werner
+were furtively watching me.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You can do me dirt, now, can't you, Doc?"
+he said with a leer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw, as if I had to tell you. I got some sense
+left."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly his sallow visage under the iron
+helmet became distorted with helpless fury; he
+fairly snarled; his thin lips writhed as he spat
+out the suspicion which had seized him:</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page141">[pg 141]</span><a name="Pg141" id="Pg141" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"By God, Doc, if you do that!—if you leave
+me here caged up an' go home an' raise hell
+in the 50th—with me an' Joe here——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a breathless pause: "Well," said I,
+"what will you do about it?"—for he was looking
+murder at me.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Neither of us spoke again for a few moments;
+an officer, smoking a cigarette, came up
+between Heinie and Pick-em-up Joe, adjusted
+a periscope and set his eye to it. Through
+the sky above us the shells raced as though
+hundreds of shaky express trains were rushing
+overhead on rickety aërial tracks, deafening
+the world with their outrageous clatter.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Listen, Doc——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I looked up into his altered face—a sallow,
+earnest face, fiercely intent. Every atom of
+the man's intelligence was alert, concentrated
+on me, on my expression, on my slightest
+movement.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Doc," he said, "let's talk business. We're
+men, we are, you an' me. I've fought you
+plenty times. I <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">know</span></span>. An' I guess you are
+on to me, too. I ain't no squealer; you know
+that anyway. Perhaps I'm everything else<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page142">[pg 142]</span><a name="Pg142" id="Pg142" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+you claim I am when you make parlor speeches
+to Gussie an' Reggie an' when you stand on
+a bar'l in Avenoo A an' say: 'my friends' to
+Billy an' Izzy an' Pete the Wop.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"All right. Go to it! I'm it. I got mine.
+That's what I'm there for. But—when I get
+mine, the guys that back me get theirs, too.
+My God, Doc, let's talk business! What's a
+little graft between friends?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Duck," I said, "you own the 50th Ward.
+You are no fool. Why is it not possible for
+you to understand that some men don't graft?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw, can it!" he retorted fiercely. "What
+else is there to chase except graft? What
+else is there, I ask you? Graft! Ain't there
+graft into everything God ever made? An'
+don't the smart guy get it an' take his an'
+divide the rest same as you an' me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You can't comprehend that I don't graft,
+can you, Duck?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What do you call it what you get, then?
+The wages of Reeform? And what do you
+hand out to your lootenants an' your friends?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Service."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page143">[pg 143]</span><a name="Pg143" id="Pg143" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Hey? Well, all right. But what's in it for
+you? Where do you get yours, Doc?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There's nothing in it for me except to give
+honest service to the people who trust me."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Listen," he persisted with a sort of ferocious
+patience; "you ain't on no bar'l now; an'
+you ain't calling no Ginneys and no Kikes
+your friends. You're just talkin' to me like
+there wasn't nobody else onto this damn
+planet excep' us two guys. Get that?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I do."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And I'm tellin' you that I get mine same
+as any one who ain't a loonatic. Get that?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"All right. Now I know you ain't no nut.
+Which means that you get yours, whatever
+you call it. And <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">now</span></span> will you talk business?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What business do you want to talk, Duck?"
+I added; "I should say that you already have
+your hands rather full of business and Lebel
+rifles——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw' Gawd; <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">this</span></span>? This ain't business. I was
+a damn fool and I'm doin' time like any souse
+what the bulls pinch. Only I get more than
+thirty days, I do. That's what's killin' me,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page144">[pg 144]</span><a name="Pg144" id="Pg144" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Doc!—Duck Werner in a tin lid, suckin' soup
+an' shootin' Fritzies when I oughter be in
+Noo York with me fren's lookin' after business.
+Can you beat it?" he ended fiercely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He chewed hard on his quid for a few moments,
+staring blankly into space with the detached
+ferocity of a caged tiger.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What are they a-doin' over there in the
+50th?" he demanded. "How do I know whose
+knifin' me with the boys? I don't mean your
+party. You're here same as I am. I mean
+Mike the Kike, and the regular Reepublican
+nomination, I do.... And, how do I know
+when <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> are going back?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I was silent.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Are</span></span> you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Doc, will you talk business, man to man?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Duck, to tell you the truth, the hell that is
+in full blast over here—this gigantic, world-wide
+battle of nations—leaves me, for the
+time, uninterested in ward politics."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Stop your kiddin'."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Can't you comprehend it?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw, what do you care about what Kink wins?<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page145">[pg 145]</span><a name="Pg145" id="Pg145" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+If we was Kinks, you an' me, all right. But
+we ain't Doc. We're little fellows. Our graft
+ain't big like the Dutch Emperor's, but maybe
+it comes just as regular on pay day. Ich ka
+bibble."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Duck," I said, "you explain your presence
+here by telling me that you enlisted while
+drunk. How do you explain my being here?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You're a Doc. I guess there must be big
+money into it," he returned with a wink.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I draw no pay."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I believe you," he remarked, leering. "Say,
+don't you do that to me, Doc. I may be unfortunit;
+I'm a poor damn fool an' I know it.
+But don't tell me you're here for your health."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I won't repeat it, Duck," I said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Much obliged. Now for God's sake let's
+talk business. You think you've got me cinched.
+You think you can go home an' raise hell in the
+50th while I'm doin' time into these here
+trenches. You sez to yourself, 'O there ain't
+nothin' to it!' An' then you tickles yourself
+under the ribs, Doc. You better make a deal
+with me, do you hear? Gimme mine, and you
+can have yours, too; and between us, if we<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page146">[pg 146]</span><a name="Pg146" id="Pg146" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+work together, we can hand one to Mike the
+Kike that'll start every ambulance in the city
+after him. Get me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There's no use discussing such things——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"All right. I won't ask you to make it
+fifty-fifty. Gimme half what I oughter have.
+You can fix it with Curley Tim Brady——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Duck, this is no time——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Hell! It's all the time I've got! What
+do you expec' out here, a caffy dansong? I
+don't see no corner gin-mills around neither.
+Listen, Doc, quit up-stagin'! You an' me kick
+the block off'n this here Kike-Wop if we get
+together. All I ask of you is to talk business——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I moved aside, and backward a little way,
+disgusted with the ratty soul of the man, and
+stood looking at the soldiers who were digging
+out bombproof burrows all along the
+trench and shoring up the holes with heavy,
+green planks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Everybody was methodically busy in one way
+or another behind the long rank of Legionaries
+who stood at the loops, the butts of the
+Lebel rifles against their shoulders.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page147">[pg 147]</span><a name="Pg147" id="Pg147" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Some sawed planks to shore up dugouts;
+some were constructing short ladders out of
+the trunks of slender green saplings; some
+filled sacks with earth to fill the gaps on the
+parapet above; others sharpened pegs and
+drove them into the dirt façade of the trench,
+one above the other, as footholds for the men
+when a charge was ordered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Behind me, above my head, wild flowers and
+long wild grasses drooped over the raw edge
+of the parados, and a few stalks of ripening
+wheat trailed there or stood out against the
+sky—an opaque, uncertain sky which had been
+so calmly blue, but which was now sickening
+with that whitish pallor which presages a
+storm.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Once or twice there came the smashing tinkle
+of glass as a periscope was struck and a vexed
+officer, still holding it, passed it to a rifleman
+to be laid aside.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Only one man was hit. He had been fitting
+a shutter to the tiny embrasure between
+sandbags where a machine gun was to be
+mounted; and the bullet came through and<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page148">[pg 148]</span><a name="Pg148" id="Pg148" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+entered his head in the center of the triangle
+between nose and eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A little later when I was returning from
+that job, walking slowly along the trench,
+Pick-em-up Joe hailed me cheerfully, and I
+glanced up to where he and Heinie stood
+with their rifles thrust between the sandbags
+and their grimy fists clutching barrel and
+butt.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Hello, Heinie!" I said pleasantly. "How
+are you, Joe?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Commong ça va?" inquired Heinie, evidently
+mortified at his situation and condition,
+but putting on the careless front of a
+gunman in a strange ward.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pick-em-up Joe added jauntily: "Well, Doc,
+what's the good word?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"France," I replied, smiling; "Do you know
+a better word?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," he said, "Noo York. Say, what's
+your little graft over here, Doc?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You and I reverse rôles, Pick-em-up; you
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">stop</span></span> bullets; <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I</span></span> pick 'em up—after you're
+through with 'em."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The hell you say!" he retorted, grinning.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page149">[pg 149]</span><a name="Pg149" id="Pg149" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+"Well, grab it from me, if it wasn't for the
+Jack Johnsons and the gas, a gun fight in
+the old 50th would make this war look like
+Luna Park! It listens like it, too, only this
+here show is all fi-<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">nally</span></span>, with Bingle's Band
+playin' circus tunes an' the supes hollerin' like
+they seen real money."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was a merry ruffian, and he controlled
+the "coke" graft in the 50th while Heinie was
+perpetual bondsman for local Magdalenes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Well, ain't we in Dutch—us three guys!"
+he remarked with forced carelessness. "We
+sure done it that time."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you do business with Duck?" inquired
+Pick-em-up, curiously.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Not so he noticed it. Joe, can't you and
+Heinie rise to your opportunities? This is
+the first time in your lives you've ever been
+decent, ever done a respectable thing. Can't
+you start in and live straight—think straight?
+You're wearing the uniform of God's own
+soldiers; you're standing shoulder to shoulder
+with men who are fighting God's own battle.
+The fate of every woman, every child,
+every unborn baby in Europe—and in Amer<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page150">[pg 150]</span><a name="Pg150" id="Pg150" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ica,
+too—depends on your bravery. If you
+don't win out, it will be our turn next. If
+you don't stop the Huns—if you don't come
+back at them and wipe them out, the world
+will not be worth inhabiting."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I stepped nearer: "Heinie," I said, "you
+know what your trade has been, and what it is
+called. Here's your chance to clean yourself.
+Joe—you've dealt out misery, insanity, death,
+to women and children. You're called the
+Coke King of the East Side. Joe, we'll get
+you sooner or later. Don't take the trouble
+to doubt it. Why not order a new pack and
+a fresh deal? Why not resolve to live straight
+from this moment—here where you have taken
+your place in the ranks among real men—here
+where this army stands for liberty, for the
+right to live! You've got your chance to
+become a real man; so has Heinie. And
+when you come back, we'll stand by you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"An' gimme a job choppin' tickets in the
+subway!" snarled Heinie. "Expec' me to squeal
+f'r that? Reeform, hey? Show me a livin' in
+it an' I carry a banner. But there ain't<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page151">[pg 151]</span><a name="Pg151" id="Pg151" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+nothing into it. How's a guy to live if there
+ain't no graft into nothin'?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Joe touched his gas-mask with a sneer:
+"He's pushin' the yellow stuff at us, Heinie,"
+he said; and to me: "You get <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">yours</span></span> all right.
+I don't know what it is, but you get it, same
+as me an' Heinie an' Duck. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I</span></span> don't know
+what it is," he repeated impatiently; "maybe
+it's dough; maybe it's them suffragettes with
+their silk feet an' white gloves what clap
+their hands at you. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I</span></span> ain't saying nothin'
+to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span>, am I? Then lemme alone an' go an'
+talk business with Duck over there——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Officers passed rapidly between the speaker
+and me and continued east and west along
+the ranks of riflemen, repeating in calm, steady
+voices:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Fix bayonets, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mes enfants</span></span>; make as little
+noise as possible. Everybody ready in ten
+minutes. Ladders will be distributed. Take
+them with you. The bomb-throwers will leave
+the trench first. Put on goggles and respirators.
+Fix bayonets and set one foot on the
+pegs and ladders ... all ready in seven minutes.
+Three mines will be exploded. Take<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page152">[pg 152]</span><a name="Pg152" id="Pg152" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and hold the craters.... Five minutes!...
+When the mines explode that is your signal.
+Bombers lead. Give them a leg up and follow....
+Three minutes...."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">From a communication trench a long file of
+masked bomb-throwers appeared, loaded sacks
+slung under their left arms, bombs clutched
+in their right hands; and took stations at
+every ladder and row of freshly driven pegs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"One minute!" repeated the officers, selecting
+their own ladders and drawing their long
+knives and automatics.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As I finished adjusting my respirator and
+goggles a muffled voice at my elbow began:
+"Be a sport, Doc! Gimme a chanst! Make
+it fifty-fifty——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Allez!</span></span>" shouted an officer through his respirator.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Against the sky all along the parapet's edge
+hundreds of bayonets wavered for a second;
+then dark figures leaped up, scrambled,
+crawled forward, rose, ran out into the sunless,
+pallid light.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Like surf bursting along a coast a curtain
+of exploding shells stretched straight across the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page153">[pg 153]</span><a name="Pg153" id="Pg153" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+débris of what had been a meadow—a long
+line of livid obscurity split with flame and
+storms of driving sand and gravel. Shrapnel
+leisurely unfolded its cottony coils overhead
+and the iron helmets rang under the hail.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Men fell forward, backward, sideways, remaining
+motionless, or rolling about, or rising
+to limp on again. There was smoke, now, and
+mire, and the unbroken rattle of machine guns.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ahead, men were fishing in their sacks and
+throwing bombs like a pack of boys stoning
+a snake; I caught glimpses of them furiously
+at work from where I knelt beside one fallen
+man after another, desperately busy with my
+own business.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Bearers ran out where I was at work, not
+my own company but some French ambulance
+sections who served me as well as their own
+surgeons where, in a shell crater partly full
+of water, we found some shelter for the
+wounded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Over us black smoke from the Jack Johnsons
+rolled as it rolls out of the stacks of soft-coal
+burning locomotives; the outrageous din
+never slackened, but our deafened ears had<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page154">[pg 154]</span><a name="Pg154" id="Pg154" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+become insensible under the repeated blows of
+sound, yet not paralyzed. For I remember,
+squatting there in that shell crater, hearing
+a cricket tranquilly tuning up between the
+thunderclaps which shook earth and sods down
+on us and wrinkled the pool of water at our
+feet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Legion had taken the trench; but the
+place was a rabbit warren where hundreds of
+holes and burrows and ditches and communicating
+runways made a bewildering maze.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And everywhere in the dull, flame-shot obscurity,
+the Legionaries ran about like ghouls
+in their hoods and round, hollow eye-holes;
+masked faces, indistinct in the smoke, loomed
+grotesque and horrible as Ku-Klux where the
+bayonets were at work digging out the enemy
+from blind burrows, turning them up from
+their bloody forms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Rifles blazed down into bomb-proofs, cracked
+steadily over the heads of comrades who piled
+up sandbags to block communication trenches;
+grenade-bombs rained down through the smoke
+into trenches, blowing bloody gaps in huddling
+masses of struggling Teutons until they flat<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page155">[pg 155]</span><a name="Pg155" id="Pg155" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>tened
+back against the parados and lifted
+arms and gun-butts stammering out, "Comrades!
+Comrades!"—in the ghastly irony of
+surrender.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A man whose entire helmet, gas-mask, and
+face had been blown off, and who was still
+alive and trying to speak, stiffened, relaxed,
+and died in my arms. As I rolled him aside
+and turned to the next man whom the bearers
+were lowering into the crater, his respirator
+and goggles fell apart, and I found myself
+looking into the ashy face of Duck Werner.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As we laid him out and stripped away iron
+helmet and tunic, he said in a natural and
+distinct voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Through the belly, Doc. Gimme a drink."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was no more water or stimulant at
+the moment and the puddle in the crater was
+bloody. He said, patiently, "All right; I can
+wait.... It's in the belly.... It ain't nothin',
+is it?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I said something reassuring, something about
+the percentage of recovery I believe, for I
+was exceedingly busy with Duck's anatomy.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page156">[pg 156]</span><a name="Pg156" id="Pg156" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Pull me through, Doc?" he inquired calmly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure...."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw, listen, Doc. Don't hand me no cones
+of hokey-pokey. Gimme a deck of the stuff.
+Dope out the coke. Do I get mine this trip?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I looked at him, hesitating.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Listen, Doc, am I hurted bad? Gimme a
+hones' deal. Do I croak?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Don't talk, Duck——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Dope it straight. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Do</span></span> I?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I thought you'd say that," he returned serenely.
+"Now I'm goin' to fool you, same as
+I fooled them guys at Bellevue the night that
+Mike the Kike shot me up in the subway."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A pallid sneer stretched his thin and burning
+lips; in his ratty eyes triumph gleamed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I've went through worse than this. I ain't
+hurted bad. I ain't got mine just yet, old
+scout! Would I leave meself croak—an' that
+bum, Mike the Kike, handin' me fren's the
+ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though
+his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that
+I'll get up an'—an' go—home—" His voice
+flattened out and he lay silent.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page157">[pg 157]</span><a name="Pg157" id="Pg157" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Working over the next man beyond him
+and glancing around now and then to discover
+a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">brancardier</span></span> who might take Duck to
+the rear, I presently caught his eyes fixed
+on me.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Say, Doc, will you talk—business?" he asked
+in a dull voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Be quiet, Duck, the bearers will be here
+in a minute or two——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"T'hell wit them guys! I'm askin' you will
+you make it fifty-fifty—'r' somethin'—" Again
+his voice trailed away, but his bright ratty
+eyes were indomitable.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I was bloodily occupied with another patient
+when something struck me on the shoulder—a
+human hand, clutching it. Duck was
+sitting upright, eyes a-glitter, the other hand
+pressed heavily over his abdomen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Fifty-fifty!" he cried in a shrill voice.
+"F'r Christ's sake, Doc, talk business—" And
+life went out inside him—like the flame of a
+suddenly snuffed candle—while he still sat
+there....</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I heard the air escaping from his lungs<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page158">[pg 158]</span><a name="Pg158" id="Pg158" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+before he toppled over.... I swear to you it
+sounded like a whispered word—"business."</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then came their gas—a great, thick, yellow
+billow of it pouring into our shell hole....
+I couldn't get my mask on fast enough ...
+and here I am, Gray, wondering, but really
+knowing.... Are you stopping at the Club
+tonight?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Vail got to his feet unsteadily: "I'm feeling
+rather done in.... Won't sit up any longer,
+I guess.... See you in the morning?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," said Gray.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Good-night, then. Look in on me if you
+leave before I'm up."</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And that is how Gray saw him before he
+sailed—stopped at his door, knocked, and, receiving
+no response, opened and looked in.
+After a few moments' silence he understood
+that the "Seed of Death" had sprouted.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page159">[pg 159]</span><a name="Pg159" id="Pg159" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf25" id="pdf25"></a>
+<a name="toc26" id="toc26"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XIII</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+MULETEERS</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Lying far to the southwest of the battle
+line, only when a strong northwest wind blew
+could Sainte Lesse hear the thudding of cannon
+beyond the horizon. And once, when the
+northeast wind had blown steadily for a
+week, on the wings of the driving drizzle had
+come a faint but dreadful odour which hung
+among the streets and lanes until the wind
+changed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Except for the carillon, nothing louder than
+the call of a cuckoo, the lowing of cattle or
+a goatherd's piping ever broke the summer
+silence in the little town. Birds sang; a
+shallow river rippled; breezes ruffled green
+grain into long, silvery waves across the valley;
+sunshine fell on quiet streets, on scented
+gardens unsoiled by war, on groves and<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page160">[pg 160]</span><a name="Pg160" id="Pg160" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+meadows, and on the stone-edged brink of
+brimming pools where washerwomen knelt
+among the wild flowers, splashing amid floating
+pyramids of snowy suds.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And into the exquisite peace of this little
+paradise rode John Burley with a thousand
+American mules.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The town had been warned of this impending
+visitation; had watched preparations for
+it during April and May when a corral was
+erected down in a meadow and some huts
+and stables were put up among the groves of
+poplar and sycamore, and a small barracks
+was built to accommodate the negro guardians
+of the mules and a peloton of gendarmes
+under a fat brigadier.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sainte Lesse as yet knew nothing personally
+of the American mule or of Burley.
+<span class="tei tei-corr">Sainte</span> Lesse heard both before it beheld either—Burley's
+loud, careless, swaggering voice
+above the hee-haw of his trampling herds:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"All I ask for is human food, Smith—not
+luxuries—just food!—and that of the commonest
+kind."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And now an immense volume of noise and<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page161">[pg 161]</span><a name="Pg161" id="Pg161" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+dust enveloped the main street of Sainte
+Lesse, stilling the quiet noon gossip of the
+town, silencing the birds, awing the town
+dogs so that their impending barking died
+to amazed gurgles drowned in the din of the
+mules.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Astride a cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule,
+erect in his saddle, talkative, gesticulating,
+good-humoured, famished but gay, rode Burley
+at the head of the column, his reckless
+grey eyes glancing amiably right and left at
+the good people of Sainte Lesse who clustered
+silently at their doorways under the
+trees to observe the passing of this noisy,
+unfamiliar procession.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mules, dust; mules, dust, and then more
+mules, all enveloped in dust, clattering, ambling,
+trotting, bucking, shying, kicking, halting,
+backing; and here and there an American
+negro cracking a long snake whip with
+strange, aboriginal ejaculations; and three
+white men in khaki riding beside the
+trampling column, smoking cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn rode
+mules on the column's flank; Burley continued<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page162">[pg 162]</span><a name="Pg162" id="Pg162" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to lead on his wall-eyed animal, preceded now
+by the fat brigadier of the gendarmerie, upon
+whom he had bestowed a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Burley, talking all the while from his saddle
+to whoever cared to listen, or to himself
+if nobody cared to listen, rode on in the van
+under the ancient bell-tower of Sainte Lesse,
+where a slim, dark-eyed girl looked up at
+him as he passed, a faint smile hovering on
+her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Bong jour, Mademoiselle," continued Burley,
+saluting her <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">en passant</span></span> with two fingers
+at the vizor of his khaki cap, as he had seen
+British officers salute. "I compliment you on
+your silent but eloquent welcome to me, my
+comrades, my coons, and my mules. Your
+charming though slightly melancholy smile
+bids us indeed welcome to your fair city. I
+thank you; I thank all the inhabitants for
+this unprecedented ovation. Doubtless a municipal
+banquet awaits us——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sticky Smith spurred up.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you see the inn?" he asked. "There
+it is, to the right."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It looks good to me," said Burley.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page163">[pg 163]</span><a name="Pg163" id="Pg163" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+"Everything looks good to me except these
+accursed mules. Thank God, that seems to
+be the corral—down in the meadow there,
+Brigadeer!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The fat brigadier drew bridle; Burley burst
+into French:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Esker—esker——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Oui</span></span>," nodded the brigadier, "that is where
+we are going."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Bong!" exclaimed Burley with satisfaction;
+and, turning to Sticky Smith: "Stick,
+tell the coons to hustle. We're there!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, above the trampling, whip-cracking,
+and shouting of the negroes, from somewhere
+high in the blue sky overhead, out of limpid,
+cloudless heights floated a single bell-note,
+then another, another, others exquisitely
+sweet and clear, melting into a fragment of
+heavenly melody.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Burley looked up into the sky; the negroes
+raised their sweating, dark faces in pleased
+astonishment; Stick and Kid Glenn lifted
+puzzled visages to the zenith. The fat brigadier
+smiled and waved his cigarette:</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page164">[pg 164]</span><a name="Pg164" id="Pg164" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Il est midi, messieurs.</span></span> That is the carillon
+of Sainte Lesse."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The angelic melody died away. Then, high
+in the old bell-tower, a great resonant bell
+struck twelve times.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Said the brigadier:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"When the wind is right, they can hear our
+big bell, Bayard, out there in the first line
+trenches——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Again he waved his cigarette toward the
+northeast, then reined in his horse and backed
+off into the flowering meadow, while the first
+of the American mules entered the corral,
+the herd following pellmell.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The American negroes went with the mules
+to a hut prepared for them inside the corral—it
+having been previously and carefully explained
+to France that an American mule
+without its negro complement was as galvanic
+and unaccountable as a beheaded chicken.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Burley burst into French again, like a
+shrapnel shell:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Esker—esker——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Oui</span></span>," said the fat brigadier, "there is an
+excellent inn up the street, messieurs." And<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page165">[pg 165]</span><a name="Pg165" id="Pg165" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+he saluted their uniform, the same being constructed
+of cotton khaki, with a horseshoe
+on the arm and an oxidized metal mule on
+the collar. The brigadier wondered at and
+admired the minute nicety of administrative
+detail characterizing a government which
+clothed even its muleteers so becomingly, yet
+with such modesty and dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He could not know that the uniform was
+unauthorized and the insignia an invention
+of Sticky Smith, aiming to counteract any
+social stigma that might blight his sojourn
+in France.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"For," said Sticky Smith, before they went
+aboard the transport at New Orleans, "if you
+dress a man in khaki, with some gimcrack
+on his sleeve and collar, you're level with
+anybody in Europe. Which," he added to
+Burley, "will make it pleasant if any emperors
+or kings drop in on us for a drink or a
+quiet game behind the lines."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Also," added Burley, "it goes with the
+ladies." And he and Kid Glenn purchased
+uniforms similar to Smith's and had the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page166">[pg 166]</span><a name="Pg166" id="Pg166" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+horseshoe and mule fastened to sleeve and
+collar.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They'll hang you fellows for francs-tireurs,"
+remarked a battered soldier of fortune
+from the wharf as the transport cast
+off and glided gradually away from the sun-blistered
+docks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Hang <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">who</span></span>?" demanded Burley loudly
+from the rail above.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What's a frank-tiroor?" inquired Sticky
+Smith.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And who'll hang us?" shouted Kid Glenn
+from the deck of the moving steamer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The Germans will if they catch you in
+that uniform," retorted the battered soldier
+of fortune derisively. "You chorus-boy mule
+drivers will wish you wore overalls and one
+suspender if the Dutch Kaiser nails you!"</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page167">[pg 167]</span><a name="Pg167" id="Pg167" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf27" id="pdf27"></a>
+<a name="toc28" id="toc28"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XIV</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+LA PLOO BELLE</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They had been nearly three weeks on the
+voyage, three days in port, four more on
+cattle trains, and had been marching since
+morning from the nearest railway station at
+Estville-sur-Lesse.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now, lugging their large leather hold-alls,
+they started up the main street of Sainte
+Lesse, three sunburnt, loud-talking Americans,
+young, sturdy, careless of glance and
+voice and gesture, perfectly self-satisfied.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Their footsteps echoed loudly on the pavement
+of this still, old town, lying so quietly
+in the shadow of its aged trees and its sixteenth
+century belfry, where the great bell,
+Bayard, had hung for hundreds of years, and,
+tier on tier above it, clustered in set ranks
+the fixed bells of the ancient carillon.</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page168">[pg 168]</span><a name="Pg168" id="Pg168" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Some skyscraper," observed Burley, patronizing
+the bell-tower with a glance.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As he spoke, they came to the inn, a very
+ancient hostelry built into a remnant of the
+old town wall, and now a part of it. On the
+signboard was painted a white doe; and that
+was the name of the inn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So they trooped through the stone-arched
+tunnel, ushered by a lame innkeeper; and
+Burley, chancing to turn his head and glance
+back through the shadowy stone passage,
+caught a glimpse in the outer sunshine of
+the girl whose dark eyes had inspired him
+with jocular eloquence as he rode on his mule
+under the bell-tower of Sainte Lesse.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A peach," he said to Smith. And the
+sight of her apparently going to his head,
+he burst into French: "Tray chick! Tray,
+tray chick! I'm glad I've got on this uniform
+and not overalls and one suspender."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What's biting you?" inquired Smith.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Nothing, Stick, nothing. But I believe
+I've seen the prettiest girl in the world right
+here in this two-by-four town."</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page169">[pg 169]</span><a name="Pg169" id="Pg169" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stick glanced over his shoulder, then
+shrugged:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"She's ornamental, only she's got a sad
+on."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But Burley trudged on with his leather
+hold-all, muttering to himself something
+about the prettiest girl in the world.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The "prettiest girl in the world" continued
+her way unconscious of the encomiums of
+John Burley and the critique of Sticky Smith.
+Her way, however, seemed to be the way of
+Burley and his two companions, for she
+crossed the sunny street and entered the
+White Doe by the arched door and tunnel-like
+passage.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Unlike them, however, she turned to the
+right in the stone corridor, opened a low
+wooden door, crossed the inn parlour, ascended
+a short stairway, and entered a bedroom.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Here, standing before a mirror, she unpinned
+her straw hat, smoothed her dark
+hair, resting her eyes pensively for a few
+moments on her reflected face. Then she
+sauntered listlessly about the little room in
+performance of those trivial, aimless offices,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page170">[pg 170]</span><a name="Pg170" id="Pg170" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+entirely feminine, such as opening all the
+drawers in her clothes-press, smoothing out
+various frilly objects and fabrics, investigating
+a little gilded box and thoughtfully inspecting
+its contents, which consisted of hair-pins.
+Fussing here, lingering there, loitering
+by her bird-cage, where a canary cheeped its
+greeting and hopped and hopped; bending
+over a cluster of white phlox in a glass of
+water to inhale the old-fashioned perfume,
+she finally tied on a fresh apron and walked
+slowly out to the ancient, vaulted kitchen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">An old peasant woman was cooking, while
+a young one washed dishes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are the American gentlemen still at table,
+Julie?" she inquired.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Mademoiselle Maryette, they are devouring
+everything in the house!" exclaimed old
+Julie, flinging both hands toward heaven.
+"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tenez</span></span>, mamzelle, I have heard of eating in
+ancient days, I have read of Gargantua, I
+have been told of banquets, of feasting, of
+appetites! But there is one American in
+there! Mamzelle Maryette, if I should swear
+to you that he is on his third chicken and<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page171">[pg 171]</span><a name="Pg171" id="Pg171" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+that a row of six pint bottles of '93 Margaux
+stand empty on the cloth at his elbow,
+I should do no penance for untruthfulness.
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tenez, Mamzelle Maryette, regardez un peu
+par l'oubliette</span></span>—" And old Julie slid open
+the wooden shutter on the crack and Maryette
+bent forward and surveyed the dining room
+outside.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They were laughing very loud in there,
+these three Americans—three powerful, sun-scorched
+young men, very much at their ease
+around the table, draining the red Bordeaux
+by goblets, plying knife and fork with joyous
+and undiminished vigour.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The tall one with the crisp hair and clear,
+grayish eyes—he of the three chickens—was
+already achieving the third—a crisply
+browned bird, fresh from the spit, fragrant
+and smoking hot. At intervals he buttered
+great slices of rye bread, or disposed of an
+entire young potato, washing it down with a
+goblet of red wine, but always he returned
+to the rich roasted fowl which he held, still
+impaled upon its spit, and which he carved<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page172">[pg 172]</span><a name="Pg172" id="Pg172" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+as he ate, wings, legs, breast falling in steaming
+flakes under his skillful knife blade.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sticky Smith finally pushed aside his drained
+glass and surveyed an empty plate frankly
+and regretfully, unable to continue. He said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'm going to bed and I'm going to sleep
+twenty-four hours. After that I'm going to
+eat for twenty-four more hours, and then I'll
+be in good shape. Bong soir."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Aw, stick around with the push!" remonstrated
+Kid Glenn thickly, impaling another
+potato upon his fork and gesticulating with it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Smith gazed with surfeited but hopeless
+envy upon Burley's magnificent work with
+knife and fork, saw him crack a seventh bottle
+of Bordeaux, watched him empty the first
+goblet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But even Glenn's eyes began to dull in
+spite of himself, his head nodded mechanically
+at every mouthful achieved.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I gotta call it off, Jack," he yawned.
+"Stick and I need the sleep if you don't.
+So here's where we quit——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Let me tell you about that girl," began
+Burley. "I never saw a prettier—" But<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page173">[pg 173]</span><a name="Pg173" id="Pg173" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Glenn had appetite neither for food nor
+romance:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Say, listen. Have a heart, Jack! We
+need the sleep!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stick had already risen; Glenn shoved back
+his chair with a gigantic yawn and shambled
+to his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I want to tell you," insisted Burley, "that
+she's what the French call tray, tray
+chick——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Stick pointed furiously at the fowl:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Chick? I'm fed up on chick! Maybe she
+is some chick, as you say, but it doesn't interest
+me. Goo'bye. Don't come battering
+at my door and wake me up, Jack. Be a
+sport and lemme alone——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He turned and shuffled out, and Glenn followed,
+his Mexican spurs clanking.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Burley jeered them:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Mollycoddles! Come on and take in the
+town with us!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But they slammed the door behind them,
+and he heard them stumbling and clanking
+up stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So Burley, gazing gravely at his empty<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page174">[pg 174]</span><a name="Pg174" id="Pg174" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+plate, presently emptied the last visible bottle
+of Bordeaux, then stretching his mighty
+arms and superb chest, fished out a cigarette,
+set fire to it, unhooked the cartridge-belt and
+holster from the back of his chair, buckled
+it on, rose, pulled on his leather-peaked cap,
+and drew a deep breath of contentment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a moment he stood in the centre of
+the room, as though in pleasant meditation,
+then he slowly strode toward the street door,
+murmuring to himself: "Tray, tray chick. The
+prettiest girl in the world.... La ploo belle
+fille du monde ... la ploo belle...."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He strolled as far as the corral down in
+the meadow by the stream, where he found
+the negro muleteers asleep and the mules
+already watered and fed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a while he hobnobbed with the three
+gendarmes on duty there, practicing his kind
+of French on them and managing to understand
+and be understood more or less—probably
+less.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But the young man was persistent; he desired
+to become that easy master of the
+French language that his tongue-tied com<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page175">[pg 175]</span><a name="Pg175" id="Pg175" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>rades
+believed him to be. So he practiced
+garrulously upon the polite, suffering gendarmes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He related to them his experience on shipboard
+with a thousand mutinous mules to
+pacify, feed, water, and otherwise cherish.
+They had, it appeared, encountered no submarines,
+but enjoyed several alarms from
+destroyers which eventually proved to be
+British.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A cousin of mine," explained Burley,
+"Ned Winters, of El Paso, went down on the
+steamer <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">John B. Doty</span></span>, with eleven hundred
+mules and six niggers. The Boches torpedoed
+the ship and then raked the boats. I'd like
+to get a crack at one Boche before I go back
+to God's country."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The gendarmes politely but regretfully
+agreed that it was impracticable for Burley
+to get a crack at a Hun; and the American
+presently took himself off to the corral, after
+distributing cigarettes and establishing cordial
+relations with the Sainte Lesse Gendarmerie.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He waked up a negro and inspected the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page176">[pg 176]</span><a name="Pg176" id="Pg176" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+mules; that took a long time. Then he sought
+out the negro blacksmith, awoke him, and
+wrote out some directions.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The idea is," he explained, "that whenever
+the French in this sector need mules
+they draw on our corral. We are supposed
+to keep ten or eleven hundred mules here all
+the time and look after them. Shipments
+come every two weeks, I believe. So after
+you've had another good nap, George, you
+wake up your boys and get busy. And
+there'll be trouble if things are not in running
+order by tomorrow night."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yas, suh, Mistuh Burley," nodded the
+sleepy blacksmith, still blinking in the afternoon
+sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And if you need an interpreter," added
+Burley, "always call on me until you learn
+French enough to get on. Understand,
+George?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yas, suh."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Because," said Burley, walking away, "a
+thorough knowledge of French idioms is
+necessary to prevent mistakes. When in
+doubt always apply to me, George, for only<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page177">[pg 177]</span><a name="Pg177" id="Pg177" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a master of the language is competent to
+deal with these French people."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was his one vanity, his one weakness.
+Perhaps, because he so ardently desired proficiency,
+he had already deluded himself with
+the belief that he was a master of French.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So, belt and loaded holster sagging, and
+large silver spurs clicking and clinking at
+every step, John Burley sauntered back along
+the almost deserted street of Sainte Lesse,
+thinking sometimes of his mules, sometimes
+of the French language, and every now and
+then of a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl whose
+delicately flushed and pensive gaze he had encountered
+as he had ridden into Sainte Lesse
+under the old belfry.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Stick Smith's a fool," he thought to himself
+impatiently. "Tray chick doesn't mean
+'some chicken.' It means a pretty girl, in
+French."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looked up at the belfry as he passed
+under it, and at the same moment, from beneath
+the high, gilded dragon which crowned
+its topmost spire, a sweet bell-note floated,
+another, others succeeding in crystalline<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page178">[pg 178]</span><a name="Pg178" id="Pg178" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+sweetness, linked in a fragment of some ancient
+melody. Then they ceased; then came
+a brief silence; the great bell he had heard
+before struck five times.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Lord!—that's pretty," he murmured, moving
+on and turning into the arched tunnel
+which was the entrance to the White Doe Inn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wandering at random, he encountered the
+innkeeper in the parlour, studying a crumpled
+newspaper through horn-rimmed spectacles
+on his nose.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Tray jolie," said Burley affably, seating
+himself with an idea of further practice in
+French.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Plait-il?</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The bells—tray beau!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The old man straightened his bent shoulders
+a little proudly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"For thirty years, m'sieu, I have been Carillonneur
+of Sainte Lesse." He smiled; then,
+saddened, he held out both hands toward Burley.
+The fingers were stiff and crippled with
+rheumatism.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No more," he said slowly; "the carillon is<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page179">[pg 179]</span><a name="Pg179" id="Pg179" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+ended for me. The great art is no more for
+Jean Courtray, Master of Bells."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What is a carillon?" inquired John Burley
+simply.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Blank incredulity was succeeded by a
+shocked expression on the old man's visage.
+After a silence, in mild and patient protest,
+he said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am Jean Courtray, Carillonneur of
+Sainte Lesse.... Have you never heard of
+the carillon of Sainte Lesse, or of me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Never," said Burley. "We don't have
+anything like that in America."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The old carillonneur, Jean Courtray, began
+to speak in a low voice of his art, his profession,
+and of the great carillon of forty-six
+bells in the ancient tower of Sainte Lesse.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A carillon, he explained, is a company of
+fixed bells tuned according to the chromatic
+scale and ranging through several octaves.
+These bells, rising tier above tier in a belfry,
+the smallest highest, the great, ponderous
+bells of the bass notes lowest, are not free
+to swing, but are fixed to huge beams, and
+are sounded by clappers connected by a wil<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page180">[pg 180]</span><a name="Pg180" id="Pg180" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>derness
+of wires to a keyboard which is played
+upon by the bell-master or carillonneur.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He explained that the office of bell-master
+was an ancient one and greatly honoured;
+that the bell-master was also a member of the
+municipal government; that his salary was a
+fixed one; that not only did he play upon the
+carillon on fête days, market days, and particular
+occasions, but he also travelled and
+gave concerts upon the few existing carillons
+of other ancient towns and cities, not alone
+in France where carillons were few, but in
+Belgium and Holland, where they still were
+comparatively many, although the German
+barbarians had destroyed some of the best at
+Liége, Arras, Dixmude, Termonde, and Ypres.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Monsieur," he went on in a voice which
+began to grow a little unsteady, "the Huns
+have destroyed the ancient carillons of Louvain
+and of Mechlin. In the superb bell-tower
+of Saint Rombold I have played for a
+thousand people; and the Carillonneur, Monsieur
+Vincent, and the great bell-master, Josef
+Denyn, have come to me to congratulate me
+with tears in their eyes—in their eyes——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page181">[pg 181]</span><a name="Pg181" id="Pg181" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There were tears in his own now, and he
+bent his white head and looked down at the
+worn floor under his crippled feet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Alas," he said, "for Denyn—and for Saint
+Rombold's tower. The Hun has passed that
+way."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a silence:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Who is it now plays the carillon in Sainte
+Lesse!" asked Burley.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"My daughter, Maryette. Sainte Lesse has
+honoured me in my daughter, whom I myself
+instructed. My daughter—the little child of
+my old age, monsieur—is mistress of the bells
+of Sainte Lesse.... They call her Carillonnette
+in Sainte Lesse——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The door opened and the girl came in.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page182">[pg 182]</span><a name="Pg182" id="Pg182" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf29" id="pdf29"></a>
+<a name="toc30" id="toc30"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XV</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+CARILLONETTE</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn remained a
+week at Sainte Lesse, then left with the
+negroes for Calais to help bring up another
+cargo of mules, the arrival of which was daily
+expected.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A peloton of the Train-des-Equipages and
+three Remount troopers arrived at Sainte
+Lesse to take over the corral. John Burley
+remained to explain and interpret the American
+mule to these perplexed troopers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Morning, noon, and night he went clanking
+down to the corral, his cartridge belt and
+holster swinging at his hip. But sometimes
+he had a little leisure.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sainte Lesse knew him as a mighty eater
+and as a lusty drinker of good red wine; as
+a mighty and garrulous talker, too, he be<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page183">[pg 183]</span><a name="Pg183" id="Pg183" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>came
+known, ready to accost anybody in the
+quiet and subdued old town and explode into
+French at the slightest encouragement.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But Burley had only women and children
+and old men on whom to practice his earnest
+and voluble French, for everybody else was
+at the front.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Children adored him—adored his big, silver
+spurs, his cartridge belt and pistol, the
+metal mule decorating his tunic collar, his
+six feet two of height, his quick smile, the
+even white teeth and grayish eyes of this
+American muleteer, who always had a stick
+of barley sugar to give them or an amazing
+trick to perform for them with a handkerchief
+or coin that vanished under their very
+noses at the magic snap of his finger.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Old men gossiped willingly with him;
+women liked him and their rare smiles in the
+war-sobered town of Sainte Lesse were often
+for him as he sauntered along the quiet street,
+clanking, swaggering, affable, ready for conversation
+with anybody, and always ready for
+the small, confident hands that unceremoni<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page184">[pg 184]</span><a name="Pg184" id="Pg184" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ously
+clasped his when he passed by where
+children played.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As for Maryette Courtray, called Carillonnette,
+she mounted the bell-tower once every
+hour, from six in the morning until nine
+o'clock in the evening, to play the passing of
+Time toward that eternity into which it is
+always and ceaselessly moving.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After nine o'clock Carillonnette set the drum
+and wound it; and through the dark hours of
+the night the bells played mechanically every
+hour for a few moments before Bayard
+struck.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Between these duties the girl managed the
+old inn, to which, since the war, nobody came
+any more—and with these occupations her life
+was full—sufficiently full, perhaps, without
+the advent of John Burley.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They met with enough frequency for her,
+if not for him. Their encounters took place
+between her duties aloft at the keyboard under
+the successive tiers of bells and his intervals
+of prowling among his mules.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sometimes he found her sewing in the parlour—she
+could have gone to her own room,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page185">[pg 185]</span><a name="Pg185" id="Pg185" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of course; sometimes he encountered her in
+the corridor, in the street, in the walled garden
+behind the inn, where with basket and
+pan she gathered vegetables in season.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a stone seat out there, built
+against the southern wall, and in the shadowed
+coolness of it she sometimes shelled
+peas.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">During such an hour of liberty from the
+bell-tower he found the dark-eyed little mistress
+of the bells sorting various vegetables
+and singing under her breath to herself the
+carillon music of Josef Denyn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Tray chick, mademoiselle," he said, with
+a cheerful self-assertion, to hide the embarrassment
+which always assailed him when he
+encountered her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You know, Monsieur Burley, you should
+not say '<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">très chic</span></span>' to me," she said, shaking
+her pretty head. "It sounds a little familiar
+and a little common."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh," he exclaimed, very red. "I thought
+it was the thing to say."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She smiled, continuing to shell the peas,
+then, with her sensitive and slightly flushed<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page186">[pg 186]</span><a name="Pg186" id="Pg186" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+face still lowered, she looked at him out of
+her dark blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sometimes," she said, "young men say
+'<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">très chic</span></span>.' It depend on when and how one
+says it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are there times when it is all right for
+me to say it?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, I think so.... How are your mules
+today?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The same," he said, "—ready to bite or
+kick or eat their heads off. The Remount
+took two hundred this morning."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I saw them pass," said the girl. "I
+thought perhaps you also might be departing."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Without coming to say good-bye—to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span>!"
+he stammered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, conventions must be disregarded in
+time of war," she returned carelessly, continuing
+to shell peas. "I really thought I
+saw you riding away with the mules."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"That man," said Burley, much hurt, "was
+a bow-legged driver of the Train-des-Equipages.
+I don't think he resembles me."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As she made no comment and expressed no<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page187">[pg 187]</span><a name="Pg187" id="Pg187" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+contrition for her mistake, he gazed about
+him at the sunny garden with a depressed
+expression. However, this changed presently
+to a bright and hopeful one.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Vooz ate tray, tray belle, mademoiselle!"
+he asserted cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Monsieur!" Vexed perhaps as much at
+her own quick blush as his abrupt eulogy, she
+bit her lip and looked at him with an ominously
+level gaze. Then, suddenly, she smiled.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Monsieur Burley, one does <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">not</span></span> so express
+one's self without reason, without apropos,
+without—without encouragement——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She blushed again, vividly. Under her wide
+straw hat her delicate, sensitive face and
+dark blue eyes were beautiful enough to inspire
+eulogy in any young man.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Pardon," he said, confused by her reprimand
+and her loveliness. "I shall hereafter
+only <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">think</span></span> you are pretty, mademoiselle—mais
+je ne le dirais ploo."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"That would be perhaps more—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">comme il
+faut</span></span>, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ploo!" he repeated with emphasis. "Ploo
+jamais! Je vous jure——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page188">[pg 188]</span><a name="Pg188" id="Pg188" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Merci</span></span>; it is not perhaps necessary to
+swear quite so solemnly, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She raised her eyes from the pan, moving
+her small, sun-tanned hand through the heaps
+of green peas, filling her palm with them and
+idly letting them run through her slim fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"L'amour," he said with an effort—"how
+funny it is—isn't it, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I know nothing about it," she replied with
+decision, and rose with her pan of peas.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are you going, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Have I offended you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He trailed after her down the garden path
+between rows of blue larkspurs and hollyhocks—just
+at her dainty heels, because the
+brick walk was too narrow for both of them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ploo," he repeated appealingly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Over her shoulder she said with disdain:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is not a topic for conversation among
+the young, monsieur—what you call <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">l'amour</span></span>."
+And she entered the kitchen, where he had
+not the effrontery to follow her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That evening, toward sunset, returning<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page189">[pg 189]</span><a name="Pg189" id="Pg189" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+from the corral, he heard, high in the blue
+sky above him, her bell-music drifting; and
+involuntarily uncovering, he stood with bared
+head looking upward while the celestial melody
+lasted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And that evening, too, being the fête of
+Alincourt, a tiny neighbouring village across
+the river, the bell-mistress went up into the
+tower after dinner and played for an hour
+for the little neighbour hamlet across the
+river Lesse.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All the people who remained in Sainte
+Lesse and in Alincourt brought out their
+chairs and their knitting in the calm, fragrant
+evening air and remained silent, sadly enraptured
+while the unseen player at her keyboard
+aloft in the belfry above set her carillon
+music adrift under the summer stars—golden
+harmonies that seemed born in the heavens
+from which they floated; clear, exquisitely
+sweet miracles of melody filling the world of
+darkness with magic messages of hope.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Those widowed or childless among her listeners
+for miles around in the darkness wept
+quiet tears, less bitter and less hopeless for<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page190">[pg 190]</span><a name="Pg190" id="Pg190" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the divine promise of the sky music which
+filled the night as subtly as the scent of
+flowers saturates the dusk.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Burley, listening down by the corral, leaned
+against a post, one powerful hand across his
+eyes, his cap clasped in the other, and in his
+heart the birth of things ineffable.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For an hour the carillon played. Then
+old Bayard struck ten times. And Burley
+thought of the trenches and wondered
+whether the mellow thunder of the great bell
+was audible out there that night.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page191">[pg 191]</span><a name="Pg191" id="Pg191" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf31" id="pdf31"></a>
+<a name="toc32" id="toc32"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XVI</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+DJACK</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There came a day when he did not see
+Maryette as he left for the corral in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her father, very stiff with rheumatism, sat
+in the sun outside the arched entrance to the
+inn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No," he said, "she is going to be gone all
+day today. She has set and wound the drum
+in the belfry so that the carillon shall play
+every hour while she is absent."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where has she gone?" inquired Burley.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"To play the carillon at Nivelle."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Nivelle!" he exclaimed sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Oui, monsieur.</span></span> The Mayor has asked for
+her. She is to play for an hour to entertain
+the wounded." He rested his withered cheek
+on his hand and looked out through the win<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page192">[pg 192]</span><a name="Pg192" id="Pg192" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>dow
+at the sunshine with aged and tragic
+eyes. "It is very little to do for our
+wounded," he added aloud to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Burley had sent twenty mules to Nivelle
+the night before, and had heard some disquieting
+rumours concerning that town.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now he walked out past the dusky, arched
+passageway into the sunny street and continued
+northward under the trees to the barracks
+of the Gendarmerie.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Bon jour l'ami Gargantua!</span></span>" exclaimed the
+fat, jovial brigadier who had just emerged
+with boots shining, pipe-clay very apparent,
+and all rosy from a fresh shave.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Bong joor, mon vieux copain!" replied
+Burley, preoccupied with some papers he was
+sorting. "Be good enough to look over my
+papers."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The brigadier took them and examined
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are they <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">en règle</span></span>?" demanded Burley.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Parfaitement, mon ami.</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Will they take me as far as Nivelle?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Certainly. But your mules went forward
+last night with the Remount——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page193">[pg 193]</span><a name="Pg193" id="Pg193" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I know. I wish to inspect them again before
+the veterinary sees them. Telephone to
+the corral for a saddle mule."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The brigadier went inside to telephone and
+Burley started for the corral at the same
+time.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule was
+saddled and waiting when he arrived; he
+stuffed his papers into the breast of his tunic
+and climbed into the saddle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Allongs!" he exclaimed. "Hoop!"</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Half way to Nivelle, on an overgrown,
+bushy, circuitous path which was the only
+road open between Nivelle and Sainte Lesse,
+he overtook Maryette, driving her donkey and
+ancient market cart.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Carillonnette!" he called out joyously.
+"Maryette! C'est je!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl, astonished, turned her head, and
+he spurred forward on his wall-eyed mount,
+evincing cordial symptoms of pleasure in the
+encounter.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Wee, wee!" he cried. "Je voolay veneer
+avec voo!" And ere the girl could protest,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page194">[pg 194]</span><a name="Pg194" id="Pg194" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+he had dismounted, turning the wall-eyed
+one's nose southward, and had delivered a
+resounding whack upon the rump of that
+temperamental animal.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Allez! Go home! Beat it!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The mule lost no time but headed for the
+distant corral at a canter; and Burley, grinning
+like a great, splendid, intelligent dog
+who has just done something to be proud of,
+stepped into the market cart and seated himself
+beside Maryette.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Who told you where I am going?" she
+asked, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or
+let loose her indignation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Your father, Carillonnette."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Why did you follow me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I had nothing else to do——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is that the reason?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I like to be with you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Really, monsieur! And you think it was
+not necessary to consult my wishes?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Don't you like to be with me?" he asked,
+so naïvely that the girl blushed and bit her
+lip and shook the reins without replying.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They jogged on through the disused by<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page195">[pg 195]</span><a name="Pg195" id="Pg195" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>way,
+the filbert bushes brushing axle and
+traces; but presently the little donkey relapsed
+into a walk again, and the girl, who
+had counted on that procedure when she
+started from Sainte Lesse, did not urge him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Also," she said in a low voice, "I have
+been wondering who permits you to address
+me as Carillonnette. Also as Maryette. You
+have been, heretofore, quite correct in assuming
+that mademoiselle is the proper form of
+address."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I was so glad to see you," he said, so simply
+that she flushed again and offered no further
+comment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a long while she let him do the talking,
+which was perfectly agreeable to him.
+He talked on every subject he could think of,
+frankly practicing idioms on her, pleased with
+his own fluency and his progress in French.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a while she said, looking around at
+him with a curiosity quite friendly:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Tell me, Monsieur Burley, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">why</span></span> did you
+desire to come with me today?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He started to reply, but checked himself,
+looking into the dark blue and engaging eyes.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page196">[pg 196]</span><a name="Pg196" id="Pg196" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+After a moment the engaging eyes became
+brilliantly serious.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Tell me," she repeated. "Is it because
+there were some rumours last evening concerning
+Nivelle?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Wee!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh," she nodded, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After driving for a little while in silence
+she looked around at him with an expression
+on her face which altered it exquisitely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Thank you, my friend," she murmured....
+"And if you wish to call me Carillonnette—do
+so."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I do want to. And my name's Jack....
+If you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her eyes were fixed on her donkey's ears.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Djack," she repeated, musingly. "Jacques—Djack—it's
+the same, isn't it—Djack?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He turned red and she laughed at him, no
+longer afraid.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Listen, my friend," she said, "it is <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">très
+beau</span></span>—what have you done."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Vooz êtes tray belle——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Non!</span></span> Please stop! It is not a question
+of me——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page197">[pg 197]</span><a name="Pg197" id="Pg197" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Vooz êtes tray chick——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Stop, Djack! That is not good manners!
+No! I was merely saying that—you have
+done something very nice. Which is quite
+true. You heard rumours that Nivelle had
+become unsafe. People whispered last evening—something
+about the danger of a salient
+being cut at its base.... I heard the gossip
+in the street. Was that why you came
+after me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Wee."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Thank you, Djack."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She leaned a trifle forward in the cart, her
+dimpled elbows on her knees, the reins sagging.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Blue and rosy jays flew up before them,
+fluttering away through the thickets; a bullfinch
+whistled sweetly from a thorn bush,
+watching them pass under him, unafraid.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You see," she said, half to herself, "I <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">had</span></span>
+to come. Who could refuse our wounded?
+There is no bell-master in our department;
+and only one bell-mistress.... To find anyone
+else to play the Nivelle carillon one would
+have to pierce the barbarians' lines and search<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page198">[pg 198]</span><a name="Pg198" id="Pg198" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the ruins of Flanders for a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Beiaardier</span></span>—a
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Klokkenist</span></span>, as they call a carillonneur in the
+low countries.... But the Mayor asked it,
+and our wounded are waiting. You understand,
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mon ami</span></span> Djack, I had to come."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She added, naïvely:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"God watches over our trenches. We shall
+be quite safe in Nivelle."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A dull boom shook the sunlit air. Even in
+the cart they could feel the vibration.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">An hour later, everywhere ahead of them,
+a vast, confused thundering was steadily increasing,
+deepening with every ominous reverberation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Where two sandy wood roads crossed, a
+mounted gendarme halted them and examined
+their papers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"My poor child," he said to the girl, shaking
+his head, "the wounded at Nivelle were
+taken away during the night. They are
+fighting there now in the streets."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In Nivelle streets!" faltered the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Oui, mademoiselle.</span></span> Of the carillon little
+remains. The Boches have been shelling it<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page199">[pg 199]</span><a name="Pg199" id="Pg199" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+since daylight. Turn again. And it is better
+that you turn quickly, because it is not known
+to us what is going on in that wooded district
+over there. For if they get a foothold in
+Nivelle on this drive they might cross this
+road before evening."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl sat grief-stricken and silent in the
+cart, staring at the woods ahead where the
+road ran through taller saplings and where,
+here and there, mature trees towered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All around them now the increasing thunder
+rolled and echoed and shook the ground
+under them. Half a dozen gendarmes came
+up at a gallop. Their officer drew bridle,
+seized the donkey's head and turned animal
+and cart southward.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Go back," he said briefly, recognizing Burley
+and returning his salute. "You may have
+to take your mules out of Sainte Lesse!" he
+added, as he wheeled his horse. "We are
+getting into trouble out here, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">nom de Dieu</span></span>!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maryette's head hung as the donkey jogged
+along, trotting willingly because his nose was
+now pointed homeward.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl drove with loose and careless rein<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page200">[pg 200]</span><a name="Pg200" id="Pg200" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and in silence; and beside her sat Burley, his
+troubled gaze always reverting to the despondent
+form beside him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Too bad, little girl," he said. "But another
+time our wounded shall listen to your
+carillon."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Never at Nivelle.... The belfry is being
+destroyed.... The sweetest carillon in
+France—the oldest, the most beautiful....
+Fifty-six bells, Djack—a wondrous wilderness
+of bells rising above where one stands in the
+belfry, tier on tier, tier on tier, until one's
+gaze is lost amid the heavenly company aloft....
+Oh, Djack! And the great bell, Clovis!
+He hangs there—through hundreds of years
+he has spoken with his great voice of God!—so
+that they heard him for miles and miles
+across the land——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette—I am so sorry for you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh! Oh! My carillon of Nivelle! My
+beloved carillon!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette, dear! My little Carillonnette——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No—my heart is broken——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Vooz ates tray, tray belle——"</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page201">[pg 201]</span><a name="Pg201" id="Pg201" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The sudden crashing of heavy feet in the
+bushes checked him; but it was too late to
+heed it now—too late to reach for his holster.
+For all around them swarmed the men in sea-grey,
+jerking the donkey off his forelegs,
+blocking the little wheels with great, dirty
+fists, seizing Burley from behind and dragging
+him violently out of the cart.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A near-sighted officer, thin and spare as
+Death, was talking in a loud, nasal voice and
+squinting at Burley where he still struggled,
+red and exasperated, in the clutches of four
+soldiers:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Also! That is no uniform known to us
+or to any nation at war with us. That is not
+regulation in England—that collar insignia.
+This is a case of a franc-tireur! Now, then,
+you there in your costume de fantasie! What
+have you to say, eh?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a silence; Burley ceased struggling.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Answer, do you hear? What are you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"American."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Pig-dog!" shouted the gaunt officer. "So
+you are one of those Yankee muleteers in<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page202">[pg 202]</span><a name="Pg202" id="Pg202" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+your uniform, and armed! It is sufficient that
+you are American. If it had not been for
+America this war would be ended! But it is
+not enough, apparently, that you come here
+with munitions and food, that you insult us
+at sea, that you lie about us and slander us
+and send your shells and cartridges to England
+to slay our people! No! Also you must
+come to insult us in your clown's uniform and
+with your pistol—" The man began to choke
+with fury, unable to continue, except by
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But the jerky gestures were terribly significant:
+soldiers were already pushing Burley
+across the road toward a great oak tree;
+six men fell out and lined up.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"M-my Government—" stammered the
+young fellow—but was given no opportunity
+to speak. Very white, the chill sweat standing
+on his forehead and under his eyes, he
+stood against the oak, lips compressed, grey
+eyes watching what was happening to him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly he understood it was all over.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Djack!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He turned his gaze toward Maryette, where<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page203">[pg 203]</span><a name="Pg203" id="Pg203" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+she struggled toward him, held by two soldiers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette—Carillonnette—" His voice suddenly
+became steady, perfectly clear. "<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Je
+vous aime</span></span>, Carillonnette."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, Djack! Djack!" she cried in terror.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He heard the orders; was aware of the
+levelled rifles; but his reckless greyish eyes
+were now fixed on her, and he began to laugh
+almost mischievously.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Vooz êtes tray belle," he said, "—tray,
+tray chick——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Djack!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But the clang of the volley precluded any
+response from him except the half tender,
+half reckless smile that remained on his youthful
+face where he lay looking up at the sky
+with pleasant, sightless eyes, and a sunbeam
+touching the metal mule on his blood-wet
+collar.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page204">[pg 204]</span><a name="Pg204" id="Pg204" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf33" id="pdf33"></a>
+<a name="toc34" id="toc34"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XVII</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+FRIENDSHIP</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She tried once more to lift the big, warm,
+flexible body, exerting all her slender strength.
+It was useless. It was like attempting to lift
+the earth. The weight of the body frightened
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Again she sank down among the ferns
+under the great oak tree; once more she took
+his blood-smeared head on her lap, smoothing
+the bright, wet hair; and her tears fell
+slowly upon his upturned face.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"My friend," she stammered, "—my kind,
+droll friend.... The first friend I ever
+had——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The gun thunder beyond Nivelle had ceased;
+an intense stillness reigned in the forest; only
+a leaf moved here and there on the aspens.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A few forest flies whirled about her, but<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page205">[pg 205]</span><a name="Pg205" id="Pg205" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+as yet no ominous green flies came—none of
+those jewelled harbingers of death which appear
+with horrible promptness and as though
+by magic from nowhere when anything dies
+in the open world.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her donkey, still attached to the little gaily
+painted market cart, had wandered on up the
+sandy lane, feeding at random along the fern-bordered
+thickets which walled in the Nivelle
+byroad on either side.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Presently her ear caught a slight sound;
+something stirred somewhere in the woods
+behind her. After an interval of terrible
+stillness there came a distant crashing of
+footsteps among dead leaves and underbrush.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Horror of the Hun still possessed her; the
+victim of Prussian ferocity still lay across
+her knees. She dared not take the chance
+that friendly ears might hear her call for aid—dared
+not raise her voice in appeal lest she
+awaken something monstrous, unclean, inconceivable—the
+unseen thing which she could
+hear at intervals prowling there among dead
+leaves in the demi-light of the woods.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly her heart leaped with fright; a<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page206">[pg 206]</span><a name="Pg206" id="Pg206" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+man stepped cautiously out of the woods into
+the road; another, dressed in leather, with
+dry blood caked on his face, followed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The first comer, a French gendarme, had
+already caught sight of the donkey and market
+cart; had turned around instinctively to
+look for their owner. Now he discovered her
+seated there among the ferns under the oak
+tree.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In the name of God," he growled, "what's
+that child doing there!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman in leather followed him across
+the road to the oak; the girl looked up at
+them out of dark, tear-marred eyes that
+seemed dazed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Well, little one!" rumbled the big, red-faced
+gendarme. "What's your name?—you
+who sit here all alone at the wood's edge with
+a dead man across your knees?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She made an effort to find her voice—to
+control it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am Maryette Courtray, bell-mistress of
+Sainte Lesse," she answered, trembling.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And—this young man?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They shot him—the Prussians, monsieur."<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page207">[pg 207]</span><a name="Pg207" id="Pg207" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"My poor child! Was he your lover, then?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her tear-filled eyes widened:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, no," she said naïvely; "it is sadder
+than that. He was my friend."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The big gendarme scratched his chin; then,
+with an odd glance at the young airman who
+stood beside him:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"To lose a friend is indeed sadder than to
+lose a lover. What was your friend's name,
+little one?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She pressed her hand to her forehead in
+an effort to search among her partly paralyzed
+thoughts:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Djack.... That is his name.... He was
+the first real friend I ever had."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He is one of my countrymen—an American
+muleteer, Jack Burley—in charge at
+Sainte Lesse."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the sound of the young man's name pronounced
+in English the girl began to cry. The
+big gendarme bent over and patted her cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Allons</span></span>," he growled; "courage! little mistress
+of the bells! Let us place your friend<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page208">[pg 208]</span><a name="Pg208" id="Pg208" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+in your pretty market cart and leave this
+accursed place, in God's name!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He straightened up and looked over his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"For the Boches are in Nivelle woods," he
+added, with an oath, "and we ought to be on
+our way to Sainte Lesse, if we are to arrive
+there at all. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Allons</span></span>, comrade, take him by
+the head!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So the wounded airman bent over and took
+the body by the shoulders; the gendarme
+lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed,
+holding to one of the sagging arms, as
+though fearing that these strangers might
+take away from her this dead man who had
+been so much more to her than a mere lover.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When they laid him in the market cart she
+released his sleeve with a sob. Still crying,
+she climbed to the seat of the cart and gathered
+up the reins. Behind her, flat on the
+floor of the cart, the airman and the gendarme
+had seated themselves, with the young man's
+body between them. They were opening his
+tunic and shirt now and were whispering to<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page209">[pg 209]</span><a name="Pg209" id="Pg209" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>gether,
+and wiping away blood from the naked
+shoulders and chest.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He's still warm, but there's no pulse,"
+whispered the airman. "He's dead enough, I
+guess, but I'd rather hear a surgeon say so."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The gendarme rose, stepped across to the
+seat, took the reins gently from the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Weep peacefully, little one," he said; "it
+does one good. Tears are the tisane which
+strengthens the soul."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ye-es.... But I am remembering that—that
+I was not very k-kind to him," she
+sobbed. "It hurts—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">here</span></span>—" She pressed a
+slim hand over her breast.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Allons!</span></span> Friends quarrel. God understands.
+Thy friend back there—he also understands
+now."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, I hope he does!... He spoke to me
+so tenderly—yet so gaily. He was even
+laughing at me when they shot him. He was
+so kind—and droll—" She sobbed anew,
+clasping her hands and pressing them against
+her quivering mouth to check her grief.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Was it an execution, then?" demanded the
+gendarme in his growling voice.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page210">[pg 210]</span><a name="Pg210" id="Pg210" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They said he must be a franc-tireur to
+wear such a uniform——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ah, the scoundrels! Ah, the assassins!
+And so they murdered him there under the
+tree?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ah, God! Yes! I seem to see him standing
+there now—his grey, kind eyes—and no
+thought of fear—just a droll smile—the way
+he had with me—" whispered the girl, "the
+way—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">his</span></span> way—with me——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Child," said the gendarme, pityingly, "it
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">was</span></span> love!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But she shook her head, surprised, the tears
+still running down her tanned cheeks:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Monsieur, it was more serious than love;
+it was friendship."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page211">[pg 211]</span><a name="Pg211" id="Pg211" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf35" id="pdf35"></a>
+<a name="toc36" id="toc36"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XVIII</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+THE AVIATOR</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Where the Fontanes highroad crosses the
+byroad to Sainte Lesse they were halted by
+a dusty column moving rapidly west—four
+hundred American mules convoyed by gendarmerie
+and remount troopers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The sweating riders, passing at a canter,
+shouted from their saddles to the big gendarme
+in the market cart that neither Nivelle
+nor Sainte Lesse were to be defended at present,
+and that all stragglers were being directed
+to Fontanes and Le Marronnier. Mules
+and drivers defiled at a swinging trot, enveloped
+in torrents of white dust; behind them
+rode a peloton of the remount, lashing recalcitrant
+animals forward; and in the rear of
+these rolled automobile ambulances, red
+crosses aglow in the rays of the setting sun.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page212">[pg 212]</span><a name="Pg212" id="Pg212" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The driver of the last ambulance seemed
+to be ill; his head lay on the shoulder of a
+Sister of Charity who had taken the steering
+wheel.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The gendarme beside Maryette signalled
+her to stop; then he got out of the market
+cart and, lifting the body of the American
+muleteer in his powerful arms, strode across
+the road. The airman leaped from the market
+cart and followed him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Between them they drew out a stretcher,
+laid the muleteer on it, and shoved it back
+into the vehicle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a brief consultation, then they
+both came back to Maryette, who, rigid in her
+seat and very pale, sat watching the procedure
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The gendarme said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I go to Fontanes. There's a dressing station
+on the road. It appears that your young
+man's heart hasn't quite stopped yet——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl rose excitedly to her feet, but the
+gendarme gently forced her back into her seat
+and laid the reins in her hands. To the airman
+he growled:<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page213">[pg 213]</span><a name="Pg213" id="Pg213" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I did not tell this poor child to hope; I
+merely informed her that her friend yonder
+is still breathing. But he's as full of holes
+as a pepper pot!" He frowned at Maryette:
+"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Allons!</span></span> My comrade here goes to Sainte
+Lesse. Drive him there now, in God's name,
+before the Uhlans come clattering on your
+heels!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He turned, strode away to the ambulance
+once more, climbed in, and placed one big arm
+around the sick driver's shoulder, drawing the
+man's head down against his breast.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Bonne chance!</span></span>" he called back to the airman,
+who had now seated himself beside
+Maryette. "Explain to our little bell-mistress
+that we're taking her friend to a place where
+they fool Death every day—where to cheat
+the grave is a flourishing business! Good-bye!
+Courage! En route, brave Sister of the
+World!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Sister of Charity turned and smiled at
+Maryette, made her a friendly gesture, threw
+in the clutch, and, twisting the steering wheel
+with both sun-browned hands, guided the ma<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page214">[pg 214]</span><a name="Pg214" id="Pg214" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>chine
+out onto the road and sped away swiftly
+after the cloud of receding dust.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Drive on, mademoiselle," said the airman
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In his accent there was something poignantly
+familiar to Maryette, and she turned
+with a start and looked at him out of her
+dark blue, tear-marred eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> also American?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Gunner observer, American air squadron,
+mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"An airman?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. My machine was shot down in Nivelle
+woods an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a silence, as they jogged along between
+the hazel thickets in the warm afternoon
+sunshine:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Were you acquainted with my friend?"
+she asked wistfully.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"With Jack Burley? A little. I knew him
+in Calais."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The tears welled up into her eyes:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Could you tell me about him?... He was
+my first friend.... I did not understand him
+in the beginning, monsieur. Among children<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page215">[pg 215]</span><a name="Pg215" id="Pg215" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+it is different; I had known boys—as one
+knows them at school. But a man, never—and,
+indeed, I had not thought I had grown
+up until—he came—Djack—to live at our inn....
+The White Doe at Sainte Lesse, monsieur.
+My father keeps it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I see," nodded the airman gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes—that is the way. He came—my first
+friend, Djack—with mules from America, monsieur—one
+thousand mules. And God knows
+Sainte Lesse had never seen the like! As for
+me—I thought I was a child still—until—do
+you understand, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, Maryette."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, that is how I found I was grown up.
+He was a man, not a boy—that is how I found
+out. So he became my first friend. He was
+quite droll, and very big and kind—and timid—following
+me about—oh, it was quite droll
+for both of us, because at first I was afraid,
+but pretended not to be."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She smiled, then suddenly her eyes filled
+with the tragedy again, and she began to
+whimper softly to herself, with a faint sound
+like a hovering pigeon.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page216">[pg 216]</span><a name="Pg216" id="Pg216" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Tell me about him," said the airman.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She staunched her tears with the edge of
+her apron.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It was that way with us," she managed to
+say. "I was enchanted and a little frightened—it
+being my first friendship. He was so big,
+so droll, so kind.... We were on our way
+to Nivelle this morning. I was to play the
+carillon—being mistress of the bells at Sainte
+Lesse—and there was nobody else to play the
+bells at Nivelle; and the wounded desired to
+hear the carillon."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"So Djack came after me—hearing rumours
+of Prussians in that direction. They were
+true—oh, God!—and the Prussians caught us
+there where you found us."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She bowed her supple figure double on the
+seat, covering her face with her sun-browned
+hands.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman drove on, whistling "La Brabançonne"
+under his breath, and deep in
+thought. From time to time he glanced at
+the curved figure beside him; but he said no
+more for a long time.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page217">[pg 217]</span><a name="Pg217" id="Pg217" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Toward sunset they drove into the Sainte
+Lesse highway.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He spoke abruptly, dryly:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Anybody can weep for a friend. But few
+avenge their dead."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She looked up, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They drove under the old Sainte Lesse gate
+as he spoke. The sunlight lay pink across the
+walls and tipped the turret of the watch tower
+with fire.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The town seemed very still; nothing was
+to be seen on the long main street except here
+and there a Spahi horseman <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">en vidette</span></span>, and
+the clock-tower pigeons circling in their evening
+flight.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl, Maryette, looked dumbly into the
+fading daylight when the cart stopped before
+her door. The airman took her gently by
+the arm, and that awakened her. As though
+stiffened by fatigue she rose and climbed to
+the sidewalk. He took her unresisting arm
+and led her through the tunnelled wall and
+into the White Doe Inn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Get me some supper," he said. "It will
+take your mind off your troubles."<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page218">[pg 218]</span><a name="Pg218" id="Pg218" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Bread, wine, and some meat, if you have
+any. I'll be back in a few moments."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He left her at the inn door and went out
+into the street, whistling "La Brabançonne."
+A cavalryman directed him to the military
+telephone installed in the house of the notary
+across the street.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His papers identified him; the operator
+gave him his connection; they switched him
+to the headquarters of his air squadron, where
+he made his report.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Shot down?" came the sharp exclamation
+over the wire.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, sir, about eleven-thirty this morning
+on the north edge of Nivelle forest."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The machine?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Done for, sir. They have it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A scratch—nothing. I had to run."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What else have you to report?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman made his brief report in an
+unemotional voice. Ending it, he asked permission
+to volunteer for a special service.
+And for ten minutes the officer at the other<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page219">[pg 219]</span><a name="Pg219" id="Pg219" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+end of the wire listened to a proposition which
+interested him intensely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When the airman finished, the officer said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Wait till I relay this matter."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a quarter of an hour the airman waited.
+Finally the operator half turned on his camp
+chair and made a gesture for him to resume
+the receiver.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If you choose to volunteer for such service,"
+came the message, "it is approved. But understand—you
+are not ordered on such duty."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I understand. I volunteer."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very well. Munitions go to you immediately
+by automobile. It is expected that the
+wind will blow from the west by morning.
+By morning, also, all reserves will arrive in
+the west salient. What is to be your signal?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The carillon from the Nivelle belfry."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What tune?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"'La Brabançonne.' If not that, then the
+tocsin on the great bell, Clovis."</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the tiny café the crippled innkeeper sat,
+his aged, wistful eyes watching three leather-<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page220">[pg 220]</span><a name="Pg220" id="Pg220" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>clad
+airmen who had been whispering together
+around a table in the corner all the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They nodded in silence to the new arrival,
+and he joined them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Daylight faded in the room; the drum in
+the Sainte Lesse belfry, set to play before
+the hour sounded, began to turn aloft; the
+silvery notes of the carillon seemed to shower
+down from the sky, filling the twilight world
+with angelic melody. Then, in resonant
+beauty, the great bell, Bayard, measured the
+hour.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman who had just arrived went to a
+sink, washed the caked blood from his face
+and tied it up with a first-aid bandage. Then
+he began to pace the café, his head bent in
+thought, his nervous hands clasped behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The room was dusky when he came back
+to the table where his three comrades still
+sat consulting in whispers. The old innkeeper
+had fallen asleep on his chair by the
+window. There was no light in the room except
+what came from stars.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page221">[pg 221]</span><a name="Pg221" id="Pg221" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Well," said one of the airmen in a carefully
+modulated voice, "what are you going
+to do, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Stay."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What's the idea?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The bandaged airman rested both hands on
+the stained table-top:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We quit Nivelle tonight, but our reserves
+are already coming up and we are to retake
+Nivelle tomorrow. You flew over the town
+this morning, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All three said yes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You took photographs?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then you know that our trenches pass
+under the bell-tower?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very well. The wind is north. When the
+Boches enter our trenches they'll try to gas
+our salient while the wind holds. But west
+winds are predicted after sunrise tomorrow.
+I'm going to get into the Nivelle belfry tonight
+with a sack of bombs. I'm going to try
+to explode their gas cylinders if I can. The<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page222">[pg 222]</span><a name="Pg222" id="Pg222" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+tocsin is the signal for our people in the
+salient."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You're crazy!" remarked one of the airmen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No; I'll bluff it out. I'm to have a Boche
+uniform in a few moments."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">are</span></span> crazy! You know what they'll do
+to you, don't you, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The bandaged airman laughed, but in his
+eyes there was an odd flicker like a tiny flame.
+He whistled "La Brabançonne" and glanced
+coolly about the room.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One of the airmen said to another in a
+whisper:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There you are. Ever since they got his
+brother he's been figuring on landing a whole
+bunch of Huns at one clip. This is going to
+finish him, this business."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Another said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Don't try anything like that, Jim——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure, I'll try it," interrupted the bandaged
+airman pleasantly. "When are you fellows
+going?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Now."<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page223">[pg 223]</span><a name="Pg223" id="Pg223" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"All right. Take my report. Wait a moment——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"For God's sake, Jim, act sensibly!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The bandaged airman laughed, fished out
+from his clothing somewhere a note book and
+pencil. One of the others turned an electric
+torch on the table; the bandaged man made
+a little sketch, wrote a few lines which the
+others studied.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You can get that note to headquarters in
+half an hour, can't you, Ed?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"All right. I'll wait here for my answer."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You know what risk you run, Jim?"
+pleaded the youngest of the airmen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, certainly. All right, then. You'd better
+be on your way."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After they had left the room, the bandaged
+airman sat beside the table, thinking hard in
+the darkness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Presently from somewhere across the dusky
+river meadow the sudden roar of an airplane
+engine shattered the silence; then another
+whirring racket broke out; then another.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He heard presently the loud rattle of his<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page224">[pg 224]</span><a name="Pg224" id="Pg224" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+comrades' machines from high above him in
+the star-set sky; he heard the stertorous
+breathing of the old innkeeper; he heard again
+the crystalline bell-notes break out aloft, linger
+in linked harmonies, die away; he heard
+Bayard's mellow thunder proclaim the hour
+once more.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a watch on his wrist, but it had
+been put out of business when his machine
+fell in Nivelle woods. Glancing at it mechanically
+he saw the phosphorescent dial glimmer
+faintly under shattered hands that remained
+fixed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">An hour later Bayard shook the starlit
+silence ten times.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As the last stroke boomed majestically
+through the darkness an automobile came racing
+into the long, unlighted street of Sainte
+Lesse and halted, panting, at the door of the
+White Doe Inn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman went out to the doorstep, saluted
+the staff captain who leaned forward
+from the tonneau and turned a flash on him.
+Then, satisfied, the officer lifted a bundle from<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page225">[pg 225]</span><a name="Pg225" id="Pg225" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the tonneau and handed it to the airman. A
+letter was pinned to the bundle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After the airman had read the letter twice,
+the staff captain leaned a trifle nearer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you think it can be done?" he demanded
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very well. Here are your munitions, too."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He lifted from the tonneau a bomb-thrower's
+sack, heavy and full. The airman took
+it and saluted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It means the cross," said the staff captain
+dryly. And to the engineer chauffeur: "Let
+loose!"</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page226">[pg 226]</span><a name="Pg226" id="Pg226" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf37" id="pdf37"></a>
+<a name="toc38" id="toc38"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XIX</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+HONOUR</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a moment the airman stood watching
+and listening. The whir of the receding car
+died away in the night.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, carrying his bundle and his bomber's
+sack, heavy with latent death, he went into
+the inn and through the café, where the sleeping
+innkeeper sat huddled, and felt his way
+cautiously to the little dining room.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The wooden shutters had been closed; a
+candle flared on the table. Maryette sat beside
+it, her arms extended across the cloth,
+her head bowed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He thought she was asleep, but she looked
+up as his footfall sounded on the bare floor.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was so pale that he asked her if she
+felt ill.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page227">[pg 227]</span><a name="Pg227" id="Pg227" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No. I have been thinking of my friend,"
+she replied in a low but steady voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He may live," said the airman. "He was
+alive when we lifted him."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl nodded as though preoccupied—an
+odd, mysterious little nod, as though assenting
+to some intimate, inward suggestion
+of her own mind.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then she raised her dark blue eyes to the
+airman, who was still standing beside the
+table, the sack of bombs hanging from his
+left shoulder, the bundle under his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Here is supper," she said, looking around
+absently at the few dishes. Then she folded
+her hands on the table's edge and sat silent,
+as though lost in thought.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He placed the sack carefully on a cane chair
+beside him, the bundle on the floor, and seated
+himself opposite her. There was bread, meat,
+and a bottle of red wine. The girl declined
+to eat, saying that she had supped.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Your friend Jack," he said again, after a
+long silence, "—I have seen worse cases. He
+may live, mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"That," she said musingly, in her low, even<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page228">[pg 228]</span><a name="Pg228" id="Pg228" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+voice, "is now in God's hands." She gave
+the slightest movement to her shoulders, as
+though easing them a trifle of that burden.
+"I have prayed. You saw me weep. That is
+ended—so much. Now—" and across her eyes
+shot a blue gleam, "—now I am ready to listen
+to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span>! In the cart—out on the road
+there—you said that anybody can weep, but
+that few dare avenge."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," he drawled, "I said that."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very well, then; tell me <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">how</span></span>!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What do <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> want to avenge? Your
+friend?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"His country's honour, and mine! If he
+had been slain—otherwise—I should have perhaps
+mourned him, confident in the law of
+France. But—I have seen the Rhenish swine
+on French soil—I saw the Boches do this
+thing in France. It is not merely my friend
+I desire to avenge; it is the triple crime
+against his life, against the honour of his
+country and of mine." She had not raised
+her voice; had not stirred in her chair.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman, who had stopped eating, sat<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page229">[pg 229]</span><a name="Pg229" id="Pg229" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+with fork in hand, listening, regarding her
+intently.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," he said, resuming his meal, "I understand
+quite well what you mean. Some such
+philosophy sent my elder brother and me over
+here from New York—the wild hogs trampling
+through Belgium—the ferocious herds from
+the Rhine defacing, defiling, rending, obliterating
+all that civilized man has reverenced for
+centuries.... That's the idea—the world-wide
+menace of these unclean hordes—and
+the murderous filth of them!... They got
+my brother."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He shrugged, realizing that his face had
+flushed with the heat of inner fires.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Coolness does it," he added, almost apologetically,
+"—method and coolness. The world
+must keep its head clear: yellow fever and
+smallpox have been nearly stamped out; the
+Hun can be eliminated—with intelligence and
+clear thinking.... And I'm only an American
+airman who has been shot down like a
+winged heron whose comrades have lingered a
+little to comfort him and have gone on....
+Yes, but a winged heron can still stab, little<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page230">[pg 230]</span><a name="Pg230" id="Pg230" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+mistress of the bells.... And every blow
+counts.... Listen attentively—for Jack's sake ... and
+for the sake of France. For I am
+going to explain to you how you can strike—if
+you want to."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am listening," said Maryette serenely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We may not live through it. Even my
+orders do not send me to do this thing; they
+merely permit it. Are you contented to go
+with me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She nodded, the shadow of a smile on her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very well. You play the carillon?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You can play 'La Brabançonne'?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"On the bells?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He rose, went around the table, carrying
+his chair with him, and seated himself beside
+her. She inclined her pale, pretty head; he
+placed his lips close to her ear, speaking very
+slowly and distinctly, explaining his plan in
+every minute detail.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">While he was still speaking in a whisper,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page231">[pg 231]</span><a name="Pg231" id="Pg231" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the street outside filled with the trample of
+arriving cavalry. The Spahis were leaving
+the environs of Sainte Lesse; <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">chasseurs à
+cheval</span></span> followed from still farther afield, escorting
+ambulances from the Nivelle hospitals
+now being abandoned.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The trenches at Nivelle are being emptied,"
+said the airman.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And do you mean that you and I are to
+go there, to Nivelle?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"That is exactly what I mean. In an hour
+I shall be in the Nivelle belfry. Will you be
+there with me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "You can play
+'La Brabançonne' on the bells while I blow
+hell out of them in the redoubt below us!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The infantry from the Nivelle trenches began
+to pass. There were a few wagons, a
+battery of seventy-fives, a soup kitchen or two
+and a long column of mules from Fontanes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Two American muleteers knocked at the
+inn door and came stamping into the hallway,
+asking for a loaf and a bottle of red wine.
+Maryette rose from the table to find pro<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page232">[pg 232]</span><a name="Pg232" id="Pg232" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>visions;
+the airman got up also, saying in
+English:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where do you come from, boys?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"From Fontanes corral," they replied, surprised
+to hear their own tongue spoken.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you know Jack Burley, one of your
+people?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure. He's just been winged bad."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The Huns done him up something fierce,"
+added the other.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very bad?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maryette came back with a loaf and two
+bottles.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I seen him at Fontanes," replied the muleteer,
+taking the provisions from the girl.
+"He's all shot to pieces, but they say he'll pull
+through."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman turned to Maryette:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Jack will get well," he translated bluntly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl, who had just refused the money
+offered by the American muleteer, turned
+sharply, became deadly white for a second,
+then her face flamed with a hot and splendid
+colour.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One of the muleteers said:<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page233">[pg 233]</span><a name="Pg233" id="Pg233" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is this here his girl?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," nodded the airman.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The muleteer became voluble, patting Maryette
+on one arm and then on the other:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"J'ai vue Jack Burley, mamzelle, toot a
+l'heure! Il est bien, savvy voo! Il est tray,
+tray bien! Bocoo de trou! N'importe! <span class="tei tei-corr">Il</span>
+va tray bien! Savvy voo? Jack Burley, l'ami
+de voo! Comprenny? On va le guerir toot
+sweet! Wee! Wee! Wee!——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl flung her arms around the amazed
+muleteer's neck and kissed him impetuously
+on both cheeks. The muleteer blushed and
+his comrade fidgeted. Only the girl remained
+unembarrassed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Half laughing, half crying, terribly excited,
+and very lovely to look upon, she caught both
+muleteers by their sleeves and poured out a
+torrent of questions. With the airman's aid
+she extracted what information they had to
+offer; and they went their way, flustered, still
+blushing, clasping bread and bottles to their
+agitated breasts.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman looked her keenly in the eyes
+as she came back from the door, still intensely<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page234">[pg 234]</span><a name="Pg234" id="Pg234" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+excited, adorably transfigured. She opened
+her lips to speak—the happy exclamation on
+her lips, already half uttered, died there.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Well?" inquired the airman quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Dumb, still breathing rapidly, she returned
+his gaze in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Now that your friend Jack is going to live—what
+next?" asked the airman pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a full minute she continued to stare at
+him without a word.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No need to avenge him now," added the
+airman, watching her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No." She turned, gazed vaguely into
+space. After a moment she said, as though
+to herself: "But his country's honour—and
+mine? That reckoning still remains! Is it
+not true?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman said, with a trace of pity in his
+voice, for the girl seemed very young:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You need not go with me to Nivelle just
+because you promised."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh," she said simply, "I must go, of
+course—it being a question of our country's
+honour."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I do not ask it. Nor would Jack, your<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page235">[pg 235]</span><a name="Pg235" id="Pg235" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+friend. Nor would your own country ask it
+of you, Maryette Courtray."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She replied serenely:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I</span></span> ask it—of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">myself</span></span>. Do you understand,
+monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Perfectly." He glanced mechanically at
+his useless wrist watch, then inquired the
+time. She went to her room, returned, wearing
+a little jacket and carrying a pair of big,
+wooden gloves.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is after eleven o'clock," she said. "I
+brought my jacket because it is cold in all
+belfries. It will be cold in Nivelle, up there
+in the tower under Clovis."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You really mean to go with me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She did not even trouble to reply to the
+question. So he picked up his packet and his
+sack of bombs, and they went out, side by
+side, under the tunnelled wall.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Infantry from Nivelle trenches were still
+plodding along the dark street under the
+trees; dull gleams came from their helmets
+and bayonets in the obscure light of the stars.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl stood watching them for a few<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page236">[pg 236]</span><a name="Pg236" id="Pg236" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+moments, then her hand sought the airman's
+arm:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If there is to be a battle in the street here,
+my father cannot remain."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman nodded, went out into the street
+and spoke to a passing officer. He, in turn,
+signalled the driver of a motor omnibus to
+halt.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The little bell-mistress entered the tavern,
+followed by two soldiers. In a few moments
+they came out bearing, chair-fashion between
+them, the crippled innkeeper.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The old man was much alarmed, but his
+daughter followed beside him to the omnibus,
+in which were several lamed soldiers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Et toi?</span></span>" he quavered as they lifted him
+in. "What of thee, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I follow," she called out cheerily. "I rejoin
+thee—" the bus moved on—"God knows
+when or where!" she added under her breath.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman was whispering to a fat staff
+officer when she rejoined him. All three
+looked up in silence at the belfry of Sainte
+Lesse, looming above them, a monstrous
+shadow athwart the stars. A moment later<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page237">[pg 237]</span><a name="Pg237" id="Pg237" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+an automobile, arriving from the south, drew
+up in front of the inn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Bonne chance</span></span>," said the fat officer
+abruptly; he turned and waddled swiftly away
+in the darkness. They saw him mount his
+horse. His legs stuck out sideways.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Now," whispered the airman, with a nod
+to the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The little bell-mistress entered the car, her
+wooden gloves tucked under one arm. The
+airman followed with his packet and his sack
+of bombs. The chauffeur started his engine.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The middle of the road was free to him;
+the edges were occupied by the retreating infantry.
+As the car started, very slowly, cautiously
+feeling its way out of Sainte Lesse,
+the fat staff officer turned his horse and
+trotted up alongside. The car stopped, the
+engine still running.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's understood?" asked the officer in a low
+voice. "It's to be when we hear 'La Brabançonne'?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"When you hear 'La Brabançonne.'"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Understood," said the staff officer crisply,
+saluted and drew bridle. And the car moved<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page238">[pg 238]</span><a name="Pg238" id="Pg238" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+out into the starlit night along an endless
+column of retreating soldiers, who were laughing,
+smoking, and chatting as though not in
+the least depressed by their withdrawal from
+the dry and cosy trenches of Nivelle which
+they were abandoning.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page239">[pg 239]</span><a name="Pg239" id="Pg239" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf39" id="pdf39"></a>
+<a name="toc40" id="toc40"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XX</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+"LA BRABANÇONNE"</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">No shells were falling in Nivelle as they
+left the car on the outskirts of the town and
+entered the long main street. That was all
+of Nivelle, a long, treeless main street from
+which branched a few alleys.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Smouldering débris of what had been houses
+illuminated the street. There were no other
+lights. Nothing stirred except a gaunt cat
+flitting like a shadow along the gutter. There
+was not a sound save the faint stirring of
+the cinders over which pale flames played
+fitfully.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Abandoned trenches ditched the little town
+in every direction; temporary shelters made
+of boughs, sheds, and broken-down wagons
+stood along the street. Otherwise, all impedimenta,
+materials, and stores had appar<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page240">[pg 240]</span><a name="Pg240" id="Pg240" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ently
+been removed by the retreating columns.
+There was little wreckage except the burning
+débris of the few shell-struck houses—a few
+rags, a few piles of firewood, a bundle of
+straw and hay here and there.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">High, mounting toward the stars, the ancient
+tower with its gilded hippogriff dominated
+the place—a vast, vague shape brooding
+over the single mile-long street and grimy
+alleys branching from it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nobody guarded the portal; the ancient
+doors stood wide open; pitch darkness reigned
+within.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you know the way?" whispered the
+airman.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. Take hold of my hand."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He dared not use his flash. Carrying bundle
+and bombsack under one arm, he sought
+for her hand and encountered it. Cool, slim
+fingers closed over his.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a few moments' stealthy advance, she
+whispered:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Here are the stairs. Be careful; they
+twist."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She started upward, feeling with her feet<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page241">[pg 241]</span><a name="Pg241" id="Pg241" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+for every stone step. The ascent appeared
+to be interminable; the narrowing stone spiral
+seemed to have no end. Her hand grew warm
+within his own.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But at last they felt a fresh wind blowing
+and caught a glimpse of stars above them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, tier on tier, the bells of the carillon,
+fixed to their great beams, appeared above
+them—a shadowy, bewildering wilderness of
+bells, rising, rank above rank, until they vanished
+in the darkness overhead. Beside them,
+almost touching them, loomed the great bell
+Clovis, a gigantic mass bulking enormously
+in that shadowy place.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A sonorous wind flowed through the open
+tower, eddying among the bells—a strong,
+keen night wind blowing from the north.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman walked to the south parapet
+and looked down. Below him in the starlight,
+like an indistinct map spread out, lay the
+Nivelle redoubt and the trench with its
+gabions, its sand bags, its timbers, its dugouts.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Very far away to the southeast they could
+see the glare of rockets and exploding shells,
+but the sound of the bombardment did not<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page242">[pg 242]</span><a name="Pg242" id="Pg242" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+reach them. North, a single searchlight
+played and switched across the clouds; west,
+all was dark.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They'll arrive just before dawn," said the
+airman, placing his sack of bombs on the
+pavement under the parapet. "Come, little
+bell-mistress, take me to see your keyboard."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is below—a few steps. This way—if
+you will follow me——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She turned to the stone stairs again, descended
+a dozen steps, opened a door on a
+narrow landing.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And there, in the starlight, he saw the keyboard
+and the bewildering maze of wires running
+up and branching like a huge web toward
+the tiers of bells above.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looked at the keyboard curiously. The
+little mistress of the bells displayed the two
+wooden gloves with which she encased her
+hands when she played the carillon.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It would be impossible for one to play
+unless one's hands are armoured," she explained.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is almost a lost art," he mused aloud,
+"—this playing the carillon—this wonderful<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page243">[pg 243]</span><a name="Pg243" id="Pg243" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+bell-music of the middle ages. There are few
+great bell-masters in this day."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Few," she said dreamily.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And"—he turned and stared at her—"few
+mistresses of the bells, I imagine."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I think I am the only one in France or in
+Flanders.... And there are few carillons
+left. The Huns are battering them down.
+Towers of the ancient ages are falling everywhere
+in Flanders and in France under their
+shell fire. Very soon there will be no more
+of the old carillons left; no more bell-music
+in the world." She sighed heavily. "It is a
+pity."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She seated herself at the keyboard.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Dare I play?" she asked, looking up over
+her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No; it would only mean a shell from the
+Huns."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She nodded, laid the wooden gloves beside
+her and let her delicate hands wander over
+the mute keys.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Leaning beside her the airman quietly explained
+the plan they were to follow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"With dawn they will come creeping into<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page244">[pg 244]</span><a name="Pg244" id="Pg244" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Nivelle—the Huns," he said. "I have one of
+their officers' uniforms in that bundle above.
+I shall try to pass as a general officer. You
+see, I speak German. My education was
+partly ruined in Germany. So I'll get on very
+well, I expect.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And directly under us is the trench and
+the main redoubt. They'll occupy that first
+thing. They'll swarm there—the whole trench
+will be crawling with them. They'll install
+their gas cylinders at once, this wind being
+their wind.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But with sunrise the wind changes—and
+whether it changes or not, I don't care," he
+added. "I've got them at last where I want
+them."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl looked up at him. He smiled that
+terrifying smile of his:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"With the explosion of my first bomb among
+their gas cylinders you are to start these bells
+above us. Are you afraid?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You are to play 'La Brabançonne.' That
+is the signal to our trenches."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I have often played it," she said coolly.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page245">[pg 245]</span><a name="Pg245" id="Pg245" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Not in the teeth of a barbarian army. Not
+in the faces of a murderous soldiery."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl sat quite still for a few moments;
+then looking up at him, and very pale in the
+starlight:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you think they will tear me to pieces,
+monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I mean to hold those stairs with my sack
+of bombs until our people enter the trenches.
+If they can do it in an hour we will be all
+right."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is only a half-hour affair from our
+salient. I allow our people an hour."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But if, even now, you had rather go
+back——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">No!</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"There is no disgrace in going back."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You said once, 'anybody can weep for
+friend and country. Few avenge either.' I
+am—happy—to be among the few."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He nodded. After a moment he said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'll bet you something. My country is all<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page246">[pg 246]</span><a name="Pg246" id="Pg246" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+right, but it's sick. It's<br /> got a nauseous dose
+of verbiage to spew up—something it's swallowed—something
+about being too proud to
+fight.... My brother and I couldn't stand
+it, so we came to France.... He was in the
+photo air service. He was in mufti—and
+about two miles up, I believe. Six Huns went
+for him.... And winged him. He had to
+land behind their lines.... In mufti....
+Well—I've never found courage to hear the
+details. I can't stand them—yet."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Your brother—is dead, monsieur?" she
+asked timidly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, yes. With—circumstances. Well, then—after
+that, from an ordinary, commonplace
+man I became a machine for the extermination
+of vermin. That's all I am—an animated magazine
+of Persian powder—or I do it in any
+handy way. It's not a sporting proposition,
+you see, just get rid of them any old way.
+You don't understand, do you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A—little."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But it's slow work—slow work," he muttered
+vaguely, "—and the world is crawling—crawling
+with them. But if God guides my<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page247">[pg 247]</span><a name="Pg247" id="Pg247" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+bomb this time and if I hit one of their gas
+cylinders—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">that</span></span> ought to be worth while."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the starlight his features became tense
+and terrible; she shivered in her threadbare
+jacket.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a few moments' silence he went away
+up the steps to put on his German uniform.
+When he descended again she had a troubled
+question for him to answer:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But how shall you account for me, a French
+girl, monsieur, if they come to the belfry?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A heavy flush darkened his face:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Little mistress of the bells, I shall pretend
+to be what the Huns are. Do you know how
+they treat French women?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I have heard," she said faintly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then if they come and find you here as
+my—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">prisoner</span></span>—they will think they understand."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The colour flamed in her face and she bowed
+it, resting her elbows on the keyboard.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Come," he said, "don't be distressed. Does
+it matter what a Hun thinks? Come; let's
+be cheerful. Can you hum for me 'La Brabançonne'?"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page248">[pg 248]</span><a name="Pg248" id="Pg248" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She did not reply.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Well, never mind," he said. "But it's a
+grand battle anthem.... We Americans have
+one.... It's out of fashion. And after all,
+I had rather hear 'La Brabançonne' when the
+time comes.... What a terrible admission!
+But what Americans have done to my country
+is far more terrible. The nation's sick—sick!...
+I prefer 'La Brabançonne' for the time
+being."</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Prussians entered Nivelle a little before
+dawn. The airman had been watching
+the street below. Down there in the slight
+glow from the cinders of what once had been
+a cottage a cat had been squatting, staring
+at the bed of coals, as though she were once
+more installed upon the family hearthstone.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then something unseen as yet by the airman
+attracted the animal's attention. Alert,
+crouching, she stared down the vista of dark,
+deserted houses, then turned and fled like a
+ghost.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a long while the airman perceived
+nothing. Suddenly close to the house façades<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page249">[pg 249]</span><a name="Pg249" id="Pg249" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+on either side of the street, shadowy forms
+came gliding forward.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They passed the glowing embers and went
+on toward Sainte-Lesse; jägers, with knapsacks
+on back and rifles trailing; and on their
+heads oddly shaped pot helmets with battered
+looking visors.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One or two motorcyclists followed, whizzing
+through the desolate street and into the
+country beyond.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a few minutes, out of the throat of
+the darkness emerged a solid column of infantry.
+In a moment, beneath the bell tower, the
+ground was swarming with Huns; every inch
+of the earth became infested with them; fields,
+hedges, alleys crawled alive with Germans.
+They overran every road, every street, every
+inch of open country; their wagons choked the
+main thoroughfare, they were already establishing
+themselves in the redoubt below, in the
+trench, running in and out of dugouts and all
+over scarp, counter-scarp, parades and parapet,
+ant-like in energy, busy with machine gun,
+trench mortar, installing telephones, searchlights,
+periscopes, machine guns.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page250">[pg 250]</span><a name="Pg250" id="Pg250" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Automobiles arrived—two armoured cars
+and grey passenger machines in which there
+were officers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman laid his hand on Maryette's arm.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Little bell-mistress," he said, "German officers
+are coming into the tower. I want them
+to find you in my arms when they come up
+into this belfry. Understand me, and forgive
+me."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I—understand," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Play your part bravely. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He put his arms around her; they stood
+rigid, listening.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Now!" he whispered, and drew her close,
+kissing her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Spurred boots clattered on the stone floor:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Herr Je!" exclaimed an astonished voice.
+Somebody laughed. But the airman coolly
+pushed the girl aside, and as the faint grey
+light of dawn fell on his field uniform bearing
+the ribbon of the iron cross, two pairs of
+spurred heels hastily clinked together and two
+hands flew to the oddly shaped helmet visors.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Also!" exclaimed the airman in a mincing<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page251">[pg 251]</span><a name="Pg251" id="Pg251" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Berlin accent. "When I require a corps of
+observers I usually send my aide. That being
+now quite perfectly understood, you gentlemen
+will give yourselves the trouble to descend
+as you have come. Further, you will place a
+sentry at the tower door, and inform enquirers
+that General Count von Gierdorff and his
+staff are occupying the Nivelle belfry for purposes
+of observation."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The astounded officers saluted steadily; and
+if they imagined that the mythical staff of this
+general officer was clustered aloft somewhere
+up there where the bells hung it was impossible
+to tell by the strained expressions on their
+wooden countenances.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">However, it was evidently perfectly plain
+to them what the high Excellenz was about in
+this vaulted room where wires led aloft to
+an unseen carillon on the landing in the belfry
+above.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman nodded; they went. And when
+their clattering steps echoed far below on the
+spiral stone stairs, the airman motioned to
+the little bell-mistress. She followed him up
+the short flight to where the bells hung.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page252">[pg 252]</span><a name="Pg252" id="Pg252" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We're in for it now," he said. "If High
+Command comes into this place to investigate
+then I shall have to hold those stairs....
+It's growing quite light in the east. Which
+way is the wind?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"North," she said in a steady voice. She
+was terribly pale.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went to the parapet and looked over,
+half wondering, perhaps, whether he would
+receive a rifle shot through the head.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Far below at the foot of the bell-tower
+the dimly discerned Nivelle redoubt, swarming
+with men, was being armed; and, to the south,
+wired he thought, but could not see distinctly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, as the dusk of early dawn grew
+greyer, the first rifle shots rattled out in
+the west. The French salient was saluting
+the wire-stringers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Back under shelter they tumbled; whistles
+sounded distantly; a trench mortar crashed;
+then the accentless tattoo of machine guns
+broke from every emplacement.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The east is turning a little yellow," he said
+calmly. "I believe this matter is going through.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page253">[pg 253]</span><a name="Pg253" id="Pg253" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Toss some dust into the air. Which way?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"North," said the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Good. I think they're placing their cylinders.
+I think I can see them laying their coils.
+I'm certain of it. What luck!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman was becoming excited and his
+voice trembled a little with the effort to control
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's growing pink in the east. Try a handful
+of dust again," he suggested almost gaily.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"North," she said briefly, watching the dust
+aloft.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Luck's with us! Look at the east! If
+their High Command keeps his nose out of
+this place!—if he <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">does</span></span>!—Look at the east, little
+bell-mistress! It's all gold! There's pink
+up higher. I can see a faint tinge of blue,
+too. Can you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I think so."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A minute dragged like a year in prison.
+Then:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Try the wind again," he said in a strained
+voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"North."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, luck! Luck!" he muttered, slinging his<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page254">[pg 254]</span><a name="Pg254" id="Pg254" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+sack of bombs over his shoulder. "We've
+got them! We've certainly got them! What's
+that! An airplane! Look, little girl—one of
+our planes is up. There's another! Which
+way is the wind?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"North."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Got 'em!" he snapped between his teeth.
+"Run over to the stairs. Listen! Is anybody
+coming up?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I can hear nothing."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Stand there and listen. Never mind the
+row the guns are making; listen for somebody
+on the stairs. Look how light it's getting!
+The sun will push up before many
+minutes. We've got 'em! <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Got 'em!</span></span> Wet
+your finger and try the wind!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"North."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"North here, too. What do you know about
+that! Luck! Luck's with us! And we've got
+'em—!" he lifted his clenched hand and
+laughed at her. "Like that!" he said, his blue
+eyes blazing. "They're getting ready to gas
+below. Look at 'em! Glory to God! I can
+see two cylinders directly under me. They're
+manning the nozzles! Every man is masking<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page255">[pg 255]</span><a name="Pg255" id="Pg255" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+at his post! Anybody on the stairs! Any
+sound?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"None."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are you certain?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is as still as death below."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Try the dust. The wind's changing, I
+think. Quick! Which way?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West.</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, glory! Glory to God! They feel it
+below! They know. The wind has changed.
+Off came their respirators. No gas this morning,
+eh? Yes, by God, there will be gas enough
+for all——!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He caught up a bomb, leaned over the parapet,
+held it aloft, poised, aiming steadily for
+one second of concentrated coördination of
+mind and muscle. Then straight down he
+launched it. The cylinder beneath him was
+shattered and a green geyser of gas burst from
+it deluging the trench.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Already a second bomb followed the first,
+then another, and then a third; and with the
+last report another cylinder in the trench below
+burst into thick green billows of death and
+flowed over the ground, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">west</span></span>.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page256">[pg 256]</span><a name="Pg256" id="Pg256" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Two more bombs whirled down, bursting on
+a machine gun; then the airman turned with a
+cry of triumph, and at the same instant the
+sun rose above the hills and flung a golden
+ray straight across his face.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">To Maryette the man stood transfigured,
+like the Blazing Guardian of the Flaming
+Sword.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ring out your Brabançonne!" he cried.
+"Let the Huns hear the war song of the land
+they've trampled! Now! Little bell-mistress,
+arm your white hands with your wooden gloves
+and make this old carillon speak in brass and
+iron!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He caught her by the arm; they ran down
+the short flight of steps; she drew on her
+wooden gloves and sprang to the keyboard.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'll hold the stairs!" he cried. "I can
+hold these stairs for an hour against the
+whole world in arms. Now, then! The Brabançonne!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Above the roaring confusion and the explosions
+far below, from high up in the sky a
+clear bell note floated as though out of
+Heaven itself—another, others, crystalline<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page257">[pg 257]</span><a name="Pg257" id="Pg257" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+clear, imperious, filling all the sky with their
+amazing and terrible beauty.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The mistress of the bells struck the keyboard
+with armoured hands—beautiful, slender,
+avenging hands; the bells above her
+crashed out into the battle-song of Flanders,
+filling sky and earth with its splendid defiance
+of the Hun.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman, bomb in hand, stood at the
+head of the stone stairs; the ancient tower
+rocked with the fiercely magnificent anthem
+of revolt—the war cry of a devastated land—the
+land that died to save the world—the
+martyr, Belgium, still prone in the deathly
+trance awaiting her certain resurrection.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The rising sun struck the tower where
+three score ancient bells poured from metal
+throats their heavenly summons to battle!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Hun heard it, tumbling, clawing, strangling
+below in the hellish vapours of his own
+death-fog; and now, from the rear his sky-guns
+hurled shrapnel at the carillon in the
+belfry of Nivelle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Clouds possessed the tower—soft, white,
+fleecy clouds rolling, unfolding, floating about<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page258">[pg 258]</span><a name="Pg258" id="Pg258" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the ancient buttresses and gargoyles. An iron
+hail rained on slate and parapet and resounding
+bell-metal. But the bells pealed and pealed
+in clear-voiced beauty, and Clovis, the great
+iron giant, hung, scarcely sonorous under the
+shrapnel rain.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly there were bayonets on the stairs—the
+clatter of heavy feet—alien faces on the
+threshold. Then a bomb flew, and the terrible
+crash cleared the stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Twice more the clatter came with the clank
+of bayonets and guttural cries; but both died
+out in the infernal roar of the grenades exploding
+inside that stony spiral. And no more
+bayonets flickered on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman, frozen to a statue, listened.
+Again and again he thought he could hear
+bugles, but the roar from below blotted out
+the distant call.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Little bell-mistress!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She turned her head, her hands still striking
+the keyboard. He spoke through the confusion
+of the place:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sound the tocsin!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then Clovis thundered from the belfry like<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page259">[pg 259]</span><a name="Pg259" id="Pg259" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a great gun fired, booming out over the world.
+Around the iron colossus shrapnel swept in
+gusts; Clovis thundered on, annihilating all
+sound except his own tremendous voice, heedless
+of shell and bullet, disdainful of the hell's
+shambles below, where masked French infantry
+were already leaping the parapets of Nivelle
+Redoubt into the squirming masses below.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman shouted at her through the
+tumult:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They murdered my brother. Did I tell
+you? They hacked him to slivers with their
+bayonets. I've settled the reckoning down in
+the gas there—their own green gas, damn
+them! You don't understand what I say, do
+you? He was my brother——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A frightful explosion blew in the oubliette;
+the room rattled and clattered with shrapnel.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The airman swayed where he stood in the
+swirling smoke, lurched up against the stone
+coping, slid down to his knees.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When his eyes opened the little bell-mistress
+was bending over him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They got me," he gasped. All the front of
+his tunic was sopping red.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page260">[pg 260]</span><a name="Pg260" id="Pg260" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They said it meant the cross—if I made
+good.... Are you hurt?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, no!" she whispered. "But you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Go on and play!" he whispered with a terrible
+effort.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The Brabançonne! Quick!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She went, whimpering. Standing before the
+keyboard she pulled on her wooden gloves and
+struck the keys.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Out over the infernal uproar below pealed
+the bells; the morning sky rang with the noble
+summons to all brave men. Once more the
+ancient tower trembled with the mighty out-crash
+of the battle hymn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">With the last note she turned and looked
+down at him where he lay against the wall. He
+opened his glazing eyes and tried to smile at
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Bully," he whispered. "Could you recite—the
+words—to me—just so I could hear them
+on my way—West?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She left the keyboard, came and dropped
+on her knees beside him; and closing her eyes
+to check the tears sang in a low, tremulous,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page261">[pg 261]</span><a name="Pg261" id="Pg261" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+girlish voice, De Lonlay's words, to the battle
+anthem of revolution.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Bully," he sighed. And spoke no more on
+earth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But the little mistress of the bells did not
+know his soul had passed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And the French officer who came leaping up
+the stairs, pistol lifted, halted in astonishment
+to see a dead man lying beside a sack of
+bombs and a young girl on her knees beside
+him, weeping and tremblingly intoning "La
+Brabançonne."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page262">[pg 262]</span><a name="Pg262" id="Pg262" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf41" id="pdf41"></a>
+<a name="toc42" id="toc42"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XXI</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+THE GARDENER</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A week later, toward noon, as usual, the
+two American, muleteers, Smith and Glenn,
+sauntered over from their corral to the White
+Doe Tavern where, it being a meatless day,
+they ate largely of potato soup and of a
+tench, smoking hot.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The tench had been caught that morning off
+the back doorstep, which was an ancient and
+mossy slab of limestone let into the coping of
+the river wall.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Jean Courtray, the crippled inn-keeper,
+caught it. All that morning he had sat there
+in the sun on the river wall, half dozing, opening
+his dim eyes at intervals to gaze at his
+painted quill afloat among the water weeds of
+the little river Lesse. At intervals, too, he
+turned his head with that peculiar movement<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page263">[pg 263]</span><a name="Pg263" id="Pg263" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of the old, and peered at his daughter, Maryette,
+and the Belgian gardener who were working
+among the potatoes in the garden.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And at last he had hooked his fish and the
+emaciated young Belgian dropped his hoe and
+came over and released it from the hook where
+it lay flopping and quivering and glittering
+among the wild grasses on the river bank. And
+that was how Kid Glenn and Sticky Smith,
+American muleteers on duty at Saint Lesse,
+came to lunch on freshly caught tench at the
+Inn of the White Doe.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After luncheon, agreeably satiated, they rose
+from the table in the little dining room and
+strolled out to the garden in the rear of the
+inn, their Mexican spurs clanking. Maryette
+heard them; they tipped their caps to her;
+she acknowledged their salute gravely and continued
+to cultivate her garden with a hoe, the
+blond, consumptive Belgian trundling a rickety
+cultivator at her heels.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Look, Stick," drawled Glenn. "Maryette's
+got her decoration on."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">From where they lounged by the river wall<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page264">[pg 264]</span><a name="Pg264" id="Pg264" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+they could see the cross of the Legion pinned
+to the girl's blouse.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Both muleteers had been present at the investment
+the day before, when a general officer
+arrived from Paris and the entire garrison of
+Sainte Lesse had been paraded—an impressive
+total of three dozen men—six gendarmes and
+a brigadier; one remount sub-lieutenant and
+twenty troopers; a veterinary, two white American
+muleteers, and five American negro hostlers
+from Baton Rouge.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl had nearly died of shyness during
+the ceremony, had endured the accolade with
+crimson cheeks, had stammered a whispered
+response to the congratulations of neighbors
+who had gathered to see the little bell-mistress
+of Sainte Lesse honoured by the country which
+she had served in the belfry of Nivelle.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As she came past Smith and Glenn, trailing
+her hoe, the latter now sufficiently proficient
+in French, said gaily:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Have you heard from Jack again, Mamzelle Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl blushed:<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page265">[pg 265]</span><a name="Pg265" id="Pg265" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I hear from Djack by every mail," she
+said, with all the transparent honesty that
+characterized her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Smith grinned:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Just like that! Well, tell him from me
+to quit fooling away his time in a hospital
+and come and get you or somebody is going
+to steal you."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl was very happy; she stood there
+in the September sunshine leaning on her hoe
+and gazing half shyly, half humorously down
+the river where a string of American mules
+was being watered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mellow Ethiopian laughter sounded from the
+distance as the Baton Rouge negroes exchanged
+pleasantries in limited French with
+a couple of gendarmes on the bank above them.
+And there, in the sunshine of the little garden
+by the river, war and death seemed very far
+away. Only at intervals the veering breeze
+brought to Sainte Lesse the immense vibration
+of the cannonade; only at intervals the
+high sky-clatter of an airplane reminded the
+village that the front was only a little north<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page266">[pg 266]</span><a name="Pg266" id="Pg266" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of Nivelle, and that what had been Nivelle
+was not so very far away.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If you were <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">my</span></span> girl, Maryette," remarked
+Smith, "I'd die of worry in that hospital."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">You</span></span> might have reason to, Monsieur," retorted
+the girl demurely. "But you see it's
+Djack who is convalescing, not you."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had become accustomed to the ceaseless
+banter of Burley's two comrades—a banter
+entirely American, and which at first she was
+unable to understand. But now all things
+American, including accent and odd, perverted
+humour, had become very dear to her. The
+clink-clank of the muleteer's big spurs always
+set her heart beating; the sight of an arriving
+convoy from the Channel port thrilled her,
+and to her the trample of mules, the shouts
+of foreign negroes, the drawling, broken French
+spoken by the white muleteers made heavenly
+real to her the dream which love had so suddenly
+invaded, and into which, as suddenly,
+strode Death, clutching at Love.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had beaten him off—she had—or God
+had—routed Death, driven him from the dream.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page267">[pg 267]</span><a name="Pg267" id="Pg267" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+For it was a dream to her still, and she thought
+she could never be able to comprehend the
+magic reality of it, even when at last her
+man, "Djack," came back to prove the blessed
+miracle which held her in the magic of its
+thrall.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Who's the guy with the wheelbarrow?" inquired
+Sticky Smith, rolling a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Karl, his name is," she answered; "—a
+Belgian refugee."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He looks like a Hun to me," remarked
+Glenn, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He has his papers," said the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Glenn shrugged.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"With his little pink eyes of a pig and his
+whitish hair and eyebrows—well, maybe they
+make 'em like that in Belgium."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Papers," added Smith, "<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">can</span></span> be swiped."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl shook her head:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He's an invalid student from Ypres. He
+looks quite ill, I think."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He looks the lunger, all right. But Huns
+have it, too. What does he do—wander about
+town at will?"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page268">[pg 268]</span><a name="Pg268" id="Pg268" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He works for us, monsieur. Your suspicions
+are harsh. Karl is quite harmless, poor
+boy."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What does he do after hours?" demanded
+Sticky Smith, watching the manœuvres of the
+sickly blond youth and the wheelbarrow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Monsieur Smith, if you knew how innocent
+is his pastime!" she exclaimed, laughing. "He
+collects and studies moths and butterflies. Is
+there, if you please, a mania more harmless in
+the world?... And now I must return to my
+work, messieurs."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As the two muleteers strode clanking away
+toward the canal in the meadow, the blond
+youth turned his head and looked after them
+out of eyes which were naturally pale and
+small, and which, as he watched the two Americans,
+seemed to grow paler and smaller yet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That afternoon old Courtray, swathed in a
+shawl, sat on the mossy doorstep and fished
+among the water weeds of the river. The sun
+was low; work in the garden had ended.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maryette had gone up into her belfry to
+play the sunset hymn on the noble old carillon.
+Through the sunset sky the lovely bell-notes<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page269">[pg 269]</span><a name="Pg269" id="Pg269" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+floated far and wide, exquisitely chaste and
+aloof as the high-showering ecstasy of a skylark.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As always the little village looked upward
+and listened, pausing in its humble duties as
+long as their little bell-mistress remained in
+her tower.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After the hymn she played "Myn hart is vol
+verlangen" and "Het Lied der Vlamingen,"
+and ended with the delicate, bewitching little
+folk-song, "Myn Vryer," by Hasselt.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then in the red glow of the setting sun the
+girl laid aside her wooden gloves, rose from
+the ancient keyboard, wound up the drum, and,
+her duty done for the evening, came down out
+of the tower among the transparent evening
+shadows of the tree-lined village street.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The sun hung over Nivelle hills, which had
+turned to amethyst. Sunbeams laced the little
+river in a red net through which old Courtray's
+quill stemmed the ripples. He still
+clutched his fishing pole, but his eyes were
+closed, his chin resting on his chest.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maryette came silently into the garden and
+looked at her father—looked at the blond Karl<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page270">[pg 270]</span><a name="Pg270" id="Pg270" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+seated on the river wall beside the dozing
+angler. The blond youth had a box on his
+knees into which he was intently peering.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl came to the river wall and seated
+herself at her father's feet. The Belgian refugee
+student had already risen to attention, his
+heels together, but Maryette signed him to be
+seated again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What have you found now, Karl?" she inquired
+in a cautiously modulated voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ah, mademoiselle, fancy! I haff by chance
+with my cultivator among your potatoes already
+twenty pupæ of the magnificent moth, Sphinx
+Atropos, upturned! See! Regard them, mademoiselle!
+What lucky chance! What fortune
+for me, an entomologist, this wonderful sphinx
+moth to discover encased within its chrysalis!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl smiled at his enthusiasm:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But, Karl, those funny, smooth brown
+things which resemble little polished evergreen-cones
+are not rare in my garden. Often, when
+spading or hoeing among the potato vines, I
+uncover them."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Mademoiselle, the caterpillar which makes
+this chrysalis feeds by night on the leaves of<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page271">[pg 271]</span><a name="Pg271" id="Pg271" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the potato, and, when ready to transform, burrows
+into the earth to become a <span class="tei tei-corr">chrysalis</span> or
+pupa, as we call it. That iss why mademoiselle
+has often disinterred the pupæ of this largest
+and strangest of our native sphinx-moths."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maryette leaned over and looked into the
+wooden box, where lay the chrysalides.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What kind of moth do they make?" she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He blinked his small, pale eyes:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The Death's Head," he said, complacently.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl recoiled involuntarily:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath,
+"—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">that</span></span> creature!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For everywhere in France the great moth,
+with its strange and ominous markings, is perfectly
+well known. To the superstitious it is
+a creature of evil omen in its fulvous, black
+and lead-coloured livery of death. For the
+broad, furry thorax bears a skull, and the big,
+mousy body the yellow ribs of a skeleton.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Measuring often more than five inches across
+the expanded wings, its formidable size alone
+might be sufficient to inspire alarm, but in addition
+it possesses a horrid attribute unknown<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page272">[pg 272]</span><a name="Pg272" id="Pg272" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+among other moths and butterflies; it can
+utter a cry—a tiny shrill, shuddering complaint.
+Small wonder, perhaps, that the peasant
+holds it in horror—this sleek, furry, powerfully
+winged creature marked with skull and
+bones, which whirrs through the night and
+comes thudding against the window, and
+shrieks horridly when touched by a human
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"So <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">that</span></span> is what turns into the Death's Head
+moth," said the girl in a low voice as though
+to herself. "I never knew it. I thought those
+things were legless cock-chafers when I dug
+them out of potato hills. Karl, why do you
+keep them?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ah, mademoiselle! To study them. To
+breed from them the moth. The Death's Head
+is magnificent."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"God made it," admitted the girl with a
+faint shudder, "but I am afraid I could not
+love it. When do they hatch out?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is time now. It is not like others of the
+sphinx family. Incubation requires but a few
+weeks. These are nearly ready to emerge,
+mademoiselle."<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page273">[pg 273]</span><a name="Pg273" id="Pg273" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh. And then what do they do?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They mate."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was silent.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The males seek the females," he said in his
+pedantic, monotonous voice. "And so ardent
+are the lovers that although there be no female
+moth within five, eight, perhaps ten miles, yet
+will her lover surely search through the night
+for her and find her."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maryette shuddered again in spite of herself.
+The thought of this creature marked
+with the emblems of death and possessed of
+ardour, too, was distasteful.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Amour macabre—what an unpleasant
+thought, Karl. I do not care for your Death's
+Head and for the history of their amours."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She turned and gently laid her head on her
+father's knees. The young man regarded her
+with a pallid sneer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Addressing her back, still holding his boxful
+of pupæ on his bony knees, he said with
+the sneer quite audible in his voice:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Your famous savant, Fabre, first inspired
+me to study the sex habits of the Death's
+Head."<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page274">[pg 274]</span><a name="Pg274" id="Pg274" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She made no reply, her cheek resting on her
+father's knees.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It was because of his wonderful experiments
+with the Great Peacock moth and with
+others of the genus that I have studied to
+acquaint myself concerning the amours of the
+Death's Head. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">And I have discovered that he
+will find the female even if she be miles and
+miles away.</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The man was grinning now in the dusk—grinning
+like a skull; but the girl's back was
+still turned and she merely found something
+in his voice not quite agreeable.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I think," she said in a low, quiet voice,
+"that I have now heard sufficient about the
+Death's Head moth."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Ah—have I offended mademoiselle? I ask
+a thousand pardons——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Old Courtray awoke in the dusk.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"My quill, Maryette," he muttered, "—see if
+it floats yet?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl bent over the water and strained
+her eyes. Her father tested the line with shaky
+hands. There was no fish on the hook.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Voyons!</span></span> The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">asticot</span></span> also is gone. Some<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page275">[pg 275]</span><a name="Pg275" id="Pg275" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+robber fish has been nibbling!" exclaimed the
+girl cheerfully, reeling in the line. "Father,
+one cannot fish and doze at the same time."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Eternal vigilance is the price of success—in
+peace as well as in war," said Karl, the student,
+as he aided Maryette to raise her father
+from the chair.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Vigilance," repeated the girl. "Yes, always
+now in France. Because always the
+enemy is listening." ... Her strong young
+arm around her father, she traversed the garden
+slowly toward the house. A pleasant
+odour came from the kitchen of the White Doe,
+where an old peasant woman was cooking.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page276">[pg 276]</span><a name="Pg276" id="Pg276" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf43" id="pdf43"></a>
+<a name="toc44" id="toc44"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XXII</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+THE SUSPECT</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That night she wrote to her lover at the
+great hospital in the south, where he lay slowly
+growing well:</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">My Djack:</span></span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Today has been very beautiful, made so for me by my thoughts of you
+and by a warm September sun which makes for human happiness, too.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">I am wearing my ribbon of the Legion. Ah, my Djack, it belongs more
+rightly to you, who would not let me go alone to Nivelle that
+dreadful day. Why do they not give you the cross? They must be very
+stupid in Paris.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">All day my happy thoughts have been with you, my Djack. It all seems
+a blessed dream that we love each other. And I—oh, how could I have
+been so ignorant, so silly, not to know it sooner than I did!</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">I don't know; I thought it was friendship. And that was so wonderful
+to me that I never dreamed any other miracle possible!</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Allons</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">, my Djack. Come and instruct me quickly, </span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page277">[pg 277]</span><a name="Pg277" id="Pg277" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%">because my desire
+for further knowledge is very ardent.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">The news? </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Cher ami</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">, there is little. Always the far thunder beyond
+Nivelle in ruins; sometimes a battle-plane high in the blue; a
+convoy of your beloved mules arriving from the coast; nothing more
+exciting.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Monsieur Smeet and Monsieur Glenn inquire always concerning you.
+They are brave and kind; their odd jests amuse me.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">My father caught a tench in the Lesse this morning.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">My gardener, Karl, collected many unpleasant creatures while hoeing
+our potatoes. Poor lad, he seems unhealthy. I am glad I could offer
+him employment.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">My Djack, there could not possibly be any mistake about him, could
+there? His papers are en règle. He is what he pretends, a Belgian
+student from Ypres in distress and ill health, is he not?</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">But how can you answer me, you who lie there all alone in a hospital
+at Nice? Also, I am ashamed of myself for doubting the unfortunate
+young man. I am too happy to doubt anybody, perhaps.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">And so good night, my Djack. Sleep sweetly, guarded by powerful
+angels.</span></p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 14.40em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Thy devoted,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Maryette.</span></span></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+  
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had been writing in the deserted café.
+Now she took a candle and went slowly up<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page278">[pg 278]</span><a name="Pg278" id="Pg278" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>stairs.
+On the white plaster wall of her bedroom
+was a Death's Head moth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl, startled for an instant, stood still;
+an unfeigned shiver of displeasure passed over
+her. Not that the Death's Head was an unfamiliar
+or terrifying sight to her; in late
+summer she usually saw one or two which had
+flown through some lighted window.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But it was the amorous history of this creature
+which the student Karl had related that
+now repelled her. This night creature with
+the skull on its neck, once scarcely noticed, had
+now become a trifle repulsive.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She went nearer, lifting the lighted candle.
+The thing crouched there with slanted wings.
+It was newly hatched, its sleek body still wet
+with the humors of incubation—wet as a
+soaked mouse. Its abdomen, too, seemed enormous,
+all swelled and distended with unfertilized
+eggs. No, there could be no question concerning
+the sex of the thing; this was a female,
+and her tumefied body was almost bursting
+with eggs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In startling design the yellow skull stood
+out; the ribs of the skeleton. Two tiny, fiery<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page279">[pg 279]</span><a name="Pg279" id="Pg279" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+eyes glimmered at the base of the antennæ—two
+minute jewelled sparks of glowing, lambent
+fire. They seemed to be watching her, maliciously
+askance.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The very horrid part of it was that, if
+touched, the creature would cry out. The girl
+knew this, hesitated, looked at the open window
+through which it must have crawled, and sat
+down on her bed to consider the situation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"After all," she said to herself resolutely.
+"God made it. It is harmless. If God thought
+fit to paint one of his lesser creatures like a
+skeleton, perhaps it was to remind us that
+life is brief and that we should lose no time
+to live it nobly in His sight.... I think that
+perhaps explains it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">However, she did not undress.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am quite foolish to be afraid of this
+poor moth. I repeat that I am foolish. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Allez</span></span>—I
+am <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">not</span></span> afraid. I am no longer afraid. I—I
+admire this handiwork of God."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She sat looking at the creature, her hands
+lying clasped in her lap.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's a very odd thing," she said to herself,
+"that a lover can find this creature even if he<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page280">[pg 280]</span><a name="Pg280" id="Pg280" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+be miles and miles away.... Maybe he's on
+his way now——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Instinctively she sprang up and closed her
+bedroom window.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No," she said, looking severely at the
+motionless moth, "you shall have no visitors in
+my room. You may remain here; I shall not
+disturb you; and tomorrow you will go away
+of your own accord. But I cannot permit you
+to receive company——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A heavy fall on the floor above checked her.
+Breathless, listening, she crept to her door.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Karl!" she called.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Listening again, she could hear distant and
+vaguely dreadful sounds from the gardener-student's
+room above.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was frightened but she went up. The
+youth had had a bad hemorrhage. She sat
+beside him late into the night. After his
+breathing grew quieter, sitting there in silence
+she could hear odd sounds, rustling, squeaking
+sounds from the box of Death's Head chrysalids
+on the night table beside his bed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The pupæ of the Death's Head were making
+merry in anticipation of the rapidly approach<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page281">[pg 281]</span><a name="Pg281" id="Pg281" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ing
+change—the Great Adventure of their lives—the
+coming metamorphosis.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The youth lay asleep now. As she
+extinguished the candle and stole from the room, all
+the pupæ of the Death's Head began to squeak
+in the darkness.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The student-gardener could do no more
+work for the present. He lay propped up in
+bed, pasty, scarlet lipped, and he seemed bald
+and lidless, so colourless were hair and eye-lashes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Can I do anything for you, Karl?" asked
+Maryette, coming in for a moment as usual in
+the intervals of her many duties.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The ink, if you would be so condescending—and
+a pen," he said, watching her out of
+hollow, sallow eyes of watery blue.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She fetched both from the café.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She came again in another hour, knocking
+at his door, but he said rather sharply that
+he wished to sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Scarcely noticing the querulous tone, she
+departed. She had much to do besides her
+duties in the belfry. Her father was an invalid<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page282">[pg 282]</span><a name="Pg282" id="Pg282" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+who required constant care; there was only
+one servant, an old peasant woman who cooked.
+The Government required her father to keep
+open the White Doe Tavern, and there was
+always a little business from the scanty
+garrison of Sainte Lesse, always a few meals to get,
+a few drinks to serve, and nobody now to do
+it except herself.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, in the belfry she had duties other than
+playing, than practice. Always at night the
+clock-drum was to be wound.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had no assistant. The town maintained
+none, and her salary as Mistress of the Bells
+of Sainte Lesse did not permit her to engage
+anybody to help her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So she oiled and wound all the machinery
+herself, adjusted and cared for the clock, swept
+the keyboard clean, inspected and looked after
+the wires leading to the tiers of bells overhead.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then there was work to do in the garden—a
+few minutes snatched between other duties.
+And when night arrived at last she was rather
+tired—quite weary on this night in particular,<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page283">[pg 283]</span><a name="Pg283" id="Pg283" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+having managed to fulfill all the duties of the
+sick youth as well as her own.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The night was warm and fragrant. She
+sat in the dark at her open window for a while,
+looking out into the north where, along the
+horizon, heat lightning seemed to play. But
+it was only the reflected flashes of the guns.
+When the wind was right, she could hear
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had even managed to write to her lover.
+Now, seated beside the open window, she was
+thinking of him. A dreamy, happy lethargy
+possessed her; she was on the first delicate
+verge of slumber, so close to it that all earthly
+sounds were dying out in her ears. Then, suddenly,
+she was awake, listening.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A window had been opened in the room
+overhead.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She went to the stars and called:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Karl!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What?" came the impatient reply.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are you ill?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No. N-no, I thank you—" His voice became
+urbane with an apparent effort. "Thank
+you for inquiring——"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page284">[pg 284]</span><a name="Pg284" id="Pg284" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I heard your window open—" she said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Thank you. I am quite well. The air is
+mild and grateful.... I thank mademoiselle
+for her solicitude."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She returned to her room and lighted her
+candle. On the white plaster wall sat the
+Death's Head moth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had not been in her room all day. She
+was astonished that the moth had not left.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Shall I have to put you out?" she thought
+dubiously. "Really, I can not keep my window
+closed for fear of visitors for you, Madam
+Death! I certainly shall be obliged to put you
+out."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So she found a sheet of paper and a large
+glass tumbler. Over the moth she placed the
+tumbler, then slipped the sheet of paper under
+the glass between moth and wall.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The thing cried and cried, beating at the
+glass with wings as powerful as a bird's, and
+the girl, startled and slightly repelled, placed
+the moth on her night table, imprisoned under
+the tumbler.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a while it fluttered and flapped and
+cried out in its strange, uncanny way, then<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page285">[pg 285]</span><a name="Pg285" id="Pg285" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+settled on the sheet of paper, quivering its
+wings, both eyes like living coals.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Seated on the bedside, Maryette looked at it,
+schooling herself to think of it kindly as one
+of God's creatures before she released it at
+her open window.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And, as she sat there, something came whizzing
+into the room through her window, circled
+around her at terrific speed with a humming,
+whispering whirr, then dropped with a
+solid thud on the night table beside the imprisoned
+female moth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was the first suitor arrived from outer
+darkness—a big, powerful Death's Head moth
+with eyes aglow, the yellow skull displayed in
+startling contrast on his velvet-black body.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl watched him, fascinated. He scrambled
+over to the tumbler, tested it with heavy
+antennæ; then, ardent and impatient, beat
+against the glass with muscular wings that
+clattered in the silence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But it was not the amorous fury of the
+creature striking the tumbler with resounding
+wings, not the glowing eyes, the strong, clawed
+feet, the Death's Head staring from its fune<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page286">[pg 286]</span><a name="Pg286" id="Pg286" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>real
+black thorax that held the girl's attention.
+It was something else; something entirely different
+riveted her eyes on the creature.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For the cigar-shaped body, instead of bearing
+the naked ribs of a skeleton, was snow
+white.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And now she began to understand. Somebody
+had already caught the moth, had
+wrapped around its body a cylinder of white
+tissue paper—tied it on with a fine, white
+silk thread.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The moth was very still now, exploring the
+interstices between tumbler and table with
+heavy, pectinated antennæ.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cautiously Maryette bent forward and
+dropped both hands on the moth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Instantly the creature cried out horribly; it
+was like a mouse between her shrinking fingers;
+but she slipped the cylinder of tissue
+paper from its abdomen and released it with
+a shiver; and it darted and whizzed around the
+room, gyrating in whistling circles around her
+head until, unnerved, she struck at it again
+and again with empty hands, following, driv<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page287">[pg 287]</span><a name="Pg287" id="Pg287" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ing
+it toward the open window, out of which
+it suddenly darted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But now there was another Death's Head in
+the room, a burly, headlong, infatuated male
+which drove headlong at the tumbler and clung
+to it, slipping, sliding, filling the room with
+a feathery tattoo of wings.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It, also, had a snow-white body; and before
+she had seized the squeaking thing and had
+slipped the tissue wrapper from its body, another
+Death's Head whirred through the window;
+then another, then two; then others. The
+room swarmed; they were crawling all over
+the tumbler, the table, the bed. The room
+was filled with the soft, velvety roar of whirring
+wings beating on wall and ceiling and
+against the tumbler where Madam Death sat
+imprisoned, quivering her wings, her eyes two
+molten rubies, and the ghastly skull staring
+from her back.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">How Maryette ever brought herself to do it;
+how she did it at last, she had no very clear
+idea. The touch of the slippery, mousy bodies
+was fearsomely repugnant to her; the very
+sight of the great, skull-bearing things began<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page288">[pg 288]</span><a name="Pg288" id="Pg288" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to sicken her physically. A dreadful, almost
+impalpable floss from their handled wings and
+bodies smeared her hands; the place vibrated
+with their tiny goblin cries.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Somehow she managed to strip them of the
+tissue cylinders, drive them from where they
+crawled on ceiling, wall and sill into whistling
+flight. Amid a whirlwind of wings she fought
+them toward the open window; whizzing, flitting,
+circling they sped in widening spirals to
+escape her blows, where she stood half blinded
+in the vortex of the ghostly maelstrom.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One by one they darted through the open
+window out into the night; and when the last
+spectral streak of grey had sped into outer
+darkness the girl slammed the windowpanes
+shut and leaned against the sill enervated, exhausted,
+revolted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The room was misty with the microscopic
+dust from the creatures' wings; on her palms
+and fingers were black stains and stains of
+livid orange; and across wall and ceiling
+streaks and smudges of rusty colour.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was still trembling when she washed the
+smears from her hands. Her fingers were<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page289">[pg 289]</span><a name="Pg289" id="Pg289" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+still unsteady as she smoothed out each tiny
+sheet of tissue paper and laid it on her night
+table. Then, seated on the bed's edge beside
+the lighted candle, she began to read the messages
+written in ink on these frail, translucent
+tissue missives.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Every bit of tissue bore a message; the writing
+was microscopic, the script German, the
+language Flemish. Slowly, with infinite pains,
+the little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse translated
+to herself each message as she deciphered
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was trembling more than ever when she
+finished. Every trace of colour had fled from
+her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, as she sat there, struggling to keep
+her mind clear of the horror of the thing,
+striving to understand what was to be done,
+there came upon her window pane a sudden
+muffled drumming sound, and her frightened
+gaze fell upon a Death's Head moth outside,
+its eyes like coals, its misty wings beating
+furiously for admittance. And around its body
+was tied a cylinder of white tissue.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But the girl needed no more evidence. The<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page290">[pg 290]</span><a name="Pg290" id="Pg290" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+wretched youth in the room overhead had already
+sealed his own doom with any one of
+these tissue cylinders. Better for him if the
+hemorrhage had slain him. Now a firing squad
+must do that much for him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Yet, even still, the girl hesitated, almost
+incredulous, trying to comprehend the monstrous
+grotesquerie of the abominable plot.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Intuition pointed to the truth; logic proved
+it; somewhere in the German trenches a comrade
+of this spy was awaiting these messages
+with a caged Death's Head female as the bait—a
+living loadstone wearing the terrific emblems
+of death—an unfailing magnet to draw
+the skull-bearing messengers for miles—had it
+not been that a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">nearer magnet deflected them
+in their flight!</span></span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That was it! That was what the miserable
+youth upstairs had not counted on. Chance
+had ruined him; destiny had sent Madam Death
+into the room below him to draw, with her
+macabre charms, every ardent winged messenger
+which he liberated from his bedroom
+window.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The subtle effluvia permeating the night air<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page291">[pg 291]</span><a name="Pg291" id="Pg291" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+for miles around might have guided these messengers
+into the German trenches had not a
+nearer and more imperious perfume annihilated
+it. Headlong, amorous, impatient they
+had whirled toward the embraces of Madam
+Death; the nearer and more powerful perfume
+had drawn the half-maddened, half-drugged
+messengers. The spy in the room upstairs,
+like many Germans, had reasoned wrongly on
+sound premises. His logic had broken down,
+not his amazing scientific foundation. His
+theory was correct; his application stupid.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And now this young man was about to die.
+Maryette understood that. She comprehended
+that his death was necessary; that it was the
+unavoidable sequence of what he had attempted
+to do. Trapped rats must be drowned;
+vermin exterminated by easiest and quickest
+methods; spies who betray one's native land
+pass naturally the same route.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But this thing, this grotesque, incredible, terrible
+attempt to engraft treachery on one of
+nature's most amazing laws—this secret, cunning
+Teutonic reasoning, this scientific scoundrelism,
+this criminal enterprise based on pa<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page292">[pg 292]</span><a name="Pg292" id="Pg292" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>tient,
+plodding and German efficiency, still bewildered
+the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And yet she vaguely realized how science had
+been already prostituted to Prussian malignancy
+and fury; she had heard of flame jets,
+of tear-bombs, of bombs containing deadly
+germs; she herself had beheld the poison gas
+rolling back into the trenches at Nivelle under
+the town tower. Dimly she began to understand
+that the Hun, in his cunning savagery,
+had tricked, betrayed and polluted civilization
+itself into lending him her own secrets with
+which she was ultimately to be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The very process of human thinking had
+been imitated by these monkeys of Europe—apes
+with the ferocity of hogs—and no souls,
+none—nothing to lift them inside the pale
+where dwells the human race.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There came a rapping on the café door.
+The girl rose wearily; an immense weight
+seemed to crush her shoulders so that her
+knees had become unsteady.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She opened the café door; it was Sticky
+Smith, come for his nightcap before turning
+in.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page293">[pg 293]</span><a name="Pg293" id="Pg293" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The man upstairs is a German spy," she
+said listlessly. "Had you not better go over
+and get a gendarme?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Who's a spy? That Dutch shrimp you had
+in your garden?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where is he?" demanded the muleteer with
+an oath.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She placed her lighted candle on the bar.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Wait," she said. "Read these first—we
+must be quite certain about what we do."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She laid the squares of tissue paper out on
+the bar.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you read Flemish?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No, ma'am——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then I will translate into French for you.
+And first of all I must tell you how I came to
+possess these little letters written upon tissue.
+Please listen attentively."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He rested his palm on the butt of his dangling
+automatic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Go on," he said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She told him the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As she commenced to translate the tissue
+paper messages in a low, tremulous voice, the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page294">[pg 294]</span><a name="Pg294" id="Pg294" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+sound of a door being closed and locked in
+the room overhead silenced her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The next instant she had stepped out to the
+stairs and called:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Karl!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was no reply. Smith came out to the
+stair-well and listened.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is his custom," she whispered, "to lock
+his door before retiring. That is what we
+heard."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Call again."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"He can't hear me. He is in bed."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Call, all the same."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Karl!" she cried out in an unsteady voice.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page295">[pg 295]</span><a name="Pg295" id="Pg295" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf45" id="pdf45"></a>
+<a name="toc46" id="toc46"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XXIII</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+MADAM DEATH</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was no reply, because the young man
+was hanging out over his window sill in the
+darkness trying to switch away, from her
+closed window below, the big, clattering
+Death's Head moth which obstinately and persistently
+fluttered there.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">What possessed the moth to continue battering
+its wings at the window of the room below?
+Had the other moths which he released
+done so, too? They had darted out of his
+room into the night, each garnished with a
+tissue robe. He supposed they had flown
+north; he had not looked out to see.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">What had gone wrong with this moth, then?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He took his emaciated blond head between
+his bony fingers and pondered, probing for
+reason with German thoroughness—that cele<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page296">[pg 296]</span><a name="Pg296" id="Pg296" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>brated
+thoroughness which is invariably riddled
+with flaws.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Of all contingencies he had thought—or so
+it seemed to him. He could not recollect any
+precaution neglected. He had come to Sainte
+Lesse for a clearly defined object and to make
+certain reports concerning matters of interest
+to the German military authorities north of
+Nivelle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The idea, inspired by the experiments of
+Henri Fabre, was original with him. Patiently,
+during the previous year, he had worked
+it out—had proved his theory by a series of
+experiments with moths of this species.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had arranged with his staff comrade,
+Dr. Glück, for a forced hatching of the pupæ
+which the latter had patiently bred from the
+enormous green and violet-banded caterpillars.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At least one female Death's Head must be
+ready, caged in the trenches beyond Nivelle.
+Hundreds of pupæ could not have died. Where,
+then, was his error—if, indeed, he had made
+any?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Leaning from the window, he looked down<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page297">[pg 297]</span><a name="Pg297" id="Pg297" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+at the frantic moth, perplexed, a little uneasy
+now.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Swine!" he muttered. "What, then, ails you
+that you do not fly to the mistress awaiting
+you over yonder?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He could see the cylinder of white tissue
+shining on the creature's body, where it fluttered
+against the pane, illuminated by the rays
+of the candle from within the young girl's
+room.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Could it be possible that the candle-light
+was proving the greater attraction?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Even as the possibility entered his mind, he
+saw another Death's Head dart at the window
+below and join the first one. But this newcomer
+wore no tissue jacket.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, out of the darkness the Death's Heads
+began to come to the window below, swarms of
+them, startling him with the racket of their
+wings.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">From where did they arrive? They could
+not be the moths he liberated. But.... <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Were
+they?</span></span> Had some accident robbed their bodies
+of the tissue missives? Had they blundered
+into somebody's room and been robbed?<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page298">[pg 298]</span><a name="Pg298" id="Pg298" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mystified, uneasy, he hung over his window
+sill, staring with sickening eyes at the winged
+tumult below.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">With patient, plodding logic he began to
+seek for the solution. What attracted these
+moths to the room below? Was it the candle-light?
+That alone could not be sufficient—could
+not contend with the more imperious
+attraction, the subtle effluvia stealing out of
+the north and appealing to the ruling passion
+which animated the frantic winged things below
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Patiently, methodically in his mind he probed
+about for some clue to the solution. The ruling
+passion animating the feathery whirlwind
+below was the necessity for mating and perpetuating
+the species.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That was the dominant passion; the lure
+of candle-light a secondary attraction....
+Then, if this were so—and it had been proven
+to be a fact—then—then—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">what</span></span> was in that
+young girl's bedroom just below him?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Even as the question flashed in his mind
+he left the window, went to his door, listened,
+noiselessly unlocked it.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page299">[pg 299]</span><a name="Pg299" id="Pg299" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A low murmur of voices came from the
+café.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He drew off both shoes, descended the stairs
+on the flat pads of his large, bony feet, listening
+all the while.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Candle-light streamed out into the corridor
+from her open bedroom door; and he crept to
+the sill and peered in, searching the place with
+small, pale eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At first he noticed nothing to interest him,
+then, all in an instant, his gaze fell upon
+Madam Death under her prison of glass.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There she sat, her great bulging abdomen
+distended with eggs, her lambent eyes shining
+with the terrible passion of anticipation. For
+one thing only she had been created. That
+accomplished she died. And there she crouched
+awaiting the fulfillment of her life's cycle with
+the blazing eyes of a demon.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">From the café below came the cautious murmur
+of voices. The young man already knew
+what they were whispering about; or, if he
+did not know he no longer cared.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The patches of bright colour in his sunken<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page300">[pg 300]</span><a name="Pg300" id="Pg300" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+cheeks had died out in an ashen pallor. As
+far as he was concerned the world was now
+ended. And he knew it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went into the bedroom and sat down
+on the bed's edge. His little, pale eyes wandered
+about the white room; the murmur of
+voices below was audible all the while.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a few moments' patient waiting, his
+gaze rested again on Madam Death, squatting
+there with wings sloped, and the skull and
+bones staring at him from her head and distended
+abdomen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After all there was an odd resemblance between
+himself and Madam Death. He had
+been born to fulfill one function, it appeared.
+So had she. And now, in his case as in hers,
+death was immediately to follow. This was
+sentiment, not science—the blind lobe of the
+German brain balancing grotesquely the reasoning
+lobe.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The voices below had ceased. Presently he
+heard a cautious step on the stair.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had a little pill-box in his pocket. Methodically,
+without haste, he drew it out, chose<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page301">[pg 301]</span><a name="Pg301" id="Pg301" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+one white pellet, and, holding it between his
+bony thumb and forefinger, listened.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Yes, somebody was coming up the stairs,
+very careful to make no sound.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Well—there were various ways for a Death's
+Head Hussar to die for his War Lord. All
+were equally laudable. God—the God of Germany—the
+celestial friend and comrade of his
+War Lord—would presently correct him if he
+was transgressing military discipline or the etiquette
+of Kultur. As for the levelled rifles of
+the execution squad, he preferred another way....
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">This</span></span> way!...</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His eyes were already glazing when the
+burly form of Sticky Smith filled the doorway.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looked down at Madam Death under the
+tumbler beside him, then lifted his head and
+gazed at Smith with blinded eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Swine!" he said complacently, swaying
+gently forward and striking the floor with his
+face.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page302">[pg 302]</span><a name="Pg302" id="Pg302" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf47" id="pdf47"></a>
+<a name="toc48" id="toc48"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XXIV</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+BUBBLES</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">An east wind was very likely to bring gas
+to the trenches north of the Sainte Lesse salient.
+A north wind, according to season,
+brought snow or rain or fog upon British,
+French, Belgian and Boche alike. Winds of
+the south carried distant exhalations from
+orchards and green fields into the pitted waste
+of ashes where that monstrous desolation
+stretched away beneath a thundering iron rain
+which beat all day, all night upon the dead
+flesh of the world.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But the west wind was the vital wind, flowing
+melodiously through the trees—a clean,
+aromatic, refreshing wind, filling the sickened
+world with life again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sometimes, too, it brought the pleasant
+music of the bells into far-away trenches, when<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page303">[pg 303]</span><a name="Pg303" id="Pg303" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse played
+the carillon. And when her friend, the great
+bell, Bayard, spoke through the resounding sky
+of France to a million men-at-arms in blue
+and steel, who were steadily forging hell's
+manacles for the uncaged Hun, the loyal western
+wind carried far beyond the trenches an
+ominous iron vibration that meant doom for
+the Beast.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And the Beast heard, leering skyward out
+of pale pig-eyes, but did not comprehend.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the base corral down in the meadow,
+mules had been scarce recently, because a
+transport had been torpedoed. But the next
+transport from New Orleans escaped; the
+dusty column had arrived at Sainte Lesse from
+the Channel port, convoyed by American muleteers,
+as usual; new mules, new negroes, new
+Yankee faces invaded the town once more.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">However, it signified little to the youthful
+mistress-of-the-bells, Maryette Courtray,
+called "Carillonnette," for her Yankee lover
+still lay in his distant hospital—her muleteer,
+"Djack." So mules might bray, and negroes
+fill the Sainte Lesse meadows with their shout<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page304">[pg 304]</span><a name="Pg304" id="Pg304" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ing
+laughter; and the lank, hawk-nosed Yankee
+muleteers might saunter clanking into the
+White Doe in search of meat or drink or
+tobacco, or a glimpse of the pretty bell-mistress,
+for all it meant to her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her Djack lived; that was what occupied
+her mind; other men were merely men—even
+his comrades, Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn,
+assumed individuality to distinguish them
+from other men only because they were Djack's
+friends. And as for all other muleteers, they
+seemed to her as alike as Chinamen, leaving
+upon her young mind a general impression
+of long, thin legs and necks and the keen
+eyes of hunting falcons.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had washing to do that morning. Very
+early she climbed up into the ancient belfry,
+wound the drum so that the bells would play
+a few bars at the quarters and before each
+hour struck; and also in order that the carillon
+might ring mechanically at noon in case she
+had not returned to take her place at the keyboard
+with her wooden gloves.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a light west wind rippling through<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page305">[pg 305]</span><a name="Pg305" id="Pg305" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the tree tops; and everywhere sunshine lay
+brilliant on pasture and meadow under the
+purest of cobalt skies.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the garden her crippled father, swathed
+in shawls, dozed in his deep chair beside the
+river-wall, waking now and then to watch the
+quill on his long bamboo fish-pole, stemming
+the sparkling current of the little river Lesse.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sticky Smith, off duty and having filled himself
+to repletion with café-au-lait at the inn,
+volunteered to act as nurse, attendant, remover
+of fish and baiter of hook, while Maryette
+was absent at the stone-rimmed pool where
+the washing of all Sainte Lesse laundry had
+been accomplished for hundreds of years.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You promise not to go away?" she cautioned
+him in the simple, first-aid French she
+employed in speaking to him, and pausing with
+both arms raised to balance the loaded clothes-basket
+on her head.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Wee—wee!" he assured her with dignity.
+"Je fume mong peep! Je regard le vieux
+pêcher. Voo poovay allay, Mademoiselle
+Maryette."<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page306">[pg 306]</span><a name="Pg306" id="Pg306" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She hesitated, then removed the basket from
+her head and set it on the grass.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You are very kind, Monsieur Steek-Smeet.
+I shall wash your underwear the very first
+garments I take out of my basket. Thank
+you a thousand times." She bent over with
+sweet solicitude and pressed her lips to her
+father's withered cheek:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Au revoir, my father <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">chéri</span></span>. An hour or
+two at the meadow-<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lavoir</span></span> and I shall return
+to find thee. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Bonne chance, mon père!</span></span> Thou
+shalt surely catch a large and beautiful fish
+for luncheon before I return with my wash."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She swung the basket of wash to her head
+again without effort, and went her way, following
+the deeply trodden sheep-path behind
+the White Doe Inn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The path wound down through a sloping pasture,
+across a footbridge spanning an arm of
+the Lesse which washed the base of the garden
+wall, then ascended a gentle aclivity among
+hazel thicket and tall sycamores, becoming for
+a little distance a shaded wood-path where
+thrushes sang ceaselessly in the sun-flecked
+undergrowth.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page307">[pg 307]</span><a name="Pg307" id="Pg307" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But at the eastern edge of the copse the little
+hill fell away into an open, sunny meadow,
+fragrant with wild-flowers and clover, through
+which a rivulet ran deep and cold between
+grassy banks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It supplied the drinking water of Sainte
+Lesse; and a branch of it poured bubbling into
+the stone-rimmed <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lavoir</span></span> where generations of
+Sainte Lesse maids had scrubbed the linen of
+the community, kneeling there amid wild flowers
+and fluttering butterflies in the shade of
+three tall elms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was nobody at the pool; Maryette
+saw that as she came out of the hazel copse
+through the meadow. And very soon she was
+on her knees at the clear pool's edge, bare of
+arm and throat and bosom, her blue wool
+skirts trussed up, and elbow deep in snowy
+suds.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Overhead the sky was a quivering, royal
+blue; the earth shimmered in its bath of sunshine;
+the west wind blowing carried away
+eastward the reverberations of the distant
+cannonade, so that not even the vibration of
+the concussions disturbed Sainte Lesse.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page308">[pg 308]</span><a name="Pg308" id="Pg308" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A bullfinch was piping lustily in a young
+tree as she began her task; a blackbird answered
+from somewhere among the hawthorns
+with a bewildering series of complicated trills.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As the little mistress-of-the-bells scrubbed
+and beat the clothes with her paddle, and
+rinsed and wrung them and soaped them
+afresh, she sang softly under her breath, to
+an ancient air of her <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pays</span></span>, words that she
+improvised to fit it—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vrai chanson de laveuse</span></span>:</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">"A blackbird whistles</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 10.00em">I love!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Over the thistles</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Butterflies hover,</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Each with her lover</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 10.00em">In love.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Blue Demoiselles that glisten,</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 10.00em">Listen, I love!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Wind of the west, oh, listen,</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 10.00em">I am in love!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Sing my song, ye little gold bees!</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Opal bubbles around my knees</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">All afloat in the soap-sud broth,</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Whisper it low to the snowy froth;</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">And Thou who rulest the skies above,</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Mary, adored—I love—I love!"</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Slap-slap! went her paddle; the sud-spume
+flew like shreds of cotton; iridescent foam set<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page309">[pg 309]</span><a name="Pg309" id="Pg309" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+with bubbles swirled in the stone-edged basin,
+constantly swept away down stream by the
+current, constantly renewed as she soaped and
+scrubbed, kneeling there in the meadow grass
+above the pool.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The blackbird came quite near to watch her;
+the bullfinch, attracted by her childish voice
+as she sang the song she was making, whistled
+bold response, silent only when the echoing
+slap of the paddle startled him where he sat
+on the trembling tip of an aspen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Blue dragon flies drifted on glimmering
+wings; she put them into her song; the meadow
+was gay with butterflies' painted wings; she
+sang about them, too. Cloud and azure sky,
+tree tops and clover, the tiny rivulet dancing
+through deep grasses, the wind furrowing the
+fields, all these she put into her <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">chansonnette
+de laveuse</span></span>. And always in the clear glass of
+the stream she seemed to see the smiling face
+of her friend, Djack—her lover who had
+opened her eyes of a child to all things beautiful
+in the world.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Once or twice, from very far away, she
+fancied she heard the distant singing of the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page310">[pg 310]</span><a name="Pg310" id="Pg310" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+negro muleteers sunning themselves down by
+the corral. She heard, at quarter-hour intervals,
+her bells melodiously recording time as it
+sped by; then there were intervals of that
+sweet stillness which is but a composite harmony
+of summer—the murmur of insects, the
+whisper of leaves and water, capricious seconds
+of intense silence, then the hushed voice
+of life exquisitely audible again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">War, wickedness, the rage and cruelty of the
+Beast—all the vile and filthy ferocity of the
+ferocious Swine of the North became to her as
+unreal as a tragic legend half-forgotten. And
+death seemed very far away.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her washing was done; the wet clothing
+piled in her basket. Perspiration powdered
+her forehead and delicate little nose.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Hot, flushed, breathing deeply and irregularly
+from her efforts under a vertical sun,
+she stood erect, loosening the blouse over her
+bosom to the breeze and pushing back the clustering
+masses of hair above her brow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The water laughed up at her, invitingly; the
+last floating castle of white foam swept past<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page311">[pg 311]</span><a name="Pg311" id="Pg311" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+her feet down stream. On the impulse of the
+moment she unlaced her blue wool skirt,
+dropped it around her feet, stepped from it;
+unbuckled both garters, stripped slippers and
+stockings from her feet, and waded out into
+the pool.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The fresh, delicious coolness of the water
+thrilled and encouraged her to further adventure;
+she twisted up her splendid hair, bound
+it with her blue kerchief, flung blouse and
+chemisette from her, and gave herself to the
+sparkling stream with a sigh of ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Alders swept the eastern edges of the current
+where the rivulet widened beyond the
+basin and ran south along the meadow's edge
+to the Wood of Sainte Lesse—a cool, unruffled
+flow, breast deep, floored with sand as soft as
+silver velvet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She waded, floated, swam a little, or, erect,
+roamed leisurely along the alder fringe, exploring
+the dim green haunts of frog and
+water-hen, stoat and bécassine—a slim, wet
+dryad, gliding silently through sun and dappled
+shadow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Where the stream comes to Sainte Lesse<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page312">[pg 312]</span><a name="Pg312" id="Pg312" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Wood, there is a hill set thick with hazel and
+clumps of fern, haunted by one roe-deer and
+numerous rabbits and pheasants.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was close to its base, now, gliding
+through the shade like some lithe creature
+of the forest; making no sound save where the
+current curled around her supple body in
+twisted necklaces of liquid light.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, as she stood, peering cautiously
+through tangled branches for a glimpse of the
+little roe-deer, she heard a curious sound up
+on the hill—an inexplicable sound like metal
+striking stone.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She stood as though frozen; clink, clink came
+the distant sound. Then all was still. But
+presently she saw a scared cock-pheasant,
+crouching low with flattened neck outstretched,
+run like a huge rat through the hazel growth,
+out across the meadow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She remained motionless, scarcely daring to
+draw her breath. Somebody had passed over
+the hill—if, indeed, he or she had actually continued
+on their mysterious way. Had they?
+But finally the intense quiet reassured her, and
+she concluded that whoever had made that<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page313">[pg 313]</span><a name="Pg313" id="Pg313" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+metallic sound had continued on toward Sainte
+Lesse Wood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She had taken with her a cake of soap.
+Now, here in the green shade, she made her
+ablutions, soaping herself from head to foot,
+turning her head leisurely from time to time
+to survey her leafy environment, or watch the
+flight of some tiny woodland bird, or study
+with pretty and speculative eyes the soap-suds
+swirling in a dimpled whirlpool around her
+thighs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The bubbles fascinated her; she played with
+them, capriciously, touching one here, one
+there, with tentative finger to see them explode
+in a tiny rainbow shower.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Finally she chose a hollow stem from among
+a cluster of scented rushes, cleared it with a
+vigorous breath, soaped one end, and, touching
+it to the water, blew from it a prodigious
+bubble, all swimming with gold and purple
+hues.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Into the air she tossed it, from the end of
+the hollow reed; the breeze caught it and
+wafted it upward until it burst.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Then a strange thing happened!</span></span> Before her<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page314">[pg 314]</span><a name="Pg314" id="Pg314" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+upturned eyes another bubble slowly arose
+from a clump of aspens out of the hazel thickets
+on the hill—a big, pearl-tinted, translucent
+bubble, as large as a melon. Upward it floated,
+slowly ascending to the tree-tops. There the
+wind caught it, drove it east, but it still
+mounted skyward, higher, higher, sailing always
+eastward, until it dwindled to the size
+of a thistledown and faded away in mid-air.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Astounded, the little mistress-of-the-bells
+stood motionless, waist deep in the stream, lips
+parted, eyes straining to pierce the dazzling
+ether above.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And then, before her incredulous gaze, another
+pearl-tinted, translucent bubble slowly
+floated upward from the thicket near the aspens,
+mounted until the breeze struck it, then
+soared away skyward and melted like a snowflake
+into the east.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Moving as stealthily as some sinuous creature
+of the water-weeds, the girl stole forward,
+threading her way among the rushes, gliding,
+twisting around tussock and alder, creeping
+along fern-set banks, her eyes ever focused on<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page315">[pg 315]</span><a name="Pg315" id="Pg315" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the clump of aspens quivering against the sky
+above the hazel.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She could see nobody, hear not a sound from
+the thicket on the little hill. But another bubble
+rose above the aspens as she looked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Naked, she dared not advance into the woods—scarcely
+dared linger where she was, yet
+found enough courage to creep out on a carpet
+of moss and lie flat under a young fir,
+listening and watching.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">No more bubbles rose above the aspens;
+there was not a sound, not a movement in the
+hazel.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For an hour or more she lay there; then,
+with infinite caution, she slipped back into the
+stream, waded across, crept into the meadow,
+and sped like a scared fawn along the bank
+until she stood panting by the stone-rimmed
+pool again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sun and wind had dried her skin; she
+dressed rapidly, swung her basket to her head,
+and started swiftly for Sainte Lesse.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Before she came in sight of the White Doe
+Tavern, she could hear the negro muleteers
+singing down by the corral.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page316">[pg 316]</span><a name="Pg316" id="Pg316" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Sticky Smith still squatted in the garden
+by the river-wall, smoking his pipe. Her father
+lay asleep in his chair, his wrinkled hands
+still clasping the fishing pole, the warm breeze
+blowing his white hair at the temples.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She disposed of the wash; then she and
+Sticky Smith gently aroused the crippled bell-master
+and aided him into the house.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The old peasant woman who cooked for the
+inn had soup ready. The noonday meal in
+Sainte Lesse had become an extremely simple
+affair.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Monsieur Steek," said the girl carelessly,
+"did you ever, as a child, fly toy balloons?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure, Maryette. A old Eyetalian wop used
+to come 'round town selling them. He had a
+stick with about a hundred little balloons tied
+to it—red, blue, green, yellow—all kinds and
+colours. Whenever I had the price I bought
+one."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did it fly?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. The gas in it wasn't much good unless
+you got a fresh one."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Would it fly high?"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page317">[pg 317]</span><a name="Pg317" id="Pg317" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure. Sky-high. I've seen 'em go clean out
+of sight when you got a fresh one."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Nobody uses them here, do they?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Here? No, it wouldn't be allowed. A spy
+could send a message by one of those toy balloons."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh," nodded Maryette thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Smith shook his head:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No, children wouldn't be permitted to play
+with them things now, Maryette."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then there are not any toy balloons to be
+had here in Sainte Lesse?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I rather guess not! Farther north there
+are."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The artillery uses them."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"How?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't know. The balloon and flying service
+use 'em, too. I've seen officers send them
+up. Probably it is to find out about upper air
+currents."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Our</span></span> flying service?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Ballons d'essai</span></span>," she nodded carelessly.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page318">[pg 318]</span><a name="Pg318" id="Pg318" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+But she was not yet entirely convinced regarding
+the theory she was pondering.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After lunch she continued to be very busy
+in the laundry for a time, but the memory of
+those three little balloons above the aspens
+troubled her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Smith had gone on duty at the corral; Kid
+Glenn sauntered clanking into the bar and was
+there regaled with a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bock</span></span> and a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tranche</span></span>.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Monsieur Keed," said Maryette, "are any
+of our airmen in Sainte Lesse today?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Glenn drained his glass and smacked his
+lips:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No, ma'am," he said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No balloonists, either?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't guess so, Maryette. We've got the
+Boche flyers scared stiff. They don't come over
+our first lines anymore, and our own people
+are out yonder."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Keed," she said, winningly sweet, "do you,
+in fact, love me a little—for Djack's sake?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes'm."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I borrow of you that automatic pistol.
+Yes?" She smiled at him engagingly.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page319">[pg 319]</span><a name="Pg319" id="Pg319" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure. Anything you want! What's the
+trouble, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She shrugged her pretty shoulders:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Nothing. It just came into my cowardly
+head that the path to the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lavoir</span></span> is lonely at
+sundown. And there are new muleteers in
+Sainte Lesse. And I must wash my clothes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I reckon," he said gravely, unbuckling his
+weapon-filled holster and quietly strapping it
+around her shoulder with its pocketed belt of
+clips.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You will not require it this afternoon?"
+she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No fear. You won't either. Them mule-whacking
+coons is white."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She understood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Some men who seem whitest are blacker
+than any negro," she remarked. "<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Eh, bien!</span></span>
+I thank you, Keed, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mon ami</span></span>, for your complaisance.
+You are very amiable to submit to
+the whim of a silly girl who suddenly becomes
+afraid of her own shadow."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Glenn grinned and glanced significantly at
+the cross dangling from her bosom:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure," he said, "your government decorates<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page320">[pg 320]</span><a name="Pg320" id="Pg320" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+cowards. That's why it gave you the Legion."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She blushed but looked up at him seriously:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Keed, if I flew a little toy balloon in the
+air, where would the west wind carry it?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Into the Boche trenches," he replied, much
+interested in the idea. "If you've got one,
+we'll paint 'To hell with Willie' on it and set
+it afloat! But we'll have to get permission
+from the gendarmes first."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She said, smiling:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I'm sorry, but I haven't any toy balloons."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She picked up her basket with its new load
+of soiled linen, swung it gracefully to her
+head, ignoring his offered assistance, gave him
+a beguiling glance, and went away along the
+sheep-path.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Once more she followed the deep-trodden and
+ancient trail through copse and pasture and
+over the stream down into the meadow, where
+the west wind furrowed the wild-flowers and
+the early afternoon sun fell hot.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She set her clothes to soak, laid paddle
+and soap beside them, then, straightening up,
+remained erect on her knees, her intent gaze
+fixed on the distant clump of aspens, delicate<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page321">[pg 321]</span><a name="Pg321" id="Pg321" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+as mist above the hazel copse on the little
+hill beyond.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was a whole hour before her eyes caught
+the high glimmer of a tiny balloon. Only
+for a moment was it visible at that distance,
+then it became merged in the dazzling blue
+above the woods.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She waited. At last she concluded that there
+were to be no more balloons. Then a sudden
+fear assailed her lest she had waited too long
+to investigate; and she sprang to her feet,
+hurried over the single plank used as a footbridge,
+and sped down through the alders.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Here and there a pheasant ran headlong
+across her path; a rabbit or two scuttled
+through the ferns. Nearing the hazel copse
+she slackened speed and advanced with caution,
+scanning the thicket ahead.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly, on the ground in front of her,
+she caught sight of a small iron cylinder. Evidently
+it had rolled down there from the slope
+above.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Very gingerly she approached and picked it
+up. It was not very heavy, not too big for
+her skirt pocket.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page322">[pg 322]</span><a name="Pg322" id="Pg322" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As she slipped it into the pocket of her
+blue woolen peasant-skirt, her quick eye caught
+a movement among the hazel bushes on the
+hillside to her right. She sank to the ground
+and lay huddled there.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page323">[pg 323]</span><a name="Pg323" id="Pg323" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf49" id="pdf49"></a>
+<a name="toc50" id="toc50"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHAPTER XXV</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+KAMERAD</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Down the slope, through the thicket, came a
+man. She could see his legs only. He wore
+dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like
+Sticky Smith's and Kid Glenn's, only he wore
+no big, clanking Mexican spurs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The man passed in front of her, his burly
+body barely visible through the leaves, but
+not his features.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried
+through the ferns of the warren, retracing
+her steps, and arrived breathless at the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lavoir</span></span>.
+And scarcely had she dropped to her knees
+and seized soap and paddle, than a squat,
+bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared
+on the opposite bank of the stream, stepping
+briskly out of the bushes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He did not notice her at first. He looked<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page324">[pg 324]</span><a name="Pg324" id="Pg324" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+about for a place to jump, found one, leaped
+safely across, and came on at a swinging stride
+across the meadow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl, bending above the water, suddenly
+struck sharply with her paddle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee
+deep in clover.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence,
+continued to soap and scrub and slap her
+wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of
+a child the chansonette she had made that
+morning. But out of the corner of her eyes
+she kept him in view—saw him come sauntering
+forward as though reassured, became
+aware that he had approached very near, was
+standing behind her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick
+up another soiled garment, she suddenly encountered
+his dark gaze; and her start and
+slight exclamation were entirely genuine.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mon Dieu!</span></span>" she said, with offended emphasis,
+"one does not approach people that way,
+without a word!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did I frighten mademoiselle?" he asked,
+in recognizable French, but with an accent<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page325">[pg 325]</span><a name="Pg325" id="Pg325" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+unpleasantly familiar to her. "If I did, I am
+very sorry and I offer mademoiselle a thousand
+excuses and apologies."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl, kneeling there in the clover,
+flashed a smile at him over her shoulder.
+The quick colour reddened his face and powerful
+neck. The girl had been right; her
+smile had been an answer that he was not
+going to ignore.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What a pretty spot for a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lavoir</span></span>," he said,
+stepping to the edge of the pool; "and what
+a pretty girl to adorn it!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maryette tossed her head:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur.
+Do you not perceive that I am busy?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It is not impossible to exchange a polite
+word or two when people are busy, is it,
+mademoiselle?" he asked, laughing and showing
+a white and perfect set of teeth under a
+short, dark mustache.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She continued to wring out her wash; but
+there was now a slight smile on her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"May I not say who I am?" he asked persuasively.
+"May I not venture to speak?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mon dieu</span></span>, monsieur, there is liberty of<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page326">[pg 326]</span><a name="Pg326" id="Pg326" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+speech for all in France. That blackbird
+might be glad to know your name if you
+choose to tell him."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But I ask <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">your</span></span> permission to speak to
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span>!" There seemed to be no sense of humour
+in this young man.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She laughed:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am not curious to hear who you are!...
+But if it affords you any relief to explain
+to the west wind what your name may
+be—" She ended with a disdainful shrug.
+After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes
+to his—lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes.
+But they were studying the stranger closely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was a powerfully built, dark-skinned
+young man in the familiar khaki of the American
+muleteers, wearing their insignia, their
+cap, their holster and belt, and an extra
+pouch or wallet, loaded evidently with something
+heavy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She said, coolly:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You must be one of the new Yankee muleteers
+who came with that beautiful new herd
+of mules."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He laughed:<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page327">[pg 327]</span><a name="Pg327" id="Pg327" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes, I'm an American muleteer. My name
+is Charles Braun. I came over in the last
+transport."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You know Steek?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Who?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Steek! Monsieur Steekee Smeete?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sticky Smith?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mais oui?</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I've met him," he replied curtly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And Monsieur Keed Glenn?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I've met Kid Glenn, too. Why?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"They are friends of mine—very intimate
+friends. Of course," she added, nose up-tilted,
+"if they are not also <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">your</span></span> friends, any
+acquaintance with me will be very difficult
+for <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span>, Monsieur Braun."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He laughed easily and seated himself on
+the grass beside her; and, as he sat down, a
+metallic clinking sounded in his wallet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tenez</span></span>," she remarked, "you carry old iron
+and bottles about with you, I notice."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Snaffles, curbs and stirrup irons," he replied
+carelessly. And in the girl's heart there
+leaped the swift, fierce flame of certainty in
+suspicion.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page328">[pg 328]</span><a name="Pg328" id="Pg328" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Why do you bring all that ironmongery
+down here?" she inquired, with frankly childish
+curiosity, leisurely wringing out her linen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"A mule got away from the corral. I've
+been wandering around in the bushes trying
+to find him," he explained, so naturally and
+in such a friendly voice that she raised her
+eyes to look again at this young gallant who
+lingered here at the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lavoir</span></span> for the sake of her
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">beaux yeux</span></span>.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Could this dark-eyed, smiling youth be a
+Hun spy? His smooth, boyish features, his
+crisp short hair and tiny mustache shading
+lips a trifle too red and overfull did not displease
+her. In his way he was handsome.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His voice, too, was attractive, gaily persuasive,
+but it was his pronunciation of the
+letters c and d which had instantly set her
+on her guard.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Seated on the bank near her, his roving
+eyes full of bold curiosity bent on her from
+time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little
+wreath out of long-stemmed clover and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">boutons
+d'or</span></span>, he appeared merely an intrusive,
+irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page329">[pg 329]</span><a name="Pg329" id="Pg329" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+himself with a few moments' rustic courtship
+here before he continued on his way.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You are exceedingly pretty," he said.
+"Will you tell me your name in exchange for
+mine?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette Courtray."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh," he exclaimed in quick recognition;
+"you are bell-mistress in Sainte Lesse, then!
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">You</span></span> are the celebrated carillonnette! I have
+heard about you. I suspected that you might
+be the little mistress of Sainte Lesse bells, because
+you wear the Legion—" He nodded his
+handsome head toward the decoration on her
+blouse.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And to think," he added effusively, "that
+it is just a mere slip of a girl who was decorated
+for bravery by France!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She smiled at him with all the beguilingly
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bête</span></span> innocence of the young when flattered:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You are too amiable, monsieur. I really
+do not understand why they gave me the
+Legion. To encourage all French children,
+perhaps—because I really am a dreadful coward."
+She tapped the holster on her thigh
+and gazed at him quite guilelessly out of wide<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page330">[pg 330]</span><a name="Pg330" id="Pg330" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and trustful eyes. "You see? I dare not
+even come here to wash my clothes unless I
+carry this—in case some Boche comes prowling."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Whose pistol is it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"The weapon belongs to Monsieur Steek.
+When I come to wash here I borrow it."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are you the sweetheart of Monsieur
+Steek?" he inquired, mimicking her pronunciation
+of "Stick," and at the same time fixing
+his dark eyes boldly and expressively on hers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Does a young girl of my age have sweethearts?"
+she demanded scornfully.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If she hasn't had one, it's time," he returned,
+staring hard at her with a persistent
+and fixed smile that had become almost
+offensive.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, la!" she exclaimed with a shrug of her
+youthful shoulders. "Perhaps you think I
+have time for such foolishness—what with
+housework to do and washing, and caring for
+my father, and my duties in the belfry every
+day!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Youth passes swiftly, belle Maryette."<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page331">[pg 331]</span><a name="Pg331" id="Pg331" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Imitate him, beau monsieur, and swiftly
+pass your way!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">L'amour est doux, petite Marie!</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Je m'en moque!</span></span>"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his
+knees beside her, and rolled back his cuffs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Come," he said, "I'll help you wash. We
+two should finish quickly."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am in no haste."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But it will give you an hour's leisure, belle
+Maryette."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I shall try to instruct you why, when we
+have our hour together."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you mean to pay court to me?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am doing that now. My ardent courtship
+will already be accomplished, so that we
+need not waste our hour together!" He began
+to laugh and wring out the linen.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Monsieur," she expostulated smilingly,
+"your apropos disturbs me. Have you the
+assurance to believe that you already appeal
+to my heart?"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page332">[pg 332]</span><a name="Pg332" id="Pg332" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Have I not appealed to it a little, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl averted her head coquettishly.
+For a few minutes they scrubbed away there
+together, side by side on their knees above
+the rim of the pool. Then, without warning,
+his hot, red lips burned her neck. Her
+swift recoil was also a shudder; her face
+flushed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Don't do that!" she said sharply, straightening
+up in the grass where she was kneeling.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You are so adorable!" he pleaded in a low,
+tense voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a long silence. She had moved
+aside and away from him on her knees; her
+head remained turned, too, and her features
+were set as though carven out of rosy marble.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was summoning every atom of resolution,
+every particle of courage to do what she
+must do. Every fibre in her revolted with
+the effort; but she steeled herself, and at last
+the forced smile was stamped on her lips, and
+she dared turn her head and meet his burning
+gaze.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You frighten me," she said—and her un<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page333">[pg 333]</span><a name="Pg333" id="Pg333" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>steady
+voice was convincing. "A young girl
+is not courted so abruptly."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Forgive me," he murmured. "I could not
+help myself—your neck is so fragrant, so
+childlike——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then you should treat me as you would a
+child!" she retorted pettishly. "Amuse me,
+if you aspire to any comradeship with me.
+Your behaviour does not amuse me at all."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We shall become comrades," he said confidently,
+"and you shall be sufficiently amused."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It requires time for two people to become
+comrades."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Will you give me an hour this evening?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What? A rendezvous?" she exclaimed,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You mean somewhere alone with you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Will you, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"But why? I am not yet old enough for
+such foolishness. It would not amuse me at
+all to be alone with you for an hour." She
+pouted and shrugged and absently plucked a
+hollow stem from the sedge.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It would amuse me much more to sit here<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page334">[pg 334]</span><a name="Pg334" id="Pg334" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and blow bubbles," she added, clearing the
+stem with a quick breath and soaping the
+end of it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, with tormenting malice, she let her
+eyes rest sideways on him while she plunged
+the hollow stem into the water, withdrew it,
+dripping, and deliberately blew an enormous
+golden bubble from the end.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Look!" she cried, detaching the bubble, apparently
+enchanted to see it float upward. "Is
+it not beautiful, my fairy balloon?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On her knees there beside the basin she
+blew bubble after bubble, detaching each with
+a slight movement of her wrist, and laughing
+delightedly to see them mount into the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">are</span></span> a child," he said, worrying his red
+underlip with his teeth. "You're a baby, after
+all."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very well, then, children require toys to
+amuse them, not sighs and kisses and bold,
+brown eyes to frighten and perplex them.
+Have you any toys to amuse me if I give you
+an hour with me?"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page335">[pg 335]</span><a name="Pg335" id="Pg335" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette, I can easily teach you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No! Will you bring me a toy to amuse
+me?—a clay pipe to blow bubbles? I adore
+bubbles."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If I promise to amuse you, will you give
+me an hour?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"How can I?" she demanded with sudden
+caprice. "I have my wash to finish; then I
+have to see that my father has his soup; then
+I must attend to customers at the inn, go up
+to the belfry, oil the machinery, play the
+carillon later, wind the drum for the
+night——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I shall come to you in the tower after the
+angelus," he said eagerly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I shall be too busy——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"After the carillon, then! Promise, Maryette!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"And sit up there alone with you in the
+dark for an hour? <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Ma foi!</span></span> How amusing!"
+She laughed in pretty derision. "I shall not
+even be able to blow bubbles!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Watching her pouting face intently, he said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Suppose I bring some toy balloons for you<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page336">[pg 336]</span><a name="Pg336" id="Pg336" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to fly from the clock tower? Would that
+amuse you—you beautiful, perverse child?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Little toy balloons!" she echoed, enchanted.
+"What pleasure to set them afloat from the
+belfry! Do you really promise to bring me
+some little toy balloons to fly?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. But <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> must promise not to speak
+about it to anybody."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Why?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Because the gendarmes wouldn't let us fly
+any balloons."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You mean that they might think me a
+spy?" she inquired naïvely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Or me," he rejoined with a light laugh.
+"So we shall have to be very discreet and go
+cautiously about our sport. And it ought to
+be great fun, Maryette, to sail balloons out
+over the German trenches. We'll tie a message
+to every one! Shall we, little comrade?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She clapped her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"That <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">will</span></span> enrage the Boches!" she cried,
+"You won't forget to bring the balloons?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"After the carillon," he nodded, staring at
+her intently.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Half past ten," she said; "not one minute<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page337">[pg 337]</span><a name="Pg337" id="Pg337" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+earlier. I cannot be disturbed when playing.
+Do you understand? Do you promise?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes," he said, "I promise not to bother
+you before half past ten."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Very well. Now let me do my washing
+here in peace."</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was still scrubbing her linen when he
+went reluctantly away across the meadow
+toward Sainte Lesse. And when she finally
+stood up, swung the basket to her head, and
+left the meadow, the sun hung low behind
+Sainte Lesse Wood and a rose and violet glow
+possessed the world.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the White Doe Inn she flew feverishly
+about her duties, aiding the ancient peasant
+woman with the simple preparations for dinner,
+giving her father his soup and helping
+him to bed, swallowing a mouthful herself as
+she hastened to finish her household tasks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kid Glenn came in as usual for an <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">aperitif</span></span>
+while she was gathering up her wooden
+gloves.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did a mule stray today from your corral?"
+she asked, filling his glass for him.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page338">[pg 338]</span><a name="Pg338" id="Pg338" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No," he said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Dead certain. Why?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Do you know one of the new muleteers
+named Braun?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I know him by sight."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Keed!" she said, going up to him and placing
+both hands on his broad shoulders; "I
+play the carillon after the angelus. Bring
+Steek to the bell-tower half an hour after you
+hear the carillon end. You will hear it end;
+you will hear the quarter hour strike presently.
+Half an hour later, after the third
+quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring
+pistols. Do you promise?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure! What's the row, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I don't know yet. I <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">think</span></span> we shall find a
+spy in the tower."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In the belfry, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">parbleu</span></span>! And you and
+Steek shall come up the stairs and you shall
+wait in the dark, there where the keyboard
+is, and where you see all the wires leading
+upward. You shall listen attentively, and
+I will be on the landing above, among my<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page339">[pg 339]</span><a name="Pg339" id="Pg339" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+bells. And when you hear me cry out to you,
+then you shall come running with pistols!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"For heaven's sake——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is it understood? Give me your word,
+Keed!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure!——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Allons! Assez!</span></span>" she whispered excitedly.
+"Make prisoner any man you see there!—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">any</span></span>
+man! You understand?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You bet!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Any man!</span></span>" she repeated slowly, "even if
+he wears the same uniform <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> wear."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a silence. Then:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"By God!" said Glenn under his breath.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You suspect?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Yes. And if it <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">is</span></span> one of our German-American
+muleteers, we'll lynch him!" he
+whispered in a white rage.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But Maryette shook her head.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No," she said in a dull, even voice, "let the
+gendarmerie take him in charge. Spy or suspect,
+he must have his chance. That is the
+law in France."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You don't give rats a chance, do you?"<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page340">[pg 340]</span><a name="Pg340" id="Pg340" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I give everything its chance," she said
+simply. "And so does my country."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She drew the automatic pistol from her
+holster, examined it, raised her eyes gravely
+to the American beside her:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"This is terrible for me," she added, in a
+low but steady voice. "If it were not for
+my country—" She made a grave gesture,
+turned, and went slowly out through the
+arched stone passage into the main street of
+the town. A few minutes later the angelus
+sounded sweetly over the woods and meadows
+of Sainte Lesse.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At ten, as the last stroke of the hour ended,
+there came a charming, intimate little murmur
+of awakening bells; it grew sweeter,
+clearer, filling the starry sky, growing, exquisitely
+increasing in limpid, transparent volume,
+sweeping through the high, dim belfry
+like a great wind from Paradise carrying
+Heaven's own music out over the darkened
+earth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All Sainte Lesse came to its doorways to
+listen to the playing of their beloved Carillon<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page341">[pg 341]</span><a name="Pg341" id="Pg341" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>nette;
+the bell-music ebbed and swelled under
+the stars; the ancient Flemish masterpiece,
+written by some carillonneur whose bones had
+long been dust, became magnificently vital
+again under the enchanted hands of the little
+mistress of the bells.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In fifteen minutes the carillon ended; a
+slight pause followed, then the quarter hour
+struck.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">With the last stroke of the bell, the girl
+drew off her wooden gloves, laid them on the
+keyboard, turned slowly in her seat, listening.
+A slight sound coming from the spiral staircase
+of stone set her heart beating violently.
+Had the suspected man violated his word?
+She drew the automatic pistol from her holster,
+rose, and stole up to the stone platform
+overhead, where, rising tier on tier into the
+darkness, the great carillon of Sainte Lesse
+loomed overhead.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She listened uneasily. Had the man lied?
+It seemed to her as though her hammering
+heart must burst from her bosom with the
+terrible suspense of the moment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly a shadowy form appeared at the<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page342">[pg 342]</span><a name="Pg342" id="Pg342" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+head of the stairs, reaching the platform at
+one bound. And her heart seemed to stop as
+she realized that this man had arrived too
+early for her friends to be of any use to her.
+He had lied to her. And now she must take
+him unaided, or kill him there in the starlight
+under the looming bells.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette!" he called. She did not stir.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette!" he whispered. "Where are
+you, little sweetheart? Forgive me, I could
+not wait any longer. I adore you——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All at once he discovered her standing motionless
+in the shadow of the great bell Bayard—sprang
+toward her, eager, ardent, triumphant.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette," he whispered, "I love you! I
+shall teach you what a lover is——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly he caught a glimpse of her face;
+the terrible expression in her eyes checked
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What has happened?" he asked, bewildered.
+And then he caught sight of the pistol
+in her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What's that for?" he demanded harshly.
+"Are you afraid to love me? Do you think<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page343">[pg 343]</span><a name="Pg343" id="Pg343" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+I'm the kind of lover to stop for a thing like
+that——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She said, in a low, distinct voice:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Don't move! Put up both hands instantly!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What!" he snapped out, like the crack of
+a lash.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I know who you are. You're a Boche and
+no Yankee! Turn your back and raise your
+arms!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a moment they looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I think," she said, steadily, "you had better
+explain your gas cylinders and balloons
+to the gendarmes at the Poste."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"No," he said, "I'll explain them to you,
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">now</span></span>!——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"If you touch your pistol, I fire!——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But already he had whipped out his pistol;
+and she fired instantly, smashing his right
+hand to pulp.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You damned hell-cat!" he screamed,
+stretching out his shattered hand in an agony
+of impotent fury. Blood rained from it on
+the stone flags. Suddenly he started toward
+her.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page344">[pg 344]</span><a name="Pg344" id="Pg344" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Don't stir!" she whispered. "Turn your
+back and raise both arms!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His face became ghastly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Let me go, in God's name!" he burst out
+in a strangled voice. "Don't send me before
+a firing squad! Listen to me, little comrade—I
+surrender myself to your mercy——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Then keep away from me! Keep your
+distance!" she cried, retreating. He followed,
+fawning:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Listen! We were such good comrades——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Don't come any nearer to me!" she called
+out sharply; but he still shuffled toward her,
+whimpering, drenched in blood, both hands
+uplifted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Kamerad!" he whined, "Kamerad—" and
+suddenly launched a kick at her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She just avoided it, springing behind the
+bell Bayard; and he rushed at her and struck
+with both uplifted arms, showering her with
+blood, but not quite reaching her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the darkness among the beams and the
+deep shadows of the bells she could hear him
+hunting for her, breathing heavily and mak<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page345">[pg 345]</span><a name="Pg345" id="Pg345" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ing
+ferocious, inarticulate noises, as she
+swung herself up onto the first beam above
+and continued to crawl upward.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where are you, little fool?" he cried at
+length. "I have business with you before I
+cut your throat—that smooth, white throat of
+yours that I kissed down there by the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lavoir</span></span>!"
+There was no sound from her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went back toward the stairs and began
+hunting about in the starlight for his pistol;
+but there was no parapet on the bell platform,
+and he probably concluded that it had fallen
+over the edge of the tower into the street.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Supporting his wounded hand, he stood
+glaring blankly about him, and his bloodshot
+eyes presently fell on the door to the stairs.
+But he must have realized that flight would
+be useless for him if he left this girl alive in
+her bell-tower, ready to alarm the town the
+moment he ran for the stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">With his left hand he fumbled under his
+tunic and disengaged a heavy trench knife
+from its sheath. The loss of blood was making
+his legs a trifle unsteady, but he pulled
+himself together and moved stealthily under<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page346">[pg 346]</span><a name="Pg346" id="Pg346" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the shadows of beam and bell until he came
+to the spot he selected. And there he lay
+down, the hilt of the knife in his left hand,
+the blade concealed by his opened tunic.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His heavy groans at last had their effect
+on the girl, who had climbed high up into the
+darkness, creeping from beam to beam and
+mounting from one tier of bells to another.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Standing on the lowest beam, she cautiously
+looked out through an oubliette and saw him
+lying on his back near the sheer edge of the
+roof.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted
+against the stars, for he called up
+to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding
+to death and unable to move.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a few moments, opening his eyes
+again, he saw her standing on the roof beside
+him, looking down at him. And he whispered
+his appeal in the name of Christ. And in
+His name the little bell-mistress responded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When she had used the blue kerchief at her
+neck for a tourniquet and had checked the
+hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page347">[pg 347]</span><a name="Pg347" id="Pg347" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+better opportunity to employ his knife. It
+would not do to bungle the affair. And he
+thought he knew how it could be properly
+done—if he could get her head in the crook
+of his muscular elbow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Lift me, dear ministering angel," he whispered
+weakly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She stooped impulsively, hesitated, then,
+suddenly terrified at the blazing ferocity in
+his eyes, she shrank back at the same instant
+that his broad knife flashed in her very face.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was on his feet at a bound, and, as she
+raised her voice in a startled cry for help,
+he plunged heavily at her, but slipped and fell
+in his own blood. Then the clattering jingle
+of spurred boots on the stone stairs below
+caught his ear. He was trapped, and he
+realized it. He slowly got to his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As Smith and Glenn appeared, springing
+out of the low-arched door, the muleteer
+Braun turned and faced them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a silence, then Glenn said,
+bitterly:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"It's you, is it, you dirty Dutchman!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Hands up!" said Smith quietly. "Come<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page348">[pg 348]</span><a name="Pg348" id="Pg348" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+on, now; it's a case of 'Kamerad' for yours."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Braun did not move to comply with the
+demand. Gradually it dawned on them that
+the man was game.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Maryette!" he called; "where are you?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Smith said curiously:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What do you want with her, Braun?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I want to speak to her."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn
+sullenly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl crept out of the shadows. Her
+face was ghastly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Braun looked at her with pallid scorn:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I'd have
+made you a better lover than you'll ever have
+now!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt,
+turned without a glance at Smith and
+Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And
+as he fell there between sky and earth, hurtling
+downward under the stars, Glenn's pistol
+flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair
+while falling.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely,
+turning on Smith. "Ain't that me all over<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page349">[pg 349]</span><a name="Pg349" id="Pg349" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>!—soft-hearted
+enough to do that skunk a kindness
+thataway!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But his youthful voice was shaking, and he
+stared at the edge of the abyss, listening to
+the far tumult now arising from the street
+below.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling
+his nervous voice with an effort.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "... Now,
+Maryette, put one arm around my neck, and
+me and the Kid will take you down them
+stairs, because you look tired—kind o' peeked
+and fussed, what with all this funny business
+going on——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Oh, Steek! Steek!" she sobbed. "Oh, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mon
+ami</span></span>, Steek!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She began to cry bitterly. Smith picked
+her up in his arms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"What you need is sleep," he said very
+gently.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But she shook her head: she had business
+to transact on her knees that night—business
+with the Mother of God that would take all
+night long—and many, many other sleepless
+nights; and many candles.<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page350">[pg 350]</span><a name="Pg350" id="Pg350" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She put her left arm around Smith's neck
+and hid her tear-wet face on his shoulder.
+And, as he bore her out of the high tower
+and descended the unlighted, interminable
+stairs of stone, he heard her weeping against
+his breast and softly asking intercession in
+behalf of a dead young man who had tried
+to be to her a "Kamerad"—as he understood
+it—including the entire gamut, from amorous
+beast to fiend.</p>
+<div class="tei tei-tb"><hr style="width: 25%" /></div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a single candle lighted in the bar
+of the White Doe. On the "zinc," side by side,
+like birds on a rail, sat the two muleteers.
+In each big, sunburnt fist was an empty glass;
+their spurred feet dangled; they leaned forward
+where they sat, hunched up over their
+knees, heads slightly turned, as though intently
+listening. A haze of cigarette smoke
+dimmed the candle flame.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The drone of an aëroplane high in the midnight
+sky came to them at intervals. At last
+the sound died away under the far stars.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">By the smoky candle flame Kid Glenn un<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page351">[pg 351]</span><a name="Pg351" id="Pg351" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>folded
+and once more read the letter that
+kept them there:</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">—I ought to get to Sainte Lesse somewhere around midnight. Don't
+say a word to Maryette.</span></p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 14.40em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Jack.</span></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sticky Smith, reading over his shoulder,
+slowly rolled another cigarette.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"When Jack comes," he drawled, "it's
+a-goin' to he'p a lot. That Maryette girl's
+plumb done in."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sure she's done in," nodded Kid Glenn.
+"Wouldn't it do in anybody to shoot up a
+young man an' then see him step off the top
+of a skyscraper?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Smith admitted that he himself had felt
+"kind er squeamish." He added: "Gawd, how
+he spread when he hit them flags! You
+didn't look at him, did you, Kid?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Naw. Say, d'ya think Maryette has gone
+to bed?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I dunno. When we left her up there in
+her room, I turned and took a peek to see
+she was comfy, but she was down onto both
+knees before that china virgin on the niche
+over her bed."<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page352">[pg 352]</span><a name="Pg352" id="Pg352" class="tei tei-anchor"></a></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"She oughter be in bed. You gotta sleep
+off a thing like that, or you feel punk next
+day," remarked Glenn, meditatively twirling
+the last drops of eau-de-vie around in his
+tumbler. Then he swallowed them and
+smacked his lips. "She'll come around all
+O. K. when she sees Jack," he added.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Goin' to let him wake her up?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Can you see us stoppin' him? He'd kick
+the pants off us——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Sh-h-h!" motioned Smith; "there's a automobile!
+By gum! It's stopped!——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The two muleteers set their glasses on the
+bar, slid to the floor, and marched, clanking,
+into the covered way that led to the street.
+Smith undid the bolts. A young man stood
+outside in the starlight.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Well, Jack Burley, you old son of a gun!"
+drawled Glenn. "Gawd! You look fit for a
+dead one!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"We ain't told her!" whispered Smith.
+"She an' us done in a Fritz this evening, an'
+it sorter turned Maryette's stomach——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Not that she ain't well," explained Glenn
+hastily; "only a girl feels different. Stick<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page353">[pg 353]</span><a name="Pg353" id="Pg353" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+an' me, we just took a few drinks, but Maryette,
+soon as she got home, she just flopped
+down on her knees and asked that china virgin
+of hers to go easy on that there Fritz——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They had conducted Burley to the bar; both
+their arms were draped around his shoulders;
+both talked to him at the same time.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"This here Fritz," began Glenn—but Burley
+freed himself from their embrace.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Where's Maryette?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Smith jerked a silent thumb toward the
+ceiling.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"In bed?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Or prayin'."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Burley flushed, hesitated.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"G'wan up, anyway," said Glenn. "I reckon
+it'll do her a heap o' good to lamp you, you
+old son of a gun!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Burley turned, went up the short flight of
+stairs to her closed door. There was candle-light
+shining through the transom. He
+knocked with a trembling hand. There was
+no answer. He knocked again; heard her
+uncertain step; stepped back as her door
+opened.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl, a drooping figure in her night
+robe, stood listlessly on the threshold. Which
+of the muleteers it was who had come to her
+door she did not notice. She said:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"I am very tired. Death is a dreadful
+thing. I can't put it from my mind. I am
+trying to pray——"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She lifted her weary eyes and found herself
+looking into the face of her own lover.
+She turned very white, lovely eyes dilated.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"Is—is it thou, Djack?"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">"C'est moi, ma ploo belle!"</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She melted into his tightening arms with a
+faint cry. Very high overhead, under the
+lustrous stars, an aëroplane droned its uncharted
+way across a blood-soaked world.</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-back" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em; margin-top: 6.00em">
+  
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="toc51" id="toc51"></a>
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+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+AT MODERATE PRICES</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br />
+A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Abner Daniel.</span></span> By Will N. Harben.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Adventures of Gerard.</span></span> By A. Conan Doyle.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Adventures of a Modest Man.</span></span> By Robert W. Chambers.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.</span></span> By A. Conan Doyle.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.</span></span> By Frank L. Packard.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">After House, The.</span></span> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Alisa Paige.</span></span> By Robert W. Chambers.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Alton of Somasco.</span></span> By Harold Bindloss.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">A Man's Man.</span></span> By Ian Hay.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Amateur Gentleman, The.</span></span> By Jeffery Farnol.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Andrew The Glad.</span></span> By Maria Thompson Daviess.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Ann Boyd.</span></span> By Will N. Harben.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Anna the Adventuress.</span></span> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Another Man's Shoes.</span></span> By Victor Bridges.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Ariadne of Allan Water.</span></span> By Sidney McCall.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Armchair at the Inn, The.</span></span> By F. Hopkinson Smith.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Around Old Chester.</span></span> By Margaret Deland.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Athalie.</span></span> By Robert W. Chambers.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">At the Mercy of Tiberius.</span></span> By Augusta Evans Wilson.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Auction Block, The.</span></span> By Rex Beach.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Aunt Jane.</span></span> By Jeanette Lee.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Aunt Jane of Kentucky.</span></span> By Eliza C. Hall.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Awakening of Helena Richie.</span></span> By Margaret Deland.</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bambi.</span></span> By Marjorie Benton Cooke.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bandbox, The.</span></span> By Louis Joseph Vance.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Barbara of the Snows.</span></span> By Harry Irving Green.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bar 20.</span></span> By Clarence E. Mulford.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bar 20 Days.</span></span> By Clarence E. Mulford.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Barrier, The.</span></span> By Rex Beach.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Beasts of Tarzan, The.</span></span> By Edgar Rice Burroughs.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Beechy.</span></span> By Bettina Von Hutten.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bella Donna.</span></span> By Robert Hichens.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Beloved Vagabond, The.</span></span> By Wm. J. Locke.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Beltane the Smith.</span></span> By Jeffery Farnol.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Ben Blair.</span></span> By Will Lillibridge.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Betrayal, The.</span></span> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Better Man, The.</span></span> By Cyrus Townsend Brady.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Beulah.</span></span> (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Beyond the Frontier.</span></span> By Randall Parrish.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Black Is White.</span></span> By George Barr McCutcheon.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Blind Man's Eyes, The.</span></span> By Wm. MacHarg &amp; Edwin Balmer.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bob Hampton of Placer.</span></span> By Randall Parrish.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bob, Son of Battle.</span></span> By Alfred Ollivant.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Britton of the Seventh.</span></span> By Cyrus Townsend Brady.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Broad Highway, The.</span></span> By Jeffery Farnol.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bronze Bell, The.</span></span> By Louis Joseph Vance.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Bronze Eagle, The.</span></span> By Baroness Orczy.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Buck Peters, Ranchman.</span></span> By Clarence E. Mulford.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Business of Life, The.</span></span> By Robert W. Chambers.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">By Right of Purchase.</span></span> By Harold Bindloss.</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cabbages and Kings.</span></span> By O. Henry.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Calling of Dan Matthews, The.</span></span> By Harold Bell Wright.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cape Cod Stories.</span></span> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cap'n Dan's Daughter.</span></span> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cap'n Eri.</span></span> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cap'n Warren's Wards.</span></span> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cardigan.</span></span> By Robert W. Chambers.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Carpet From Bagdad, The.</span></span> By Harold MacGrath.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cease Firing.</span></span> By Mary Johnson.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Chain of Evidence, A.</span></span> By Carolyn Wells.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Chief Legatee, The.</span></span> By Anna Katharine Green.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cleek of Scotland Yard.</span></span> By T. W. Hanshew.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Clipped Wings.</span></span> By Rupert Hughes.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Coast of Adventure, The.</span></span> By Harold Bindloss.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Colonial Free Lance, A.</span></span> By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Coming of Cassidy, The.</span></span> By Clarence E. Mulford.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Coming of the Law, The.</span></span> By Chas. A. Seltzer.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Conquest of Canaan, The.</span></span> By Booth Tarkington.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Conspirators, The.</span></span> By Robt. W. Chambers.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Counsel for the Defense.</span></span> By Leroy Scott.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Court of Inquiry, A.</span></span> By Grace S. Richmond.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Crime Doctor, The.</span></span> By E.W. Hornung</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.</span></span> By Rex Beach.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cross Currents.</span></span> By Eleanor H. Porter.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cry in the Wilderness, A.</span></span> By Mary E. Waller.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cynthia of the Minute.</span></span> By Louis Jos. Vance.</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Dark Hollow, The.</span></span> By Anna Katharine Green.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Dave's Daughter.</span></span> By Patience Bevier Cole.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Day of Days, The.</span></span> By Louis Joseph Vance.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Day of the Dog, The.</span></span> By George Barr McCutcheon.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Depot Master, The.</span></span> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Desired Woman, The.</span></span> By Will N. Harben.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Destroying Angel, The.</span></span> By Louis Joseph Vance.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Dixie Hart.</span></span> By Will N. Harben.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Double Traitor, The.</span></span> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Drusilla With a Million.</span></span> By Elizabeth Cooper.</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Eagle of the Empire, The.</span></span> By Cyrus Townsend Brady.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">El Dorado.</span></span> By Baroness Orczy.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Elusive Isabel.</span></span> By Jacques Futrelle.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Empty Pockets.</span></span> By Rupert Hughes.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Enchanted Hat, The.</span></span> By Harold MacGrath.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Eye of Dread, The.</span></span> By Payne Erskine.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Eyes of the World, The.</span></span> By Harold Bell Wright.</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+  
+  
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Felix O'Day.</span></span> By F. Hopkinson Smith.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">54-40 or Fight.</span></span> By Emerson Hough.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-corr" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">54-40</span></span><span style="font-weight: 700"> or Fight.</span></span> By Emerson Hough.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Fighting Chance, The.</span></span> By Robert W. Chambers.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Financier, The.</span></span> By Theodore Dreiser.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Flamsted Quarries.</span></span> By Mary E. Waller.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Flying Mercury, The.</span></span> By Eleanor M. Ingram.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">For a Maiden Brave.</span></span> By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Four Million, The.</span></span> By O. Henry.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Four Pool's Mystery, The.</span></span> By Jean Webster.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Fruitful Vine, The.</span></span> By Robert Hichens.</div>
+</div>
+  
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+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.</span></span> By George Randolph Chester.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Gilbert Neal.</span></span> By Will N. Harben.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Girl From His Town, The.</span></span> By Marie Van Vorst.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.</span></span> By Payne Erskine.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Girl Who Lived in the Woods, The.</span></span> By Marjorie Benton
+Cook.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Girl Who Won, The.</span></span> By Beth Ellis.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Glory of Clementina, The.</span></span> By Wm. J. Locke.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Glory of the Conquered, The.</span></span> By Susan Glaspell.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">God's Country and the Woman.</span></span> By James Oliver Curwood.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">God's Good Man.</span></span> By Marie Corelli.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Going Some.</span></span> By Rex Beach.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Gold Bag, The.</span></span> By Carolyn Wells.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Golden Slipper, The.</span></span> By Anna Katharine Green.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Golden Web, The.</span></span> By Anthony Partridge.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Gordon Craig.</span></span> By Randall Parrish.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Greater Love Hath No Man.</span></span> By Frank L. Packard.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Greyfriars Bobby.</span></span> By Eleanor Atkinson.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Guests of Hercules, The.</span></span> By C. N. &amp; A. M. Williamson.</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Halcyone.</span></span> By Elinor Glyn.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Happy Island</span></span> (Sequel to Uncle William). By Jeannette Lee.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Havoc.</span></span> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Heart of Philura, The.</span></span> By Florence Kingsley.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Heart of the Desert, The.</span></span> By Honoré Willsie.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Heart of the Hills, The.</span></span> By John Fox, Jr.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Heart of the Sunset.</span></span> By Rex Beach.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.</span></span> By Elfrid A. Bingham.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Heather-Moon, The.</span></span> By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Her Weight in Gold.</span></span> By Geo. B. McCutcheon.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Hidden Children, The.</span></span> By Robert W. Chambers.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Hoosier Volunteer, The.</span></span> By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Hopalong Cassidy.</span></span> By Clarence E. Mulford.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">How Leslie Loved.</span></span> By Anne Warner.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.</span></span> By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Husbands of Edith, The.</span></span> By George Barr McCutcheon</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">I Conquered.</span></span> By Harold Titus.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Illustrious Prince, The.</span></span> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Idols.</span></span> By William J. Locke.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Indifference of Juliet, The.</span></span> By Grace S. Richmond.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Inez.</span></span> (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Infelice.</span></span> By Augusta Evans Wilson.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">In Her Own Right.</span></span> By John Reed Scott.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Initials Only.</span></span> By Anna Katharine Green.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">In Another Girl's Shoes.</span></span> By Berta Ruck.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Inner Law, The.</span></span> By Will N. Harben.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Innocent.</span></span> By Marie Corelli.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.</span></span> By Sax Rohmer.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">In the Brooding Wild.</span></span> By Ridgwell Cullum.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Intrigues, The.</span></span> By Harold Bindloss.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Iron Trail, The.</span></span> By Rex Beach.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Iron Woman, The.</span></span> By Margaret Deland.</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Ishmael.</span></span> (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="pdf53" id="pdf53"></a>
+<a name="toc54" id="toc54"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">BARBARIANS</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In this story Mr. Chambers deals
+with the early years of the Great
+War. Sickened by what seems to
+them at that time indifference on the
+part of the American Government, an
+odd group of men meet on the decks
+of a mule transport. They have been
+drawn to this common rendezvous by
+a desire to enter the war and purge
+their souls in the fight for the freedom
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There are twelve in the group,
+eight Americans, three Frenchmen,
+and a Belgian, and prominent among
+them is Jim Neeland, whose earlier
+experiences Mr. Chambers has related
+in the "Dark Star."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Barbarians records the adventures
+of these men, not together, but singly
+or in groups, along the whole western
+battle front, from the Belgian coast
+to the mountains of Alsace. It is
+filled with unusual character sketches
+of the lives of the men in the
+Trenches, and of life in the little
+towns just inside the lines of Battle.
+Through it all there is great beauty
+and wonderful sense of justice and
+right that is indeed more precious
+than peace.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Other Books by Robert W. Chambers:</p>
+
+
+
+
+  
+  
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Adventures of a Modest Man</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-corr" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Alisa</span></span><span style="font-weight: 700"> Paige</span></span></div>  
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Athalie</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Business of Life, The</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Cardigan</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Conspirators, The</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Fighting Chance, The</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Hidden Children, The</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-corr" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Girl Phillippa, The</span></span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Red Republic, The</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Dark Star, The</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Who Goes There?</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Younger Set, The</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Japonette</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-weight: 700">Streets of Ascalon</span></span></div>
+</div>
+  
+
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">A. L. BURT COMPANY</div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left">Publishers,—New York</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="toc55" id="toc55"></a>
+<a name="pdf56" id="pdf56"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">THE NEWEST BOOKS</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 173%">
+IN POPULAR REPRINT FICTION</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Only Books of Superior Merit and Popularity are Published in this List</p>
+
+ 
+
+  
+  
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR</span><span class="tei tei-corr"><span style="font-weight: 700">.</span></span></span> By Edgar Rice
+Burroughs.</p>
+  
+
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">The Tarzan books need no introduction. Thousands are waiting for this volume,
+being further adventures of TARZAN OF THE APES, and volume five
+of the series.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">LONG LIVE THE KING.</span></span> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">This is a story of love, intrigue and adventure in a European court. In this
+story Mrs. Rinehart combines mystery, heart interest, and excitement of her past
+successes into a story that will be hailed as the most interesting of all her
+stories.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">WE CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING.</span></span> By Rupert Hughes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">A novel of metropolitan life, of a girl who had never had anything and of a
+man who had always had everything, and of the manner in which his richness
+and her poverty colored each other, and the lives of many other persons as well.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">BARBARIANS.</span></span> By Robert W. Chambers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">Brave, reckless, idealistic chaps—careless of peril, unafraid of death—who deliberately
+sought danger and the venturesome life as found during the war, over
+there. The adventures will hold the reader breathless and the romance will
+delight.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">THE FORFEIT.</span></span> By Ridgwell Cullum.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">A ranch story of Montana which centers around the fact that the leader of
+the "Lightfoot Rustlers" and the likeable but devil-may-care brother of the hero
+are one and the same. Cullum is a "big" western story writer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">UNDER HANDICAP.</span></span> By Jackson Gregory.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">Here is a story which is a strong picture of the changing of a western desert
+into a land of usefulness, by irrigation. The story has a pleasing romance, yet
+exciting at times, with adventures of more than one kind. Every reader of
+"The Outlaw" will want this book.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">THE TRIUMPH.</span></span> By Will N. Harben.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">Loyalty is the keynote of this story, loyalty of the hero to his patriotic duty,
+loyalty of a daughter to her father, and loyalty of a lover to his sweetheart.
+The followers, of Mr. Harben will enjoy another of his southern stories.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">PIP.</span></span> By Ian Hay (Capt. Ian Hay Beith), Author of "The First
+Hundred Thousand."</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">A story of English school boys, their pleasures and pains, their sports and escapades,
+that might be called a modern "Tom Brown," but a Tom Brown brimming
+with laughter and with the slang of the day.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">MISS MILLION'S MAID.</span></span> By Berta Ruck.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">Another ingenious Berta Ruck plot in which a high-spirited girl of twenty-three,
+well-bred, but penniless, flies in the face of tradition, becoming a maid of a
+newly-made heiress. So entangled grow the love affairs of mistress and maid
+that the reader has a merry time with the author in steering the girls on the
+road to happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">ENOCH CRANE.</span></span> By F. Hopkinson and F. Berkeley Smith.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">A story of New York specially. The scene is Waverly Place, in one of the
+characteristic old houses of that section. In this respect the story is very similar
+to "Peter," Mr. Smith's most popular book.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">PARTNERS OF THE NIGHT.</span></span> By Leroy Scott.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 2.00em">Although a detective story, it is one altogether different from those of the ordinary
+detective story writer. It is a story of the plain-clothes men and criminals
+of New York, with a splendid romance.</p>
+
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For sale by all booksellers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East <span class="tei tei-corr">23rd</span> Street, New York</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+  <div id="pgfooter" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARIANS***
+</pre><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader57" id="rightpageheader57"></a><a name="pgtoc58" id="pgtoc58"></a><a name="pdf59" id="pdf59"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Credits</span></h1><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr><th class="tei tei-label tei-label-gloss">May 27, 2008  </th></tr><tr><td class="tei tei-item" style="margin-left: 2.00em"><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item" style="margin-left: 2.00em">Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item" style="margin-left: 2.00em"><span class="tei tei-respStmt">
+      <span class="tei tei-resp">Produced by <span class="tei tei-name">Suzanne Shell</span>,
+      and the <span class="tei tei-name">Online Distributed Proofreading Team</span> at
+      &lt;http://www.pgdp.net/c&gt;.
+      </span>
+  </span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader60" id="rightpageheader60"></a><a name="pgtoc61" id="pgtoc61"></a><a name="pdf62" id="pdf62"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">A Word from Project Gutenberg</span></h1><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This file should be named 
+          25623-h.html or 
+          25623-h.zip.</p><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This and all associated files of various formats will be found
+          in: 
+
+            <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/6/2/25623/" class="block tei tei-xref" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">http://www.gutenberg.org</span><span style="font-size: 90%">/dirs/2/5/6/2/25623/</span></a></p><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Updated editions will replace the previous one — the old
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+        <title>Barbarians</title>
+      <author><name reg='Chambers, Robert W.'>Robert W. Chambers</name></author>
+      <editor role="illustrator"><name reg="Keller, A. I.">A. I. Keller</name></editor>
+    </titleStmt>
+    <publicationStmt>
+      <publisher>Project Gutenberg</publisher>
+      <date value='2008-05-27'>May 27, 2008</date>
+      <idno type='etext-no'>25623</idno>
+      <availability>
+        <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere
+          at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
+          You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+          the terms of the Project Gutenberg License online at
+        www.gutenberg.org/license</p>
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+      <date value="2008-05-27">May 27, 2008</date>
+      <respStmt>
+      <resp>Produced by <name>Suzanne Shell</name>,
+      and the <name>Online Distributed Proofreading Team</name> at
+      &lt;http://www.pgdp.net/c&gt;.
+      </resp>
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+<text>
+<front>
+<div>
+  <divGen type='pgheader'/>
+</div>
+<div>
+  <divGen type='encodingDesc'/>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<pb n='ii'/><anchor id='Pgii'/>
+<pgIf output="txt">
+  <then>
+    <p>[Illustration: Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back into
+mid-air.]</p>
+  </then>
+  <else>
+    <p><figure url="images/frontis.jpg">
+    <head>Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back into mid-air. [<ref target='Pg62'>Page 62</ref>]</head>
+    <figDesc>Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back into mid-air.</figDesc>
+    </figure></p>
+  </else>
+</pgIf>
+
+<pb n='iii'/><anchor id='Pgiii'/>
+<p rend='title-xx'>BARBARIANS</p>
+<p rend='title-x'>By <hi rend='smallcaps'>Robert W. Chambers</hi></p>
+<p rend='title'><hi rend='allcaps'>Author of</hi></p>
+<p rend='title'>"The Dark Star," "The Girl Philippa," "Who Goes There," Etc.</p>
+
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+
+<pgIf output="txt">
+  <then>
+  <!-- nothing -->
+  </then>
+  <else>
+    <p><figure url="images/i001_1.jpg">
+    <figDesc>Ornament</figDesc>
+    </figure></p>
+  </else>
+</pgIf> 
+
+<p rend='title'>With Frontispiece</p>
+<p rend='title'>By <hi rend='allcaps'>A. I. Keller</hi></p>
+
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+
+<p rend='title; allcaps'>A. L. Burt Company</p>
+<p rend='title'>Publishers New York</p>
+<p rend='title'>Published by arrangement with <hi rend='smallcaps'>D. Appleton &amp; Company</hi></p>
+</div>
+
+<pb n='v'/><anchor id='Pgv'/>
+
+<div type='dedication'>
+<lg>
+<l>TO</l>
+<l>LYLE and MADELEINE MAHAN</l>
+</lg>
+</div>
+
+<pb n='vii'/><anchor id='Pgvii'/>
+
+<div>
+  
+<lg>
+<l>I</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"Daughter of Light, the bestial wrath</l>
+<l>Of Barbary besets thy path!</l>
+<l>The Hun is beating his painted drum;</l>
+<l>His war horns blare! The Hun is come!"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"Father, I feel his f&oelig;tid breath:</l>
+<l>The thick air reeks with the stench of death;</l>
+<l>My will is Thine. Thy will be done</l>
+<l>On Turk and Bulgar, Czech and Hun!"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>II</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l rend='italic'>She understands.</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Where the dead headland flare</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Mocks sea and sand;</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Where death-lights shed their glare</l>
+<l rend='italic'>On No-Man's-Land.</l>
+<l rend='italic'>France takes her stand.</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Magnificently fair,</l>
+<l rend='italic'>The Flaming Brand</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Within her slender hand;</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Christ's lilies in her hair.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>III</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"Daughter of Grief, thy House is sand!</l>
+<l>Thy towers are falling athwart the land.</l>
+<l>They've flayed the earth to its ribs of chalk</l>
+<l>And over its bones the spectres stalk!"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"Father, I see my high spires reel;</l>
+<l>My breast is scarred by the Hun's hoofed heel.</l>
+<l>What was, shall be! I read Thy sign:</l>
+<l>Thy ocean yawns for the smitten swine!"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<pb n='viii'/><anchor id='Pgviii'/>
+
+<lg>
+<l>IV</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l rend='italic'>Then, from Verdun</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Pealed westward to the Somme</l>
+<l rend='italic'>From every gun</l>
+<l rend='italic'>God's summons: "Daughter! Come!"</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Then the red sun</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Stood still. Grew dumb</l>
+<l rend='italic'>The universal hum</l>
+<l rend='italic'>Of life, and numb</l>
+<l rend='italic'>The lips of Life, undone</l>
+<l rend='italic'>By Death.... And so&mdash;France won!</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>V</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"Daughter of God, the End is here!</l>
+<l>The swine rush on: the sea is near!</l>
+<l>My wild flowers bloom on the trenches' edge;</l>
+<l>My little birds sing by shore and sedge."</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"Father, raise up my martyred land!</l>
+<l>Clothe her bones with Thy magic hand;</l>
+<l>Receive the Brand Thy angel lent,</l>
+<l>And stanch my blood with Thy sacrament."</l>
+</lg>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+  <head>Contents</head>
+  <divGen type="toc" />
+</div>
+
+</front>
+
+<body>
+
+
+<pb n='1'/><anchor id='Pg1'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='I. FED UP'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='I. FED UP'/>
+
+<head>CHAPTER I<lb/><lb/>
+FED UP</head>
+
+<p>So this is what happened to the dozen-odd
+malcontents who could no longer stand the
+dirty business in Europe and the dirtier politicians
+at home.</p>
+
+<p>There was treachery in the Senate, treason
+in the House. A plague of liars infested the
+Republic; the land was rotting with plots.</p>
+
+<p>But if the authorities at Washington remained
+incredulous, stunned into impotency,
+while the din of murder filled the world, a few
+mere men, fed up on the mess, sickened while
+awaiting executive galvanization, and started
+east to purge their souls.</p>
+
+<p>They came from the four quarters of the continent,
+drawn to the decks of the mule transport
+by a common sickness and a common necessity.
+Only two among them had ever before<pb n='2'/><anchor id='Pg2'/>
+met. They represented all sorts, classes, degrees
+of education and of ignorance, drawn to
+a common rendezvous by coincidental nausea
+incident to the temporary stupidity and poltroonery
+of those supposed to represent them
+in the Congress of the Great Republic.</p>
+
+<p>The rendezvous was a mule transport reeking
+with its cargo, still tied up to the sun-scorched
+wharf where scores of loungers loafed
+and gazed up at the rail and exchanged badinage
+with the supercargo.</p>
+
+<p>The supercargo consisted of this dozen-odd
+fed-up ones&mdash;eight Americans, three Frenchmen
+and one Belgian.</p>
+
+<p>There was a young soldier of fortune named
+Carfax, recently discharged from the Pennsylvania
+State Constabulary, who seemed to feel
+rather sure of a commission in the British
+service.</p>
+
+<p>Beside him, leaning on the blistering rail,
+stood a self-possessed young man named Harry
+Stent. He had been educated abroad; his
+means were ample; his time his own. He had
+shot all kinds of big game except a Hun, he told
+another young fellow&mdash;a civil engineer&mdash;who<pb n='3'/><anchor id='Pg3'/>
+stood at his left and whose name was Jim
+Brown.</p>
+
+<p>A youth on crutches, passing along the deck
+behind them, lingered, listening to the conversation,
+slightly amused at Stent's game list and
+his further ambition to bag a Boche.</p>
+
+<p>The young man's lameness resulted from a
+trench acquaintance with the game which Stent
+desired to hunt. His regiment had been, and
+still was, the 2nd Foreign Legion. He was on
+his way back, now, to finish his convalescence
+in his old home in Finist&egrave;re. He had been a
+writer of stories for children. His name was
+Jacques Wayland.</p>
+
+<p>As he turned away from the group at the
+rail, still amused, a man advancing aft spoke to
+him by name, and he recognized an American
+painter whom he had met in Brittany.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Neeland?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. I'm fed up with watchful waiting."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you bound, ultimately?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've a hint that an Overseas unit can use
+me. And you, Wayland?"</p>
+
+<pb n='4'/><anchor id='Pg4'/>
+<p>"Going to my old home in Finist&egrave;re where
+I'll get well, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Second Foreign."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh. Get that leg in the trenches?" inquired
+Neeland.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Came over to recuperate. But Finist&egrave;re
+calls me. I've <hi rend='italic'>got</hi> to smell the sea off
+Eryx before I can get well."</p>
+
+<p>A pleasant-faced, middle-aged man, who
+stood near, turned his head and cast a professionally
+appraising glance at the young
+fellow on crutches.</p>
+
+<p>His name was Vail; he was a physician.
+It did not seem to him that there was much
+chance for the lame man's very rapid recovery.</p>
+
+<p>Three muleteers came on deck from below&mdash;all
+young men, all talking in loud, careless
+voices. They wore uniforms of khaki resembling
+the regular service uniform. They
+had no right to these uniforms.</p>
+
+<p>One of these young men had invented the
+costume. His name was Jack Burley. His
+two comrades were, respectively, "Sticky"<pb n='5'/><anchor id='Pg5'/>
+Smith and "Kid" Glenn. Both had figured
+in the squared circle. All three were fed
+up. They desired to wallop something, even
+if it were only a leather-rumped mule.</p>
+
+<p>Four other men completed the supercargo&mdash;three
+French youths who were returning
+for military duty and one Belgian. They
+had been waiters in New York. They also
+were fed up with the administration. They
+kept by themselves during the voyage. Nobody
+ever learned their names. They left
+the transport at Calais, reported, and were
+lost to sight in the flood of young men flowing
+toward the trenches.</p>
+
+<p>They completed the odd dozen of fed-up
+ones who sailed that day on the suffocating
+mule transport in quest of something they
+needed but could not find in America&mdash;something
+that lay somewhere amid flaming obscurity
+in that hell of murder beyond the
+Somme&mdash;their souls' salvation perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve fed-up men went. And what happened
+to all except the four French youths
+is known. Fate laid a guiding hand on the
+shoulder of Carfax and gave him a gentle<pb n='6'/><anchor id='Pg6'/>
+shove toward the Vosges. Destiny linked
+arms with Stent and Brown and led them
+toward Italy. Wayland's rendezvous with Old
+Man Death was in Finist&egrave;re. Neeland sailed
+with an army corps, but Chance met him at Lorient
+and led him into the strangest paths a
+young man ever travelled.</p>
+
+<p>As for Sticky Smith, Kid Glenn and Jack
+Burley, they were muleteers. Or thought
+they were. A muleteer has to do with mules.
+Nothing else is supposed to concern him.</p>
+
+<p>But into the lives of these three muleteers
+came things never dreamed of in their
+philosophy&mdash;never imagined by them even in
+their cups.</p>
+
+<p>As for the others, Carfax, Brown, Stent,
+Wayland, Neeland, this is what happened to
+each one of them. But the episode of Carfax
+comes first. It happened somewhere
+north of the neutral Alpine region where the
+Vosges shoulder their way between France
+and Germany.</p>
+
+<p>After he had exchanged a dozen words
+with a staff officer, he began to realize,
+vaguely, that he was done in.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='7'/><anchor id='Pg7'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='II. MAROONED'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='II. MAROONED'/>
+<head>CHAPTER II<lb/><lb/>
+MAROONED</head>
+
+<p>"Will they do anything for us?" repeated
+Carfax.</p>
+
+<p>The staff officer thought it very doubtful.
+He stood in the snow switching his wet puttees
+and looking out across a world of tumbled
+mountains. Over on his right lay Germany;
+on his left, France; Switzerland towered
+in ice behind him against an arctic
+blue sky.</p>
+
+<p>It grew warm on the Falcon Peak, almost
+hot in the sun. Snow was melting on black
+heaps of rocks; a black salamander, swollen,
+horrible, stirred from its stiff lethargy and
+crawled away blindly across the snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Our case is this," continued Carfax; "somebody's
+made a mistake. We've been forgotten.
+And if they don't relieve us rather soon<pb n='8'/><anchor id='Pg8'/>
+some of us will go off our bally nuts. Do
+you get me, Major?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you understand what I've been saying?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; quite so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then ask yourself, Major, how long can
+four men stand it, cooped up here on this
+peak? A month, two months, three, five?
+But it's going on ten months&mdash;ten months of
+solitude&mdash;silence&mdash;not a sound, except when
+the snowslides go bellowing off into Alsace
+down there below our feet." His bronzed
+lip quivered. "I'll get aboard one if this keeps
+on."</p>
+
+<p>He kicked a lump of ice off into space;
+the staff officer glanced at him and looked
+away hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," said Carfax with an effort; "we're
+not regulars&mdash;not like the others. The Canadian
+division is different. Its discipline
+is different&mdash;in spite of Salisbury Plain and
+K. of K. In my regiment there are half-breeds,
+pelt-hunters, Nome miners, Yankees
+of all degrees, British, Canadians, gentlemen<pb n='9'/><anchor id='Pg9'/>
+adventurers from Cosmopolis. They're good
+soldiers, but do you think they'd stay here?
+It is so in the Athabasca Battalion; it is the
+same in every battalion. They wouldn't stay
+here ten months. They couldn't. We are
+free people; we can't stand indefinite caging;
+we've got to have walking room once every
+few months."</p>
+
+<p>The staff officer murmured something.</p>
+
+<p>"I know; but good God, man! Four of
+us have been on this peak for nearly ten
+months. We've never seen a Boche, never
+heard a shot. Seasons come and go, rain
+falls, snow falls, the winds blow from the
+Alps, but nothing else comes to us except a
+half-frozen bird or two."</p>
+
+<p>The staff officer looked about him with an
+involuntary shiver. There was nothing to
+see except the sun on the wet, black rocks
+and the whitewashed observation station of
+solid stone from which wires sagged into the
+valley on the French side.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;good luck," he said hastily, looking
+as embarrassed as he felt. "I'll be toddling
+along."</p>
+
+<pb n='10'/><anchor id='Pg10'/>
+<p>"Will you say a word to the General, like
+a good chap? Tell him how it is with us&mdash;four
+of us all alone up here since the beginning.
+There's Gary, Captain in the Athabasca
+Battalion, a Yankee if the truth were
+known; there's Flint, a cockney lieutenant in
+a Calgary battery; there's young Gray, a
+lieutenant and a Prince Edward Islander;
+and here's me, a major in the Yukon Battalion&mdash;four
+of us on the top of a cursed
+French mountain&mdash;ten months of each other,
+of solitude, silence&mdash;and the whole world
+rocking with battles&mdash;and not a sound up
+here&mdash;not a whisper! I tell you we're four
+sick men! We've got a grip on ourselves
+yet, but it's slipping. We're still fairly civil
+to each other, but the strain is killing. Sullen
+silences smother irritability, but&mdash;" he
+added in a peculiarly pleasant voice, "I expect
+we are likely to start killing each other
+if somebody doesn't get us out of here very
+damn quick."</p>
+
+<p>The staff captain's lips formed the words,
+"Awfully sorry! Good luck!" but his articu<pb n='11'/><anchor id='Pg11'/>lation
+was indistinct, and he went off hurriedly,
+still murmuring.</p>
+
+<p>Carfax stood in the snow, watching him
+clamber down among the rocks, where an
+alpinist orderly joined them.</p>
+
+<p>Gary presently appeared at the door of
+the observation station. "Has he gone?" he
+inquired, without interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Carfax.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he going to do anything for us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know.... <hi rend='italic'>No!</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>Gary lingered, kicked at a salamander,
+then turned and went indoors. Carfax sat
+down on a rock and sucked at his empty
+pipe.</p>
+
+<p>Later the three officers in the observation
+station came out to the door again and
+looked at him, but turned back into the doorway
+without saying anything. And after a
+while Carfax, feeling slightly feverish, went
+indoors, too.</p>
+
+<p>In the square, whitewashed room Gray and
+Flint were playing cut-throat poker; Gary
+was at the telephone, but the messages received
+or transmitted appeared to be of no<pb n='12'/><anchor id='Pg12'/>
+importance. There had never been any message
+of importance from the Falcon Peak or
+to it. There was likely to be none.</p>
+
+<p>Ennui, inertia, dry rot&mdash;and four men,
+sometimes silently, sometimes violently cursing
+their isolation, but always cursing it&mdash;afraid
+in their souls lest they fall to cursing
+one another aloud as they had begun to curse
+in their hearts.</p>
+
+<p>Months ago rain had fallen; now snow
+fell, and vast winds roared around them from
+the Alps. But nothing else ever came to the
+Falcon Peak, except a fierce, red-eyed <hi rend='italic'>L&auml;mmergeyer</hi>
+sheering above the peak on enormous
+pinions, or a few little migrating birds
+fluttering down, half frozen, from the high
+air lanes. Now and then, also, came to
+them a staff officer from below, British sometimes,
+sometimes French, who lingered no
+longer than necessary and then went back
+again, down into friendly deeps where were
+trees and fields and familiar things and human
+companionship, leaving them to their
+hell of silence, of solitude, and of each other.</p>
+
+<p>The tide of war had never washed the base<pb n='13'/><anchor id='Pg13'/>
+of their granite cliffs; the highest battle wave
+had thundered against the Vosges beyond
+earshot; not even a deadened echo of war
+penetrated those silent heights; not a Taube
+floated in the zenith.</p>
+
+<p>In the squatty, whitewashed ruin which once
+had been the eyrie of some petty predatory
+despot, and which now served as an observatory
+for two idle divisions below in the valley,
+stood three telescopes. Otherwise the
+furniture consisted of valises, trunks, a table
+and chairs, a few books, several newspapers,
+and some tennis balls lying on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Carfax seated himself at one of the telescopes,
+not looking through it, his heavy eyes
+partly closed, his burnt-out pipe between his
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Gary rose from the telephone and joined
+the card players. They shuffled and dealt
+listlessly, seldom speaking save in monosyllables.</p>
+
+<p>After a while Carfax went over to the
+card table and the young lieutenant cashed in
+and took his place at the telescope.</p>
+
+<p>Below in the Alsatian valley spring had<pb n='14'/><anchor id='Pg14'/>
+already started the fruit buds, and a delicate
+green edged the lower snow line.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant spoke of it wistfully; nobody
+paid any attention; he rose presently
+and went outdoors to the edge of the precipice&mdash;not
+too near, for fear he might be
+tempted to jump out through the sunshine,
+down into that inviting world of promise
+below.</p>
+
+<p>Far underneath him&mdash;very far down in the
+valley&mdash;a cuckoo called. Out of the depths
+floated the elfin halloo, the gaily malicious
+challenge of spring herself, shouted up melodiously
+from the plains of Alsace&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>Cuckoo!</hi>
+<hi rend='italic'>Cuckoo!</hi> <hi rend='italic'>Cuckoo!</hi>&mdash;You poor, sullen, frozen
+foreigner up there on the snowy rocks!&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>Cuckoo!</hi>
+<hi rend='italic'>Cuckoo!</hi> <hi rend='italic'>Cuckoo!</hi></p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant of Yukon infantry, whose
+name was Gray, came back into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a bird of sorts yelling like hell
+below," he said to the card players.</p>
+
+<p>Carfax ran over his cards, rejected three,
+and nodded. "Well, let him yell," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, a Boche dicky-bird insulting
+you?" asked Gary, in his Yankee drawl.</p>
+
+<pb n='15'/><anchor id='Pg15'/>
+<p>Flint, declining to draw cards, got up and
+went out into the sunshine. When he returned
+to the table, he said: "It's a cuckoo....
+I wish to God I were out of this," he
+added.</p>
+
+<p>They continued to play for a while without
+apparent interest. Each man had won
+his comrades' money too many times to care
+when Carfax added up debit and credit and
+wrote down each man's score. In nine
+months, alternately beggaring one another,
+they had now, it appeared, broken about even.</p>
+
+<p>Gary, an American in British uniform,
+twitched a newspaper toward himself,
+slouched in his chair, and continued to read
+for a while. The paper was French and two
+weeks old; he jerked it about irritably.</p>
+
+<p>Gray, resting his elbows on his knees, sat
+gazing vacantly out of the narrow window.
+For a smart officer he had grown slovenly.</p>
+
+<p>"If there was any trout fishing to be had,"
+he began; but Flint laughed scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you laughing at? There must
+be trout in the valley down there where that
+bird is," insisted Gray, reddening.</p>
+
+<pb n='16'/><anchor id='Pg16'/>
+<p>"Yes, and there are cows and chickens and
+houses and women. What of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Gary, in his faded service uniform of a
+captain, scowled over his newspaper. "It's
+bad enough to be here," he said heavily; "so
+don't let's talk about it. Quit disputing."</p>
+
+<p>Flint ignored the order.</p>
+
+<p>"If there was anything sportin' to do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up," muttered Carfax. "Do you
+expect sport on a hog-back?"</p>
+
+<p>Gray picked up a tennis ball and began to
+play it against the whitewashed stone wall,
+using the palm of his hand. Flint joined him
+presently; Gary went over to the telephone, set
+the receiver to his ear and spoke to some officer
+in the distant valley on the French side, continuing
+a spiritless conversation while watching
+the handball play. After a while he rose,
+shambled out and down among the rocks to the
+spring where snow lay, trodden and filthy, and
+the big, black salamanders crawled half stupefied
+in the sun. All his loathing and fear of
+them kindled again as it always did at sight
+of them. "Dirty beasts," he muttered, stumping
+and stumbling among the stunted fir<pb n='17'/><anchor id='Pg17'/>
+trees; "some day they'll bite some of these
+damn fools who say they can't bite. And
+that'll end 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Flint and Gray continued to play handball
+in a perfunctory way while Carfax looked on
+from the telephone without interest. Gary
+came back, his shoes and puttees all over wet
+snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless," he said in a monotonous voice,
+"something happens within the next few days
+I'll begin to feel queer in my head; and if I
+feel it coming on, I'll blow my bally nut off.
+Or somebody's." And he touched his service
+automatic in its holster and yawned.</p>
+
+<p>After a dead silence:</p>
+
+<p>"Buck up," remarked Carfax; "think how
+our men must feel in Belfort, never letting
+off their guns. Ross rifles, too&mdash;not a shot
+at a Boche since the damn war began!"</p>
+
+<p>"God!" said Flint, smiting the ball with
+the palm of his hand, "to think of those Ross
+rifles rusting down there and to think of the
+pink-skinned pigs they could paunch so
+cleanly. Did you ever paunch a deer? What
+a mess of intestines all over the shop!"</p>
+
+<pb n='18'/><anchor id='Pg18'/>
+<p>Gary, still standing, began to kick the snow
+from his shoes. Gray said to him: "For a
+dollar of your Yankee money I'd give you a
+shot at me with your automatic&mdash;you're that
+slack at practice."</p>
+
+<p>"If it goes on much longer like this I'll
+not have to pay for a shot at anybody," returned
+Gary, with a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Gray laughed too, disagreeably, stretching
+his facial muscles, but no sound issued.</p>
+
+<p>"We're all going crazy together up here;
+that's my idea," he said. "I don't know which
+I can stand most comfortably, your voices or
+your silence. Both make me sick."</p>
+
+<p>"Some day a salamander will nip you;
+then you'll go loco," observed Gary, balancing
+another tennis ball in his right hand.
+"Give me a shot at you?" he added. "I feel
+as though I could throw it clean through you.
+You look soft as a pudding to me."</p>
+
+<p>Far, clear, from infinite depths, the elf-like
+hail of the cuckoo came floating up to the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>To Flint, English born, the call meant
+more than it did to Canadian or Yankee.</p>
+
+<pb n='19'/><anchor id='Pg19'/>
+<p>"In Devon," he said in an altered voice,
+"they'll be calling just now. There's a world
+of primroses in Devon.... And the thorn is
+as white as the damned snow is up here."</p>
+
+<p>Gary growled his impatience and his profile
+of a Greek fighter showed in clean silhouette
+against the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, hell," he said, "did I come out here
+for this?&mdash;nine months of it?" He hurled the
+tennis ball at the wall. "Can the home talk,
+if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>The cuckoo was still calling.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever play cuckoo," asked Carfax,
+"at ten shillings a throw? It's not a bad
+game&mdash;if you're put to it for amusement."</p>
+
+<p>Nobody replied; Gray's sunken, boyish face
+betrayed no interest; he continued to toss a
+tennis ball against the wall and catch it on
+the rebound.</p>
+
+<p>Toward sundown the usual Alpine chill set
+in; a mist hung over the snow-edged cliffs;
+the rocks breathed steam under a foggy and
+battered moon.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='20'/><anchor id='Pg20'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='III. CUCKOO!'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='III. CUCKOO!'/>
+<head>CHAPTER III<lb/><lb/>
+CUCKOO!</head>
+
+<p>Carfax, on duty, sat hunched up over the
+telephone, reporting to the fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Gray came in, closed the wooden shutters,
+hung blankets over them, lighted an oil stove
+and then a candle. Flint took up the cards,
+looked at Gary, then flung them aside, muttering.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody attempted to read; nobody touched
+the cards again. An orderly came in with
+soup. The meal was brief and perfectly
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>Flint said casually, after the table had been
+cleared: "I haven't slept for a month. If I
+don't get some sleep I'll go queer. I warn
+you; that's all. I'm sorry to say it, but
+it's so."</p>
+
+<p>"They're dirty beasts to keep us here like<pb n='21'/><anchor id='Pg21'/>
+this," muttered Gary&mdash;"nine months of it, and
+not a shot."</p>
+
+<p>"There'll be a few shots if things don't
+change," remarked Flint in a colourless voice.
+"I'm getting wrong in my head. I can feel
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Carfax turned from the switchboard with
+a forced laugh: "Thinking of shooting up the
+camp?"</p>
+
+<p>"That or myself," replied Flint in a quiet
+voice; "ever since that cuckoo called I've felt
+queer."</p>
+
+<p>Gary, brooding in his soiled tunic collar,
+began to mutter presently: "I once knew a
+man in a lighthouse down in Florida who
+couldn't stand it after a bit and jumped off."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we've heard that twenty times," interrupted
+Carfax wearily.</p>
+
+<p>Gray said: "<hi rend='italic'>What</hi> a jump!&mdash;I mean down
+into Alsace below&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're all going dotty!" snapped Carfax.
+"Shut up or you'll be doing it&mdash;some of you."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't sleep. That's where I'm getting
+queer," insisted Flint. "If I could get a few
+hours' sleep now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='22'/><anchor id='Pg22'/>
+<p>"I wish to God the Boches could reach you
+with a big gun. That would put you to sleep,
+all right!" said Gray.</p>
+
+<p>"This war is likely to end before any of
+us see a Fritz," said Carfax. "I could stand
+it, too, except being up here with such"&mdash;his
+voice dwindled to a mutter, but it sounded
+to Gary as though he had used the word
+"rotters."</p>
+
+<p>Flint's face had a white, strained expression;
+he began to walk about, saying aloud
+to himself: "If I could only sleep. That's
+the idea&mdash;sleep it off, and wake up somewhere
+else. It's the silence, or the voices&mdash;I don't
+know which. You dollar-crazy Yankees and
+ignorant Provincials don't realize what a
+cuckoo is. You've no traditions, anyway&mdash;no
+past, nothing to care for&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to 'Arry!" retorted Gary&mdash;"'Arry
+and his cuckoo!"</p>
+
+<p>Carfax stirred heavily. "Shut up!" he
+said, with an effort. "The thing is to keep
+doing something&mdash;something&mdash;anything&mdash;except
+quarrelling."</p>
+
+<p>He picked up a tennis ball. "Come on, you<pb n='23'/><anchor id='Pg23'/>
+funking brutes! I'll teach you how to play
+cuckoo. Every man takes three tennis balls
+and stands in a corner of the room. I stand
+in the middle. Then you blow out the candle.
+Then I call 'cuckoo!' in the dark and you
+try to hit me, aiming by the sound of my
+voice. Every time I'm hit I pay ten shillings
+to the pool, take my place in a corner, and
+have a shot at the next man, chosen by lot.
+And if you throw three balls apiece and nobody
+hits me, then you each pay ten shillings
+to me and I'm cuckoo for another round."</p>
+
+<p>"We aim at random?" inquired Gray,
+mildly interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. It must be played in pitch
+darkness. When I call out cuckoo, you take
+a shot at where you think I am. If you all
+miss, you all pay. If I'm hit, I pay."</p>
+
+<p>Gary chose three tennis balls and retired
+to a corner of the room; Gray and Flint,
+urged into action, took three each, unwillingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Blow out the candle," said Carfax, who
+had walked into the middle of the room.
+Gary blew it out and the place was in darkness.</p>
+
+<pb n='24'/><anchor id='Pg24'/>
+<p>They thought they heard Carfax moving
+cautiously, and presently he called, "Cuckoo!"
+A storm of tennis balls rebounded from the
+walls; "Cuckoo!" shouted Carfax, and the
+tennis balls rained all around him.</p>
+
+<p>Once more he called; not a ball hit him;
+and he struck a match where he was seated
+upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>There was some perfunctory laughter of a
+feverish sort; the candle was relighted, tennis
+balls redistributed, and Carfax wrote down
+his winnings.</p>
+
+<p>The next time, however, Gray, throwing
+low, caught him. Again the candle was
+lighted, scores jotted down, a coin tossed,
+and Flint went in as cuckoo.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed almost impossible to miss a man
+so near, even in total darkness, but Flint
+lasted three rounds and was hit, finally, a
+stinging smack on the ear. And then Gary
+went in.</p>
+
+<p>It was hot work, but they kept at it feverishly,
+grimly, as though their very sanity depended
+upon the violence of their diversion.
+They threw the balls hard, viciously hard. A<pb n='25'/><anchor id='Pg25'/>
+sort of silent ferocity seemed to seize them.
+A chance hit cut the skin over Flint's cheekbone,
+and when the candle was lighted, one
+side of his face was bright with blood.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the proceedings somebody had
+disinterred brandy and Schnapps from under
+a bunk. The room had become close; they
+all were sweating.</p>
+
+<p>Carfax emptied his iced glass, still breathing
+hard, tossed a shilling and sent in Gary
+as cuckoo.</p>
+
+<p>Flint, who never could stand spirits, started
+unsteadily for the candle, but could not seem
+to blow it out. He stood swaying and balancing
+on his heels, puffing out his smooth, boyish
+cheeks and blowing at hazard.</p>
+
+<p>"You're drunk," said Gray, thickly; but he
+was as flushed as the boy he addressed, only
+steadier of leg.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" retorted Flint, jerking his
+shoulders around and gazing at Gray out of
+glassy eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Blow out that candle," said Gary heavily,
+"or I'll shoot it out! Do you get that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shoot!" repeated Flint, staring vaguely<pb n='26'/><anchor id='Pg26'/>
+into Gary's bloodshot eyes; "<hi rend='italic'>you</hi> shoot, you
+old slacker&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up and play the game!" cut in Carfax,
+a menacing roar rising in his voice.
+"You're all slackers&mdash;and rotters, too. Play
+the game! Keep playing&mdash;hard!&mdash;or you'll
+go clean off your fool nuts!"</p>
+
+<p>Gary walked heavily over and knocked the
+tennis balls out of Flint's hands.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a better game than that," he said,
+his articulation very thick; "but it takes
+nerve&mdash;if you've got it, you spindle-legged
+little cockney!"</p>
+
+<p>Flint struck at him aimlessly. "I've got
+nerve," he muttered, "plenty of nerve, old
+top! What d'you want? I'm your man; I'll
+go you&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on with the game, I tell you!" bawled
+Carfax.</p>
+
+<p>Gary swung around: "Wait till I explain&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't wait! Keep going! Keep
+playing! Keep doing something, for God's
+sake!"</p>
+
+<pb n='27'/><anchor id='Pg27'/>
+<p>"Will you wait!" shouted Gary. "I want
+to tell you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Carfax made a hopeless gesture: "It's talk
+that will do the trick for us all&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to tell you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Carfax shrugged, emptied his full glass
+with a gesture of finality.</p>
+
+<p>"Then talk, damn you! And we'll all be
+at each other's throats before morning."</p>
+
+<p>Gary got Gray by the elbow: "Reggie, it's
+this way. We flip up for cuckoo. Whoever
+gets stuck takes a shot apiece from our automatics
+in the legs&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's perfectly agreeable to me," assented
+Gray, in the mincing, elaborate voice characteristic
+of him when drunk.</p>
+
+<p>Flint wagged his head. "It's a sportin'
+game. I'm in," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Gary looked at Carfax. "A shot in the
+dark at a man's legs. And if he gets his&mdash;it
+will be Blighty in exchange for hell."</p>
+
+<p>Carfax, sullen with liquor, shoved his big
+hand into his pocket, produced a shilling, and
+tossed it.</p>
+
+<p>A brighter flush stained the faces which<pb n='28'/><anchor id='Pg28'/>
+ringed him; the risky hazard of the affair
+cleared their sick minds to comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>Tails turned uppermost; Flint and Gary
+were eliminated. It lay between Carfax and
+Gray, and the older man won.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you fire low," said the young fellow,
+with an excited laugh, and walked into
+the middle of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Gary blew out the candle. Presently from
+somewhere in the intense darkness Gray
+called "Cuckoo!" and instantly a slanting red
+flash lashed out through the gloom. And,
+when the deafening echo had nearly ceased:
+"Cuckoo!"</p>
+
+<p>Another pistol crashed. And after a swimming
+interval they heard him moving.
+"Cuckoo!" he called; a level flame stabbed
+the dark; something fell, thudding through
+the staccato uproar of the explosion. At
+the same moment the outer door opened on
+the crack and Carfax's orderly peeped in.</p>
+
+<p>Carfax struck a match with shaky fingers;
+the candle guttered, sank, flared on
+Flint, who was laughing without a sound.
+"Got the beggar, by God!" he whispered<pb n='29'/><anchor id='Pg29'/>&mdash;"through
+the head! Look at him. Look at
+Reggie Gray! Tried for his head and got
+him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He reeled back, chuckling foolishly, and
+levelled at Carfax. "Now I'll get you!"
+he simpered, and shot him through the
+face.</p>
+
+<p>As Carfax pitched forward, Gary fired.</p>
+
+<p>"Missed me, by God!" laughed Flint.
+"Shoot? Hell, yes. I'll show you how to
+shoot&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He struck the lighted candle with his left
+hand and laughed again in the thick darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Shoot? I'll show you how to shoot, you
+old slacker&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Gary fired.</p>
+
+<p>After a silence Flint giggled in the choking
+darkness as the door opened cautiously
+again, and shot at the terrified orderly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a cockney, am I? And you don't
+think much of the Devon cuckoos, do you?
+Now I'll show you that I understand all
+kinds of cuckoos&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='30'/><anchor id='Pg30'/>
+<p>Both flashes split the obscurity at the same
+moment. Flint fell back against the wall
+and slid down to the floor. The outer door
+began to open again cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>But the orderly, half dressed, remained
+knee-deep in the snow by the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>After a long interval Gary struck a match,
+then went over and lit the candle. And, as he
+turned, Flint fired from where he lay on the
+floor and Gary swung heavily on one heel, took
+two uncertain steps. Then his pistol fell clattering;
+he sank to his knees and collapsed face
+downward on the stones.</p>
+
+<p>Flint, still lying where he had fallen, partly
+upright, against the wall, began to laugh,
+and died a few moments later, the wind
+from the slowly opening door stirring his
+fair hair and extinguishing the candle.</p>
+
+<p>And at last, through the opened door crept
+Carfax's orderly; peered into the darkness
+within, shivering in his unbuttoned tunic, his
+boots wet with snow.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn already whitened the east; and up
+out of the ghastly fog edging the German
+Empire, silhouetted, monstrous, against<pb n='31'/><anchor id='Pg31'/>
+the daybreak, soared a <hi rend='italic'>L&auml;mmergeyer</hi>, beating
+the livid void with enormous, unclean
+wings.</p>
+
+<p>The orderly heard its scream, shrank, cowering,
+against the door frame as the huge
+bird's ferocious red and yellow eyes blazed
+level with his.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, above the clamor of the <hi rend='italic'>L&auml;mmergeyer</hi>,
+the shrill bell of the telephone
+began to ring.</p>
+
+<p>The terrible racket of the <hi rend='italic'>L&auml;mmergeyer</hi>
+filled the sky; the orderly stumbled into the
+room, slipped in a puddle of something wet,
+sent an empty bottle rolling and clinking
+away into the darkness; stumbled twice over
+prostrate bodies; reached the telephone, half
+fainting; whispered for help.</p>
+
+<p>After a long, long while, the horror still
+thickly clogging vein and brain, he scratched
+a match, hesitated, then holding it high,
+reeled toward the door with face averted.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the sun was already above the
+horizon, flashing over Haut Alsace at his
+feet.</p>
+
+<pb n='32'/><anchor id='Pg32'/>
+<p>The <hi rend='italic'>L&auml;mmergeyer</hi> was a speck in the sky,
+poised over France.</p>
+
+<p>Up out of the infinite and sunlit chasm
+came a mocking, joyous hail&mdash;up through the
+sheer, misty gulf out of vernal depths:
+<hi rend='italic'>Cuck</hi>-oo! <hi rend='italic'>Cuck</hi>-oo! <hi rend='italic'>Cuck</hi>-oo!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='33'/><anchor id='Pg33'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='IV. RECONNAISSANCE'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='IV. RECONNAISSANCE'/>
+<head>CHAPTER IV<lb/><lb/>
+RECONNAISSANCE</head>
+
+<p>And that was the way Carfax ended&mdash;a
+tiny tragedy of incompetence compared to the
+mountainous official fiasco at Gallipoli. Here,
+a few perished among the filthy salamanders
+in the snow; there, thousands died in the
+burning Turkish gorse&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>But that's history; and its makers are
+already officially damned.</p>
+
+<p>But now concerning two others of the fed-up
+dozen on board the mule transport&mdash;Harry
+Stent and Jim Brown. Destiny linked
+arms with them; Fate jerked a mysterious
+thumb over her shoulder toward Italy.
+Chance detailed them for special duty as
+soon as they landed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a magnificent sight, the disembark<pb n='34'/><anchor id='Pg34'/>ing
+of the British overseas military force
+sent secretly into Italy.</p>
+
+<p>They continued to disembark and entrain
+at night. Nobody knew that British troops
+were in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The infernal uproar along the Isonzo never
+ceased; the din of the guns resounded through
+the Trentino, but British and Canadian noses
+were sniffing at something beyond the Carnic
+Alps, along the slopes of which they continued
+to concentrate, Rifles, Kilties, and
+Gunners.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be no particular hurry.
+Details from the Canadian contingent were
+constantly sent out to familiarize themselves
+with the vast waste of tunneled mountains
+denting the Austrian sky-line to the northward;
+and all day long Dominion reconnoitering
+parties wandered among valleys, alms,
+forest, and peaks in company sometimes with
+Italian alpinists, sometimes by themselves,
+prying, poking, snooping about with all the
+emotionless pertinacity of Teuton tourists
+preoccupied with <hi rend='italic'>wanderlust</hi>, <hi rend='italic'>kultur</hi>, and
+<hi rend='italic'>ewigkeit</hi>.</p>
+
+<pb n='35'/><anchor id='Pg35'/>
+<p>And one lovely September morning the
+British Military Observer with the Italian
+army, and his very British aid, sat on a
+sunny rock on the Col de la Reine and
+watched a Canadian northward reconnaissance&mdash;nothing
+much to see, except a solitary
+moving figure here and there on the mountains,
+crawling like a deerstalker across
+ledges and stretches of bracken&mdash;a few dots
+on the higher slopes, visible for a moment,
+then again invisible, then glimpsed against
+some lower snow patch, and gone again beyond
+the range of powerful glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"The Athabasca regiment, 13th Battalion,"
+remarked the British Military Observer;
+"lively and rather noisy."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," observed his A.&nbsp;D.&nbsp;C.</p>
+
+<p>"Sturdy, half-disciplined beggars," continued
+the B.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;O., watching the mountain
+plank through his glasses; "every variety of
+adventurer in their ranks&mdash;cattlemen, ranchmen,
+Hudson Bay trappers, North West police,
+lumbermen, mail carriers, bear hunters,
+Indians, renegade frontiersmen, soldiers of
+fortune&mdash;a sweet lot, Algy."</p>
+
+<pb n='36'/><anchor id='Pg36'/>
+<p>"Ow."</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And half of 'em unruly Yankees&mdash;the
+most objectionable half, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"A bad lot," remarked the Honorable Algy.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said the B.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;O. complacently;
+"I've a relative of sorts with 'em&mdash;leftenant,
+I believe&mdash;a Yankee brother-in-law,
+in point of fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow."</p>
+
+<p>"Married a step-sister in the States. Must
+look him up some day," concluded the B.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;O.,
+adjusting his field glasses and focussing
+them on two dark dots moving across a distant
+waste of alpine roses along the edge
+of a chasm.</p>
+
+<p>One of the dots happened to be the "relative
+of sorts" just mentioned; but the
+B.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;O. could not know that. And a moment
+afterward the dots became invisible
+against the vast mass of the mountain, and
+did not again reappear within the field of
+the English officer's limited vision. So he
+never knew he had seen his relative of sorts.</p>
+
+<p>Up there on the alp, one of the dots, which
+at near view appeared to be a good-looking,<pb n='37'/><anchor id='Pg37'/>
+bronzed young man in khaki, puttees, and
+mountain shoes, said to the other officer who
+was scrambling over the rocks beside him:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see a better country for
+sheep?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bear, elk, goats&mdash;it's sure a great layout,"
+returned the younger officer, a Canadian
+whose name was Stent.</p>
+
+<p>"Goats," nodded Brown&mdash;"sheep and goats.
+This country was made for them. I fancy
+they <hi rend='italic'>have</hi> chamois here. Did you ever see
+one, Harry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. They have a thing out here, too,
+called an ibex. You never saw an ibex, did
+you, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>Brown, who had halted, shook his head.
+Stent stepped forward and stood silently beside
+him, looking out across the vast cleft in
+the mountains, but not using his field glasses.</p>
+
+<p>At their feet the cliffs fell away sheer
+into tremendous and dizzying depths; fir
+forests far below carpeted the abyss like
+wastes of velvet moss, amid which glistened
+a twisted silvery thread&mdash;a river. A world
+of mountains bounded the horizon.</p>
+
+<pb n='38'/><anchor id='Pg38'/>
+<p>"Better make a note or two," said Stent
+briefly.</p>
+
+<p>They unslung their rifles, seated themselves
+in the warm sun amid a deep thicket of
+alpine roses, and remained silent and busy
+with pencil and paper for a while&mdash;two inconspicuous,
+brownish-grey figures, cuddled
+close among the greyish rocks, with nothing
+of military insignia about their dress or their
+round grey wool caps to differentiate them
+from sportsmen&mdash;wary stalkers of chamois
+or red deer&mdash;except that under their unbelted
+tunics automatics and cartridge belts made
+perceptible bunches.</p>
+
+<p>Just above them a line of stunted firs
+edged limits of perpetual snow, and rocks
+and glistening fields of crag-broken white
+carried the eye on upward to the dazzling
+pinnacle of the Col de la Reine, splitting the
+vast, calm blue above.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing except peaks disturbed the tranquil
+sky to the northward; not a cloud hung
+there. But westward mist clung to a few
+mountain flanks, and to the east it was snowing
+on distant crests.</p>
+
+<pb n='39'/><anchor id='Pg39'/>
+<p>Brown, sketching rapidly but accurately,
+laughed a little under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"To think," he said, "not a Boche dreams
+we are in the Carnic Alps. It's very funny,
+isn't it? Our surveyors are likely to be here
+in a day or two, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>Stent, working more slowly and methodically
+on his squared map paper, the smoke
+drifting fragrantly from his brier pipe,
+nodded in silence, glancing down now and
+then at the barometer and compass between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Mentioning big game," he remarked presently,
+"I started to tell you about the ibex,
+Jim. I've hunted a little in the Eastern
+Alps."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know it," said Brown, interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. A classmate of mine at the Munich
+Polytechnic invited me&mdash;Siurd von Glahn&mdash;a
+splendid fellow&mdash;educated at Oxford&mdash;just
+like one of us&mdash;nothing of the Boche about
+him at all&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Brown laughed: "A Boche is always
+a Boche, Harry. The black Prussian
+blood&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='40'/><anchor id='Pg40'/>
+<p>"No; Siurd was all white. Really. A
+charming, lovable fellow. Anyway, his dad
+had a shooting where there were chamois,
+reh, hirsch, and the king of all Alpine big
+game&mdash;ibex. And Siurd asked me."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get an ibex?" inquired Brown,
+sharpening his pencil and glancing out across
+the valley at a cloud which had suddenly
+formed there.</p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>"What manner of beast is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It has mountain sheep and goats stung
+to death. Take it from me, Jim, it's the last
+word in mountain sport. The chamois isn't
+in it. Pooh, I've seen chamois within a hundred
+yards of a mountain macadam highway.
+But the ibex? Not much! The man
+who stalks and kills an ibex has nothing
+more to learn about stalking. Chamois, red
+deer, Scotch stag make you laugh after you've
+done your bit in the ibex line."</p>
+
+<p>"How about our sheep and goat?" inquired
+Brown, staring at his comrade.</p>
+
+<p>"It's harder to get ibex."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!"</p>
+
+<pb n='41'/><anchor id='Pg41'/>
+<p>"It really is, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"What does your ibex resemble?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a handsome beast, ashy grey in summer,
+furred a brownish yellow in winter, and
+with little chin whiskers and a pair of big,
+curved, heavily ridged horns, thick and flat
+and looking as though they ought to belong
+to something African, and twice as big."</p>
+
+<p>"Some trophy, what?" commented Brown,
+working away at his sketches.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather. The devilish thing lives along the
+perpetual snow line; and, for incredible stunts
+in jumping and climbing, it can give points
+to any Rocky Mountain goat. You try to get
+above it, spend the night there, and stalk it
+when it returns from nocturnal grazing in the
+stunted growth below. That's how."</p>
+
+<p>"And you got one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It took six days. We followed it for
+that length of time across the icy mountains,
+Siurd and I. I thought I'd die."</p>
+
+<p>"Cold work, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Stent nodded, pocketed his sketch, fished out
+a packet of bread and chocolate from his pocket
+and, rolling over luxuriously in the sun among<pb n='42'/><anchor id='Pg42'/>
+the alpine roses, lunched leisurely, flat on his
+back.</p>
+
+<p>Brown presently stretched out and reclined
+on his elbow; and while he ate he lazily watched
+a kestrel circling deep in the gulf below him.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he said, half to himself, "that this
+is the most beautiful region on earth."</p>
+
+<p>Stent lifted himself on both elbows and gazed
+across the chasm at the lower slopes of the alm
+opposite, all ablaze with dewy wild flowers.
+Down it, between fern and crag and bracken,
+flashed a brook, broken into in silvery sections
+amid depths of velvet green below, where evidently
+it tumbled headlong into that thin, shining
+thread which was a broad river.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," mused Stent, "Siurd von Glahn and
+I were comrades on many a foot tour through
+such mountains as these. He was a delightful
+fellow, my classmate Siurd&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Brown's swift rigid grip on his arm checked
+him to silence; there came the clink of an
+iron-shod foot on the ledge; they snatched their
+rifles from the fern patch; two figures stepped
+around the shelf of rock, looming up dark
+against the dazzling sky.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='43'/><anchor id='Pg43'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='V. PARNASSUS'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='V. PARNASSUS'/>
+<head>CHAPTER V<lb/><lb/>
+PARNASSUS</head>
+
+<p>Brown, squatting cross-legged among the
+alpine roses, squinted along his level rifle.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" he said with a pleasant, rising inflection
+in his quiet voice. "Stand very still,
+gentlemen," he added in German.</p>
+
+<p>"Drop your rifles. Drop 'em quick!" he
+repeated more sharply. "Up with your hands&mdash;hold
+them up high! Higher, if you please!&mdash;quickly.
+Now, then, what are you doing on this
+alp?"</p>
+
+<p>What they were doing seemed apparent
+enough&mdash;two gentlemen of Teutonic persuasion,
+out stalking game&mdash;deer, rehbok or chamois&mdash;one
+a tall, dark, nice-looking young fellow
+wearing the usual rough gray jacket with
+stag-horn buttons, green felt hat with feather,
+and leather breeches of the alpine hunter. His<pb n='44'/><anchor id='Pg44'/>
+knees and aristocratic ankles were bare and
+bronzed. He laughed a little as he held up his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>The other man was stout and stocky rather
+than fat. He had the square red face and
+bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and
+the spectacles of a Herr Professor. He held
+up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers
+spread out wide. They seemed rather soiled.</p>
+
+<p>From his <hi rend='italic'>r&uuml;cksack</hi> stuck out a butterfly
+net in two sections and the deeply scalloped,
+silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss
+adorned his green felt hat; a green tin
+box punched full of holes was slung from his
+broad shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Brown, lowering his rifle cautiously, was already
+getting to his feet from the trampled
+bracken, when, behind him, he heard Stent's
+astonished voice break forth in pedantic German:</p>
+
+<p>"Siurd! Is it <hi rend='italic'>thou</hi> then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Harry Stent!" returned the dark, nice-looking
+young fellow amiably. And, in a delightful
+voice and charming English:</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, am I to offer you a shake hands," he<pb n='45'/><anchor id='Pg45'/>
+inquired smilingly; "or shall I continue to invoke
+the Olympian gods with classically uplifted
+and imploring arms?"</p>
+
+<p>Brown let Stent pass forward. Then, stepping
+back, he watched the greeting between
+these two old classmates. His rifle, grasped
+between stock and barrel, hung loosely between
+both hands. His expression became vacantly
+good humoured; but his brain was working like
+lightning.</p>
+
+<p>Stent's firm hand encountered Von Glahn's
+and held it in questioning astonishment. Looking
+him in the eyes he said slowly: "Siurd, it
+is good to see you again. It is amazing to
+meet you this way. I am glad. I have never
+forgotten you.... Only a moment ago I was
+speaking to Brown about you&mdash;of our wonderful
+ibex hunt! I was telling Brown&mdash;my
+comrade&mdash;" he turned his head slightly and
+presented the two young men&mdash;"Mr. Brown,
+an American&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"American?" repeated Von Glahn in his gentle,
+well-bred voice, offering his hand. And, in
+turn, becoming sponsor, he presented his stocky
+companion as Dr. von Dresslin; and the cere<pb n='46'/><anchor id='Pg46'/>mony
+instantly stiffened to a more rigid etiquette.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in his always gentle, graceful way,
+Von Glahn rested his hand lightly on Stent's
+shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"You made us jump&mdash;you two Americans&mdash;as
+though you had been British. Of what could
+two Americans be afraid in the Carnic Alps
+to challenge a pair of wandering ibex stalkers?"</p>
+
+<p>"You forget that I am Canadian," replied
+Stent, forcing a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"At that, you are practically American and
+civilian&mdash;" He glanced smilingly over their
+equipment, carelessly it seemed to Stent, as
+though verifying all absence of military insignia.
+"Besides," he added with his gentle
+humour, "there are no British in Italy. And
+no Italians in these mountains, I fancy; they
+have their own affairs to occupy them on the
+Isonzo I understand. Also, there is no war between
+Italy and Germany."</p>
+
+<p>Stent smiled, perfectly conscious of Brown's
+telepathic support in whatever was now to
+pass between them and these two Germans. He<pb n='47'/><anchor id='Pg47'/>
+knew, and Brown knew, that these Germans
+must be taken back as prisoners; that, suspicious
+or not, they could not be permitted
+to depart again with a story of having met
+an American and a Canadian after ibex among
+the Carnic Alps.</p>
+
+<p>These two Germans were already their prisoners;
+but there was no hurry about telling
+them so.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you happen to be here, Siurd?"
+asked Stent, frankly curious.</p>
+
+<p>Von Glahn lifted his delicately formed eyebrows,
+then, amused:</p>
+
+<p>"Count von Plessis invites me; and"&mdash;he
+laughed outright&mdash;"he must have invited you,
+Harry, unless you are poaching!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" exclaimed Stent, for a brief
+second believing in the part he was playing;
+"I supposed this to be a free alp."</p>
+
+<p>He and Von Glahn laughed; and the latter
+said, still frankly amused: "<hi rend='italic'>Soyez tranquille</hi>,
+Messieurs; Count von Plessis permits my
+friends&mdash;in my company&mdash;to shoot the Queen's
+alm."</p>
+
+<p>With a lithe movement, wholly graceful, he<pb n='48'/><anchor id='Pg48'/>
+slipped the <hi rend='italic'>r&uuml;cksack</hi> from his shoulders, let
+it fall among the <hi rend='italic'>alpenrosen</hi> beside his sporting
+rifle.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a long day and a longer night
+ahead of us," he said pleasantly, looking from
+Stent to Brown. "The snow limit lies just
+above us; the ibex should pass here at dawn
+on their way back to the peak. Shall we consolidate
+our front, gentlemen&mdash;and make it
+a Quadruple Entente?"</p>
+
+<p>Stent replied instantly: "We join you with
+thanks, Siurd. My one ibex hunt is no experience
+at all compared to your record of a
+veteran&mdash;" He looked full and significantly
+at Brown; continuing: "As you say, we have
+all day and&mdash;a long night before us. Let us
+make ourselves comfortable here in the sun
+before we take&mdash;our final stations."</p>
+
+<p>And they seated themselves in the lee of the
+crag, foregathering fraternally in the warm
+alpine sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>The Herr Professor von Dresslin grunted
+as he sat down. After he had lighted his pipe
+he grunted again, screwed together his butter<pb n='49'/><anchor id='Pg49'/>fly
+net and gazed hard through thick-lensed
+spectacles at Brown.</p>
+
+<p>"Does it interest you, sir, the pursuit of the
+diurnal Lepidoptera?" he inquired, still staring
+intently at the American.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know anything about them," explained
+Brown. "What are Lepidoptera?"</p>
+
+<p>"The <hi rend='italic'>schmetterling</hi>&mdash;the butterfly. In Amerika,
+sir, you have many fine species, notably
+Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus
+of the four varietal forms." His prominent
+eyes shifted from one detail of Brown's costume
+to another&mdash;not apparently an intelligent
+examination, but a sort of protruding and
+indifferent stare.</p>
+
+<p>His gaze, however, was arrested for a moment
+where the lump under Brown's tunic indicated
+something concealed&mdash;a hunting knife,
+for example. Brown's automatic was strapped
+there. But the bulging eyes, expressionless
+still, remained fixed for a second only, then
+travelled on toward the Ross rifle&mdash;the Athabasca
+Regiment having been permitted to exchange
+this beloved weapon for the British
+regulation piece recently issued to the Can<pb n='50'/><anchor id='Pg50'/>adians.
+From behind the thick lenses of his
+spectacles the Herr Professor examined the
+rifle while his monotonously dreary voice continued
+an entomological monologue for Brown's
+edification. And all the while Von Glahn and
+Stent, reclining nearby among the ferns, were
+exchanging what appeared to be the frankest
+of confidences and the happiest of youthful
+reminiscences.</p>
+
+<p>"Of the Parnassians," rumbled on Professor
+von Dresslin, "here in the Alps we possess
+one notable example&mdash;namely, the Parnassus
+Apollo. It is for the capture of this never-to-be-sufficiently
+studied butterfly that I have,
+upon this ibex-hunting expedition, myself
+equipped with net and suitable paraphernalia."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," nodded Brown, eyeing the green tin
+box and the net. The Herr Professor's pop-eyed
+attention was now occupied with the service
+puttees worn by Brown. A sportsman also
+might have worn them, of course.</p>
+
+<p>"The Apollo butterfly," droned on Professor
+Dresslin, "iss a butterfly of the larger magnitude
+among European Lepidoptera, yet not of
+the largest. The Parnassians, allied to the<pb n='51'/><anchor id='Pg51'/>
+Papilionid&aelig;, all live only in high altitudes,
+and are, by the thinly scaled and always-to-be-remembered
+red and plack ge-spotted wings,
+to be readily recognized. I haf already two
+specimens captured this morning. I haff the
+honour, sir, to exhibit them for your inspection&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He fished out a flat green box from his pocket,
+opened it under Brown's nose, leaning close
+enough to touch Brown with an exploring and
+furtive elbow&mdash;and felt the contour of the
+automatic.</p>
+
+<p>Amid a smell of carbolic and camphor cones
+Brown beheld, pinned side by side upon the
+cork-lined interior of the box, two curiously
+pretty butterflies.</p>
+
+<p>Their drooping and still pliable wings
+seemed as thin as white tissue paper; their
+bodies were covered with furry hairs. Brick-red
+and black spots decorated the frail membrane
+of the wings in a curiously pleasing
+harmony of pattern and of colour.</p>
+
+<p>"Very unusual," he said, with a vague idea
+he was saying the wrong thing.</p>
+
+<p>Monotonously, paying no attention, Professor<pb n='52'/><anchor id='Pg52'/>
+von Dresslin continued: "I, the life history of
+the Parnassus Apollo, haff from my early
+youth investigated with minuteness, diligence,
+and patience."&mdash;His protuberant eyes were now
+fixed on Brown's rifle again.&mdash;"For many years
+I haff bred this Apollo butterfly from the egg,
+from the caterpillar, from the chrysalis. I have
+the negroid forms, the albino forms, the dwarf
+forms, the hybrid forms investigated under
+effery climatic condition. Notes sufficient for
+three volumes of quarto already exist as a
+residuum of my investigations&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He looked up suddenly into the American's
+face&mdash;which was the first sudden movement the
+Herr Professor had made&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ach wass! Three volumes! It is nothing.
+Here iss material for thirty!&mdash;A lifetime iss
+too short to know all the secrets of a single
+species.... If I may inquire, sir, of what
+pattern is your most interesting and admirable
+rifle?"</p>
+
+<p>"A&mdash;Ross," said Brown, startled into a second's
+hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"So? And, if I may inquire, of what nationality
+iss it, a R-r-ross?"</p>
+
+<pb n='53'/><anchor id='Pg53'/>
+<p>"It's a Canadian weapon. We Americans use
+it a great deal for big game."</p>
+
+<p>"So?... And it iss also by the Canadian
+military employed perhaps, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," said Brown, carelessly, "that the
+British Government has taken away the Ross
+rifle from the Canadians and given them the
+regulation weapon."</p>
+
+<p>"So? Permit&mdash;that I examine, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Brown did not seem to hear him or notice
+the extended hand&mdash;blunt-fingered, hairy, persistent.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor, not discouraged, repeated:
+"Sir, <hi rend='italic'>bitte darf ich</hi>, may I be permitted?"
+And Brown's eyes flashed back a lightning
+shaft of inquiry. Then, carelessly smiling, he
+passed the Ross rifle over to the Herr Professor;
+and, at the same time, drew toward him
+that gentleman's silver-mounted weapon, and
+carelessly cocked it.</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me," he murmured, balancing it innocently
+in the hollow of his left arm, apparently
+preoccupied with admiration at the florid
+workmanship of stock and guard. No movement
+that the Herr Professor made escaped<pb n='54'/><anchor id='Pg54'/>
+him; but presently he thought to himself&mdash;"The
+old dodo is absolutely unsuspicious. My
+nerves are out of order.... What odd eyes
+that Fritz has!"</p>
+
+<p>When Herr Professor von Dresslin passed
+back the weapon Brown laid the German sporting
+piece beside it with murmured complimentary
+comment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yess," said the German, "such rifles kill
+when properly handled. We Germans may
+cordially recommend them for our American&mdash;friends&mdash;"
+Here was the slightest hesitation&mdash;"Pardon!
+I mean that we may safely
+guarantee this rifle <hi rend='italic'>to</hi> our friends."</p>
+
+<p>Brown looked thoughtfully at the thick lenses
+of the spectacles. The popeyes remained expressionless,
+utterly, Teutonically inscrutable.
+A big heather bee came buzzing among the
+<hi rend='italic'>alpenrosen</hi>. Its droning hum resembled the
+monotone of the Herr Professor.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them Brown heard Stent saying: "Do
+you remember our ambition to wear the laurels
+of Parnassus, Siurd? Do you remember our
+notes at the lectures on the poets? And our<pb n='55'/><anchor id='Pg55'/>
+ambition to write at least one deathless poem
+apiece before we died?"</p>
+
+<p>Von Glahn's dark eyes narrowed with merriment
+and his gentle laugh and attractive voice
+sounded pleasantly in Brown's ears.</p>
+
+<p>"You wrote at least <hi rend='italic'>one</hi> famous poem to
+Rosa," he said, still laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"To Rosa? Oh! Rosa of the Caf&eacute; Luitpold!
+By Jove I did, didn't I, Siurd? How on earth
+did you ever remember that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it very pretty." He began to repeat
+aloud:</p>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"Rosa with the winsome eyes,</l>
+<l>When my beer you bring to me;</l>
+<l>I can see through your disguise!</l>
+<l>I my goddess recognize&mdash;</l>
+<l>Hebe, young immortally,</l>
+<l>Sweet nepenthe pouring me!"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>Stent laughed outright:</p>
+
+<p>"How funny to think of it now&mdash;and to think
+of Rosa!... And you, Siurd, do you forget
+that you also composed a most wonderful
+war-poem&mdash;to the metre of 'Fly, Eagle, Fly!'
+Do you remember how it began?</p>
+
+<pb n='56'/><anchor id='Pg56'/>
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"Slay, Eagle, Slay!</l>
+<l rend='i2'>They die who dare decry us!</l>
+<l>Red dawns 'The Day.'</l>
+<l rend='i2'>The western cliffs defy us!</l>
+<l>Turn their grey flood</l>
+<l>To seas of blood!</l>
+<l>And, as they flee, Slay, Eagle! Slay!</l>
+<l>For God has willed this German 'Day'!"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>"Enough," said Siurd Von Glahn, still laughing,
+but turning very red. "What a terrible
+memory you have, Harry! For heaven's sake
+spare my modesty such accurate reminiscences."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it fine poetry&mdash;then," insisted
+Stent with a forced smile. But his voice had
+subtly altered.</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other in silence, the
+reminiscent smile still stamped upon their stiffening
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>For a brief moment the years had seemed
+to fade&mdash;time was not&mdash;the sunshine of that
+careless golden age had seemed to warm them
+once again there where they sat amid the
+<hi rend='italic'>alpenrosen</hi> below the snow line on the Col de
+la Reine.</p>
+
+<pb n='57'/><anchor id='Pg57'/>
+<p>But it did not endure; everything concerning
+earth and heaven and life and death had
+so far remained unsaid between these two.
+And never would be said. Both understood
+that, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Then Von Glahn's sidelong and preoccupied
+glance fell on Stent's field glasses slung short
+around his neck. His rigid smile died out.
+Soldiers wore field glasses that way; hunters,
+when they carried them instead of spyglasses,
+wore them <hi rend='italic'>en bandouli&egrave;re</hi>.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke, however, of other matters in his
+gentle, thoughtful voice&mdash;avoiding always any
+mention of politics and war&mdash;chatted on pleasantly
+with the familiarity and insouciance of
+old acquaintance. Once he turned slowly and
+looked at Brown&mdash;addressed him politely&mdash;while
+his dark eyes wandered over the American,
+noting every detail of dress and equipment, and
+the slight bulge at his belt line beneath the
+tunic.</p>
+
+<p>Twice he found pretext to pick up his rifle,
+but discarded it carelessly, apparently not noticing
+that Stent and Brown always resumed
+their own weapons when he touched his.</p>
+
+<pb n='58'/><anchor id='Pg58'/>
+<p>Brown said to Von Glahn:</p>
+
+<p>"Ibex stalking is a new game to me. My
+friend Stent tells me that you are old at it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have followed some few ibex, Mr. Brown,"
+replied the young man modestly. "And&mdash;other
+game," he added with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"I know how it's done in theory," continued
+the American; "and I am wondering whether
+we are to lie in this spot until dawn tomorrow
+or whether we climb higher and lie in the
+snow up there."</p>
+
+<p>"In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly
+where we shall lie tonight&mdash;Mr. Brown."</p>
+
+<p>There was an odd look in Siurd's soft brown
+eyes; he turned and spoke to Herr Professor
+von Dresslin, using dialect&mdash;and instantly appearing
+to recollect himself he asked pardon
+of Stent and Brown in his very perfect English.</p>
+
+<p>"I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun
+dialect: 'Ibex may be stirring, as it is already
+late afternoon. We ought now to use our
+glasses.' My family," he added apologetically,
+"come from the Traunwald; I forget and employ
+the vernacular at times."</p>
+
+<pb n='59'/><anchor id='Pg59'/>
+<p>The Herr Professor unslung his telescope,
+set his rifle upright on the moss, and, kneeling,
+balanced the long spyglass alongside of
+the blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand
+as an archer fits the arrow he is drawing on
+the bowstring.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of
+the same thing: the chance that these Germans
+might spy others of the Athabasca regiment
+prowling among the ferns and rocks of
+neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly
+at an end, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>They exchanged a glance; both picked up
+their rifles; Brown nodded almost imperceptibly.
+The tragic comedy was approaching its
+close.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Hirsch</hi>" grunted the Herr Professor&mdash;"<hi rend='italic'>und
+st&uuml;ck</hi>&mdash;on the north alm"&mdash;staring through his
+telescope intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Accorded," said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing
+his spyglass and sweeping the distant crags.
+"<hi rend='italic'>St&uuml;ck</hi> on the western shoulder," he added&mdash;"and
+a stag royal among them."</p>
+
+<p>"Of ten?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of twelve."</p>
+
+<pb n='60'/><anchor id='Pg60'/>
+<p>After a silence: "Why are they galloping&mdash;I
+wonder&mdash;the herd-stag and <hi rend='italic'>st&uuml;ck</hi>?"</p>
+
+<p>Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent's
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"A <hi rend='italic'>geier</hi>, perhaps," suggested Siurd, his eye
+glued to his spyglass.</p>
+
+<p>"No ibex?" asked Stent in a voice a little
+forced.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok</hi>&mdash;high
+on the third peak&mdash;feeding."</p>
+
+<p>"Accorded," grunted the Herr Professor
+after an interval of search; and he closed his
+spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.</p>
+
+<p>His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually
+upon Brown, who was laying aside his own
+rifle again&mdash;and the German's expression did
+not alter.</p>
+
+<p>"Ibex!" exclaimed Von Glahn softly.</p>
+
+<p>Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted
+his field glasses on the third peak, and
+stood there, poised, slim and upright against
+the sky on the chasm's mossy edge.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see your ibex, Siurd," he said, still
+searching.</p>
+
+<p>"On the third peak, <hi rend='italic'>mon ami</hi>"&mdash;drawing<pb n='61'/><anchor id='Pg61'/>
+Stent familiarly to his side&mdash;the lightest caressing
+contact&mdash;merely enough to verify the
+existence of the automatic under his old classmate's
+tunic.</p>
+
+<p>If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch,
+neither did Brown notice it, watching them.
+Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not
+at all certain, because at that moment there
+came flopping along over the bracken and <hi rend='italic'>alpenrosen</hi>
+a loppy winged butterfly&mdash;a large, whitish
+creature, seeming uncertain in its irresolute
+flight whether to alight at Brown's feet or
+go flapping aimlessly on over Brown's head.</p>
+
+<p>The Herr Professor snatched up his net&mdash;struck
+heavily toward the winged thing&mdash;a silent,
+terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle
+clutched together. Brown went down with a
+crash.</p>
+
+<p>At the shocking sound of the impact Stent
+wheeled from the abyss, then staggered back
+under the powerful shove from Von Glahn's
+nervous arm. Swaying, fighting frantically for
+foothold, there on the chasm's awful edge, he
+balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium.
+Von Glahn, rigid, watched him. Then, deathly<pb n='62'/><anchor id='Pg62'/>
+white, his young eyes looking straight into the
+eyes of his old classmate&mdash;Stent lost the fight,
+fell outward, wider, dropping back into mid-air,
+down through sheer, tremendous depths&mdash;down
+there where the broad river seemed only
+a silver thread and the forests looked like beds
+of tender, velvet moss.</p>
+
+<p>After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus
+Apollo, still winging its erratic way
+where God willed it&mdash;a frail, dainty, translucent,
+wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf&mdash;symbol,
+perhaps of the soul already soaring
+up out of the terrific deeps below.</p>
+
+<p>The Herr Professor sweated and panted as
+he tugged at the silk handkerchief with which
+he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious
+American behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!" he grunted&mdash;"mit
+his pockets full of automatic clips. A Yankee,
+eh? What I tell you, Siurd?&mdash;English and
+Yankee they are one in blood and one at
+heart&mdash;pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what
+I told you already <hi rend='italic'>gesternabend</hi>? The British
+<hi rend='italic'>schwein</hi> are in Italy already. Hola! Siurd!
+Take his feet and we turn him over <hi rend='italic'>mal</hi>!"</p>
+
+<pb n='63'/><anchor id='Pg63'/>
+<p>But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning
+heavily against the crag, his back to the abyss,
+his blond head buried in both arms.</p>
+
+<p>So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too,
+began, with his powerful, stubby hands, to pull
+the unconscious man over on his back. And,
+as he worked, he hummed monotonously but
+contentedly in his bushy beard something about
+<hi rend='italic'>something</hi> being "<hi rend='italic'>&uuml;ber alles</hi>"&mdash;God, perhaps,
+perhaps the blue sky overhead which covered
+him and his sickened friend alike, and the hurt
+enemy whose closed lids shut out the sky above&mdash;and
+the dead man lying very, very far below
+them&mdash;where river and forest and moss and
+Parnassus were now alike to him.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='64'/><anchor id='Pg64'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='VI. IN FINIST&Egrave;RE'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='VI. IN FINIST&Egrave;RE'/>
+<head>CHAPTER VI<lb/><lb/>
+IN FINIST&Egrave;RE</head>
+
+<p>It was a dirty trick that they played Stent
+and Brown&mdash;the three Mysterious Sisters, Fate,
+Chance, and Destiny. But they're always billed
+for any performance, be it vaudeville or tragedy;
+and there's no use hissing them off:
+they'll dog you from the stage entrance if they
+take a fancy to you.</p>
+
+<p>They dogged Wayland from the dock at
+Calais, where the mule transport landed, all
+the way to Paris, then on a slow train to Quimperl&eacute;,
+and then, by stagecoach, to that little
+lost house on the moors, where ties held him
+most closely&mdash;where all he cared for in this
+world was gathered under a humble roof.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his lameness he went duck-shooting
+the week after his arrival. It was rather
+forcing his convalescence, but he believed it<pb n='65'/><anchor id='Pg65'/>
+would accelerate it to go about in the open air,
+as though there were nothing the matter with
+his shattered leg.</p>
+
+<p>So he hobbled down to the point he knew so
+well. He had longed for the sea off Eryx.
+It thundered at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>And, now, all around him through clamorous
+obscurity a watery light glimmered; it
+edged the low-driven clouds hurrying in from
+the sea; it outlined the long point of rocks
+thrust southward into the smoking smother.</p>
+
+<p>The din of the surf filled his ears; through
+flying patches of mist he caught glimpses of
+rollers bursting white against the reef; heard
+duller detonations along unseen sands, and
+shattering reports where heavy waves exploded
+among basalt rocks.</p>
+
+<p>His lean face of an invalid glistened with
+spray; salt water dripped from cap and coat,
+spangled the brown barrels of his fowling-piece,
+and ran down the varnished supports of
+both crutches where he leaned on them, braced
+forward against an ever-rising wind.</p>
+
+<p>At moments he seemed to catch glimpses of
+darker specks dotting the heaving flank of some<pb n='66'/><anchor id='Pg66'/>
+huge wave. But it was not until the wild ducks
+rose through the phantom light and came whirring
+in from the sea that his gun, poked stiffly
+skyward, flashed in the pallid void. And then,
+sometimes, he hobbled back after the dead
+quarry while it still drove headlong inland,
+slanting earthward before the gale.</p>
+
+<p>Once, amid the endless thundering, in the
+turbulent desolation around him, through the
+roar of wind in his ears, he seemed to catch
+deadened sounds resembling distant seaward
+cannonading&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>real</hi> cannonading&mdash;as though
+individual shots, dully distinct, dominated
+for a few moments the unbroken uproar of
+surf and gale.</p>
+
+<p>He listened, straining his ears, alert, intent
+upon the sounds he ought to recognize&mdash;the
+sounds he knew so well.</p>
+
+<p>Only the ceaseless pounding of the sea
+assailed his ears.</p>
+
+<p>Three wild duck, widgeon, came speeding
+through the fog; he breasted the wind, balanced
+heavily on both crutches and one leg,
+and shoved his gun upward.</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant the mist in front and<pb n='67'/><anchor id='Pg67'/>
+overhead became noisy with wild fowl, rising
+in one great, panic-stricken, clamoring
+cloud. He hesitated; a muffled, thudding
+sound came to him over the unseen sea, growing
+louder, nearer, dominating the gale, increasing
+to a rattling clatter.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a great cloudy shape loomed up
+through the whirling mist ahead&mdash;an enormous
+shadow in the fog&mdash;a gigantic spectre
+rushing inland on vast and ghostly pinions.</p>
+
+<p>As the man shrank on his crutches, looking
+up, the a&euml;roplane swept past overhead&mdash;a
+wounded, wavering, unsteady, unbalanced
+thing, its right aileron dangling, half stripped,
+and almost mangled to a skeleton.</p>
+
+<p>Already it was slanting lower toward the
+forest like a hard-hit duck, wing-crippled,
+fighting desperately for flight-power to the
+very end. Then the inland mist engulfed it.</p>
+
+<p>And after it hobbled Wayland, painfully,
+two brace of dead ducks and his slung fowling
+piece bobbing on his back, his rubber-shod
+crutches groping and probing among
+drenched rocks and gullies full of kelp, his
+left leg in splints hanging heavily.</p>
+
+<pb n='68'/><anchor id='Pg68'/>
+<p>He could not go fast; he could not go
+very far. Further inland, foggy gorse gave
+place to broom and blighted bracken, all wet,
+sagging with rain. Then he crossed a swale
+of brown reeds and tussock set with little
+pools of water, opaque and grey in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>Where the outer moors narrowed he turned
+westward; then a strip of low, thorn-clad
+cliff confronted him, up which he toiled along
+a V-shaped cleft choked with ferns.</p>
+
+<p>The spectral forest of L&auml;is lay just beyond,
+its wind-tortured branches tossing under
+a leaden sky.</p>
+
+<p>East and west lonely moors stretched away
+into the depths of the mist; southward spread
+the sea; to the north lay the wide woods of
+L&auml;is, equally deserted now in this sad and
+empty land.</p>
+
+<p>He hobbled to the edge of the forest and
+stood knee deep in discoloured ferns, listening.
+The sombre beech-woods spread thick
+on either hand, a wilderness of crossed limbs
+and meshed branches to which still clung
+great clots of dull brown leaves.</p>
+
+<p>He listened, peering into sinister, grey<pb n='69'/><anchor id='Pg69'/>
+depths. In the uncertain light nothing stirred
+except the clashing branches overhead; there
+was no sound except the wind's flowing roar
+and the ghostly noise of his own voice, hallooing
+through the solitude&mdash;a voice in the misty
+void that seemed to carry less sound than
+the straining cry of a sleeper in his dreams.</p>
+
+<p>If the a&euml;roplane had landed, there was no
+sign here. How far had it struggled on,
+sheering the tree-tops, before it fell?&mdash;if indeed
+it had fallen somewhere in the wood's
+grey depths?</p>
+
+<p>As long as he had sufficient strength he
+prowled along the forest, entering it here
+and there, calling, listening, searching the
+foggy corridors of trees. The rotting brake
+crackled underfoot; the tree tops clashed and
+creaked above him.</p>
+
+<p>At last, having only enough strength left
+to take him home, he turned away, limping
+through the blotched and broken ferns, his
+crippled leg hanging stiffly in its splints, his
+gun and the dead ducks bobbing on his back.</p>
+
+<p>The trodden way was soggy with little
+pools full of drenched grasses and dead<pb n='70'/><anchor id='Pg70'/>
+leaves; but at length came rising ground,
+and the blue-green, glimmering wastes of
+gorse stretching away before him through the
+curtained fog.</p>
+
+<p>A sheep path ran through; and after a little
+while a few trees loomed shadowy in the
+mist, and a low stone house took shape,
+whitewashed, flanked by barn, pigpen, and a
+stack of rotting seaweed.</p>
+
+<p>A few wet hens wandered aimlessly by the
+doorstep; a tiny bed of white clove-pinks
+and tall white phlox exhaled a homely welcome
+as the lame man hobbled up the steps,
+pulled the leather latchstring, and entered.</p>
+
+<p>In the kitchen an old Breton woman, chopping
+herbs, looked up at him out of aged
+eyes, shaking her head under its white coiffe.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nearly noon," she said. "You have
+been out since dawn. Was it wise, for a convalescent,
+Monsieur Jacques?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very wise, Marie-Josephine. Because the
+more exercise I take the sooner I shall be
+able to go back."</p>
+
+<p>"It is too soon to go out in such weather."</p>
+
+<p>"Ducks fly inland only in such weather,"<pb n='71'/><anchor id='Pg71'/>
+he retorted, smiling. "And we like roast
+widgeon, you and I, Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p>And all the while her aged blue eyes were
+fixed on him, and over her withered cheeks
+the soft bloom came and faded&mdash;that pretty
+colour which Breton women usually retain
+until the end.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou knowest, Monsieur Jacques," she
+said, with a curiously quaint mingling of
+familiarity and respect, "that I do not counsel
+caution because I love thee and dread
+for thee again the trenches. But with thy
+leg hanging there like the broken wing of a
+<hi rend='italic'>vanneau</hi>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He replied good humouredly:</p>
+
+<p>"Thou dost not know the Legion, Marie-Josephine.
+Every day in our trenches we
+break a comrade into pieces and glue him
+together again, just to make him tougher.
+Broken bones, once mended, are stronger
+than before."</p>
+
+<p>He was looking down at her where she sat
+by the hearth, slicing vegetables and herbs,
+but watching him all the while out of her
+lovely, faded eyes.</p>
+
+<pb n='72'/><anchor id='Pg72'/>
+<p>"I understand, Monsieur Jacques, that you
+are like your father&mdash;God knows he was
+hardy and without fear&mdash;to the last"&mdash;she
+dropped her head&mdash;"Mary, glorious&mdash;intercede&mdash;"
+she muttered over her bowl of herbs.</p>
+
+<p>Wayland, resting on his crutches, unslung
+his ducks, laid them on the table, smoothed
+their beautiful heads and breasts, then
+slipped the soaking <hi rend='italic'>bandouli&egrave;re</hi> of his gun
+from his shoulder and placed the dripping
+piece against the chimney corner.</p>
+
+<p>"After I have scrubbed myself," he said,
+"and have put on dry clothes, I shall come to
+luncheon; and I shall have something very
+strange to tell you, Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p>He limped away into one of the two remaining
+rooms&mdash;the other was hers&mdash;and
+closed his door.</p>
+
+<p>Marie-Josephine continued to prepare the
+soup. There was an egg for him, too; and
+a slice of cold pork and a <hi rend='italic'>brioche</hi> and a jug
+of cider.</p>
+
+<p>In his room Wayland was whistling "Tipperary."</p>
+
+<p>Now and again, pausing in her work, she<pb n='73'/><anchor id='Pg73'/>
+turned her eyes to his closed door&mdash;wonderful
+eyes that became miracles of tenderness
+as she listened.</p>
+
+<p>He came out, presently, dressed in his odd,
+ill-fitting uniform of the Legion, tunic unbuttoned,
+collarless of shirt, his bright, thick
+hair, now of decent length, in boyish disorder.</p>
+
+<p>Delicious odours of soup and of Breton
+cider greeted him; he seated himself; Marie-Josephine
+waited on him, hovered over him,
+tucked a sack of feathers under his maimed
+leg, placed his crutches in the corner beside
+the gun.</p>
+
+<p>Still eating, leisurely, he began:</p>
+
+<p>"Marie-Josephine&mdash;a strange thing has
+happened on Quesnel Moors which troubles
+me.... Listen attentively. It was while
+waiting for ducks on the Eryx Rocks, that
+once I thought I heard through the roar of
+wind and sea the sound of a far cannonading.
+But I said to myself that it was only
+the imagination of a haunted mind; that in
+my ears still thundered the cannonade of
+Lens."</p>
+
+<pb n='74'/><anchor id='Pg74'/>
+<p>"Was it nevertheless true?" She had
+turned around from the fire where her own
+soup simmered in the kettle. As she spoke
+again she rose and came to the table.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "It must have been cannon that
+I heard. Because, not long afterward, out
+of the fog came a great a&euml;roplane rushing
+inland from the sea&mdash;flying swiftly above me&mdash;right
+over me!&mdash;and staggering like a
+wounded duck&mdash;it had one aileron broken&mdash;and
+sheered away into the fog, northward,
+Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p>Her work-worn hands, tightly clenched,
+rested now on the table and she leaned there,
+looking down at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it an enemy&mdash;this airship, Jacques?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the mist flying and the ragged clouds
+I could not tell. It might have been English.
+It must have been, I think&mdash;coming as
+it came from the sea. But I am troubled,
+Marie-Josephine. Were the guns at sea an
+enemy's guns? Did the a&euml;roplane come to
+earth in safety? Where? In the Forest of
+La&iuml;s? I found no trace of it."</p>
+
+<pb n='75'/><anchor id='Pg75'/>
+<p>She said, tremulous perhaps from standing
+too long motionless and intent:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible that the Boches would come
+into these solitary moors, where there are
+no people any more, only the creatures of the
+La&iuml;s woods, and the curlew and the lapwings
+which pass at evening?"</p>
+
+<p>He ate thoughtfully and in silence for a
+while; then:</p>
+
+<p>"They go, usually&mdash;the Boches&mdash;where
+there is plunder&mdash;murder to be done....
+Spying to be done.... God knows what purpose
+animates the Huns.... After all, Lorient
+is not so far away.... Yet it surely
+must have been an English a&euml;roplane, beaten
+off by some enemy ship&mdash;a submarine perhaps.
+God send that the rocks of the Isle
+des Chouans take care of her&mdash;with their
+teeth!"</p>
+
+<p>He drank his cider&mdash;a sip or two only&mdash;then,
+setting aside the glass:</p>
+
+<p>"I went from the Rocks of Eryx to La&iuml;s
+Woods. I called as loudly as I could; the
+wind whirled my voice back into my throat....
+I am not yet very strong....</p>
+
+<pb n='76'/><anchor id='Pg76'/>
+<p>"Then I went into the wood as far as my
+strength permitted. I heard and saw nothing,
+Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p>"Would they be dead?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They were planing to earth. I don't know
+how much control they had, whether they
+could steer&mdash;choose a landing place. There
+are plenty of safe places on these moors."</p>
+
+<p>"If their airship is crippled, what can they
+do, these English flying men, out there on
+the moors in the rain and wind? When the
+coast guard passes we must tell him."</p>
+
+<p>"After lunch I shall go out again as far
+as my strength allows.... If the rain would
+cease and the mist lift, one might see something&mdash;be
+of some use, perhaps&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ought you to go, Monsieur Jacques?"</p>
+
+<p>"Could I fail to try to find them&mdash;Englishmen&mdash;and
+perhaps injured? Surely I should
+go, Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p>"The coast guard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He passed the Eryx Rocks at daylight.
+He is at Sainte-Ylva now. Tonight, when
+I see his comrade's lantern, I shall stop him<pb n='77'/><anchor id='Pg77'/>
+and report. But in the meanwhile I must go
+out and search."</p>
+
+<p>"Spare thyself&mdash;for the trenches, Jacques.
+Remain indoors today." She began to unpin
+the coiffe which she always wore ceremoniously
+at meals when he was present.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled: "Thou knowest I must go,
+Marie-Josephine."</p>
+
+<p>"And if thou come upon them in the forest
+and they are Huns?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed: "They are English, I tell thee,
+Marie-Josephine!"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded; under her breath, staring at
+the rain-lashed window: "Like thy father,
+thou must go forth," she muttered; "go always
+where thy spirit calls. And once <hi rend='italic'>he</hi>
+went. And came no more. And God help
+us all in Finist&egrave;re, where all are born to
+grief."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='78'/><anchor id='Pg78'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='VII. THE AIRMAN'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='VII. THE AIRMAN'/>
+<head>CHAPTER VII<lb/><lb/>
+THE AIRMAN</head>
+
+<p>She had seated herself on a stool by the
+hearth. Presently she spread her apron with
+trembling fingers, took the glazed bowl of
+soup upon her lap and began to eat, slowly,
+casting long, unquiet glances at him from
+time to time where he still at table leaned
+heavily, looking out into the rain.</p>
+
+<p>When he caught her eye he smiled, summoning
+her with a nod of his boyish head.
+She set aside her bowl obediently, and, rising,
+brought him his crutches. And at the same
+moment somebody knocked lightly on the
+outer door.</p>
+
+<p>Marie-Josephine had unpinned her coiffe.
+Now she pinned it on over her <hi rend='italic'>bonnet</hi> before
+going to the door, glancing uneasily around
+at him while she tied her tresses and settled<pb n='79'/><anchor id='Pg79'/>
+the delicate starched wings of her bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"That's odd," he said, "that knocking,"
+staring at the door. "Perhaps it is the lost
+Englishman."</p>
+
+<p>"God send them," she whispered, going to
+the door and opening it.</p>
+
+<p>It certainly seemed to be one of the lost
+Englishmen&mdash;a big, square-shouldered, blond
+young fellow, tall and powerful, in the leather
+dress of an a&euml;ronaut. His glass mask was
+lifted like the visor of a tilting helmet,
+disclosing a red, weather-beaten face, wet
+with rain. Strength, youth, rugged health
+was their first impression of this leather-clad
+man from the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped inside the house immediately,
+halted when he caught sight of Wayland in
+his undress uniform, glanced involuntarily at
+his crutches and bandaged leg, cast a quick,
+penetrating glance right and left; then he
+spoke pleasantly in his hesitating, imperfect
+French&mdash;so oddly imperfect that Wayland
+could not understand him at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" he demanded in English.</p>
+
+<p>The airman seemed astonished for an in<pb n='80'/><anchor id='Pg80'/>stant,
+then a quick smile broke out on his
+ruddy features:</p>
+
+<p>"I say, this <hi rend='italic'>is</hi> lucky! Fancy finding an
+Englishman here!&mdash;wherever this place may
+be." He laughed. "Of course I know I'm
+'somewhere in France,' as the censor has it,
+but I'm hanged if I know where!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come in and shut the door," said Wayland,
+reassured. Marie-Josephine closed the
+door. The a&euml;ronaut came forward, stood
+dripping a moment, then took the chair to
+which Wayland pointed, seating himself as
+though a trifle tired.</p>
+
+<p>"Shot down," he explained, gaily. "An
+enemy submarine winged us out yonder somewhere.
+I tramped over these bally moors
+for hours before I found a sign of any path.
+A sheepwalk brought me here."</p>
+
+<p>"You are lucky. There is only one house
+on these moors&mdash;this! Who are you?" asked
+Wayland.</p>
+
+<p>"West&mdash;flight-lieutenant, 10th division, Cinque-Ports
+patrolling squadron."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, man! What are you doing
+in Finist&egrave;re?"</p>
+
+<pb n='81'/><anchor id='Pg81'/>
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>What!</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>"You are in Brittany, province of Finist&egrave;re.
+Didn't you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>The air-officer seemed astounded. Presently
+he said: "The dirty weather foxed us.
+Then that fellow out yonder winged us. I
+was glad enough to see a coast line."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you fall?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; we controlled our landing pretty
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you land?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a second's hesitation; the airman
+looked at Wayland, glanced at his crippled
+leg.</p>
+
+<p>"Out there near some woods," he said.
+"My pilot's there now trying to patch up....
+You are not French, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"American."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! A&mdash;volunteer, I presume."</p>
+
+<p>"Foreign Legion&mdash;2d."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. Back from the trenches with a
+leg."</p>
+
+<p>"It's nearly well. I'll be back soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you walk?" asked the airman so<pb n='82'/><anchor id='Pg82'/>
+abruptly that Wayland, looking at him, hesitated,
+he did not quite know why.</p>
+
+<p>"Not very far," he replied, cautiously. "I
+can get to the window with my crutches
+pretty well."</p>
+
+<p>And the next moment he felt ashamed of
+his caution when the airman laughed frankly.</p>
+
+<p>"I need a guide to some petrol," he said.
+"Evidently you can't go with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you enough petrol to take you to
+Lorient?"</p>
+
+<p>"How far is Lorient?"</p>
+
+<p>Wayland told him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said the flight-lieutenant;
+"I'll have to try to get somewhere. I suppose
+it is useless for me to ask," he added,
+"but have you, by any chance, a bit of canvas&mdash;an
+old sail or hammock?&mdash;I don't need
+much. That's what I came for&mdash;and some
+shellac and wire, and a screwdriver of sorts?
+We need patching as well as petrol; and
+we're a little short of supplies."</p>
+
+<p>Wayland's steady gaze never left him, but
+his smile was friendly.</p>
+
+<p>"We're in a tearing hurry, too," added the<pb n='83'/><anchor id='Pg83'/>
+flight-lieutenant, looking out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>Wayland smiled. "Of course there's no
+petrol here. There's nothing here. I don't
+suppose you could have landed in a more
+deserted region if you had tried. There's a
+ch&acirc;teau in the La&iuml;s woods, but it's closed;
+owner and servants are at the war and the
+family in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody
+has cleared out; the war has stripped the
+country; and there never were any people
+on these moors, excepting shooting parties
+and, in the summer, a stray artist or two
+from Quimperl&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant looked at him. "You say
+there is nobody here&mdash;between here and
+Lorient? No&mdash;troops?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to guard. The coast is
+one vast shoal. Ships pass hull down. Once a
+day a coast guard patrols along the cliffs&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has passed, unfortunately. Otherwise
+he might signal by relay to Lorient and have
+them send you out some petrol. By the way&mdash;are
+you hungry?"</p>
+
+<pb n='84'/><anchor id='Pg84'/>
+<p>The flight-lieutenant showed all his firm,
+white teeth under a yellow mustache, which
+curled somewhat upward. He laughed in a
+carefree way, as though something had suddenly
+eased his mind of perplexity&mdash;perhaps
+the certainty that there was no possible
+chance for petrol. Certainty is said to be
+more endurable than suspense.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stop for a bite&mdash;if you don't mind&mdash;while
+my pilot tinkers out yonder," he said.
+"We're not in such a bad way. It might
+easily have been worse. Do you think you
+could find us a bit of sail, or something, to
+use for patching?"</p>
+
+<p>Wayland indicated an old high-backed chair
+of oak, quaintly embellished with ancient
+leather in faded blue and gold. It had been
+a royal chair in its day, or the Fleur-de-Lys
+lied.</p>
+
+<p>The flight-lieutenant seated himself with a
+rather stiff bow.</p>
+
+<p>"If you need canvas"&mdash;Wayland hesitated&mdash;then,
+gravely: "There are, in my room, a
+number of artists' <hi rend='italic'>toiles</hi>&mdash;old chassis with
+the blank canvas still untouched."</p>
+
+<pb n='85'/><anchor id='Pg85'/>
+<p>"Exactly what we need!" exclaimed the
+other. "What luck, now, to meet a painter
+in such a place as this!"</p>
+
+<p>"They belonged to my father," explained
+Wayland. "We&mdash;Marie-Josephine and I&mdash;have
+always kept my father's old canvases
+and colours&mdash;everything of his.... I'll be
+glad to give them to a British soldier....
+They're about all I have that was his&mdash;except
+that oak chair you sit on."</p>
+
+<p>He rose on his crutches, spoke briefly in
+Breton to Marie-Josephine, then limped
+slowly away to his room.</p>
+
+<p>When he returned with half a dozen blank
+canvases the flight-lieutenant, at table, was
+eating pork and black bread and drinking
+Breton cider.</p>
+
+<p>Wayland seated himself, laid both crutches
+across his knees, picked up one of the chassis,
+and began to rip from it the dusty canvas.
+It was like tearing muscles from his own
+bones. But he smiled and chatted on, casually,
+with the air-officer, who ate as though
+half starved.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said Wayland, "you'll start<pb n='86'/><anchor id='Pg86'/>
+back across the Channel as soon as you secure
+petrol enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"You could go by way of Quimper or by
+Lorient. There's petrol to be had at both
+places for military purposes"&mdash;leisurely continuing
+to rip the big squares of canvas from
+the frames.</p>
+
+<p>The airman, still eating, watched him
+askance at intervals.</p>
+
+<p>"I've brought what's left of the shellac;
+it isn't much use, I fear. But here is his
+hammer and canvas stretcher, and the remainder
+of the nails he used for stretching
+his canvases," said Wayland, with an effort
+to speak carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Many thanks. You also are a painter, I
+take it."</p>
+
+<p>Wayland laid one hand on the sleeve of
+his uniform and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I <hi rend='italic'>was</hi> a writer. But there are only soldiers
+in the world now."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so ... This is an odd place for an
+American to live in."</p>
+
+<p>"My father bought it years ago. He was<pb n='87'/><anchor id='Pg87'/>
+a painter of peasant life." He added, lowering
+his voice, although Marie-Josephine understood
+no English: "This old peasant
+woman was his model many years ago. She
+also kept house for him. He lived here; I
+was born here."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but my father desired that I grow
+up a good Yankee. I was at school in America
+when he&mdash;died."</p>
+
+<p>The airman continued to eat very busily.</p>
+
+<p>"He died&mdash;out there"&mdash;Wayland looked
+through the window, musingly. "There was
+an Iceland schooner wrecked off the Isle des
+Chouans. And no life-saving crew short of
+Ylva Light. So my father went out in his
+little American catboat, all alone.... Marie-Josephine
+saw his sail off Eryx Rocks ... for
+a few moments ... and saw it no more."</p>
+
+<p>The airman, still devouring his bread and
+meat, nodded in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"That is how it happened," said Wayland.
+"The French authorities notified me. There
+was a little money and this hut, and&mdash;Marie-Josephine.
+So I came here; and I write<pb n='88'/><anchor id='Pg88'/>
+children's stories&mdash;that sort of thing....
+It goes well enough. I sell a few to American
+publishers. Otherwise I shoot and fish
+and read ... when war does not preoccupy
+me...."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, experiencing the vague relief of
+talking to somebody in his native tongue.
+Quesnel Moors were sometimes very lonely.</p>
+
+<p>"It's been a long convalescence," he continued,
+smilingly. "One of their 'coal-boxes'
+did this"&mdash;touching his leg. "When I was
+able to move I went to America. But the sea
+off the Eryx called me back; and the authorities
+permitted me to come down here. I'm
+getting well very fast now."</p>
+
+<p>He had stripped every chassis of its canvas,
+and had made a roll of the material.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm very glad to be of any use to you,"
+he said pleasantly, laying the roll on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>Marie-Josephine, on her low chair by the
+hearth, sat listening to every word as though
+she had understood. The expression in her
+faded eyes varied constantly; solicitude, perplexity,
+vague uneasiness, a recurrent glim<pb n='89'/><anchor id='Pg89'/>mer
+of suspicion were succeeded always by
+wistful tenderness when her gaze returned to
+Wayland and rested on his youthful face and
+figure with a pride forever new.</p>
+
+<p>Once she spoke in mixed French and
+Breton:</p>
+
+<!-- FIXME: italics around corrections for TXT -->
+<pgIf output='txt'>
+  <then>
+<p>"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques,
+<hi rend='italic'>mon ch&eacute;ri</hi>?"</p>
+  </then>
+  <else>
+<p>"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques,
+<hi rend='italic'>mon <corr sic='cheri'>ch&eacute;ri</corr></hi>?"</p>
+  </else>
+</pgIf>
+
+
+<p>"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has the tricks of speech. Also his
+accent is of an English university. There
+is no mistaking it."</p>
+
+<p>"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed
+in the universities of England?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Gar &agrave; nous, mon p'tit</hi>, Jacques. In Finist&egrave;re
+a stranger is a suspect. Since earliest
+times they have done us harm in Finist&egrave;re.
+The strangers&mdash;God knows what centuries of
+evil they have wrought."</p>
+
+<p>"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned
+again to the airman, who had now satisfied<pb n='90'/><anchor id='Pg90'/>
+his hunger and had already risen to gather
+up the roll of canvas, the hammer, nails, and
+shellac.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially.
+"I'll take these articles, if I may.
+It's very good of you ... I'm in a tearing
+hurry&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't your pilot come over and eat a
+bit?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take him this bread and meat, if I
+may. Many thanks." He held out his heavily
+gloved hand with a friendly smile, nodded
+to Marie-Josephine. And as he hurriedly
+turned to go, the ancient carving on the high-backed
+chair caught him between the buttons
+of his leather coat, tearing it wide open over
+the breast. And Wayland saw the ribbon
+of the Iron Cross there fastened to a sea-grey
+tunic.</p>
+
+<p>There was a second's frightful silence.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that you wear?" said Wayland
+hoarsely. "Stop! Stand where you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Halt! Don't touch that shotgun!" cried
+the airman sharply. But Wayland already
+had it in his hands, and the airman fired twice<pb n='91'/><anchor id='Pg91'/>
+at him where he stood&mdash;steadied the automatic
+to shoot again, but held his fire, seeing
+it would not be necessary. Besides, he did
+not care to shoot the old woman unless military
+precaution made it advisable; and she
+was on her knees, her withered arms upflung,
+shielding the prostrate body with her own.</p>
+
+<p>"You Yankee fool," he snapped out
+harshly&mdash;"it is your own fault, not mine!...
+Like the rest of your imbecile nation
+you poke your nose where it has no business!
+And I&mdash;" He ceased speaking, realizing that
+his words remained unheard.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he backed toward the
+door, carrying the canvas roll under his left
+arm and keeping his eye carefully on the
+prostrate man. Also, one can never trust
+the French!&mdash;he was quite ready for that
+old woman there on the floor who was holding
+the dead boy's head to her breast, muttering:
+"My darling! My child!&mdash;Oh, little
+son of Marie-Josephine!&mdash;I told thee&mdash;I
+warned thee of the stranger in Finist&egrave;re!...
+Marie&mdash;holy&mdash;intercede!... All&mdash;all are
+born to grief in Finist&egrave;re!..."</p>
+</div>
+
+<pb n='92'/><anchor id='Pg92'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='VIII. EN OBSERVATION'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='VIII. EN OBSERVATION'/>
+<head>CHAPTER VIII<lb/><lb/>
+EN OBSERVATION</head>
+
+<p>The incredible rumour that German airmen
+were in Brittany first came from Plouharnel
+in Morbihan; then from Bannalec,
+where an old Icelander had notified the
+Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the
+Icelander was very drunk. A thimble of
+cognac did it.</p>
+
+<p>Again came an unconfirmed report that a
+shepherd lad while alternately playing on his
+Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence
+of the Elle and Isole, had seen a werewolf
+in La&iuml;s Woods. The Loup Garou walked on
+two legs and had assumed the shape of a
+man with no features except two enormous
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The following week a coast guard near
+Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes Light<pb n='93'/><anchor id='Pg93'/>house;
+the keeper of the light telephoned to
+Lorient the story of Wayland, and was instructed
+to extinguish the great flash again
+and to keep watch from the lantern until an
+investigation could be made.</p>
+
+<p>That an enemy airman had done murder
+in Finist&egrave;re was now certain; but that a
+Boche submarine had come into the Bay of
+Biscay seemed very improbable, considering
+the measures which had been taken in the
+Channel, at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring
+somewhere between the Isle des Chouettes
+and Finist&egrave;re, and landing men, seemed
+to be practically an impossibility. Yet, there
+were the rumours. And murder had been
+done.</p>
+
+<p>But an enemy undersea boat required a
+base. Had such a base been established
+somewhere along those lonely and desolate
+wastes of bog and rock and moor and gorse-set
+cliff haunted only by curlew and wild
+duck, and bounded inland by a silent barrier
+of forest through which the wild boar roamed
+and rooted unmolested?</p>
+
+<pb n='94'/><anchor id='Pg94'/>
+<p>And where in Finist&egrave;re was an enemy seaplane
+to come from, when, save for the few
+remaining submarines still skulking near
+British waters, the enemy's flag had vanished
+from the seas?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and
+on the Isle des Chouettes went out; the Commandant
+at Lorient and the General in command
+of the British expeditionary troops in
+the harbour consulted; and the fleet of troop-laden
+transports did not sail as scheduled,
+but a swarm of French and British cruisers,
+trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines
+put out from the great warport to
+comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for any
+possible a&euml;rial or amphibious Hun who might
+venture to haunt the coasts.</p>
+
+<p>Inland, too, officers were sent hither and
+thither to investigate various rumours and
+doubtful reports at their several sources.</p>
+
+<p>And it happened in that way that Captain
+Neeland of the 6th Battalion, Athabasca
+Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent,
+found himself in the Forest of Aulnes, with
+instructions to stay there long enough to<pb n='95'/><anchor id='Pg95'/>
+verify or discredit a disturbing report which
+had just arrived by mail.</p>
+
+<p>The report was so strange and the investigation
+required so much secrecy and caution
+that Captain Neeland changed his uniform
+for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed
+a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges
+loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun
+under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient
+town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting
+enthusiast.</p>
+
+<p>Several reasons influenced his superiors in
+sending Neeland to investigate this latest and
+oddest report: for one thing, although he had
+become temporarily a Canadian for military
+purposes only, in reality he was an American
+artist who, like scores and scores of his
+artistic fellow Yankees, had spent many
+years industriously painting those sentimental
+Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if
+not their critics. He was a very bad painter,
+but he did not know it; he had already become
+a promising soldier, but he did not
+realize that either. As a sportsman, however,
+Neeland was rather pleased with himself.</p>
+
+<pb n='96'/><anchor id='Pg96'/>
+<p>He was sent because he knew the sombre
+and lovely land of Finist&egrave;re pretty well, because
+he was more or less of a naturalist and
+a sportsman, and because the plan which he
+had immediately proposed appeared to be
+reasonable as well as original.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a stiff walk across country&mdash;fifteen
+miles, as against thirty odd around
+by road&mdash;but neither cart nor motor was to
+enter into the affair. If anybody should
+watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield,
+crossing the marshes, skirting <hi rend='italic'>&eacute;tangs</hi>, a solitary
+figure in the waste, easily reconcilable
+with his wide and melancholy surroundings.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='97'/><anchor id='Pg97'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='IX. L&apos;OMBRE'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='IX. L&apos;OMBRE'/>
+<head>CHAPTER IX<lb/><lb/>
+L'OMBRE</head>
+
+<p>Aulnes Woods were brown and still under
+their unshed canopy of October leaves.
+Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks
+and beeches towered, unstirred by any wind;
+in the subdued light among the trees, ferns,
+startlingly green, spread delicate plumed
+fronds; there was no sound except the soft
+crash of his own footsteps through shriveling
+patches of brake; no movement save
+when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above
+or one of those little silvery grey moths took
+wing and fluttered aimlessly along the forest
+aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted
+tree and cling there, slowly waving its delicate,
+translucent wings.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of
+Aulnes, and the old trees were long past<pb n='98'/><anchor id='Pg98'/>
+timber value. Even those gleaners of dead
+wood and fallen branches seemed to have
+passed a different way, for the forest floor
+was littered with material that seldom goes
+to waste in Europe, and which broke under
+foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils
+with the acrid odour of decay.</p>
+
+<p>Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here
+and there through the woods, but he took
+none of these, keeping straight on toward the
+northwest until a high, moss-grown wall
+checked his progress.</p>
+
+<p>It ran west through the silent forest; damp
+green mould and lichens stained it; patches
+of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing
+underneath the roughly dressed stones. He
+followed the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly,
+he heard faint sounds&mdash;perhaps the
+cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the
+bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry
+leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some
+wild boar, winding man in the depths of his
+own domain, and sulkily conceding him right
+of way.</p>
+
+<pb n='99'/><anchor id='Pg99'/>
+<p>After a while there came a break in the
+wall where four great posts of stone stood,
+and where there should have been gates.</p>
+
+<p>But only the ancient and rusting hinges
+remained of either gate or wicket.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at the carved escutcheons;
+the moss of many centuries had softened and
+smothered the sculptured device, so that its
+form had become indistinguishable.</p>
+
+<p>Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had
+fallen from the ancient roof; leaded panes
+were broken; nobody came to the closed and
+discoloured door of massive oak.</p>
+
+<p>The avenue, which was merely an unkempt,
+overgrown ride, curved away between the
+great gateposts into the woods; and, as he
+entered it, three deer left stealthily, making
+no sound in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper
+nor woodchopper nor charcoal burner. Nothing
+moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent
+bird belated in his autumn migration.</p>
+
+<p>The ride curved to the east; and abruptly
+he came into view of the house&mdash;a low,<pb n='100'/><anchor id='Pg100'/>
+weather-ravaged structure in the grassy
+glade, ringed by a square, wet moat.</p>
+
+<p>There was no terrace; the ride crossed a
+permanent bridge of stone, passed the carved
+and massive entrance, crossed a second
+crumbling causeway, and continued on into
+the forest.</p>
+
+<p>An old Breton woman, who was drawing
+a jug of water from the moat, turned and
+looked at Neeland, and then went silently
+into the house.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later a younger woman appeared
+on the doorstep and stood watching his approach.</p>
+
+<p>As he crossed the bridge he took off his
+cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired.
+"Would you be kind enough to say
+to her that I arrive from Lorient at her
+request?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said
+in flawless English.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland
+of the British Expeditionary force."</p>
+
+<p>"May I see your credentials, Captain Nee<pb n='101'/><anchor id='Pg101'/>land?"
+She had descended the single step of
+crumbling stone.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain
+concerning <hi rend='italic'>your</hi> identity?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. To Neeland she
+seemed very young in her black gown. Perhaps
+it was that sombre setting and her dark
+eyes and hair which made her skin seem so
+white.</p>
+
+<p>"What proof of my identity do you expect?"
+she asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Only one word, Madame."</p>
+
+<p>She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle
+toward him. "L'Ombre," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>From his pocket he drew his credentials
+and offered them. Among them was her own
+letter to the authorities at Lorient.</p>
+
+<p>After she had examined them she handed
+them back to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come in, Captain Neeland&mdash;or,
+perhaps we had better seat ourselves on the
+bridge&mdash;in order to lose no time&mdash;because I
+wish you to see for yourself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment
+came into her cheeks: "It may seem<pb n='102'/><anchor id='Pg102'/>
+absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times&mdash;what
+I am going to say to you&mdash;concerning
+L'Ombre&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She had turned; he followed; and at her
+grave gesture of invitation, he seated himself
+beside her on the coping of mossy stone
+which ran like a bench under the parapet of
+the little bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne,
+but, until recently, I did not suppose
+myself to be superstitious.... I really am
+not&mdash;unless&mdash;except for this one matter of
+L'Ombre.... My English governess drove
+superstition out of my head.... Still, living
+in Finist&egrave;re&mdash;here in this house"&mdash;she flushed
+again&mdash;"I shall have to leave it to you....
+I dread ridicule; but I am sure you are too
+courteous&mdash;... It required some courage
+for me to write to Lorient. But, if it might
+possibly help my country&mdash;to risk ridicule&mdash;of
+course I do not hesitate."</p>
+
+<p>She looked uncertainly at the young man's
+pleasant, serious face, and, as though reassured:</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to tell you a little about<pb n='103'/><anchor id='Pg103'/>
+myself first&mdash;so that you may understand
+better."</p>
+
+<p>"Please," he said gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;my father and my only brother
+died a year ago, in battle.... It happened
+in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had
+maintained only two men servants here.
+They went with their classes. One old
+woman remains." She looked up with a
+forced smile. "I need not explain to you
+that our circumstances are much straitened.
+You have only to look about you to see that ... our
+poverty is not recent; it always has
+been so within my memory&mdash;only growing a
+little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes
+began during the Vend&eacute;e.... But
+that is of no interest ... except that&mdash;through
+coincidence, of course&mdash;every time a
+new misfortune comes upon our family, misfortune
+also falls on France." He nodded,
+still mystified, but interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you happen to notice the device
+carved on the gatepost?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it resembled a fish&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='104'/><anchor id='Pg104'/>
+<p>"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the
+shadow'."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know, also, that there is a fish
+called 'L'Ombre'?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I did not know that."</p>
+
+<p>"There is. It looks like a shadow in the
+water. L'Ombre does not belong here in Brittany.
+It is a northern fish of high altitudes
+where waters are icy and rapid and always
+tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord
+me a little more patience, Monsieur, if
+I seem to be garrulous concerning my own
+family? It is merely because I want you to
+understand everything ... <hi rend='italic'>everything</hi>...."</p>
+
+<p>"I am interested," he assured her pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;it is a legend&mdash;perhaps a superstition
+in our family&mdash;that any misfortune to
+us&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>and to France</hi>&mdash;is always preceded by two
+invariable omens. One of these dreaded signs
+is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in the<pb n='105'/><anchor id='Pg105'/>
+waters of our moat&mdash;" She turned her head
+slowly and looked down over the parapet of
+the bridge.&mdash;"The other omen," she continued
+quietly, "is that the clocks in our house
+suddenly go wrong&mdash;all striking the same
+hour, no matter where the hands point, no
+matter what time it really is.... These
+things have always happened in our family,
+they say. I, myself, have never before witnessed
+them. But during the Vend&eacute;e the
+clocks persisted in striking four times every
+hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted the scaffold
+at that hour; the Vicomte died under
+Charette at Fontenay at that hour.... L'Ombre
+appeared in the waters of the moat at
+four o'clock one afternoon. And then the
+clocks went wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"And all this happened again, they say, in
+1870. L'Ombre appeared in the moat. Every
+clock continued to strike six, day after day
+for a whole week, until the battle of Sedan
+ended.... My grandfather died there with
+the light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am
+taxing your courtesy, Captain Neeland&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am intensely interested," he repeated,<pb n='106'/><anchor id='Pg106'/>
+watching the lovely, sensitive face which pride
+and dread of misinterpretation had slightly
+flushed again.</p>
+
+<p>"It is only to explain&mdash;perhaps to justify
+myself for writing&mdash;for asking that an officer
+be sent here from Lorient for a few days&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, Countess."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you.... Had it been merely for
+myself&mdash;for my own fears&mdash;my personal safety,
+I should not have written. But our misfortunes
+seem to be coincident with my country's
+mishaps.... So I thought&mdash;if they
+sent an officer who would be kind enough to
+understand&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in
+the moat again, has it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at
+five o'clock in the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;the clocks?"</p>
+
+<p>"For a week they have been all wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Five."</p>
+
+<p>"No matter where the hands point?"</p>
+
+<p>"No matter. I have tried to regulate them.<pb n='107'/><anchor id='Pg107'/>
+I have done everything I could do. But they
+continue to strike five every hour of the day
+and night.... I have"&mdash;a pale smile touched
+her lips&mdash;"I have been a little wakeful&mdash;perhaps
+a trifle uneasy&mdash;on my country's account.
+You understand...." Pride and courage had
+permitted her no more than uneasiness, it
+seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there
+in her lonely bedroom through the still watches
+of the night, she desired him to understand
+that her solicitude was for France, not for
+any daughter of the race whose name she
+bore.</p>
+
+<p>The simplicity and directness of her amazing
+narrative had held his respect and attention;
+there could be no doubt that she implicitly
+believed what she told him.</p>
+
+<p>But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance
+of the story was another. There
+must be, of course, an explanation for these
+phenomena other than a supernatural one.
+Such things do not happen except in medieval
+romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And
+of all regions on earth Brittany swarms with
+such tales and superstitions. He knew it.<pb n='108'/><anchor id='Pg108'/>
+And this young girl was Bretonne after all,
+however educated, however accomplished, however
+honest and modern and sincere. And
+he began to comprehend that the germs of
+superstition and credulity were in the blood
+of every Breton ever born.</p>
+
+<p>But he merely said with pleasant deference:
+"I can very easily understand your uneasiness
+and perplexity, Madame. It is a time
+of mental stress, of great nervous tension in
+France&mdash;of heart-racking suspense&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe
+me, Monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe what you have told me. But I
+believe, also, that there is a natural explanation
+concerning these matters."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over
+them in vain; I can find no explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course there must be one," he insisted
+carelessly. "Is there anything in the world
+more likely to go queer than a clock?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are five clocks in the house. Why
+should they all go wrong at the same time and
+in the same manner?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "I don't know," he said frankly.<pb n='109'/><anchor id='Pg109'/>
+"I'll investigate, if you will permit me."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course.... And, about L'Ombre. What
+could explain its presence in the moat? It is
+a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited
+in its range. My father has often said
+that, except L'Ombre which has appeared at
+long intervals in our moat, L'Ombre never has
+been seen in Brittany."</p>
+
+<p>"From where does this clear water come
+which fills the moat?" he asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"From living springs in the bottom."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long
+subterranean vein of water connects these
+springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere&mdash;in
+the Pyrenees, perhaps&mdash;" He hesitated,
+for the explanation seemed as far-fetched
+as the water.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained
+politely silent.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five
+times. They both sat listening intently. From
+the depths of the ancient mansion, the other
+clocks repeated the strokes, first one, then
+another, then two sounding their clear little
+bells almost in unison. All struck five. He<pb n='110'/><anchor id='Pg110'/>
+drew out his watch and looked at it. The
+hour was three in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid,
+relaxed. He muttered something about making
+an examination of the clocks, adding that
+to adjust and regulate them would be a simple
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>She sat very still beside him on the stone
+coping&mdash;her dark eyes wandered toward the
+forest&mdash;wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied&mdash;the
+visionary eyes of a Bretonne, full of the
+mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.</p>
+
+<p>Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence
+of her thoughts: "Madame," he said,
+"have you heard any rumours concerning enemy
+airships&mdash;or, undersea boats?"</p>
+
+<p>The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him:
+"No, but something has been happening in
+the Aulnes <corr sic='Etang'>&Eacute;tang</corr>."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But every day the wild
+ducks rise from it in fright&mdash;clouds of them&mdash;and
+the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with
+their clamour."</p>
+
+<p>"A poacher?"</p>
+
+<pb n='111'/><anchor id='Pg111'/>
+<p>"I know of none remaining here in Finist&egrave;re."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen anything in the sky? An
+eagle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only the wild fowl whirling above the
+<hi rend='italic'>&eacute;tang</hi>."</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard nothing&mdash;from the
+clouds?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only the <hi rend='italic'>vanneaux</hi> complaining and the
+wild curlew answering."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely
+troubled.</p>
+
+<p>She rose; he followed her across the bridge
+and along the mossy border of the moat.
+Presently she stood still and pointed down in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>For a while he saw nothing in the moat;
+then, suspended midway between surface and
+bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a
+shadow, hanging there, colourless, translucent&mdash;a
+phantom vaguely detached from the limpid
+element through which it loomed.</p>
+
+<p>L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey
+depths where the glass of the stream reflected
+the fa&ccedil;ade of that ancient house.</p>
+
+<pb n='112'/><anchor id='Pg112'/>
+<p>Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple;
+a rat appeared, swimming, and, seeing
+them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.</p>
+
+<p>An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland,
+and he looked up abruptly with the instinct
+of a creature suddenly trapped&mdash;but not
+yet quite realizing it.</p>
+
+<p>In the grey forest walling that silent place,
+in the monotonous sky overhead, there seemed
+something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too,
+in the intense stillness; and, in the twisted,
+uplifted limbs of every giant tree, a subtle
+and suspended threat.</p>
+
+<p>He said tritely and with an effort: "For
+everything there are natural causes. These
+may always be discovered with ingenuity and
+persistence.... Shall we examine your clocks,
+Madame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Will your General be annoyed
+because I have asked that an officer be sent
+here? Tell me truthfully, are <hi rend='italic'>you</hi> annoyed?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile
+away the inexplicable sense of depression
+which was creeping over him.</p>
+
+<p>He looked down again at the grey wraith<pb n='113'/><anchor id='Pg113'/>
+in the water, then, as they turned and walked
+slowly back across the bridge together, he
+said, suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Something</hi> is wrong somewhere in Finist&egrave;re.
+That is evident to me. There have
+been too many rumours from too many sources.
+By sea and land they come&mdash;rumours of things
+half seen, half heard&mdash;glimpses of enemy aircraft,
+sea-craft. Yet their presence would
+appear to be an impossibility in the light of
+the military intelligence which we possess.</p>
+
+<p>"But we have investigated every rumour;
+although I, personally, know of no report
+which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these
+rumours persist; they come thicker and faster
+day by day. But this&mdash;" He hesitated, then
+smiled&mdash;"this seems rather different&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Countess&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are too considerate to say so.... And
+perhaps I have become nervous&mdash;imagining
+things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it
+is the sadness of the past year&mdash;the strangeness
+of it, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='114'/><anchor id='Pg114'/>
+<p>She sighed unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p>"It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed it must be very lonely here," he
+returned in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Aulnes Wood is&mdash;too remote for
+them to send our wounded here for their convalescence.
+I offered Aulnes. Then I offered
+myself, saying that I was ready to go
+anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there
+are already too many volunteers. They take
+only the trained in hospitals. I am untrained,
+and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody
+wanted me."</p>
+
+<p>She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"So there is nothing for me to do," she said,
+"except to remain here and sew for the hospitals." ... She
+looked out thoughtfully across
+the fern-grown <hi rend='italic'>carrefour</hi>: "Therefore I sew
+all day by the latticed window there&mdash;all day
+long, day after day&mdash;and when one is young
+and when there is nobody&mdash;nothing to look
+at except the curlew flying&mdash;nothing to hear
+except the <hi rend='italic'>vanneaux</hi>, and the clocks striking
+the hour&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='115'/><anchor id='Pg115'/>
+<p>Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted
+her proud little head and smiled, and her tone
+grew firm again:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming
+a trifle morbid. It is entirely physical; my
+heart is quite undaunted."</p>
+
+<p>"You heart, Madame, is but a part of the
+great, undaunted heart of France."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... therefore there could be no fear&mdash;no
+doubt of God.... Affairs go well with
+France, Monsieur?&mdash;may I ask without military
+impropriety?"</p>
+
+<p>"France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame.
+And her destiny is victory and light."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing
+for so long.... Thank you, Monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>He said quietly: "The Light shall break.
+We must not doubt it, we English. Nor can
+you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and
+hellish Darkness which has been let loose upon
+the world to assail it. You shall live to see
+light, Madame&mdash;and I also shall see it&mdash;perhaps&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at the young man, met his<pb n='116'/><anchor id='Pg116'/>
+eyes, and looked elsewhere, gravely. A slight
+flush lingered on her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>On the doorstep of the house they paused.
+"Is it possible," she asked, "that an enemy
+a&euml;roplane could land in the Aulnes &Eacute;tang?&mdash;L'&Eacute;tang
+aux Vanneaux?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the &Eacute;tang?" he repeated, a little startled.
+"How large is it, this &Eacute;tang aux Vanneaux?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and
+three-quarters of a mile across. My old servant,
+Anne, had seen the werewolf in the
+reeds&mdash;like a man without a face&mdash;and only
+two great eyes&mdash;" She forced a pale smile.
+"Of course, if it were anything she saw, it
+was a real man.... And, airmen dress that
+way.... I wondered&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stood looking at her absently, worrying
+his short mustache.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the rumours we have heard," he
+began, "concerns a supposed invasion by a huge
+fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions&mdash;a
+new biplane type which is steered
+from the bridge like an ocean steamer.</p>
+
+<p>"It is supposed to be three or four times
+as large as their usual <hi rend='italic'>Albatross</hi> type, with<pb n='117'/><anchor id='Pg117'/>
+a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for
+lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great
+weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and
+a very large crew.</p>
+
+<p>"And the most disturbing thing about it is
+that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class
+automobile."</p>
+
+<p>"Has such an one been seen in Brittany?"</p>
+
+<p>"Such a machine has been reported&mdash;many,
+many times&mdash;as though not one but hundreds
+were in Finist&egrave;re. And, what is very disquieting
+to us&mdash;a report has arrived from a distant
+and totally independent source&mdash;from Sweden&mdash;that
+air-crafts of this general type have been
+secretly built in Germany by the hundreds."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's silence she stepped into
+the house; he followed.</p>
+
+<p>The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping
+with the grey exterior; age had more than
+softened and co&ouml;rdinated the ancient furnishings,
+it had rendered them colourless, without
+accent, making the place empty and monotonous.</p>
+
+<p>Her chair and workbasket stood by a lat<pb n='118'/><anchor id='Pg118'/>ticed
+window; she seated herself and took
+up her sewing, watching him where he stood
+before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel
+clock&mdash;a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate,
+shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the
+clock itself and containing the works, bell and
+dial.</p>
+
+<p>When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction
+he tested it. It still struck five. He continued
+to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at
+intervals, but it always struck five times, and
+finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug
+of annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>I</hi> can't do anything with it," he admitted,
+smiling cheerfully across the room at her; "is
+there another clock on this floor?"</p>
+
+<p>She directed him; he went into an adjoining
+room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled
+clock was ticking busily. But after a
+little while he gave up his tinkering; he could
+do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck
+five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting
+failure with a perplexed and uneasy
+smile; and she rose and accompanied him<pb n='119'/><anchor id='Pg119'/>
+through the house, where he tried, in turn,
+every one of the other clocks.</p>
+
+<p>When, at length, he realized that he could
+accomplish nothing by altering their striking
+mechanism&mdash;that every clock in the house persisted
+in striking five times no matter where
+the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and
+inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks
+at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of
+mechanism out of them.</p>
+
+<p>As they returned together through the
+hushed and dusky house, he caught glimpses
+of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast,
+tarnished mirrors, through the dim depths of
+which their passing figures moved like ghosts;
+of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay
+figures where cobwebs clotted the slitted visors
+and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners
+drooped.</p>
+
+<p>And he understood why any woman might
+believe in strange inexplicable things here in
+the haunting stillness of this house where splendour
+had turned to mould&mdash;where form had become
+effaced and colour dimmed; where only<pb n='120'/><anchor id='Pg120'/>
+the shadowy film of texture still remained,
+and where even that was slowly yielding&mdash;under
+the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries,
+moth and dust and rust.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='121'/><anchor id='Pg121'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='X. THE GHOULS'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='X. THE GHOULS'/>
+<head>CHAPTER X<lb/><lb/>
+THE GHOULS</head>
+
+<p>They dined by the latticed window; two
+candles lighted them; old Anne served them&mdash;old
+Anne of F&auml;ouette in her wide white
+coiffe and collarette, her velvet bodice and her
+<hi rend='italic'>chaussons</hi> broidered with the rose.</p>
+
+<p>Always she talked as she moved about with
+dish and salver&mdash;garrulous, deaf, and aged,
+and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow
+of that second infancy which comes before
+the night.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Ouidame!</hi> It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell
+you this, my pretty gentleman. I have lived
+through eighty years and I have seen life
+begin and end in the Woods of Aulnes&mdash;alas!&mdash;in
+the Woods and the House of Aulnes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The red wine, Anne," said her mistress,
+gently.</p>
+
+<pb n='122'/><anchor id='Pg122'/>
+<p>"Madame the Countess is served.... These
+grapes grew when I was young, Monsieur&mdash;and
+the world was young, too, <hi rend='italic'>mon Capitaine&mdash;h&eacute;las!</hi>&mdash;but
+the Woods of Aulnes were
+old, old as the headland yonder. Only the
+sea is older, <hi rend='italic'>beau jeune homme</hi>&mdash;only the sea
+is older&mdash;the sea which always was and will
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," he said, turning toward the
+young girl beside him, "&mdash;to France!&mdash;I have
+the honour&mdash;" She touched her glass to his
+and they saluted France with the ancient
+wine of France&mdash;a sip, a faint smile, and silence
+through which their eyes still lingered
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he
+said. "Light is lacking. But&mdash;but there will
+be sun enough another year."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>B'en oui!</hi> The sun must shine again,"
+muttered old Anne, "but not in the Woods
+of Aulnes. <hi rend='italic'>Non pas.</hi> There is no sunlight
+in the Woods of Aulnes where all is dim and
+still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with<pb n='123'/><anchor id='Pg123'/>
+Our Lady of Aulnes in shining vestments
+all&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She has seen thin mists rising there,"
+whispered the Countess in his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"In shining robes of grace&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>oui-da</hi>!&mdash;the
+martyrs and the acolytes of God. It is I who
+tell you, <hi rend='italic'>beau jeune homme</hi>&mdash;I, Anne of F&auml;ouette.
+I saw them pass where, on my two
+knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the
+brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud,
+hymns of our blessed Lady&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She heard a throstle singing by the brook,"
+whispered the ch&acirc;telaine of Aulnes. Her
+breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Against the grey dusk at the window she
+looked to him like a slim spirit returned to
+haunt the halls of Aulnes&mdash;some graceful
+shade come back out of the hazy and forgotten
+years of gallantry and courts and battles&mdash;the
+exquisite apparation of that golden
+time before the Vend&eacute;e drowned and washed
+it out in blood.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad you came," she said. "I
+have not felt so calm, so confident, in months."</p>
+
+<p>Old Anne of F&auml;ouette laid them fresh nap<pb n='124'/><anchor id='Pg124'/>kins
+and set two crystal bowls beside them
+and filled the bowls with fresh water from the
+moat.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Ho fois!</hi>" she said, "love and the heart
+may change, but not the Woods of Aulnes;
+they never change&mdash;they never change....
+The golden people of Ker-Ys come out of the
+sea to walk among the trees."</p>
+
+<p>The Countess whispered: "She has seen
+the sunbeams slanting through the trees."</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous
+dites cela, mon Capitaine!</hi> And, in the Woods
+of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen
+him, gallant gentleman. He walks upright, and,
+in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth, no
+teeth, no nostrils, and no hair&mdash;the Loup-Garou!&mdash;O
+Lady of Aulnes, adored and blessed,
+protect us from the Loup-Barou!"</p>
+
+<p>The Countess said again to him: "I have not
+felt so confident, so content, so full of faith
+in months&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A far faint clamour came to their ears;
+high in the fading sky above the forest
+vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling,
+circling, swinging wide, drifting against<pb n='125'/><anchor id='Pg125'/>
+the dying light of day, southward toward the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>"There is something wrong there," he said,
+under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>Minute after minute they watched in silence.
+The last misty shred of wild fowl floated seaward
+and was lost against the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a path to the &Eacute;tang?" he asked
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I will go with you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Show me the path."</p>
+
+<p>His shotgun stood by the door; he took
+it with him as he left the house beside her.
+In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing
+toward the house, L'Ombre lay motionless.
+They saw it as they passed, but did not speak of
+it to each other. At the forest's edge he
+halted: "Is this the path?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... May I not go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;please."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there danger?"</p>
+
+<p>"No.... I don't know if there is any danger."</p>
+
+<pb n='126'/><anchor id='Pg126'/>
+<p>"Will you be cautious, then?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and looked at her in the dim
+light. Standing so for a little while they
+remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet
+breath. She held out one hand, slowly; half
+way he bent and touched her fingers with
+his lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly
+at her side.</p>
+
+<p>After he had been gone a long while, she
+turned away, moving with head lowered. At
+the bridge she waited for him.</p>
+
+<p>A red moon rose low in the east. It became
+golden above the trees, paler higher,
+and deathly white in mid-heaven.</p>
+
+<p>It was long after midnight when she went
+into the house to light fresh candles. In the
+intense darkness before dawn she lighted two
+more and set them in an upper window on
+the chance that they might guide him back.</p>
+
+<p>At five in the morning every clock struck
+five.</p>
+
+<p>She was not asleep; she was lying on a
+lounge beside the burning candles, listening,
+when the door below burst open and there<pb n='127'/><anchor id='Pg127'/>
+came the trampling rush of feet, the sound
+of blows, a fall&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A loud voice cried:&mdash;"Because you are armed
+and not in uniform!&mdash;you British swine!"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And the pistol shots crashed through the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>On the stairs she swayed for an instant,
+grasped blindly at the rail. Through the floating
+smoke below the dead man lay there by
+the latticed window&mdash;where they had sat together&mdash;he
+and she&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Spectres were flitting to and fro&mdash;grey
+shapes without faces&mdash;things with eyes. A
+loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely
+upon her shrinking brain:</p>
+
+<p>"You there on the stairs!&mdash;do you hear?
+What are those candles? Signals?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked down at the dead man.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Through the crackling racket of the fusillade,
+down, down into roaring darkness she
+fell.</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments her slim hand moved,
+closed over the dead man's. And moved no
+more.</p>
+
+<pb n='128'/><anchor id='Pg128'/>
+<p>In the moat L'Ombre still remained, unstirring;
+old Anne lay in the kitchen dying;
+and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with
+ghastly shapes which had no faces, only
+eyes.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='129'/><anchor id='Pg129'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XI. THE SEED OF DEATH'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XI. THE SEED OF DEATH'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XI<lb/><lb/>
+THE SEED OF DEATH</head>
+
+<p>It was Dr. Vail whose identification secured
+burial for Neeland, not in the American cemetery,
+but in Aulnes Wood.</p>
+
+<p>When the raid into Finist&egrave;re ended, and
+the unclean birds took flight, Vail, at Quimper,
+ordered north with his unit, heard of the
+tragedy, and went to Aulnes. And so Neeland
+was properly buried beside the youthful ch&acirc;telaine.
+Which was, no doubt, what his severed
+soul desired. And perhaps hers desired it, too.</p>
+
+<p>Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders,
+got gassed, and came back to New York.</p>
+
+<p>He had aged ten years in as many months.</p>
+
+<p>Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing
+from time to time at Vail's pallid face, and
+the latter understood the professional interest
+of the younger man.</p>
+
+<pb n='130'/><anchor id='Pg130'/>
+<p>"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't look very fit, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"No.... I'm <hi rend='italic'>going West</hi>."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you think that you are&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>going
+West</hi>?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a thing over there, born of gas.
+It's a living thing, animal or vegetable. I don't
+know which. It's only recently been recognized.
+We call it the 'Seed of Death.'"</p>
+
+<p>Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older
+man in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Vail went on, slowly: "It's properly named.
+It is always fatal. A man may live for a
+few months. But, once gassed, even in the
+slightest degree, if that germ is inhaled, death
+is certain."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence Gray began: "Do you have
+any apprehension&mdash;" And did not finish the
+sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Vail shrugged. "It's interesting, isn't it?"
+he said with pleasant impersonality.</p>
+
+<p>After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing
+anything about it?"</p>
+
+<pb n='131'/><anchor id='Pg131'/>
+<p>"Oh, yes. It's working in the dark, of course.
+I'm feeling rottener every day."</p>
+
+<p>He rested his handsome head on one thin
+hand:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to die, Gray, but I don't know
+how to keep alive. It's odd, isn't it? I don't
+wish to die. It's an interesting world. I want
+to see how the local elections turn out in New
+York."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. That is what worries me more
+than anything. We Allies are sure to win.
+I'm not worrying about that. But I'd like to
+live to see Tammany a dead cock in the pit!"</p>
+
+<p>Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly,
+and then, solemn again, said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to live to see this country aspire
+to something really noble."</p>
+
+<p>"After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing
+to stifle aspiration."</p>
+
+<p>It was not only because Vail had been gazing
+upon death in every phase, every degree&mdash;on
+brutal destruction wholesale and in detail;
+but also he had been standing on the outer
+escarpment of Civilization and had watched<pb n='132'/><anchor id='Pg132'/>
+the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering,
+undermining, gradually engulfing the
+world itself and all its ancient liberties.</p>
+
+<p>He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to
+sail to France next day were alone together
+on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the
+infernal heat of a summer day in town.</p>
+
+<p>On the avenue below motor cars moved
+north and south, hansoms crept slowly along
+the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people
+passed listlessly under the electric lights&mdash;the
+nine&mdash;and&mdash;seventy sweating tribes.</p>
+
+<p>For, on such summer nights, under the red
+moon, an exodus from the East Side peoples
+the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle
+along the gilded grilles and still fa&ccedil;ades of
+stone, up and down, to and fro, in quest of
+God knows what&mdash;of air perhaps, perhaps of
+happiness, or of something even vaguer. But
+whatever it may be that starts them into painful
+motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration
+is a part of their unrest.</p>
+
+<p>"There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail&mdash;"also
+her inevitable shadow, tyranny."</p>
+
+<p>"We need more light; that's all," said Gray.</p>
+
+<pb n='133'/><anchor id='Pg133'/>
+<p>"When light streams in from every angle no
+shadow is possible."</p>
+
+<p>"The millennium? I get you.... In this
+country the main thing is that there is <hi rend='italic'>some</hi>
+light. A single ray, however feeble, and even
+coming from one fixed angle only, means aspiration,
+life...."</p>
+
+<p>He lighted a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"As you know," he remarked, "there is a
+flower called <hi rend='italic'>Aconitum</hi>. It is also known by
+the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower.
+Direct sunlight kills it. It flourishes
+only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower
+it also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly
+poison.... As you say, the necessary thing
+in this world is light from every angle."</p>
+
+<p>His cigar glimmered dully through the silence.
+Presently he went on; "Speaking of
+tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized
+and tolerated business carried on successfully
+by those born with a genius for it.
+It flourishes in the shade&mdash;like the Helmet-Flower....
+But the sun in this Western
+Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually
+killing off our local tyrants&mdash;slowly, al<pb n='134'/><anchor id='Pg134'/>most
+<corr sic='imperceptiby'>imperceptibly</corr> but inexorably, killing 'em
+off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive&mdash;tyrants
+of every degree born to the business
+of tyranny and making a success at it."</p>
+
+<p>He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:</p>
+
+<p>"There are our tyrants of industry," he said;
+"tyrants of politics, tyrants of religion&mdash;great
+and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants,
+all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling
+under this fierce western sun of ours&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed without mirth, turning his worn
+and saddened eyes on Gray:</p>
+
+<p>"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also
+it is a state of mind&mdash;a delusion, a ruling
+passion&mdash;strong even in death.... The odd
+part of it is that a tyrant never knows he's
+one.... He invariably mistakes himself for
+a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story
+if you care to listen.... Or, we can go to
+some cheerful show or roof-garden&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on with your story," said Gray.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='135'/><anchor id='Pg135'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XII. FIFTY-FIFTY'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XII. FIFTY-FIFTY'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XII<lb/><lb/>
+FIFTY-FIFTY</head>
+
+<p>Vail began:</p>
+
+<p>Tyranny was purely a matter of business
+with this little moral shrimp about whom I'm
+going to tell you. I was standing between
+a communication trench and a crater left by
+a mine which was being "consolidated," as they
+have it in these days.... All around me soldiers
+of the third line swarmed and clambered
+over the d&eacute;bris, digging, hammering, shifting
+planks and sandbags from south to north,
+lugging new timbers, reels of barbed wire, ladders,
+cases of ammunition, machine guns, trench
+mortars.</p>
+
+<p>The din of the guns was terrific; overhead
+our own shells passed with a deafening, clattering
+roar; the Huns continued to shell the
+town in front of us where our first and second<pb n='136'/><anchor id='Pg136'/>
+lines were still fighting in the streets and
+houses while the third line were reconstructing
+a few yards of trenches and a few craters
+won.</p>
+
+<p>Stretchers and bearers from my section had
+not yet returned from the emergency dressing
+station; the crater was now cleared up
+except of enemy dead, whose partly buried
+arms and legs still stuck out here and there.
+A company of the Third Foreign Legion had
+just come into the crater and had taken station
+at the loopholes under the parapet of
+sandbags.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the telephone wires were
+stretched as far as our crater a message came
+for me to remain where I was until further
+orders. I had just received this message and
+was walking along, slowly, behind the rank of
+soldiers, who stood leaning against the parapet
+with their rifles thrust through the loops,
+when somebody said in English&mdash;in East Side
+New York English I mean&mdash;"Ah, there, Doc!"</p>
+
+<p>A soldier had turned toward me, both hands
+still grasping his resting rifle. In the "horizon
+blue" uniform and ugly, iron, shrapnel-proof<pb n='137'/><anchor id='Pg137'/>
+helmet strapped to his bullet head I failed
+to recognize him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's me, 'Duck' Werner," he said, as I
+stood hesitating.... You know who he is, political
+leader in the 50th Ward, here. I was astounded.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about it?" he added.
+"Me in a tin derby potting Fritzies! And
+there's Heinie, too, and Pick-em-up Joe&mdash;the
+whole bunch sewed up in this here trench, oh
+my God!"</p>
+
+<p>I went over to him and stood leaning against
+the parapet beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Duck," I said, amazed, "how did <hi rend='italic'>you</hi> come
+to enlist in the Foreign Legion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw," he replied with infinite disgust, "I got
+drunk."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me and Heinie and Joe was follerin' the
+races down to Boolong when this here war
+come and put everything on the blink. Aw,
+hell, sez I, come on back to Parus an' look
+'em over before we skiddoo home&mdash;meanin'
+the dames an' all like that. Say, we done
+what I said; we come back to Parus, an' we<pb n='138'/><anchor id='Pg138'/>
+got in wrong! Listen, Doc; them dames had
+went crazy over this here war graft. Veeve
+France, sez they. An' by God! we veeved.</p>
+
+<p>"An' one of 'em at Maxeems got me soused,
+and others they fixed up Heinie an' Joe, an'
+we was all wavin' little American flags and
+yellin' 'To hell with the Hun!' Then there
+was a interval for which I can't account to
+nobody.</p>
+
+<p>"All I seem to remember is my marchin'
+in the boolyvard along with a guy in baggy
+red pants, and my chewin' the rag in a big,
+hot room full o' soldiers; an' Heinie an' Joe
+they was shoutin', 'Wow! Lemme at 'em.
+Veeve la France!' Wha' d'ye know about me?
+Ain't I the mark from home?"</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't realize that you were enlisting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, does it make any difference to these
+here guys what you reelize, or what you don't?
+I ask you, Doc?"</p>
+
+<p>He spat disgustedly upon the sand, rolled
+his quid into the other cheek, wiped his thin
+lips with the back of his right hand, then his
+fingers mechanically sought the trigger guard<pb n='139'/><anchor id='Pg139'/>
+again and he cast a perfunctory squint up at
+the parapet.</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me," he said, "a guy can veeve himself
+into any kind of trouble if he yells loud
+enough. I'm getting mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Duck," I said, "it's a good game&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw," he retorted angrily, "it ain't my graft
+an' you know it. What do I care who veeves
+over here?&mdash;An' the 50th Ward goin' to hell
+an' all!"</p>
+
+<p>I strove to readjust my mind to understand
+what he had said. I was, you know, that year,
+the Citizen's Anti-Graft leader in the 50th
+Ward.... I am, still, if I live; and if I
+ever can get anything into my head except the
+stupendous din of this war and the cataclysmic
+problems depending upon its outcome....
+Well, it was odd to remember that petty political
+conflict as I stood there in the trenches
+under the gigantic shadow of world-wide disaster&mdash;to
+find myself there, talking with this
+sallow, wiry, shifty ward leader&mdash;this corrupt
+little local tyrant whom I had opposed in the
+50th Ward&mdash;this ex-lightweight bruiser, ex-gunman&mdash;this
+dirty little political procurer who<pb n='140'/><anchor id='Pg140'/>
+had been and was everything brutal, stealthy,
+and corrupt.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him curiously; turned and glanced
+along the line where, presently, I recognized
+his two familiars, Heinie Baum and Pick-em-up
+Joe Brady with whom he had started off to
+"Parus" on a month's summer junket, and with
+whom he had stumbled so ludicrously into the
+riff-raff ranks of the 3rd Foreign Legion.
+Doubtless the 1st and 2nd Legions couldn't
+stand him and his two friends, although in one
+company there were many Americans serving.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking of these things, the thunder of the
+cannonade shaking sand from the parapet, I became
+conscious that the rat eyes of Duck Werner
+were furtively watching me.</p>
+
+<p>"You can do me dirt, now, can't you, Doc?"
+he said with a leer.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, as if I had to tell you. I got some sense
+left."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly his sallow visage under the iron
+helmet became distorted with helpless fury; he
+fairly snarled; his thin lips writhed as he spat
+out the suspicion which had seized him:</p>
+
+<pb n='141'/><anchor id='Pg141'/>
+<p>"By God, Doc, if you do that!&mdash;if you leave
+me here caged up an' go home an' raise hell
+in the 50th&mdash;with me an' Joe here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>After a breathless pause: "Well," said I,
+"what will you do about it?"&mdash;for he was looking
+murder at me.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of us spoke again for a few moments;
+an officer, smoking a cigarette, came up
+between Heinie and Pick-em-up Joe, adjusted
+a periscope and set his eye to it. Through
+the sky above us the shells raced as though
+hundreds of shaky express trains were rushing
+overhead on rickety a&euml;rial tracks, deafening
+the world with their outrageous clatter.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Doc&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I looked up into his altered face&mdash;a sallow,
+earnest face, fiercely intent. Every atom of
+the man's intelligence was alert, concentrated
+on me, on my expression, on my slightest
+movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Doc," he said, "let's talk business. We're
+men, we are, you an' me. I've fought you
+plenty times. I <hi rend='italic'>know</hi>. An' I guess you are
+on to me, too. I ain't no squealer; you know
+that anyway. Perhaps I'm everything else<pb n='142'/><anchor id='Pg142'/>
+you claim I am when you make parlor speeches
+to Gussie an' Reggie an' when you stand on
+a bar'l in Avenoo A an' say: 'my friends' to
+Billy an' Izzy an' Pete the Wop.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Go to it! I'm it. I got mine.
+That's what I'm there for. But&mdash;when I get
+mine, the guys that back me get theirs, too.
+My God, Doc, let's talk business! What's a
+little graft between friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Duck," I said, "you own the 50th Ward.
+You are no fool. Why is it not possible for
+you to understand that some men don't graft?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, can it!" he retorted fiercely. "What
+else is there to chase except graft? What
+else is there, I ask you? Graft! Ain't there
+graft into everything God ever made? An'
+don't the smart guy get it an' take his an'
+divide the rest same as you an' me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can't comprehend that I don't graft,
+can you, Duck?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you call it what you get, then?
+The wages of Reeform? And what do you
+hand out to your lootenants an' your friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Service."</p>
+
+<pb n='143'/><anchor id='Pg143'/>
+<p>"Hey? Well, all right. But what's in it for
+you? Where do you get yours, Doc?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing in it for me except to give
+honest service to the people who trust me."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," he persisted with a sort of ferocious
+patience; "you ain't on no bar'l now; an'
+you ain't calling no Ginneys and no Kikes
+your friends. You're just talkin' to me like
+there wasn't nobody else onto this damn
+planet excep' us two guys. Get that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'm tellin' you that I get mine same
+as any one who ain't a loonatic. Get that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Now I know you ain't no nut.
+Which means that you get yours, whatever
+you call it. And <hi rend='italic'>now</hi> will you talk business?"</p>
+
+<p>"What business do you want to talk, Duck?"
+I added; "I should say that you already have
+your hands rather full of business and Lebel
+rifles&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw' Gawd; <hi rend='italic'>this</hi>? This ain't business. I was
+a damn fool and I'm doin' time like any souse
+what the bulls pinch. Only I get more than
+thirty days, I do. That's what's killin' me,<pb n='144'/><anchor id='Pg144'/>
+Doc!&mdash;Duck Werner in a tin lid, suckin' soup
+an' shootin' Fritzies when I oughter be in
+Noo York with me fren's lookin' after business.
+Can you beat it?" he ended fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>He chewed hard on his quid for a few moments,
+staring blankly into space with the detached
+ferocity of a caged tiger.</p>
+
+<p>"What are they a-doin' over there in the
+50th?" he demanded. "How do I know whose
+knifin' me with the boys? I don't mean your
+party. You're here same as I am. I mean
+Mike the Kike, and the regular Reepublican
+nomination, I do.... And, how do I know
+when <hi rend='italic'>you</hi> are going back?"</p>
+
+<p>I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Are</hi> you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Doc, will you talk business, man to man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Duck, to tell you the truth, the hell that is
+in full blast over here&mdash;this gigantic, world-wide
+battle of nations&mdash;leaves me, for the
+time, uninterested in ward politics."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop your kiddin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you comprehend it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, what do you care about what Kink wins?<pb n='145'/><anchor id='Pg145'/>
+If we was Kinks, you an' me, all right. But
+we ain't Doc. We're little fellows. Our graft
+ain't big like the Dutch Emperor's, but maybe
+it comes just as regular on pay day. Ich ka
+bibble."</p>
+
+<p>"Duck," I said, "you explain your presence
+here by telling me that you enlisted while
+drunk. How do you explain my being here?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're a Doc. I guess there must be big
+money into it," he returned with a wink.</p>
+
+<p>"I draw no pay."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you," he remarked, leering. "Say,
+don't you do that to me, Doc. I may be unfortunit;
+I'm a poor damn fool an' I know it.
+But don't tell me you're here for your health."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't repeat it, Duck," I said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Much obliged. Now for God's sake let's
+talk business. You think you've got me cinched.
+You think you can go home an' raise hell in the
+50th while I'm doin' time into these here
+trenches. You sez to yourself, 'O there ain't
+nothin' to it!' An' then you tickles yourself
+under the ribs, Doc. You better make a deal
+with me, do you hear? Gimme mine, and you
+can have yours, too; and between us, if we<pb n='146'/><anchor id='Pg146'/>
+work together, we can hand one to Mike the
+Kike that'll start every ambulance in the city
+after him. Get me?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's no use discussing such things&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I won't ask you to make it
+fifty-fifty. Gimme half what I oughter have.
+You can fix it with Curley Tim Brady&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Duck, this is no time&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hell! It's all the time I've got! What
+do you expec' out here, a caffy dansong? I
+don't see no corner gin-mills around neither.
+Listen, Doc, quit up-stagin'! You an' me kick
+the block off'n this here Kike-Wop if we get
+together. All I ask of you is to talk business&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I moved aside, and backward a little way,
+disgusted with the ratty soul of the man, and
+stood looking at the soldiers who were digging
+out bombproof burrows all along the
+trench and shoring up the holes with heavy,
+green planks.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody was methodically busy in one way
+or another behind the long rank of Legionaries
+who stood at the loops, the butts of the
+Lebel rifles against their shoulders.</p>
+
+<pb n='147'/><anchor id='Pg147'/>
+<p>Some sawed planks to shore up dugouts;
+some were constructing short ladders out of
+the trunks of slender green saplings; some
+filled sacks with earth to fill the gaps on the
+parapet above; others sharpened pegs and
+drove them into the dirt fa&ccedil;ade of the trench,
+one above the other, as footholds for the men
+when a charge was ordered.</p>
+
+<p>Behind me, above my head, wild flowers and
+long wild grasses drooped over the raw edge
+of the parados, and a few stalks of ripening
+wheat trailed there or stood out against the
+sky&mdash;an opaque, uncertain sky which had been
+so calmly blue, but which was now sickening
+with that whitish pallor which presages a
+storm.</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice there came the smashing tinkle
+of glass as a periscope was struck and a vexed
+officer, still holding it, passed it to a rifleman
+to be laid aside.</p>
+
+<p>Only one man was hit. He had been fitting
+a shutter to the tiny embrasure between
+sandbags where a machine gun was to be
+mounted; and the bullet came through and<pb n='148'/><anchor id='Pg148'/>
+entered his head in the center of the triangle
+between nose and eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>A little later when I was returning from
+that job, walking slowly along the trench,
+Pick-em-up Joe hailed me cheerfully, and I
+glanced up to where he and Heinie stood
+with their rifles thrust between the sandbags
+and their grimy fists clutching barrel and
+butt.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Heinie!" I said pleasantly. "How
+are you, Joe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Commong &ccedil;a va?" inquired Heinie, evidently
+mortified at his situation and condition,
+but putting on the careless front of a
+gunman in a strange ward.</p>
+
+<p>Pick-em-up Joe added jauntily: "Well, Doc,
+what's the good word?"</p>
+
+<p>"France," I replied, smiling; "Do you know
+a better word?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "Noo York. Say, what's
+your little graft over here, Doc?"</p>
+
+<p>"You and I reverse r&ocirc;les, Pick-em-up; you
+<hi rend='italic'>stop</hi> bullets; <hi rend='italic'>I</hi> pick 'em up&mdash;after you're
+through with 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"The hell you say!" he retorted, grinning.<pb n='149'/><anchor id='Pg149'/>
+"Well, grab it from me, if it wasn't for the
+Jack Johnsons and the gas, a gun fight in
+the old 50th would make this war look like
+Luna Park! It listens like it, too, only this
+here show is all fi-<hi rend='italic'>nally</hi>, with Bingle's Band
+playin' circus tunes an' the supes hollerin' like
+they seen real money."</p>
+
+<p>He was a merry ruffian, and he controlled
+the "coke" graft in the 50th while Heinie was
+perpetual bondsman for local Magdalenes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ain't we in Dutch&mdash;us three guys!"
+he remarked with forced carelessness. "We
+sure done it that time."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you do business with Duck?" inquired
+Pick-em-up, curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so he noticed it. Joe, can't you and
+Heinie rise to your opportunities? This is
+the first time in your lives you've ever been
+decent, ever done a respectable thing. Can't
+you start in and live straight&mdash;think straight?
+You're wearing the uniform of God's own
+soldiers; you're standing shoulder to shoulder
+with men who are fighting God's own battle.
+The fate of every woman, every child,
+every unborn baby in Europe&mdash;and in Amer<pb n='150'/><anchor id='Pg150'/>ica,
+too&mdash;depends on your bravery. If you
+don't win out, it will be our turn next. If
+you don't stop the Huns&mdash;if you don't come
+back at them and wipe them out, the world
+will not be worth inhabiting."</p>
+
+<p>I stepped nearer: "Heinie," I said, "you
+know what your trade has been, and what it is
+called. Here's your chance to clean yourself.
+Joe&mdash;you've dealt out misery, insanity, death,
+to women and children. You're called the
+Coke King of the East Side. Joe, we'll get
+you sooner or later. Don't take the trouble
+to doubt it. Why not order a new pack and
+a fresh deal? Why not resolve to live straight
+from this moment&mdash;here where you have taken
+your place in the ranks among real men&mdash;here
+where this army stands for liberty, for the
+right to live! You've got your chance to
+become a real man; so has Heinie. And
+when you come back, we'll stand by you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An' gimme a job choppin' tickets in the
+subway!" snarled Heinie. "Expec' me to squeal
+f'r that? Reeform, hey? Show me a livin' in
+it an' I carry a banner. But there ain't<pb n='151'/><anchor id='Pg151'/>
+nothing into it. How's a guy to live if there
+ain't no graft into nothin'?"</p>
+
+<p>Joe touched his gas-mask with a sneer:
+"He's pushin' the yellow stuff at us, Heinie,"
+he said; and to me: "You get <hi rend='italic'>yours</hi> all right.
+I don't know what it is, but you get it, same
+as me an' Heinie an' Duck. <hi rend='italic'>I</hi> don't know
+what it is," he repeated impatiently; "maybe
+it's dough; maybe it's them suffragettes with
+their silk feet an' white gloves what clap
+their hands at you. <hi rend='italic'>I</hi> ain't saying nothin'
+to <hi rend='italic'>you</hi>, am I? Then lemme alone an' go an'
+talk business with Duck over there&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Officers passed rapidly between the speaker
+and me and continued east and west along
+the ranks of riflemen, repeating in calm, steady
+voices:</p>
+
+<p>"Fix bayonets, <hi rend='italic'>mes enfants</hi>; make as little
+noise as possible. Everybody ready in ten
+minutes. Ladders will be distributed. Take
+them with you. The bomb-throwers will leave
+the trench first. Put on goggles and respirators.
+Fix bayonets and set one foot on the
+pegs and ladders ... all ready in seven minutes.
+Three mines will be exploded. Take<pb n='152'/><anchor id='Pg152'/>
+and hold the craters.... Five minutes!...
+When the mines explode that is your signal.
+Bombers lead. Give them a leg up and follow....
+Three minutes...."</p>
+
+<p>From a communication trench a long file of
+masked bomb-throwers appeared, loaded sacks
+slung under their left arms, bombs clutched
+in their right hands; and took stations at
+every ladder and row of freshly driven pegs.</p>
+
+<p>"One minute!" repeated the officers, selecting
+their own ladders and drawing their long
+knives and automatics.</p>
+
+<p>As I finished adjusting my respirator and
+goggles a muffled voice at my elbow began:
+"Be a sport, Doc! Gimme a chanst! Make
+it fifty-fifty&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Allez!</hi>" shouted an officer through his respirator.</p>
+
+<p>Against the sky all along the parapet's edge
+hundreds of bayonets wavered for a second;
+then dark figures leaped up, scrambled,
+crawled forward, rose, ran out into the sunless,
+pallid light.</p>
+
+<p>Like surf bursting along a coast a curtain
+of exploding shells stretched straight across the<pb n='153'/><anchor id='Pg153'/>
+d&eacute;bris of what had been a meadow&mdash;a long
+line of livid obscurity split with flame and
+storms of driving sand and gravel. Shrapnel
+leisurely unfolded its cottony coils overhead
+and the iron helmets rang under the hail.</p>
+
+<p>Men fell forward, backward, sideways, remaining
+motionless, or rolling about, or rising
+to limp on again. There was smoke, now, and
+mire, and the unbroken rattle of machine guns.</p>
+
+<p>Ahead, men were fishing in their sacks and
+throwing bombs like a pack of boys stoning
+a snake; I caught glimpses of them furiously
+at work from where I knelt beside one fallen
+man after another, desperately busy with my
+own business.</p>
+
+<p>Bearers ran out where I was at work, not
+my own company but some French ambulance
+sections who served me as well as their own
+surgeons where, in a shell crater partly full
+of water, we found some shelter for the
+wounded.</p>
+
+<p>Over us black smoke from the Jack Johnsons
+rolled as it rolls out of the stacks of soft-coal
+burning locomotives; the outrageous din
+never slackened, but our deafened ears had<pb n='154'/><anchor id='Pg154'/>
+become insensible under the repeated blows of
+sound, yet not paralyzed. For I remember,
+squatting there in that shell crater, hearing
+a cricket tranquilly tuning up between the
+thunderclaps which shook earth and sods down
+on us and wrinkled the pool of water at our
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>The Legion had taken the trench; but the
+place was a rabbit warren where hundreds of
+holes and burrows and ditches and communicating
+runways made a bewildering maze.</p>
+
+<p>And everywhere in the dull, flame-shot obscurity,
+the Legionaries ran about like ghouls
+in their hoods and round, hollow eye-holes;
+masked faces, indistinct in the smoke, loomed
+grotesque and horrible as Ku-Klux where the
+bayonets were at work digging out the enemy
+from blind burrows, turning them up from
+their bloody forms.</p>
+
+<p>Rifles blazed down into bomb-proofs, cracked
+steadily over the heads of comrades who piled
+up sandbags to block communication trenches;
+grenade-bombs rained down through the smoke
+into trenches, blowing bloody gaps in huddling
+masses of struggling Teutons until they flat<pb n='155'/><anchor id='Pg155'/>tened
+back against the parados and lifted
+arms and gun-butts stammering out, "Comrades!
+Comrades!"&mdash;in the ghastly irony of
+surrender.</p>
+
+<p>A man whose entire helmet, gas-mask, and
+face had been blown off, and who was still
+alive and trying to speak, stiffened, relaxed,
+and died in my arms. As I rolled him aside
+and turned to the next man whom the bearers
+were lowering into the crater, his respirator
+and goggles fell apart, and I found myself
+looking into the ashy face of Duck Werner.</p>
+
+<p>As we laid him out and stripped away iron
+helmet and tunic, he said in a natural and
+distinct voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Through the belly, Doc. Gimme a drink."</p>
+
+<p>There was no more water or stimulant at
+the moment and the puddle in the crater was
+bloody. He said, patiently, "All right; I can
+wait.... It's in the belly.... It ain't nothin',
+is it?"</p>
+
+<p>I said something reassuring, something about
+the percentage of recovery I believe, for I
+was exceedingly busy with Duck's anatomy.</p>
+
+<pb n='156'/><anchor id='Pg156'/>
+<p>"Pull me through, Doc?" he inquired calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure...."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, listen, Doc. Don't hand me no cones
+of hokey-pokey. Gimme a deck of the stuff.
+Dope out the coke. Do I get mine this trip?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him, hesitating.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Doc, am I hurted bad? Gimme a
+hones' deal. Do I croak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk, Duck&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dope it straight. <hi rend='italic'>Do</hi> I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you'd say that," he returned serenely.
+"Now I'm goin' to fool you, same as
+I fooled them guys at Bellevue the night that
+Mike the Kike shot me up in the subway."</p>
+
+<p>A pallid sneer stretched his thin and burning
+lips; in his ratty eyes triumph gleamed.</p>
+
+<p>"I've went through worse than this. I ain't
+hurted bad. I ain't got mine just yet, old
+scout! Would I leave meself croak&mdash;an' that
+bum, Mike the Kike, handin' me fren's the
+ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though
+his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that
+I'll get up an'&mdash;an' go&mdash;home&mdash;" His voice
+flattened out and he lay silent.</p>
+
+<pb n='157'/><anchor id='Pg157'/>
+<p>Working over the next man beyond him
+and glancing around now and then to discover
+a <hi rend='italic'>brancardier</hi> who might take Duck to
+the rear, I presently caught his eyes fixed
+on me.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Doc, will you talk&mdash;business?" he asked
+in a dull voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, Duck, the bearers will be here
+in a minute or two&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"T'hell wit them guys! I'm askin' you will
+you make it fifty-fifty&mdash;'r' somethin'&mdash;" Again
+his voice trailed away, but his bright ratty
+eyes were indomitable.</p>
+
+<p>I was bloodily occupied with another patient
+when something struck me on the shoulder&mdash;a
+human hand, clutching it. Duck was
+sitting upright, eyes a-glitter, the other hand
+pressed heavily over his abdomen.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty-fifty!" he cried in a shrill voice.
+"F'r Christ's sake, Doc, talk business&mdash;" And
+life went out inside him&mdash;like the flame of a
+suddenly snuffed candle&mdash;while he still sat
+there....</p>
+
+<p>I heard the air escaping from his lungs<pb n='158'/><anchor id='Pg158'/>
+before he toppled over.... I swear to you it
+sounded like a whispered word&mdash;"business."</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>"Then came their gas&mdash;a great, thick, yellow
+billow of it pouring into our shell hole....
+I couldn't get my mask on fast enough ...
+and here I am, Gray, wondering, but really
+knowing.... Are you stopping at the Club
+tonight?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Vail got to his feet unsteadily: "I'm feeling
+rather done in.... Won't sit up any longer,
+I guess.... See you in the morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Gray.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, then. Look in on me if you
+leave before I'm up."</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>And that is how Gray saw him before he
+sailed&mdash;stopped at his door, knocked, and, receiving
+no response, opened and looked in.
+After a few moments' silence he understood
+that the "Seed of Death" had sprouted.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='159'/><anchor id='Pg159'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XIII. MULETEERS'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XIII. MULETEERS'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XIII<lb/><lb/>
+MULETEERS</head>
+
+<p>Lying far to the southwest of the battle
+line, only when a strong northwest wind blew
+could Sainte Lesse hear the thudding of cannon
+beyond the horizon. And once, when the
+northeast wind had blown steadily for a
+week, on the wings of the driving drizzle had
+come a faint but dreadful odour which hung
+among the streets and lanes until the wind
+changed.</p>
+
+<p>Except for the carillon, nothing louder than
+the call of a cuckoo, the lowing of cattle or
+a goatherd's piping ever broke the summer
+silence in the little town. Birds sang; a
+shallow river rippled; breezes ruffled green
+grain into long, silvery waves across the valley;
+sunshine fell on quiet streets, on scented
+gardens unsoiled by war, on groves and<pb n='160'/><anchor id='Pg160'/>
+meadows, and on the stone-edged brink of
+brimming pools where washerwomen knelt
+among the wild flowers, splashing amid floating
+pyramids of snowy suds.</p>
+
+<p>And into the exquisite peace of this little
+paradise rode John Burley with a thousand
+American mules.</p>
+
+<p>The town had been warned of this impending
+visitation; had watched preparations for
+it during April and May when a corral was
+erected down in a meadow and some huts
+and stables were put up among the groves of
+poplar and sycamore, and a small barracks
+was built to accommodate the negro guardians
+of the mules and a peloton of gendarmes
+under a fat brigadier.</p>
+
+<p>Sainte Lesse as yet knew nothing personally
+of the American mule or of Burley.
+<corr sic='Saine'>Sainte</corr> Lesse heard both before it beheld either&mdash;Burley's
+loud, careless, swaggering voice
+above the hee-haw of his trampling herds:</p>
+
+<p>"All I ask for is human food, Smith&mdash;not
+luxuries&mdash;just food!&mdash;and that of the commonest
+kind."</p>
+
+<p>And now an immense volume of noise and<pb n='161'/><anchor id='Pg161'/>
+dust enveloped the main street of Sainte
+Lesse, stilling the quiet noon gossip of the
+town, silencing the birds, awing the town
+dogs so that their impending barking died
+to amazed gurgles drowned in the din of the
+mules.</p>
+
+<p>Astride a cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule,
+erect in his saddle, talkative, gesticulating,
+good-humoured, famished but gay, rode Burley
+at the head of the column, his reckless
+grey eyes glancing amiably right and left at
+the good people of Sainte Lesse who clustered
+silently at their doorways under the
+trees to observe the passing of this noisy,
+unfamiliar procession.</p>
+
+<p>Mules, dust; mules, dust, and then more
+mules, all enveloped in dust, clattering, ambling,
+trotting, bucking, shying, kicking, halting,
+backing; and here and there an American
+negro cracking a long snake whip with
+strange, aboriginal ejaculations; and three
+white men in khaki riding beside the
+trampling column, smoking cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>"Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn rode
+mules on the column's flank; Burley continued<pb n='162'/><anchor id='Pg162'/>
+to lead on his wall-eyed animal, preceded now
+by the fat brigadier of the gendarmerie, upon
+whom he had bestowed a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>Burley, talking all the while from his saddle
+to whoever cared to listen, or to himself
+if nobody cared to listen, rode on in the van
+under the ancient bell-tower of Sainte Lesse,
+where a slim, dark-eyed girl looked up at
+him as he passed, a faint smile hovering on
+her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Bong jour, Mademoiselle," continued Burley,
+saluting her <hi rend='italic'>en passant</hi> with two fingers
+at the vizor of his khaki cap, as he had seen
+British officers salute. "I compliment you on
+your silent but eloquent welcome to me, my
+comrades, my coons, and my mules. Your
+charming though slightly melancholy smile
+bids us indeed welcome to your fair city. I
+thank you; I thank all the inhabitants for
+this unprecedented ovation. Doubtless a municipal
+banquet awaits us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sticky Smith spurred up.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see the inn?" he asked. "There
+it is, to the right."</p>
+
+<p>"It looks good to me," said Burley.<pb n='163'/><anchor id='Pg163'/>
+"Everything looks good to me except these
+accursed mules. Thank God, that seems to
+be the corral&mdash;down in the meadow there,
+Brigadeer!"</p>
+
+<p>The fat brigadier drew bridle; Burley burst
+into French:</p>
+
+<p>"Esker&mdash;esker&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Oui</hi>," nodded the brigadier, "that is where
+we are going."</p>
+
+<p>"Bong!" exclaimed Burley with satisfaction;
+and, turning to Sticky Smith: "Stick,
+tell the coons to hustle. We're there!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, above the trampling, whip-cracking,
+and shouting of the negroes, from somewhere
+high in the blue sky overhead, out of limpid,
+cloudless heights floated a single bell-note,
+then another, another, others exquisitely
+sweet and clear, melting into a fragment of
+heavenly melody.</p>
+
+<p>Burley looked up into the sky; the negroes
+raised their sweating, dark faces in pleased
+astonishment; Stick and Kid Glenn lifted
+puzzled visages to the zenith. The fat brigadier
+smiled and waved his cigarette:</p>
+
+<pb n='164'/><anchor id='Pg164'/>
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Il est midi, messieurs.</hi> That is the carillon
+of Sainte Lesse."</p>
+
+<p>The angelic melody died away. Then, high
+in the old bell-tower, a great resonant bell
+struck twelve times.</p>
+
+<p>Said the brigadier:</p>
+
+<p>"When the wind is right, they can hear our
+big bell, Bayard, out there in the first line
+trenches&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Again he waved his cigarette toward the
+northeast, then reined in his horse and backed
+off into the flowering meadow, while the first
+of the American mules entered the corral,
+the herd following pellmell.</p>
+
+<p>The American negroes went with the mules
+to a hut prepared for them inside the corral&mdash;it
+having been previously and carefully explained
+to France that an American mule
+without its negro complement was as galvanic
+and unaccountable as a beheaded chicken.</p>
+
+<p>Burley burst into French again, like a
+shrapnel shell:</p>
+
+<p>"Esker&mdash;esker&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Oui</hi>," said the fat brigadier, "there is an
+excellent inn up the street, messieurs." And<pb n='165'/><anchor id='Pg165'/>
+he saluted their uniform, the same being constructed
+of cotton khaki, with a horseshoe
+on the arm and an oxidized metal mule on
+the collar. The brigadier wondered at and
+admired the minute nicety of administrative
+detail characterizing a government which
+clothed even its muleteers so becomingly, yet
+with such modesty and dignity.</p>
+
+<p>He could not know that the uniform was
+unauthorized and the insignia an invention
+of Sticky Smith, aiming to counteract any
+social stigma that might blight his sojourn
+in France.</p>
+
+<p>"For," said Sticky Smith, before they went
+aboard the transport at New Orleans, "if you
+dress a man in khaki, with some gimcrack
+on his sleeve and collar, you're level with
+anybody in Europe. Which," he added to
+Burley, "will make it pleasant if any emperors
+or kings drop in on us for a drink or a
+quiet game behind the lines."</p>
+
+<p>"Also," added Burley, "it goes with the
+ladies." And he and Kid Glenn purchased
+uniforms similar to Smith's and had the<pb n='166'/><anchor id='Pg166'/>
+horseshoe and mule fastened to sleeve and
+collar.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll hang you fellows for francs-tireurs,"
+remarked a battered soldier of fortune
+from the wharf as the transport cast
+off and glided gradually away from the sun-blistered
+docks.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang <hi rend='italic'>who</hi>?" demanded Burley loudly
+from the rail above.</p>
+
+<p>"What's a frank-tiroor?" inquired Sticky
+Smith.</p>
+
+<p>"And who'll hang us?" shouted Kid Glenn
+from the deck of the moving steamer.</p>
+
+<p>"The Germans will if they catch you in
+that uniform," retorted the battered soldier
+of fortune derisively. "You chorus-boy mule
+drivers will wish you wore overalls and one
+suspender if the Dutch Kaiser nails you!"</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='167'/><anchor id='Pg167'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XIV. LA PLOO BELLE'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XIV. LA PLOO BELLE'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XIV<lb/><lb/>
+LA PLOO BELLE</head>
+
+<p>They had been nearly three weeks on the
+voyage, three days in port, four more on
+cattle trains, and had been marching since
+morning from the nearest railway station at
+Estville-sur-Lesse.</p>
+
+<p>Now, lugging their large leather hold-alls,
+they started up the main street of Sainte
+Lesse, three sunburnt, loud-talking Americans,
+young, sturdy, careless of glance and
+voice and gesture, perfectly self-satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Their footsteps echoed loudly on the pavement
+of this still, old town, lying so quietly
+in the shadow of its aged trees and its sixteenth
+century belfry, where the great bell,
+Bayard, had hung for hundreds of years, and,
+tier on tier above it, clustered in set ranks
+the fixed bells of the ancient carillon.</p>
+
+<pb n='168'/><anchor id='Pg168'/>
+<p>"Some skyscraper," observed Burley, patronizing
+the bell-tower with a glance.</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, they came to the inn, a very
+ancient hostelry built into a remnant of the
+old town wall, and now a part of it. On the
+signboard was painted a white doe; and that
+was the name of the inn.</p>
+
+<p>So they trooped through the stone-arched
+tunnel, ushered by a lame innkeeper; and
+Burley, chancing to turn his head and glance
+back through the shadowy stone passage,
+caught a glimpse in the outer sunshine of
+the girl whose dark eyes had inspired him
+with jocular eloquence as he rode on his mule
+under the bell-tower of Sainte Lesse.</p>
+
+<p>"A peach," he said to Smith. And the
+sight of her apparently going to his head,
+he burst into French: "Tray chick! Tray,
+tray chick! I'm glad I've got on this uniform
+and not overalls and one suspender."</p>
+
+<p>"What's biting you?" inquired Smith.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, Stick, nothing. But I believe
+I've seen the prettiest girl in the world right
+here in this two-by-four town."</p>
+
+<pb n='169'/><anchor id='Pg169'/>
+<p>Stick glanced over his shoulder, then
+shrugged:</p>
+
+<p>"She's ornamental, only she's got a sad
+on."</p>
+
+<p>But Burley trudged on with his leather
+hold-all, muttering to himself something
+about the prettiest girl in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The "prettiest girl in the world" continued
+her way unconscious of the encomiums of
+John Burley and the critique of Sticky Smith.
+Her way, however, seemed to be the way of
+Burley and his two companions, for she
+crossed the sunny street and entered the
+White Doe by the arched door and tunnel-like
+passage.</p>
+
+<p>Unlike them, however, she turned to the
+right in the stone corridor, opened a low
+wooden door, crossed the inn parlour, ascended
+a short stairway, and entered a bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>Here, standing before a mirror, she unpinned
+her straw hat, smoothed her dark
+hair, resting her eyes pensively for a few
+moments on her reflected face. Then she
+sauntered listlessly about the little room in
+performance of those trivial, aimless offices,<pb n='170'/><anchor id='Pg170'/>
+entirely feminine, such as opening all the
+drawers in her clothes-press, smoothing out
+various frilly objects and fabrics, investigating
+a little gilded box and thoughtfully inspecting
+its contents, which consisted of hair-pins.
+Fussing here, lingering there, loitering
+by her bird-cage, where a canary cheeped its
+greeting and hopped and hopped; bending
+over a cluster of white phlox in a glass of
+water to inhale the old-fashioned perfume,
+she finally tied on a fresh apron and walked
+slowly out to the ancient, vaulted kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>An old peasant woman was cooking, while
+a young one washed dishes.</p>
+
+<p>"Are the American gentlemen still at table,
+Julie?" she inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle Maryette, they are devouring
+everything in the house!" exclaimed old
+Julie, flinging both hands toward heaven.
+"<hi rend='italic'>Tenez</hi>, mamzelle, I have heard of eating in
+ancient days, I have read of Gargantua, I
+have been told of banquets, of feasting, of
+appetites! But there is one American in
+there! Mamzelle Maryette, if I should swear
+to you that he is on his third chicken and<pb n='171'/><anchor id='Pg171'/>
+that a row of six pint bottles of '93 Margaux
+stand empty on the cloth at his elbow,
+I should do no penance for untruthfulness.
+<hi rend='italic'>Tenez, Mamzelle Maryette, regardez un peu
+par l'oubliette</hi>&mdash;" And old Julie slid open
+the wooden shutter on the crack and Maryette
+bent forward and surveyed the dining room
+outside.</p>
+
+<p>They were laughing very loud in there,
+these three Americans&mdash;three powerful, sun-scorched
+young men, very much at their ease
+around the table, draining the red Bordeaux
+by goblets, plying knife and fork with joyous
+and undiminished vigour.</p>
+
+<p>The tall one with the crisp hair and clear,
+grayish eyes&mdash;he of the three chickens&mdash;was
+already achieving the third&mdash;a crisply
+browned bird, fresh from the spit, fragrant
+and smoking hot. At intervals he buttered
+great slices of rye bread, or disposed of an
+entire young potato, washing it down with a
+goblet of red wine, but always he returned
+to the rich roasted fowl which he held, still
+impaled upon its spit, and which he carved<pb n='172'/><anchor id='Pg172'/>
+as he ate, wings, legs, breast falling in steaming
+flakes under his skillful knife blade.</p>
+
+<p>Sticky Smith finally pushed aside his drained
+glass and surveyed an empty plate frankly
+and regretfully, unable to continue. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to bed and I'm going to sleep
+twenty-four hours. After that I'm going to
+eat for twenty-four more hours, and then I'll
+be in good shape. Bong soir."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, stick around with the push!" remonstrated
+Kid Glenn thickly, impaling another
+potato upon his fork and gesticulating with it.</p>
+
+<p>Smith gazed with surfeited but hopeless
+envy upon Burley's magnificent work with
+knife and fork, saw him crack a seventh bottle
+of Bordeaux, watched him empty the first
+goblet.</p>
+
+<p>But even Glenn's eyes began to dull in
+spite of himself, his head nodded mechanically
+at every mouthful achieved.</p>
+
+<p>"I gotta call it off, Jack," he yawned.
+"Stick and I need the sleep if you don't.
+So here's where we quit&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me tell you about that girl," began
+Burley. "I never saw a prettier&mdash;" But<pb n='173'/><anchor id='Pg173'/>
+Glenn had appetite neither for food nor
+romance:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, listen. Have a heart, Jack! We
+need the sleep!"</p>
+
+<p>Stick had already risen; Glenn shoved back
+his chair with a gigantic yawn and shambled
+to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to tell you," insisted Burley, "that
+she's what the French call tray, tray
+chick&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stick pointed furiously at the fowl:</p>
+
+<p>"Chick? I'm fed up on chick! Maybe she
+is some chick, as you say, but it doesn't interest
+me. Goo'bye. Don't come battering
+at my door and wake me up, Jack. Be a
+sport and lemme alone&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and shuffled out, and Glenn followed,
+his Mexican spurs clanking.</p>
+
+<p>Burley jeered them:</p>
+
+<p>"Mollycoddles! Come on and take in the
+town with us!"</p>
+
+<p>But they slammed the door behind them,
+and he heard them stumbling and clanking
+up stairs.</p>
+
+<p>So Burley, gazing gravely at his empty<pb n='174'/><anchor id='Pg174'/>
+plate, presently emptied the last visible bottle
+of Bordeaux, then stretching his mighty
+arms and superb chest, fished out a cigarette,
+set fire to it, unhooked the cartridge-belt and
+holster from the back of his chair, buckled
+it on, rose, pulled on his leather-peaked cap,
+and drew a deep breath of contentment.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he stood in the centre of
+the room, as though in pleasant meditation,
+then he slowly strode toward the street door,
+murmuring to himself: "Tray, tray chick. The
+prettiest girl in the world.... La ploo belle
+fille du monde ... la ploo belle...."</p>
+
+<p>He strolled as far as the corral down in
+the meadow by the stream, where he found
+the negro muleteers asleep and the mules
+already watered and fed.</p>
+
+<p>For a while he hobnobbed with the three
+gendarmes on duty there, practicing his kind
+of French on them and managing to understand
+and be understood more or less&mdash;probably
+less.</p>
+
+<p>But the young man was persistent; he desired
+to become that easy master of the
+French language that his tongue-tied com<pb n='175'/><anchor id='Pg175'/>rades
+believed him to be. So he practiced
+garrulously upon the polite, suffering gendarmes.</p>
+
+<p>He related to them his experience on shipboard
+with a thousand mutinous mules to
+pacify, feed, water, and otherwise cherish.
+They had, it appeared, encountered no submarines,
+but enjoyed several alarms from
+destroyers which eventually proved to be
+British.</p>
+
+<p>"A cousin of mine," explained Burley,
+"Ned Winters, of El Paso, went down on the
+steamer <hi rend='italic'>John B. Doty</hi>, with eleven hundred
+mules and six niggers. The Boches torpedoed
+the ship and then raked the boats. I'd like
+to get a crack at one Boche before I go back
+to God's country."</p>
+
+<p>The gendarmes politely but regretfully
+agreed that it was impracticable for Burley
+to get a crack at a Hun; and the American
+presently took himself off to the corral, after
+distributing cigarettes and establishing cordial
+relations with the Sainte Lesse Gendarmerie.</p>
+
+<p>He waked up a negro and inspected the<pb n='176'/><anchor id='Pg176'/>
+mules; that took a long time. Then he sought
+out the negro blacksmith, awoke him, and
+wrote out some directions.</p>
+
+<p>"The idea is," he explained, "that whenever
+the French in this sector need mules
+they draw on our corral. We are supposed
+to keep ten or eleven hundred mules here all
+the time and look after them. Shipments
+come every two weeks, I believe. So after
+you've had another good nap, George, you
+wake up your boys and get busy. And
+there'll be trouble if things are not in running
+order by tomorrow night."</p>
+
+<p>"Yas, suh, Mistuh Burley," nodded the
+sleepy blacksmith, still blinking in the afternoon
+sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>"And if you need an interpreter," added
+Burley, "always call on me until you learn
+French enough to get on. Understand,
+George?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yas, suh."</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said Burley, walking away, "a
+thorough knowledge of French idioms is
+necessary to prevent mistakes. When in
+doubt always apply to me, George, for only<pb n='177'/><anchor id='Pg177'/>
+a master of the language is competent to
+deal with these French people."</p>
+
+<p>It was his one vanity, his one weakness.
+Perhaps, because he so ardently desired proficiency,
+he had already deluded himself with
+the belief that he was a master of French.</p>
+
+<p>So, belt and loaded holster sagging, and
+large silver spurs clicking and clinking at
+every step, John Burley sauntered back along
+the almost deserted street of Sainte Lesse,
+thinking sometimes of his mules, sometimes
+of the French language, and every now and
+then of a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl whose
+delicately flushed and pensive gaze he had encountered
+as he had ridden into Sainte Lesse
+under the old belfry.</p>
+
+<p>"Stick Smith's a fool," he thought to himself
+impatiently. "Tray chick doesn't mean
+'some chicken.' It means a pretty girl, in
+French."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at the belfry as he passed
+under it, and at the same moment, from beneath
+the high, gilded dragon which crowned
+its topmost spire, a sweet bell-note floated,
+another, others succeeding in crystalline<pb n='178'/><anchor id='Pg178'/>
+sweetness, linked in a fragment of some ancient
+melody. Then they ceased; then came
+a brief silence; the great bell he had heard
+before struck five times.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!&mdash;that's pretty," he murmured, moving
+on and turning into the arched tunnel
+which was the entrance to the White Doe Inn.</p>
+
+<p>Wandering at random, he encountered the
+innkeeper in the parlour, studying a crumpled
+newspaper through horn-rimmed spectacles
+on his nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Tray jolie," said Burley affably, seating
+himself with an idea of further practice in
+French.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Plait-il?</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>"The bells&mdash;tray beau!"</p>
+
+<p>The old man straightened his bent shoulders
+a little proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"For thirty years, m'sieu, I have been Carillonneur
+of Sainte Lesse." He smiled; then,
+saddened, he held out both hands toward Burley.
+The fingers were stiff and crippled with
+rheumatism.</p>
+
+<p>"No more," he said slowly; "the carillon is<pb n='179'/><anchor id='Pg179'/>
+ended for me. The great art is no more for
+Jean Courtray, Master of Bells."</p>
+
+<p>"What is a carillon?" inquired John Burley
+simply.</p>
+
+<p>Blank incredulity was succeeded by a
+shocked expression on the old man's visage.
+After a silence, in mild and patient protest,
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am Jean Courtray, Carillonneur of
+Sainte Lesse.... Have you never heard of
+the carillon of Sainte Lesse, or of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never," said Burley. "We don't have
+anything like that in America."</p>
+
+<p>The old carillonneur, Jean Courtray, began
+to speak in a low voice of his art, his profession,
+and of the great carillon of forty-six
+bells in the ancient tower of Sainte Lesse.</p>
+
+<p>A carillon, he explained, is a company of
+fixed bells tuned according to the chromatic
+scale and ranging through several octaves.
+These bells, rising tier above tier in a belfry,
+the smallest highest, the great, ponderous
+bells of the bass notes lowest, are not free
+to swing, but are fixed to huge beams, and
+are sounded by clappers connected by a wil<pb n='180'/><anchor id='Pg180'/>derness
+of wires to a keyboard which is played
+upon by the bell-master or carillonneur.</p>
+
+<p>He explained that the office of bell-master
+was an ancient one and greatly honoured;
+that the bell-master was also a member of the
+municipal government; that his salary was a
+fixed one; that not only did he play upon the
+carillon on f&ecirc;te days, market days, and particular
+occasions, but he also travelled and
+gave concerts upon the few existing carillons
+of other ancient towns and cities, not alone
+in France where carillons were few, but in
+Belgium and Holland, where they still were
+comparatively many, although the German
+barbarians had destroyed some of the best at
+Li&eacute;ge, Arras, Dixmude, Termonde, and Ypres.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," he went on in a voice which
+began to grow a little unsteady, "the Huns
+have destroyed the ancient carillons of Louvain
+and of Mechlin. In the superb bell-tower
+of Saint Rombold I have played for a
+thousand people; and the Carillonneur, Monsieur
+Vincent, and the great bell-master, Josef
+Denyn, have come to me to congratulate me
+with tears in their eyes&mdash;in their eyes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='181'/><anchor id='Pg181'/>
+<p>There were tears in his own now, and he
+bent his white head and looked down at the
+worn floor under his crippled feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas," he said, "for Denyn&mdash;and for Saint
+Rombold's tower. The Hun has passed that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence:</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it now plays the carillon in Sainte
+Lesse!" asked Burley.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter, Maryette. Sainte Lesse has
+honoured me in my daughter, whom I myself
+instructed. My daughter&mdash;the little child of
+my old age, monsieur&mdash;is mistress of the bells
+of Sainte Lesse.... They call her Carillonnette
+in Sainte Lesse&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The door opened and the girl came in.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='182'/><anchor id='Pg182'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XV. CARILLONETTE'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XV. CARILLONETTE'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XV<lb/><lb/>
+CARILLONETTE</head>
+
+<p>Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn remained a
+week at Sainte Lesse, then left with the
+negroes for Calais to help bring up another
+cargo of mules, the arrival of which was daily
+expected.</p>
+
+<p>A peloton of the Train-des-Equipages and
+three Remount troopers arrived at Sainte
+Lesse to take over the corral. John Burley
+remained to explain and interpret the American
+mule to these perplexed troopers.</p>
+
+<p>Morning, noon, and night he went clanking
+down to the corral, his cartridge belt and
+holster swinging at his hip. But sometimes
+he had a little leisure.</p>
+
+<p>Sainte Lesse knew him as a mighty eater
+and as a lusty drinker of good red wine; as
+a mighty and garrulous talker, too, he be<pb n='183'/><anchor id='Pg183'/>came
+known, ready to accost anybody in the
+quiet and subdued old town and explode into
+French at the slightest encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>But Burley had only women and children
+and old men on whom to practice his earnest
+and voluble French, for everybody else was
+at the front.</p>
+
+<p>Children adored him&mdash;adored his big, silver
+spurs, his cartridge belt and pistol, the
+metal mule decorating his tunic collar, his
+six feet two of height, his quick smile, the
+even white teeth and grayish eyes of this
+American muleteer, who always had a stick
+of barley sugar to give them or an amazing
+trick to perform for them with a handkerchief
+or coin that vanished under their very
+noses at the magic snap of his finger.</p>
+
+<p>Old men gossiped willingly with him;
+women liked him and their rare smiles in the
+war-sobered town of Sainte Lesse were often
+for him as he sauntered along the quiet street,
+clanking, swaggering, affable, ready for conversation
+with anybody, and always ready for
+the small, confident hands that unceremoni<pb n='184'/><anchor id='Pg184'/>ously
+clasped his when he passed by where
+children played.</p>
+
+<p>As for Maryette Courtray, called Carillonnette,
+she mounted the bell-tower once every
+hour, from six in the morning until nine
+o'clock in the evening, to play the passing of
+Time toward that eternity into which it is
+always and ceaselessly moving.</p>
+
+<p>After nine o'clock Carillonnette set the drum
+and wound it; and through the dark hours of
+the night the bells played mechanically every
+hour for a few moments before Bayard
+struck.</p>
+
+<p>Between these duties the girl managed the
+old inn, to which, since the war, nobody came
+any more&mdash;and with these occupations her life
+was full&mdash;sufficiently full, perhaps, without
+the advent of John Burley.</p>
+
+<p>They met with enough frequency for her,
+if not for him. Their encounters took place
+between her duties aloft at the keyboard under
+the successive tiers of bells and his intervals
+of prowling among his mules.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he found her sewing in the parlour&mdash;she
+could have gone to her own room,<pb n='185'/><anchor id='Pg185'/>
+of course; sometimes he encountered her in
+the corridor, in the street, in the walled garden
+behind the inn, where with basket and
+pan she gathered vegetables in season.</p>
+
+<p>There was a stone seat out there, built
+against the southern wall, and in the shadowed
+coolness of it she sometimes shelled
+peas.</p>
+
+<p>During such an hour of liberty from the
+bell-tower he found the dark-eyed little mistress
+of the bells sorting various vegetables
+and singing under her breath to herself the
+carillon music of Josef Denyn.</p>
+
+<p>"Tray chick, mademoiselle," he said, with
+a cheerful self-assertion, to hide the embarrassment
+which always assailed him when he
+encountered her.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Monsieur Burley, you should
+not say '<hi rend='italic'>tr&egrave;s chic</hi>' to me," she said, shaking
+her pretty head. "It sounds a little familiar
+and a little common."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he exclaimed, very red. "I thought
+it was the thing to say."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, continuing to shell the peas,
+then, with her sensitive and slightly flushed<pb n='186'/><anchor id='Pg186'/>
+face still lowered, she looked at him out of
+her dark blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," she said, "young men say
+'<hi rend='italic'>tr&egrave;s chic</hi>.' It depend on when and how one
+says it."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there times when it is all right for
+me to say it?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think so.... How are your mules
+today?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same," he said, "&mdash;ready to bite or
+kick or eat their heads off. The Remount
+took two hundred this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw them pass," said the girl. "I
+thought perhaps you also might be departing."</p>
+
+<p>"Without coming to say good-bye&mdash;to <hi rend='italic'>you</hi>!"
+he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, conventions must be disregarded in
+time of war," she returned carelessly, continuing
+to shell peas. "I really thought I
+saw you riding away with the mules."</p>
+
+<p>"That man," said Burley, much hurt, "was
+a bow-legged driver of the Train-des-Equipages.
+I don't think he resembles me."</p>
+
+<p>As she made no comment and expressed no<pb n='187'/><anchor id='Pg187'/>
+contrition for her mistake, he gazed about
+him at the sunny garden with a depressed
+expression. However, this changed presently
+to a bright and hopeful one.</p>
+
+<p>"Vooz ate tray, tray belle, mademoiselle!"
+he asserted cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur!" Vexed perhaps as much at
+her own quick blush as his abrupt eulogy, she
+bit her lip and looked at him with an ominously
+level gaze. Then, suddenly, she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Burley, one does <hi rend='italic'>not</hi> so express
+one's self without reason, without apropos,
+without&mdash;without encouragement&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She blushed again, vividly. Under her wide
+straw hat her delicate, sensitive face and
+dark blue eyes were beautiful enough to inspire
+eulogy in any young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon," he said, confused by her reprimand
+and her loveliness. "I shall hereafter
+only <hi rend='italic'>think</hi> you are pretty, mademoiselle&mdash;mais
+je ne le dirais ploo."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be perhaps more&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>comme il
+faut</hi>, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"Ploo!" he repeated with emphasis. "Ploo
+jamais! Je vous jure&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='188'/><anchor id='Pg188'/>
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Merci</hi>; it is not perhaps necessary to
+swear quite so solemnly, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes from the pan, moving
+her small, sun-tanned hand through the heaps
+of green peas, filling her palm with them and
+idly letting them run through her slim fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"L'amour," he said with an effort&mdash;"how
+funny it is&mdash;isn't it, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing about it," she replied with
+decision, and rose with her pan of peas.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Have I offended you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>He trailed after her down the garden path
+between rows of blue larkspurs and hollyhocks&mdash;just
+at her dainty heels, because the
+brick walk was too narrow for both of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ploo," he repeated appealingly.</p>
+
+<p>Over her shoulder she said with disdain:</p>
+
+<p>"It is not a topic for conversation among
+the young, monsieur&mdash;what you call <hi rend='italic'>l'amour</hi>."
+And she entered the kitchen, where he had
+not the effrontery to follow her.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, toward sunset, returning<pb n='189'/><anchor id='Pg189'/>
+from the corral, he heard, high in the blue
+sky above him, her bell-music drifting; and
+involuntarily uncovering, he stood with bared
+head looking upward while the celestial melody
+lasted.</p>
+
+<p>And that evening, too, being the f&ecirc;te of
+Alincourt, a tiny neighbouring village across
+the river, the bell-mistress went up into the
+tower after dinner and played for an hour
+for the little neighbour hamlet across the
+river Lesse.</p>
+
+<p>All the people who remained in Sainte
+Lesse and in Alincourt brought out their
+chairs and their knitting in the calm, fragrant
+evening air and remained silent, sadly enraptured
+while the unseen player at her keyboard
+aloft in the belfry above set her carillon
+music adrift under the summer stars&mdash;golden
+harmonies that seemed born in the heavens
+from which they floated; clear, exquisitely
+sweet miracles of melody filling the world of
+darkness with magic messages of hope.</p>
+
+<p>Those widowed or childless among her listeners
+for miles around in the darkness wept
+quiet tears, less bitter and less hopeless for<pb n='190'/><anchor id='Pg190'/>
+the divine promise of the sky music which
+filled the night as subtly as the scent of
+flowers saturates the dusk.</p>
+
+<p>Burley, listening down by the corral, leaned
+against a post, one powerful hand across his
+eyes, his cap clasped in the other, and in his
+heart the birth of things ineffable.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour the carillon played. Then
+old Bayard struck ten times. And Burley
+thought of the trenches and wondered
+whether the mellow thunder of the great bell
+was audible out there that night.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='191'/><anchor id='Pg191'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XVI. DJACK'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XVI. DJACK'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XVI<lb/><lb/>
+DJACK</head>
+
+<p>There came a day when he did not see
+Maryette as he left for the corral in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>Her father, very stiff with rheumatism, sat
+in the sun outside the arched entrance to the
+inn.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "she is going to be gone all
+day today. She has set and wound the drum
+in the belfry so that the carillon shall play
+every hour while she is absent."</p>
+
+<p>"Where has she gone?" inquired Burley.</p>
+
+<p>"To play the carillon at Nivelle."</p>
+
+<p>"Nivelle!" he exclaimed sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Oui, monsieur.</hi> The Mayor has asked for
+her. She is to play for an hour to entertain
+the wounded." He rested his withered cheek
+on his hand and looked out through the win<pb n='192'/><anchor id='Pg192'/>dow
+at the sunshine with aged and tragic
+eyes. "It is very little to do for our
+wounded," he added aloud to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Burley had sent twenty mules to Nivelle
+the night before, and had heard some disquieting
+rumours concerning that town.</p>
+
+<p>Now he walked out past the dusky, arched
+passageway into the sunny street and continued
+northward under the trees to the barracks
+of the Gendarmerie.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Bon jour l'ami Gargantua!</hi>" exclaimed the
+fat, jovial brigadier who had just emerged
+with boots shining, pipe-clay very apparent,
+and all rosy from a fresh shave.</p>
+
+<p>"Bong joor, mon vieux copain!" replied
+Burley, preoccupied with some papers he was
+sorting. "Be good enough to look over my
+papers."</p>
+
+<p>The brigadier took them and examined
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they <hi rend='italic'>en r&egrave;gle</hi>?" demanded Burley.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Parfaitement, mon ami.</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>"Will they take me as far as Nivelle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. But your mules went forward
+last night with the Remount&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='193'/><anchor id='Pg193'/>
+<p>"I know. I wish to inspect them again before
+the veterinary sees them. Telephone to
+the corral for a saddle mule."</p>
+
+<p>The brigadier went inside to telephone and
+Burley started for the corral at the same
+time.</p>
+
+<p>His cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule was
+saddled and waiting when he arrived; he
+stuffed his papers into the breast of his tunic
+and climbed into the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>"Allongs!" he exclaimed. "Hoop!"</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>Half way to Nivelle, on an overgrown,
+bushy, circuitous path which was the only
+road open between Nivelle and Sainte Lesse,
+he overtook Maryette, driving her donkey and
+ancient market cart.</p>
+
+<p>"Carillonnette!" he called out joyously.
+"Maryette! C'est je!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl, astonished, turned her head, and
+he spurred forward on his wall-eyed mount,
+evincing cordial symptoms of pleasure in the
+encounter.</p>
+
+<p>"Wee, wee!" he cried. "Je voolay veneer
+avec voo!" And ere the girl could protest,<pb n='194'/><anchor id='Pg194'/>
+he had dismounted, turning the wall-eyed
+one's nose southward, and had delivered a
+resounding whack upon the rump of that
+temperamental animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Allez! Go home! Beat it!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>The mule lost no time but headed for the
+distant corral at a canter; and Burley, grinning
+like a great, splendid, intelligent dog
+who has just done something to be proud of,
+stepped into the market cart and seated himself
+beside Maryette.</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you where I am going?" she
+asked, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or
+let loose her indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father, Carillonnette."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you follow me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had nothing else to do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"I like to be with you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Really, monsieur! And you think it was
+not necessary to consult my wishes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you like to be with me?" he asked,
+so na&iuml;vely that the girl blushed and bit her
+lip and shook the reins without replying.</p>
+
+<p>They jogged on through the disused by<pb n='195'/><anchor id='Pg195'/>way,
+the filbert bushes brushing axle and
+traces; but presently the little donkey relapsed
+into a walk again, and the girl, who
+had counted on that procedure when she
+started from Sainte Lesse, did not urge him.</p>
+
+<p>"Also," she said in a low voice, "I have
+been wondering who permits you to address
+me as Carillonnette. Also as Maryette. You
+have been, heretofore, quite correct in assuming
+that mademoiselle is the proper form of
+address."</p>
+
+<p>"I was so glad to see you," he said, so simply
+that she flushed again and offered no further
+comment.</p>
+
+<p>For a long while she let him do the talking,
+which was perfectly agreeable to him.
+He talked on every subject he could think of,
+frankly practicing idioms on her, pleased with
+his own fluency and his progress in French.</p>
+
+<p>After a while she said, looking around at
+him with a curiosity quite friendly:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Monsieur Burley, <hi rend='italic'>why</hi> did you
+desire to come with me today?"</p>
+
+<p>He started to reply, but checked himself,
+looking into the dark blue and engaging eyes.<pb n='196'/><anchor id='Pg196'/>
+After a moment the engaging eyes became
+brilliantly serious.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," she repeated. "Is it because
+there were some rumours last evening concerning
+Nivelle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she nodded, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>After driving for a little while in silence
+she looked around at him with an expression
+on her face which altered it exquisitely.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, my friend," she murmured....
+"And if you wish to call me Carillonnette&mdash;do
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"I do want to. And my name's Jack....
+If you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were fixed on her donkey's ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Djack," she repeated, musingly. "Jacques&mdash;Djack&mdash;it's
+the same, isn't it&mdash;Djack?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned red and she laughed at him, no
+longer afraid.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, my friend," she said, "it is <hi rend='italic'>tr&egrave;s
+beau</hi>&mdash;what have you done."</p>
+
+<p>"Vooz &ecirc;tes tray belle&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Non!</hi> Please stop! It is not a question
+of me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='197'/><anchor id='Pg197'/>
+<p>"Vooz &ecirc;tes tray chick&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, Djack! That is not good manners!
+No! I was merely saying that&mdash;you have
+done something very nice. Which is quite
+true. You heard rumours that Nivelle had
+become unsafe. People whispered last evening&mdash;something
+about the danger of a salient
+being cut at its base.... I heard the gossip
+in the street. Was that why you came
+after me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wee."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Djack."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned a trifle forward in the cart, her
+dimpled elbows on her knees, the reins sagging.</p>
+
+<p>Blue and rosy jays flew up before them,
+fluttering away through the thickets; a bullfinch
+whistled sweetly from a thorn bush,
+watching them pass under him, unafraid.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," she said, half to herself, "I <hi rend='italic'>had</hi>
+to come. Who could refuse our wounded?
+There is no bell-master in our department;
+and only one bell-mistress.... To find anyone
+else to play the Nivelle carillon one would
+have to pierce the barbarians' lines and search<pb n='198'/><anchor id='Pg198'/>
+the ruins of Flanders for a <hi rend='italic'>Beiaardier</hi>&mdash;a
+<hi rend='italic'>Klokkenist</hi>, as they call a carillonneur in the
+low countries.... But the Mayor asked it,
+and our wounded are waiting. You understand,
+<hi rend='italic'>mon ami</hi> Djack, I had to come."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>She added, na&iuml;vely:</p>
+
+<p>"God watches over our trenches. We shall
+be quite safe in Nivelle."</p>
+
+<p>A dull boom shook the sunlit air. Even in
+the cart they could feel the vibration.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, everywhere ahead of them,
+a vast, confused thundering was steadily increasing,
+deepening with every ominous reverberation.</p>
+
+<p>Where two sandy wood roads crossed, a
+mounted gendarme halted them and examined
+their papers.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor child," he said to the girl, shaking
+his head, "the wounded at Nivelle were
+taken away during the night. They are
+fighting there now in the streets."</p>
+
+<p>"In Nivelle streets!" faltered the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Oui, mademoiselle.</hi> Of the carillon little
+remains. The Boches have been shelling it<pb n='199'/><anchor id='Pg199'/>
+since daylight. Turn again. And it is better
+that you turn quickly, because it is not known
+to us what is going on in that wooded district
+over there. For if they get a foothold in
+Nivelle on this drive they might cross this
+road before evening."</p>
+
+<p>The girl sat grief-stricken and silent in the
+cart, staring at the woods ahead where the
+road ran through taller saplings and where,
+here and there, mature trees towered.</p>
+
+<p>All around them now the increasing thunder
+rolled and echoed and shook the ground
+under them. Half a dozen gendarmes came
+up at a gallop. Their officer drew bridle,
+seized the donkey's head and turned animal
+and cart southward.</p>
+
+<p>"Go back," he said briefly, recognizing Burley
+and returning his salute. "You may have
+to take your mules out of Sainte Lesse!" he
+added, as he wheeled his horse. "We are
+getting into trouble out here, <hi rend='italic'>nom de Dieu</hi>!"</p>
+
+<p>Maryette's head hung as the donkey jogged
+along, trotting willingly because his nose was
+now pointed homeward.</p>
+
+<p>The girl drove with loose and careless rein<pb n='200'/><anchor id='Pg200'/>
+and in silence; and beside her sat Burley, his
+troubled gaze always reverting to the despondent
+form beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Too bad, little girl," he said. "But another
+time our wounded shall listen to your
+carillon."</p>
+
+<p>"Never at Nivelle.... The belfry is being
+destroyed.... The sweetest carillon in
+France&mdash;the oldest, the most beautiful....
+Fifty-six bells, Djack&mdash;a wondrous wilderness
+of bells rising above where one stands in the
+belfry, tier on tier, tier on tier, until one's
+gaze is lost amid the heavenly company aloft....
+Oh, Djack! And the great bell, Clovis!
+He hangs there&mdash;through hundreds of years
+he has spoken with his great voice of God!&mdash;so
+that they heard him for miles and miles
+across the land&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Maryette&mdash;I am so sorry for you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! My carillon of Nivelle! My
+beloved carillon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Maryette, dear! My little Carillonnette&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;my heart is broken&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Vooz ates tray, tray belle&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<pb n='201'/><anchor id='Pg201'/>
+<p>The sudden crashing of heavy feet in the
+bushes checked him; but it was too late to
+heed it now&mdash;too late to reach for his holster.
+For all around them swarmed the men in sea-grey,
+jerking the donkey off his forelegs,
+blocking the little wheels with great, dirty
+fists, seizing Burley from behind and dragging
+him violently out of the cart.</p>
+
+<p>A near-sighted officer, thin and spare as
+Death, was talking in a loud, nasal voice and
+squinting at Burley where he still struggled,
+red and exasperated, in the clutches of four
+soldiers:</p>
+
+<p>"Also! That is no uniform known to us
+or to any nation at war with us. That is not
+regulation in England&mdash;that collar insignia.
+This is a case of a franc-tireur! Now, then,
+you there in your costume de fantasie! What
+have you to say, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence; Burley ceased struggling.</p>
+
+<p>"Answer, do you hear? What are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"American."</p>
+
+<p>"Pig-dog!" shouted the gaunt officer. "So
+you are one of those Yankee muleteers in<pb n='202'/><anchor id='Pg202'/>
+your uniform, and armed! It is sufficient that
+you are American. If it had not been for
+America this war would be ended! But it is
+not enough, apparently, that you come here
+with munitions and food, that you insult us
+at sea, that you lie about us and slander us
+and send your shells and cartridges to England
+to slay our people! No! Also you must
+come to insult us in your clown's uniform and
+with your pistol&mdash;" The man began to choke
+with fury, unable to continue, except by
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p>But the jerky gestures were terribly significant:
+soldiers were already pushing Burley
+across the road toward a great oak tree;
+six men fell out and lined up.</p>
+
+<p>"M-my Government&mdash;" stammered the
+young fellow&mdash;but was given no opportunity
+to speak. Very white, the chill sweat standing
+on his forehead and under his eyes, he
+stood against the oak, lips compressed, grey
+eyes watching what was happening to him.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he understood it was all over.</p>
+
+<p>"Djack!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned his gaze toward Maryette, where<pb n='203'/><anchor id='Pg203'/>
+she struggled toward him, held by two soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>"Maryette&mdash;Carillonnette&mdash;" His voice suddenly
+became steady, perfectly clear. "<hi rend='italic'>Je
+vous aime</hi>, Carillonnette."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Djack! Djack!" she cried in terror.</p>
+
+<p>He heard the orders; was aware of the
+levelled rifles; but his reckless greyish eyes
+were now fixed on her, and he began to laugh
+almost mischievously.</p>
+
+<p>"Vooz &ecirc;tes tray belle," he said, "&mdash;tray,
+tray chick&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Djack!"</p>
+
+<p>But the clang of the volley precluded any
+response from him except the half tender,
+half reckless smile that remained on his youthful
+face where he lay looking up at the sky
+with pleasant, sightless eyes, and a sunbeam
+touching the metal mule on his blood-wet
+collar.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='204'/><anchor id='Pg204'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XVII. FRIENDSHIP'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XVII. FRIENDSHIP'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XVII<lb/><lb/>
+FRIENDSHIP</head>
+
+<p>She tried once more to lift the big, warm,
+flexible body, exerting all her slender strength.
+It was useless. It was like attempting to lift
+the earth. The weight of the body frightened
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Again she sank down among the ferns
+under the great oak tree; once more she took
+his blood-smeared head on her lap, smoothing
+the bright, wet hair; and her tears fell
+slowly upon his upturned face.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," she stammered, "&mdash;my kind,
+droll friend.... The first friend I ever
+had&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The gun thunder beyond Nivelle had ceased;
+an intense stillness reigned in the forest; only
+a leaf moved here and there on the aspens.</p>
+
+<p>A few forest flies whirled about her, but<pb n='205'/><anchor id='Pg205'/>
+as yet no ominous green flies came&mdash;none of
+those jewelled harbingers of death which appear
+with horrible promptness and as though
+by magic from nowhere when anything dies
+in the open world.</p>
+
+<p>Her donkey, still attached to the little gaily
+painted market cart, had wandered on up the
+sandy lane, feeding at random along the fern-bordered
+thickets which walled in the Nivelle
+byroad on either side.</p>
+
+<p>Presently her ear caught a slight sound;
+something stirred somewhere in the woods
+behind her. After an interval of terrible
+stillness there came a distant crashing of
+footsteps among dead leaves and underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>Horror of the Hun still possessed her; the
+victim of Prussian ferocity still lay across
+her knees. She dared not take the chance
+that friendly ears might hear her call for aid&mdash;dared
+not raise her voice in appeal lest she
+awaken something monstrous, unclean, inconceivable&mdash;the
+unseen thing which she could
+hear at intervals prowling there among dead
+leaves in the demi-light of the woods.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly her heart leaped with fright; a<pb n='206'/><anchor id='Pg206'/>
+man stepped cautiously out of the woods into
+the road; another, dressed in leather, with
+dry blood caked on his face, followed.</p>
+
+<p>The first comer, a French gendarme, had
+already caught sight of the donkey and market
+cart; had turned around instinctively to
+look for their owner. Now he discovered her
+seated there among the ferns under the oak
+tree.</p>
+
+<p>"In the name of God," he growled, "what's
+that child doing there!"</p>
+
+<p>The airman in leather followed him across
+the road to the oak; the girl looked up at
+them out of dark, tear-marred eyes that
+seemed dazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, little one!" rumbled the big, red-faced
+gendarme. "What's your name?&mdash;you
+who sit here all alone at the wood's edge with
+a dead man across your knees?"</p>
+
+<p>She made an effort to find her voice&mdash;to
+control it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Maryette Courtray, bell-mistress of
+Sainte Lesse," she answered, trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;this young man?"</p>
+
+<p>"They shot him&mdash;the Prussians, monsieur."<pb n='207'/><anchor id='Pg207'/></p>
+
+<p>"My poor child! Was he your lover, then?"</p>
+
+<p>Her tear-filled eyes widened:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," she said na&iuml;vely; "it is sadder
+than that. He was my friend."</p>
+
+<p>The big gendarme scratched his chin; then,
+with an odd glance at the young airman who
+stood beside him:</p>
+
+<p>"To lose a friend is indeed sadder than to
+lose a lover. What was your friend's name,
+little one?"</p>
+
+<p>She pressed her hand to her forehead in
+an effort to search among her partly paralyzed
+thoughts:</p>
+
+<p>"Djack.... That is his name.... He was
+the first real friend I ever had."</p>
+
+<p>The airman said:</p>
+
+<p>"He is one of my countrymen&mdash;an American
+muleteer, Jack Burley&mdash;in charge at
+Sainte Lesse."</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of the young man's name pronounced
+in English the girl began to cry. The
+big gendarme bent over and patted her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Allons</hi>," he growled; "courage! little mistress
+of the bells! Let us place your friend<pb n='208'/><anchor id='Pg208'/>
+in your pretty market cart and leave this
+accursed place, in God's name!"</p>
+
+<p>He straightened up and looked over his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"For the Boches are in Nivelle woods," he
+added, with an oath, "and we ought to be on
+our way to Sainte Lesse, if we are to arrive
+there at all. <hi rend='italic'>Allons</hi>, comrade, take him by
+the head!"</p>
+
+<p>So the wounded airman bent over and took
+the body by the shoulders; the gendarme
+lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed,
+holding to one of the sagging arms, as
+though fearing that these strangers might
+take away from her this dead man who had
+been so much more to her than a mere lover.</p>
+
+<p>When they laid him in the market cart she
+released his sleeve with a sob. Still crying,
+she climbed to the seat of the cart and gathered
+up the reins. Behind her, flat on the
+floor of the cart, the airman and the gendarme
+had seated themselves, with the young man's
+body between them. They were opening his
+tunic and shirt now and were whispering to<pb n='209'/><anchor id='Pg209'/>gether,
+and wiping away blood from the naked
+shoulders and chest.</p>
+
+<p>"He's still warm, but there's no pulse,"
+whispered the airman. "He's dead enough, I
+guess, but I'd rather hear a surgeon say so."</p>
+
+<p>The gendarme rose, stepped across to the
+seat, took the reins gently from the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Weep peacefully, little one," he said; "it
+does one good. Tears are the tisane which
+strengthens the soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es.... But I am remembering that&mdash;that
+I was not very k-kind to him," she
+sobbed. "It hurts&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>here</hi>&mdash;" She pressed a
+slim hand over her breast.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Allons!</hi> Friends quarrel. God understands.
+Thy friend back there&mdash;he also understands
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope he does!... He spoke to me
+so tenderly&mdash;yet so gaily. He was even
+laughing at me when they shot him. He was
+so kind&mdash;and droll&mdash;" She sobbed anew,
+clasping her hands and pressing them against
+her quivering mouth to check her grief.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it an execution, then?" demanded the
+gendarme in his growling voice.<pb n='210'/><anchor id='Pg210'/></p>
+
+<p>"They said he must be a franc-tireur to
+wear such a uniform&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, the scoundrels! Ah, the assassins!
+And so they murdered him there under the
+tree?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, God! Yes! I seem to see him standing
+there now&mdash;his grey, kind eyes&mdash;and no
+thought of fear&mdash;just a droll smile&mdash;the way
+he had with me&mdash;" whispered the girl, "the
+way&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>his</hi> way&mdash;with me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Child," said the gendarme, pityingly, "it
+<hi rend='italic'>was</hi> love!"</p>
+
+<p>But she shook her head, surprised, the tears
+still running down her tanned cheeks:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, it was more serious than love;
+it was friendship."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='211'/><anchor id='Pg211'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XVIII. THE AVIATOR'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XVIII. THE AVIATOR'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XVIII<lb/><lb/>
+THE AVIATOR</head>
+
+<p>Where the Fontanes highroad crosses the
+byroad to Sainte Lesse they were halted by
+a dusty column moving rapidly west&mdash;four
+hundred American mules convoyed by gendarmerie
+and remount troopers.</p>
+
+<p>The sweating riders, passing at a canter,
+shouted from their saddles to the big gendarme
+in the market cart that neither Nivelle
+nor Sainte Lesse were to be defended at present,
+and that all stragglers were being directed
+to Fontanes and Le Marronnier. Mules
+and drivers defiled at a swinging trot, enveloped
+in torrents of white dust; behind them
+rode a peloton of the remount, lashing recalcitrant
+animals forward; and in the rear of
+these rolled automobile ambulances, red
+crosses aglow in the rays of the setting sun.<pb n='212'/><anchor id='Pg212'/></p>
+
+<p>The driver of the last ambulance seemed
+to be ill; his head lay on the shoulder of a
+Sister of Charity who had taken the steering
+wheel.</p>
+
+<p>The gendarme beside Maryette signalled
+her to stop; then he got out of the market
+cart and, lifting the body of the American
+muleteer in his powerful arms, strode across
+the road. The airman leaped from the market
+cart and followed him.</p>
+
+<p>Between them they drew out a stretcher,
+laid the muleteer on it, and shoved it back
+into the vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>There was a brief consultation, then they
+both came back to Maryette, who, rigid in her
+seat and very pale, sat watching the procedure
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p>The gendarme said:</p>
+
+<p>"I go to Fontanes. There's a dressing station
+on the road. It appears that your young
+man's heart hasn't quite stopped yet&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The girl rose excitedly to her feet, but the
+gendarme gently forced her back into her seat
+and laid the reins in her hands. To the airman
+he growled:<pb n='213'/><anchor id='Pg213'/></p>
+
+<p>"I did not tell this poor child to hope; I
+merely informed her that her friend yonder
+is still breathing. But he's as full of holes
+as a pepper pot!" He frowned at Maryette:
+"<hi rend='italic'>Allons!</hi> My comrade here goes to Sainte
+Lesse. Drive him there now, in God's name,
+before the Uhlans come clattering on your
+heels!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned, strode away to the ambulance
+once more, climbed in, and placed one big arm
+around the sick driver's shoulder, drawing the
+man's head down against his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Bonne chance!</hi>" he called back to the airman,
+who had now seated himself beside
+Maryette. "Explain to our little bell-mistress
+that we're taking her friend to a place where
+they fool Death every day&mdash;where to cheat
+the grave is a flourishing business! Good-bye!
+Courage! En route, brave Sister of the
+World!"</p>
+
+<p>The Sister of Charity turned and smiled at
+Maryette, made her a friendly gesture, threw
+in the clutch, and, twisting the steering wheel
+with both sun-browned hands, guided the ma<pb n='214'/><anchor id='Pg214'/>chine
+out onto the road and sped away swiftly
+after the cloud of receding dust.</p>
+
+<p>"Drive on, mademoiselle," said the airman
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>In his accent there was something poignantly
+familiar to Maryette, and she turned
+with a start and looked at him out of her
+dark blue, tear-marred eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Are <hi rend='italic'>you</hi> also American?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Gunner observer, American air squadron,
+mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>"An airman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. My machine was shot down in Nivelle
+woods an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence, as they jogged along between
+the hazel thickets in the warm afternoon
+sunshine:</p>
+
+<p>"Were you acquainted with my friend?"
+she asked wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"With Jack Burley? A little. I knew him
+in Calais."</p>
+
+<p>The tears welled up into her eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"Could you tell me about him?... He was
+my first friend.... I did not understand him
+in the beginning, monsieur. Among children<pb n='215'/><anchor id='Pg215'/>
+it is different; I had known boys&mdash;as one
+knows them at school. But a man, never&mdash;and,
+indeed, I had not thought I had grown
+up until&mdash;he came&mdash;Djack&mdash;to live at our inn....
+The White Doe at Sainte Lesse, monsieur.
+My father keeps it."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," nodded the airman gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;that is the way. He came&mdash;my first
+friend, Djack&mdash;with mules from America, monsieur&mdash;one
+thousand mules. And God knows
+Sainte Lesse had never seen the like! As for
+me&mdash;I thought I was a child still&mdash;until&mdash;do
+you understand, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Maryette."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is how I found I was grown up.
+He was a man, not a boy&mdash;that is how I found
+out. So he became my first friend. He was
+quite droll, and very big and kind&mdash;and timid&mdash;following
+me about&mdash;oh, it was quite droll
+for both of us, because at first I was afraid,
+but pretended not to be."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, then suddenly her eyes filled
+with the tragedy again, and she began to
+whimper softly to herself, with a faint sound
+like a hovering pigeon.<pb n='216'/><anchor id='Pg216'/></p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about him," said the airman.</p>
+
+<p>She staunched her tears with the edge of
+her apron.</p>
+
+<p>"It was that way with us," she managed to
+say. "I was enchanted and a little frightened&mdash;it
+being my first friendship. He was so big,
+so droll, so kind.... We were on our way
+to Nivelle this morning. I was to play the
+carillon&mdash;being mistress of the bells at Sainte
+Lesse&mdash;and there was nobody else to play the
+bells at Nivelle; and the wounded desired to
+hear the carillon."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"So Djack came after me&mdash;hearing rumours
+of Prussians in that direction. They were
+true&mdash;oh, God!&mdash;and the Prussians caught us
+there where you found us."</p>
+
+<p>She bowed her supple figure double on the
+seat, covering her face with her sun-browned
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>The airman drove on, whistling "La Braban&ccedil;onne"
+under his breath, and deep in
+thought. From time to time he glanced at
+the curved figure beside him; but he said no
+more for a long time.<pb n='217'/><anchor id='Pg217'/></p>
+
+<p>Toward sunset they drove into the Sainte
+Lesse highway.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke abruptly, dryly:</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody can weep for a friend. But few
+avenge their dead."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>They drove under the old Sainte Lesse gate
+as he spoke. The sunlight lay pink across the
+walls and tipped the turret of the watch tower
+with fire.</p>
+
+<p>The town seemed very still; nothing was
+to be seen on the long main street except here
+and there a Spahi horseman <hi rend='italic'>en vidette</hi>, and
+the clock-tower pigeons circling in their evening
+flight.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, Maryette, looked dumbly into the
+fading daylight when the cart stopped before
+her door. The airman took her gently by
+the arm, and that awakened her. As though
+stiffened by fatigue she rose and climbed to
+the sidewalk. He took her unresisting arm
+and led her through the tunnelled wall and
+into the White Doe Inn.</p>
+
+<p>"Get me some supper," he said. "It will
+take your mind off your troubles."<pb n='218'/><anchor id='Pg218'/></p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Bread, wine, and some meat, if you have
+any. I'll be back in a few moments."</p>
+
+<p>He left her at the inn door and went out
+into the street, whistling "La Braban&ccedil;onne."
+A cavalryman directed him to the military
+telephone installed in the house of the notary
+across the street.</p>
+
+<p>His papers identified him; the operator
+gave him his connection; they switched him
+to the headquarters of his air squadron, where
+he made his report.</p>
+
+<p>"Shot down?" came the sharp exclamation
+over the wire.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, about eleven-thirty this morning
+on the north edge of Nivelle forest."</p>
+
+<p>"The machine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Done for, sir. They have it."</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"A scratch&mdash;nothing. I had to run."</p>
+
+<p>"What else have you to report?"</p>
+
+<p>The airman made his brief report in an
+unemotional voice. Ending it, he asked permission
+to volunteer for a special service.
+And for ten minutes the officer at the other<pb n='219'/><anchor id='Pg219'/>
+end of the wire listened to a proposition which
+interested him intensely.</p>
+
+<p>When the airman finished, the officer said:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I relay this matter."</p>
+
+<p>For a quarter of an hour the airman waited.
+Finally the operator half turned on his camp
+chair and made a gesture for him to resume
+the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>"If you choose to volunteer for such service,"
+came the message, "it is approved. But understand&mdash;you
+are not ordered on such duty."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand. I volunteer."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Munitions go to you immediately
+by automobile. It is expected that the
+wind will blow from the west by morning.
+By morning, also, all reserves will arrive in
+the west salient. What is to be your signal?"</p>
+
+<p>"The carillon from the Nivelle belfry."</p>
+
+<p>"What tune?"</p>
+
+<p>"'La Braban&ccedil;onne.' If not that, then the
+tocsin on the great bell, Clovis."</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>In the tiny caf&eacute; the crippled innkeeper sat,
+his aged, wistful eyes watching three leather-<pb n='220'/><anchor id='Pg220'/>clad
+airmen who had been whispering together
+around a table in the corner all the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>They nodded in silence to the new arrival,
+and he joined them.</p>
+
+<p>Daylight faded in the room; the drum in
+the Sainte Lesse belfry, set to play before
+the hour sounded, began to turn aloft; the
+silvery notes of the carillon seemed to shower
+down from the sky, filling the twilight world
+with angelic melody. Then, in resonant
+beauty, the great bell, Bayard, measured the
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>The airman who had just arrived went to a
+sink, washed the caked blood from his face
+and tied it up with a first-aid bandage. Then
+he began to pace the caf&eacute;, his head bent in
+thought, his nervous hands clasped behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The room was dusky when he came back
+to the table where his three comrades still
+sat consulting in whispers. The old innkeeper
+had fallen asleep on his chair by the
+window. There was no light in the room except
+what came from stars.<pb n='221'/><anchor id='Pg221'/></p>
+
+<p>"Well," said one of the airmen in a carefully
+modulated voice, "what are you going
+to do, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stay."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the idea?"</p>
+
+<p>The bandaged airman rested both hands on
+the stained table-top:</p>
+
+<p>"We quit Nivelle tonight, but our reserves
+are already coming up and we are to retake
+Nivelle tomorrow. You flew over the town
+this morning, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>All three said yes.</p>
+
+<p>"You took photographs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you know that our trenches pass
+under the bell-tower?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. The wind is north. When the
+Boches enter our trenches they'll try to gas
+our salient while the wind holds. But west
+winds are predicted after sunrise tomorrow.
+I'm going to get into the Nivelle belfry tonight
+with a sack of bombs. I'm going to try
+to explode their gas cylinders if I can. The<pb n='222'/><anchor id='Pg222'/>
+tocsin is the signal for our people in the
+salient."</p>
+
+<p>"You're crazy!" remarked one of the airmen.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I'll bluff it out. I'm to have a Boche
+uniform in a few moments."</p>
+
+<p>"You <hi rend='italic'>are</hi> crazy! You know what they'll do
+to you, don't you, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>The bandaged airman laughed, but in his
+eyes there was an odd flicker like a tiny flame.
+He whistled "La Braban&ccedil;onne" and glanced
+coolly about the room.</p>
+
+<p>One of the airmen said to another in a
+whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"There you are. Ever since they got his
+brother he's been figuring on landing a whole
+bunch of Huns at one clip. This is going to
+finish him, this business."</p>
+
+<p>Another said:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't try anything like that, Jim&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I'll try it," interrupted the bandaged
+airman pleasantly. "When are you fellows
+going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now."<pb n='223'/><anchor id='Pg223'/></p>
+
+<p>"All right. Take my report. Wait a moment&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, Jim, act sensibly!"</p>
+
+<p>The bandaged airman laughed, fished out
+from his clothing somewhere a note book and
+pencil. One of the others turned an electric
+torch on the table; the bandaged man made
+a little sketch, wrote a few lines which the
+others studied.</p>
+
+<p>"You can get that note to headquarters in
+half an hour, can't you, Ed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I'll wait here for my answer."</p>
+
+<p>"You know what risk you run, Jim?"
+pleaded the youngest of the airmen.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly. All right, then. You'd better
+be on your way."</p>
+
+<p>After they had left the room, the bandaged
+airman sat beside the table, thinking hard in
+the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Presently from somewhere across the dusky
+river meadow the sudden roar of an airplane
+engine shattered the silence; then another
+whirring racket broke out; then another.</p>
+
+<p>He heard presently the loud rattle of his<pb n='224'/><anchor id='Pg224'/>
+comrades' machines from high above him in
+the star-set sky; he heard the stertorous
+breathing of the old innkeeper; he heard again
+the crystalline bell-notes break out aloft, linger
+in linked harmonies, die away; he heard
+Bayard's mellow thunder proclaim the hour
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>There was a watch on his wrist, but it had
+been put out of business when his machine
+fell in Nivelle woods. Glancing at it mechanically
+he saw the phosphorescent dial glimmer
+faintly under shattered hands that remained
+fixed.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later Bayard shook the starlit
+silence ten times.</p>
+
+<p>As the last stroke boomed majestically
+through the darkness an automobile came racing
+into the long, unlighted street of Sainte
+Lesse and halted, panting, at the door of the
+White Doe Inn.</p>
+
+<p>The airman went out to the doorstep, saluted
+the staff captain who leaned forward
+from the tonneau and turned a flash on him.
+Then, satisfied, the officer lifted a bundle from<pb n='225'/><anchor id='Pg225'/>
+the tonneau and handed it to the airman. A
+letter was pinned to the bundle.</p>
+
+<p>After the airman had read the letter twice,
+the staff captain leaned a trifle nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it can be done?" he demanded
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Here are your munitions, too."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted from the tonneau a bomb-thrower's
+sack, heavy and full. The airman took
+it and saluted.</p>
+
+<p>"It means the cross," said the staff captain
+dryly. And to the engineer chauffeur: "Let
+loose!"</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='226'/><anchor id='Pg226'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XIX. HONOUR'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XIX. HONOUR'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XIX<lb/><lb/>
+HONOUR</head>
+
+<p>For a moment the airman stood watching
+and listening. The whir of the receding car
+died away in the night.</p>
+
+<p>Then, carrying his bundle and his bomber's
+sack, heavy with latent death, he went into
+the inn and through the caf&eacute;, where the sleeping
+innkeeper sat huddled, and felt his way
+cautiously to the little dining room.</p>
+
+<p>The wooden shutters had been closed; a
+candle flared on the table. Maryette sat beside
+it, her arms extended across the cloth,
+her head bowed.</p>
+
+<p>He thought she was asleep, but she looked
+up as his footfall sounded on the bare floor.</p>
+
+<p>She was so pale that he asked her if she
+felt ill.<pb n='227'/><anchor id='Pg227'/></p>
+
+<p>"No. I have been thinking of my friend,"
+she replied in a low but steady voice.</p>
+
+<p>"He may live," said the airman. "He was
+alive when we lifted him."</p>
+
+<p>The girl nodded as though preoccupied&mdash;an
+odd, mysterious little nod, as though assenting
+to some intimate, inward suggestion
+of her own mind.</p>
+
+<p>Then she raised her dark blue eyes to the
+airman, who was still standing beside the
+table, the sack of bombs hanging from his
+left shoulder, the bundle under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is supper," she said, looking around
+absently at the few dishes. Then she folded
+her hands on the table's edge and sat silent,
+as though lost in thought.</p>
+
+<p>He placed the sack carefully on a cane chair
+beside him, the bundle on the floor, and seated
+himself opposite her. There was bread, meat,
+and a bottle of red wine. The girl declined
+to eat, saying that she had supped.</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend Jack," he said again, after a
+long silence, "&mdash;I have seen worse cases. He
+may live, mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>"That," she said musingly, in her low, even<pb n='228'/><anchor id='Pg228'/>
+voice, "is now in God's hands." She gave
+the slightest movement to her shoulders, as
+though easing them a trifle of that burden.
+"I have prayed. You saw me weep. That is
+ended&mdash;so much. Now&mdash;" and across her eyes
+shot a blue gleam, "&mdash;now I am ready to listen
+to <hi rend='italic'>you</hi>! In the cart&mdash;out on the road
+there&mdash;you said that anybody can weep, but
+that few dare avenge."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he drawled, "I said that."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then; tell me <hi rend='italic'>how</hi>!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do <hi rend='italic'>you</hi> want to avenge? Your
+friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"His country's honour, and mine! If he
+had been slain&mdash;otherwise&mdash;I should have perhaps
+mourned him, confident in the law of
+France. But&mdash;I have seen the Rhenish swine
+on French soil&mdash;I saw the Boches do this
+thing in France. It is not merely my friend
+I desire to avenge; it is the triple crime
+against his life, against the honour of his
+country and of mine." She had not raised
+her voice; had not stirred in her chair.</p>
+
+<p>The airman, who had stopped eating, sat<pb n='229'/><anchor id='Pg229'/>
+with fork in hand, listening, regarding her
+intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, resuming his meal, "I understand
+quite well what you mean. Some such
+philosophy sent my elder brother and me over
+here from New York&mdash;the wild hogs trampling
+through Belgium&mdash;the ferocious herds from
+the Rhine defacing, defiling, rending, obliterating
+all that civilized man has reverenced for
+centuries.... That's the idea&mdash;the world-wide
+menace of these unclean hordes&mdash;and
+the murderous filth of them!... They got
+my brother."</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged, realizing that his face had
+flushed with the heat of inner fires.</p>
+
+<p>"Coolness does it," he added, almost apologetically,
+"&mdash;method and coolness. The world
+must keep its head clear: yellow fever and
+smallpox have been nearly stamped out; the
+Hun can be eliminated&mdash;with intelligence and
+clear thinking.... And I'm only an American
+airman who has been shot down like a
+winged heron whose comrades have lingered a
+little to comfort him and have gone on....
+Yes, but a winged heron can still stab, little<pb n='230'/><anchor id='Pg230'/>
+mistress of the bells.... And every blow
+counts.... Listen attentively&mdash;for Jack's sake ... and
+for the sake of France. For I am
+going to explain to you how you can strike&mdash;if
+you want to."</p>
+
+<p>"I am listening," said Maryette serenely.</p>
+
+<p>"We may not live through it. Even my
+orders do not send me to do this thing; they
+merely permit it. Are you contented to go
+with me?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, the shadow of a smile on her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. You play the carillon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You can play 'La Braban&ccedil;onne'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"On the bells?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>He rose, went around the table, carrying
+his chair with him, and seated himself beside
+her. She inclined her pale, pretty head; he
+placed his lips close to her ear, speaking very
+slowly and distinctly, explaining his plan in
+every minute detail.</p>
+
+<p>While he was still speaking in a whisper,<pb n='231'/><anchor id='Pg231'/>
+the street outside filled with the trample of
+arriving cavalry. The Spahis were leaving
+the environs of Sainte Lesse; <hi rend='italic'>chasseurs &agrave;
+cheval</hi> followed from still farther afield, escorting
+ambulances from the Nivelle hospitals
+now being abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>"The trenches at Nivelle are being emptied,"
+said the airman.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you mean that you and I are to
+go there, to Nivelle?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That is exactly what I mean. In an hour
+I shall be in the Nivelle belfry. Will you be
+there with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "You can play
+'La Braban&ccedil;onne' on the bells while I blow
+hell out of them in the redoubt below us!"</p>
+
+<p>The infantry from the Nivelle trenches began
+to pass. There were a few wagons, a
+battery of seventy-fives, a soup kitchen or two
+and a long column of mules from Fontanes.</p>
+
+<p>Two American muleteers knocked at the
+inn door and came stamping into the hallway,
+asking for a loaf and a bottle of red wine.
+Maryette rose from the table to find pro<pb n='232'/><anchor id='Pg232'/>visions;
+the airman got up also, saying in
+English:</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you come from, boys?"</p>
+
+<p>"From Fontanes corral," they replied, surprised
+to hear their own tongue spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Jack Burley, one of your
+people?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. He's just been winged bad."</p>
+
+<p>"The Huns done him up something fierce,"
+added the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Very bad?"</p>
+
+<p>Maryette came back with a loaf and two
+bottles.</p>
+
+<p>"I seen him at Fontanes," replied the muleteer,
+taking the provisions from the girl.
+"He's all shot to pieces, but they say he'll pull
+through."</p>
+
+<p>The airman turned to Maryette:</p>
+
+<p>"Jack will get well," he translated bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, who had just refused the money
+offered by the American muleteer, turned
+sharply, became deadly white for a second,
+then her face flamed with a hot and splendid
+colour.</p>
+
+<p>One of the muleteers said:<pb n='233'/><anchor id='Pg233'/></p>
+
+<p>"Is this here his girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," nodded the airman.</p>
+
+<p>The muleteer became voluble, patting Maryette
+on one arm and then on the other:</p>
+
+<p>"J'ai vue Jack Burley, mamzelle, toot a
+l'heure! Il est bien, savvy voo! Il est tray,
+tray bien! Bocoo de trou! N'importe! <corr sic='I&apos;l'>Il</corr>
+va tray bien! Savvy voo? Jack Burley, l'ami
+de voo! Comprenny? On va le guerir toot
+sweet! Wee! Wee! Wee!&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The girl flung her arms around the amazed
+muleteer's neck and kissed him impetuously
+on both cheeks. The muleteer blushed and
+his comrade fidgeted. Only the girl remained
+unembarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>Half laughing, half crying, terribly excited,
+and very lovely to look upon, she caught both
+muleteers by their sleeves and poured out a
+torrent of questions. With the airman's aid
+she extracted what information they had to
+offer; and they went their way, flustered, still
+blushing, clasping bread and bottles to their
+agitated breasts.</p>
+
+<p>The airman looked her keenly in the eyes
+as she came back from the door, still intensely<pb n='234'/><anchor id='Pg234'/>
+excited, adorably transfigured. She opened
+her lips to speak&mdash;the happy exclamation on
+her lips, already half uttered, died there.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" inquired the airman quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Dumb, still breathing rapidly, she returned
+his gaze in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Now that your friend Jack is going to live&mdash;what
+next?" asked the airman pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>For a full minute she continued to stare at
+him without a word.</p>
+
+<p>"No need to avenge him now," added the
+airman, watching her.</p>
+
+<p>"No." She turned, gazed vaguely into
+space. After a moment she said, as though
+to herself: "But his country's honour&mdash;and
+mine? That reckoning still remains! Is it
+not true?"</p>
+
+<p>The airman said, with a trace of pity in his
+voice, for the girl seemed very young:</p>
+
+<p>"You need not go with me to Nivelle just
+because you promised."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said simply, "I must go, of
+course&mdash;it being a question of our country's
+honour."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not ask it. Nor would Jack, your<pb n='235'/><anchor id='Pg235'/>
+friend. Nor would your own country ask it
+of you, Maryette Courtray."</p>
+
+<p>She replied serenely:</p>
+
+<p>"But <hi rend='italic'>I</hi> ask it&mdash;of <hi rend='italic'>myself</hi>. Do you understand,
+monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly." He glanced mechanically at
+his useless wrist watch, then inquired the
+time. She went to her room, returned, wearing
+a little jacket and carrying a pair of big,
+wooden gloves.</p>
+
+<p>"It is after eleven o'clock," she said. "I
+brought my jacket because it is cold in all
+belfries. It will be cold in Nivelle, up there
+in the tower under Clovis."</p>
+
+<p>"You really mean to go with me?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not even trouble to reply to the
+question. So he picked up his packet and his
+sack of bombs, and they went out, side by
+side, under the tunnelled wall.</p>
+
+<p>Infantry from Nivelle trenches were still
+plodding along the dark street under the
+trees; dull gleams came from their helmets
+and bayonets in the obscure light of the stars.</p>
+
+<p>The girl stood watching them for a few<pb n='236'/><anchor id='Pg236'/>
+moments, then her hand sought the airman's
+arm:</p>
+
+<p>"If there is to be a battle in the street here,
+my father cannot remain."</p>
+
+<p>The airman nodded, went out into the street
+and spoke to a passing officer. He, in turn,
+signalled the driver of a motor omnibus to
+halt.</p>
+
+<p>The little bell-mistress entered the tavern,
+followed by two soldiers. In a few moments
+they came out bearing, chair-fashion between
+them, the crippled innkeeper.</p>
+
+<p>The old man was much alarmed, but his
+daughter followed beside him to the omnibus,
+in which were several lamed soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Et toi?</hi>" he quavered as they lifted him
+in. "What of thee, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p>"I follow," she called out cheerily. "I rejoin
+thee&mdash;" the bus moved on&mdash;"God knows
+when or where!" she added under her breath.</p>
+
+<p>The airman was whispering to a fat staff
+officer when she rejoined him. All three
+looked up in silence at the belfry of Sainte
+Lesse, looming above them, a monstrous
+shadow athwart the stars. A moment later<pb n='237'/><anchor id='Pg237'/>
+an automobile, arriving from the south, drew
+up in front of the inn.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Bonne chance</hi>," said the fat officer
+abruptly; he turned and waddled swiftly away
+in the darkness. They saw him mount his
+horse. His legs stuck out sideways.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," whispered the airman, with a nod
+to the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>The little bell-mistress entered the car, her
+wooden gloves tucked under one arm. The
+airman followed with his packet and his sack
+of bombs. The chauffeur started his engine.</p>
+
+<p>The middle of the road was free to him;
+the edges were occupied by the retreating infantry.
+As the car started, very slowly, cautiously
+feeling its way out of Sainte Lesse,
+the fat staff officer turned his horse and
+trotted up alongside. The car stopped, the
+engine still running.</p>
+
+<p>"It's understood?" asked the officer in a low
+voice. "It's to be when we hear 'La Braban&ccedil;onne'?"</p>
+
+<p>"When you hear 'La Braban&ccedil;onne.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Understood," said the staff officer crisply,
+saluted and drew bridle. And the car moved<pb n='238'/><anchor id='Pg238'/>
+out into the starlit night along an endless
+column of retreating soldiers, who were laughing,
+smoking, and chatting as though not in
+the least depressed by their withdrawal from
+the dry and cosy trenches of Nivelle which
+they were abandoning.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='239'/><anchor id='Pg239'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XX. LA BRABAN&Ccedil;ONNE'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XX. LA BRABAN&Ccedil;ONNE'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XX<lb/><lb/>
+"LA BRABAN&Ccedil;ONNE"</head>
+
+<p>No shells were falling in Nivelle as they
+left the car on the outskirts of the town and
+entered the long main street. That was all
+of Nivelle, a long, treeless main street from
+which branched a few alleys.</p>
+
+<p>Smouldering d&eacute;bris of what had been houses
+illuminated the street. There were no other
+lights. Nothing stirred except a gaunt cat
+flitting like a shadow along the gutter. There
+was not a sound save the faint stirring of
+the cinders over which pale flames played
+fitfully.</p>
+
+<p>Abandoned trenches ditched the little town
+in every direction; temporary shelters made
+of boughs, sheds, and broken-down wagons
+stood along the street. Otherwise, all impedimenta,
+materials, and stores had appar<pb n='240'/><anchor id='Pg240'/>ently
+been removed by the retreating columns.
+There was little wreckage except the burning
+d&eacute;bris of the few shell-struck houses&mdash;a few
+rags, a few piles of firewood, a bundle of
+straw and hay here and there.</p>
+
+<p>High, mounting toward the stars, the ancient
+tower with its gilded hippogriff dominated
+the place&mdash;a vast, vague shape brooding
+over the single mile-long street and grimy
+alleys branching from it.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody guarded the portal; the ancient
+doors stood wide open; pitch darkness reigned
+within.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the way?" whispered the
+airman.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Take hold of my hand."</p>
+
+<p>He dared not use his flash. Carrying bundle
+and bombsack under one arm, he sought
+for her hand and encountered it. Cool, slim
+fingers closed over his.</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments' stealthy advance, she
+whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Here are the stairs. Be careful; they
+twist."</p>
+
+<p>She started upward, feeling with her feet<pb n='241'/><anchor id='Pg241'/>
+for every stone step. The ascent appeared
+to be interminable; the narrowing stone spiral
+seemed to have no end. Her hand grew warm
+within his own.</p>
+
+<p>But at last they felt a fresh wind blowing
+and caught a glimpse of stars above them.</p>
+
+<p>Then, tier on tier, the bells of the carillon,
+fixed to their great beams, appeared above
+them&mdash;a shadowy, bewildering wilderness of
+bells, rising, rank above rank, until they vanished
+in the darkness overhead. Beside them,
+almost touching them, loomed the great bell
+Clovis, a gigantic mass bulking enormously
+in that shadowy place.</p>
+
+<p>A sonorous wind flowed through the open
+tower, eddying among the bells&mdash;a strong,
+keen night wind blowing from the north.</p>
+
+<p>The airman walked to the south parapet
+and looked down. Below him in the starlight,
+like an indistinct map spread out, lay the
+Nivelle redoubt and the trench with its
+gabions, its sand bags, its timbers, its dugouts.</p>
+
+<p>Very far away to the southeast they could
+see the glare of rockets and exploding shells,
+but the sound of the bombardment did not<pb n='242'/><anchor id='Pg242'/>
+reach them. North, a single searchlight
+played and switched across the clouds; west,
+all was dark.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll arrive just before dawn," said the
+airman, placing his sack of bombs on the
+pavement under the parapet. "Come, little
+bell-mistress, take me to see your keyboard."</p>
+
+<p>"It is below&mdash;a few steps. This way&mdash;if
+you will follow me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She turned to the stone stairs again, descended
+a dozen steps, opened a door on a
+narrow landing.</p>
+
+<p>And there, in the starlight, he saw the keyboard
+and the bewildering maze of wires running
+up and branching like a huge web toward
+the tiers of bells above.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the keyboard curiously. The
+little mistress of the bells displayed the two
+wooden gloves with which she encased her
+hands when she played the carillon.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be impossible for one to play
+unless one's hands are armoured," she explained.</p>
+
+<p>"It is almost a lost art," he mused aloud,
+"&mdash;this playing the carillon&mdash;this wonderful<pb n='243'/><anchor id='Pg243'/>
+bell-music of the middle ages. There are few
+great bell-masters in this day."</p>
+
+<p>"Few," she said dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>"And"&mdash;he turned and stared at her&mdash;"few
+mistresses of the bells, I imagine."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I am the only one in France or in
+Flanders.... And there are few carillons
+left. The Huns are battering them down.
+Towers of the ancient ages are falling everywhere
+in Flanders and in France under their
+shell fire. Very soon there will be no more
+of the old carillons left; no more bell-music
+in the world." She sighed heavily. "It is a
+pity."</p>
+
+<p>She seated herself at the keyboard.</p>
+
+<p>"Dare I play?" she asked, looking up over
+her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"No; it would only mean a shell from the
+Huns."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, laid the wooden gloves beside
+her and let her delicate hands wander over
+the mute keys.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning beside her the airman quietly explained
+the plan they were to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"With dawn they will come creeping into<pb n='244'/><anchor id='Pg244'/>
+Nivelle&mdash;the Huns," he said. "I have one of
+their officers' uniforms in that bundle above.
+I shall try to pass as a general officer. You
+see, I speak German. My education was
+partly ruined in Germany. So I'll get on very
+well, I expect.</p>
+
+<p>"And directly under us is the trench and
+the main redoubt. They'll occupy that first
+thing. They'll swarm there&mdash;the whole trench
+will be crawling with them. They'll install
+their gas cylinders at once, this wind being
+their wind.</p>
+
+<p>"But with sunrise the wind changes&mdash;and
+whether it changes or not, I don't care," he
+added. "I've got them at last where I want
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up at him. He smiled that
+terrifying smile of his:</p>
+
+<p>"With the explosion of my first bomb among
+their gas cylinders you are to start these bells
+above us. Are you afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You are to play 'La Braban&ccedil;onne.' That
+is the signal to our trenches."</p>
+
+<p>"I have often played it," she said coolly.<pb n='245'/><anchor id='Pg245'/></p>
+
+<p>"Not in the teeth of a barbarian army. Not
+in the faces of a murderous soldiery."</p>
+
+<p>The girl sat quite still for a few moments;
+then looking up at him, and very pale in the
+starlight:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think they will tear me to pieces,
+monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to hold those stairs with my sack
+of bombs until our people enter the trenches.
+If they can do it in an hour we will be all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"It is only a half-hour affair from our
+salient. I allow our people an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But if, even now, you had rather go
+back&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>No!</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no disgrace in going back."</p>
+
+<p>"You said once, 'anybody can weep for
+friend and country. Few avenge either.' I
+am&mdash;happy&mdash;to be among the few."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. After a moment he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet you something. My country is all<pb n='246'/><anchor id='Pg246'/>
+right, but it's sick. It's<lb/> got a nauseous dose
+of verbiage to spew up&mdash;something it's swallowed&mdash;something
+about being too proud to
+fight.... My brother and I couldn't stand
+it, so we came to France.... He was in the
+photo air service. He was in mufti&mdash;and
+about two miles up, I believe. Six Huns went
+for him.... And winged him. He had to
+land behind their lines.... In mufti....
+Well&mdash;I've never found courage to hear the
+details. I can't stand them&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Your brother&mdash;is dead, monsieur?" she
+asked timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. With&mdash;circumstances. Well, then&mdash;after
+that, from an ordinary, commonplace
+man I became a machine for the extermination
+of vermin. That's all I am&mdash;an animated magazine
+of Persian powder&mdash;or I do it in any
+handy way. It's not a sporting proposition,
+you see, just get rid of them any old way.
+You don't understand, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"A&mdash;little."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's slow work&mdash;slow work," he muttered
+vaguely, "&mdash;and the world is crawling&mdash;crawling
+with them. But if God guides my<pb n='247'/><anchor id='Pg247'/>
+bomb this time and if I hit one of their gas
+cylinders&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>that</hi> ought to be worth while."</p>
+
+<p>In the starlight his features became tense
+and terrible; she shivered in her threadbare
+jacket.</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments' silence he went away
+up the steps to put on his German uniform.
+When he descended again she had a troubled
+question for him to answer:</p>
+
+<p>"But how shall you account for me, a French
+girl, monsieur, if they come to the belfry?"</p>
+
+<p>A heavy flush darkened his face:</p>
+
+<p>"Little mistress of the bells, I shall pretend
+to be what the Huns are. Do you know how
+they treat French women?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard," she said faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if they come and find you here as
+my&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>prisoner</hi>&mdash;they will think they understand."</p>
+
+<p>The colour flamed in her face and she bowed
+it, resting her elbows on the keyboard.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, "don't be distressed. Does
+it matter what a Hun thinks? Come; let's
+be cheerful. Can you hum for me 'La Braban&ccedil;onne'?"<pb n='248'/><anchor id='Pg248'/></p>
+
+<p>She did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, never mind," he said. "But it's a
+grand battle anthem.... We Americans have
+one.... It's out of fashion. And after all,
+I had rather hear 'La Braban&ccedil;onne' when the
+time comes.... What a terrible admission!
+But what Americans have done to my country
+is far more terrible. The nation's sick&mdash;sick!...
+I prefer 'La Braban&ccedil;onne' for the time
+being."</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>The Prussians entered Nivelle a little before
+dawn. The airman had been watching
+the street below. Down there in the slight
+glow from the cinders of what once had been
+a cottage a cat had been squatting, staring
+at the bed of coals, as though she were once
+more installed upon the family hearthstone.</p>
+
+<p>Then something unseen as yet by the airman
+attracted the animal's attention. Alert,
+crouching, she stared down the vista of dark,
+deserted houses, then turned and fled like a
+ghost.</p>
+
+<p>For a long while the airman perceived
+nothing. Suddenly close to the house fa&ccedil;ades<pb n='249'/><anchor id='Pg249'/>
+on either side of the street, shadowy forms
+came gliding forward.</p>
+
+<p>They passed the glowing embers and went
+on toward Sainte-Lesse; j&auml;gers, with knapsacks
+on back and rifles trailing; and on their
+heads oddly shaped pot helmets with battered
+looking visors.</p>
+
+<p>One or two motorcyclists followed, whizzing
+through the desolate street and into the
+country beyond.</p>
+
+<p>After a few minutes, out of the throat of
+the darkness emerged a solid column of infantry.
+In a moment, beneath the bell tower, the
+ground was swarming with Huns; every inch
+of the earth became infested with them; fields,
+hedges, alleys crawled alive with Germans.
+They overran every road, every street, every
+inch of open country; their wagons choked the
+main thoroughfare, they were already establishing
+themselves in the redoubt below, in the
+trench, running in and out of dugouts and all
+over scarp, counter-scarp, parades and parapet,
+ant-like in energy, busy with machine gun,
+trench mortar, installing telephones, searchlights,
+periscopes, machine guns.<pb n='250'/><anchor id='Pg250'/></p>
+
+<p>Automobiles arrived&mdash;two armoured cars
+and grey passenger machines in which there
+were officers.</p>
+
+<p>The airman laid his hand on Maryette's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Little bell-mistress," he said, "German officers
+are coming into the tower. I want them
+to find you in my arms when they come up
+into this belfry. Understand me, and forgive
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;understand," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Play your part bravely. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>He put his arms around her; they stood
+rigid, listening.</p>
+
+<p>"Now!" he whispered, and drew her close,
+kissing her.</p>
+
+<p>Spurred boots clattered on the stone floor:</p>
+
+<p>"Herr Je!" exclaimed an astonished voice.
+Somebody laughed. But the airman coolly
+pushed the girl aside, and as the faint grey
+light of dawn fell on his field uniform bearing
+the ribbon of the iron cross, two pairs of
+spurred heels hastily clinked together and two
+hands flew to the oddly shaped helmet visors.</p>
+
+<p>"Also!" exclaimed the airman in a mincing<pb n='251'/><anchor id='Pg251'/>
+Berlin accent. "When I require a corps of
+observers I usually send my aide. That being
+now quite perfectly understood, you gentlemen
+will give yourselves the trouble to descend
+as you have come. Further, you will place a
+sentry at the tower door, and inform enquirers
+that General Count von Gierdorff and his
+staff are occupying the Nivelle belfry for purposes
+of observation."</p>
+
+<p>The astounded officers saluted steadily; and
+if they imagined that the mythical staff of this
+general officer was clustered aloft somewhere
+up there where the bells hung it was impossible
+to tell by the strained expressions on their
+wooden countenances.</p>
+
+<p>However, it was evidently perfectly plain
+to them what the high Excellenz was about in
+this vaulted room where wires led aloft to
+an unseen carillon on the landing in the belfry
+above.</p>
+
+<p>The airman nodded; they went. And when
+their clattering steps echoed far below on the
+spiral stone stairs, the airman motioned to
+the little bell-mistress. She followed him up
+the short flight to where the bells hung.<pb n='252'/><anchor id='Pg252'/></p>
+
+<p>"We're in for it now," he said. "If High
+Command comes into this place to investigate
+then I shall have to hold those stairs....
+It's growing quite light in the east. Which
+way is the wind?"</p>
+
+<p>"North," she said in a steady voice. She
+was terribly pale.</p>
+
+<p>He went to the parapet and looked over,
+half wondering, perhaps, whether he would
+receive a rifle shot through the head.</p>
+
+<p>Far below at the foot of the bell-tower
+the dimly discerned Nivelle redoubt, swarming
+with men, was being armed; and, to the south,
+wired he thought, but could not see distinctly.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as the dusk of early dawn grew
+greyer, the first rifle shots rattled out in
+the west. The French salient was saluting
+the wire-stringers.</p>
+
+<p>Back under shelter they tumbled; whistles
+sounded distantly; a trench mortar crashed;
+then the accentless tattoo of machine guns
+broke from every emplacement.</p>
+
+<p>"The east is turning a little yellow," he said
+calmly. "I believe this matter is going through.<pb n='253'/><anchor id='Pg253'/>
+Toss some dust into the air. Which way?"</p>
+
+<p>"North," said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. I think they're placing their cylinders.
+I think I can see them laying their coils.
+I'm certain of it. What luck!"</p>
+
+<p>The airman was becoming excited and his
+voice trembled a little with the effort to control
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"It's growing pink in the east. Try a handful
+of dust again," he suggested almost gaily.</p>
+
+<p>"North," she said briefly, watching the dust
+aloft.</p>
+
+<p>"Luck's with us! Look at the east! If
+their High Command keeps his nose out of
+this place!&mdash;if he <hi rend='italic'>does</hi>!&mdash;Look at the east, little
+bell-mistress! It's all gold! There's pink
+up higher. I can see a faint tinge of blue,
+too. Can you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>A minute dragged like a year in prison.
+Then:</p>
+
+<p>"Try the wind again," he said in a strained
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"North."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, luck! Luck!" he muttered, slinging his<pb n='254'/><anchor id='Pg254'/>
+sack of bombs over his shoulder. "We've
+got them! We've certainly got them! What's
+that! An airplane! Look, little girl&mdash;one of
+our planes is up. There's another! Which
+way is the wind?"</p>
+
+<p>"North."</p>
+
+<p>"Got 'em!" he snapped between his teeth.
+"Run over to the stairs. Listen! Is anybody
+coming up?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can hear nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Stand there and listen. Never mind the
+row the guns are making; listen for somebody
+on the stairs. Look how light it's getting!
+The sun will push up before many
+minutes. We've got 'em! <hi rend='italic'>Got 'em!</hi> Wet
+your finger and try the wind!"</p>
+
+<p>"North."</p>
+
+<p>"North here, too. What do you know about
+that! Luck! Luck's with us! And we've got
+'em&mdash;!" he lifted his clenched hand and
+laughed at her. "Like that!" he said, his blue
+eyes blazing. "They're getting ready to gas
+below. Look at 'em! Glory to God! I can
+see two cylinders directly under me. They're
+manning the nozzles! Every man is masking<pb n='255'/><anchor id='Pg255'/>
+at his post! Anybody on the stairs! Any
+sound?"</p>
+
+<p>"None."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you certain?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is as still as death below."</p>
+
+<p>"Try the dust. The wind's changing, I
+think. Quick! Which way?"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>West.</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, glory! Glory to God! They feel it
+below! They know. The wind has changed.
+Off came their respirators. No gas this morning,
+eh? Yes, by God, there will be gas enough
+for all&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>He caught up a bomb, leaned over the parapet,
+held it aloft, poised, aiming steadily for
+one second of concentrated co&ouml;rdination of
+mind and muscle. Then straight down he
+launched it. The cylinder beneath him was
+shattered and a green geyser of gas burst from
+it deluging the trench.</p>
+
+<p>Already a second bomb followed the first,
+then another, and then a third; and with the
+last report another cylinder in the trench below
+burst into thick green billows of death and
+flowed over the ground, <hi rend='italic'>west</hi>.<pb n='256'/><anchor id='Pg256'/></p>
+
+<p>Two more bombs whirled down, bursting on
+a machine gun; then the airman turned with a
+cry of triumph, and at the same instant the
+sun rose above the hills and flung a golden
+ray straight across his face.</p>
+
+<p>To Maryette the man stood transfigured,
+like the Blazing Guardian of the Flaming
+Sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Ring out your Braban&ccedil;onne!" he cried.
+"Let the Huns hear the war song of the land
+they've trampled! Now! Little bell-mistress,
+arm your white hands with your wooden gloves
+and make this old carillon speak in brass and
+iron!"</p>
+
+<p>He caught her by the arm; they ran down
+the short flight of steps; she drew on her
+wooden gloves and sprang to the keyboard.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll hold the stairs!" he cried. "I can
+hold these stairs for an hour against the
+whole world in arms. Now, then! The Braban&ccedil;onne!"</p>
+
+<p>Above the roaring confusion and the explosions
+far below, from high up in the sky a
+clear bell note floated as though out of
+Heaven itself&mdash;another, others, crystalline<pb n='257'/><anchor id='Pg257'/>
+clear, imperious, filling all the sky with their
+amazing and terrible beauty.</p>
+
+<p>The mistress of the bells struck the keyboard
+with armoured hands&mdash;beautiful, slender,
+avenging hands; the bells above her
+crashed out into the battle-song of Flanders,
+filling sky and earth with its splendid defiance
+of the Hun.</p>
+
+<p>The airman, bomb in hand, stood at the
+head of the stone stairs; the ancient tower
+rocked with the fiercely magnificent anthem
+of revolt&mdash;the war cry of a devastated land&mdash;the
+land that died to save the world&mdash;the
+martyr, Belgium, still prone in the deathly
+trance awaiting her certain resurrection.</p>
+
+<p>The rising sun struck the tower where
+three score ancient bells poured from metal
+throats their heavenly summons to battle!</p>
+
+<p>The Hun heard it, tumbling, clawing, strangling
+below in the hellish vapours of his own
+death-fog; and now, from the rear his sky-guns
+hurled shrapnel at the carillon in the
+belfry of Nivelle.</p>
+
+<p>Clouds possessed the tower&mdash;soft, white,
+fleecy clouds rolling, unfolding, floating about<pb n='258'/><anchor id='Pg258'/>
+the ancient buttresses and gargoyles. An iron
+hail rained on slate and parapet and resounding
+bell-metal. But the bells pealed and pealed
+in clear-voiced beauty, and Clovis, the great
+iron giant, hung, scarcely sonorous under the
+shrapnel rain.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there were bayonets on the stairs&mdash;the
+clatter of heavy feet&mdash;alien faces on the
+threshold. Then a bomb flew, and the terrible
+crash cleared the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Twice more the clatter came with the clank
+of bayonets and guttural cries; but both died
+out in the infernal roar of the grenades exploding
+inside that stony spiral. And no more
+bayonets flickered on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>The airman, frozen to a statue, listened.
+Again and again he thought he could hear
+bugles, but the roar from below blotted out
+the distant call.</p>
+
+<p>"Little bell-mistress!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her head, her hands still striking
+the keyboard. He spoke through the confusion
+of the place:</p>
+
+<p>"Sound the tocsin!"</p>
+
+<p>Then Clovis thundered from the belfry like<pb n='259'/><anchor id='Pg259'/>
+a great gun fired, booming out over the world.
+Around the iron colossus shrapnel swept in
+gusts; Clovis thundered on, annihilating all
+sound except his own tremendous voice, heedless
+of shell and bullet, disdainful of the hell's
+shambles below, where masked French infantry
+were already leaping the parapets of Nivelle
+Redoubt into the squirming masses below.</p>
+
+<p>The airman shouted at her through the
+tumult:</p>
+
+<p>"They murdered my brother. Did I tell
+you? They hacked him to slivers with their
+bayonets. I've settled the reckoning down in
+the gas there&mdash;their own green gas, damn
+them! You don't understand what I say, do
+you? He was my brother&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A frightful explosion blew in the oubliette;
+the room rattled and clattered with shrapnel.</p>
+
+<p>The airman swayed where he stood in the
+swirling smoke, lurched up against the stone
+coping, slid down to his knees.</p>
+
+<p>When his eyes opened the little bell-mistress
+was bending over him.</p>
+
+<p>"They got me," he gasped. All the front of
+his tunic was sopping red.<pb n='260'/><anchor id='Pg260'/></p>
+
+<p>"They said it meant the cross&mdash;if I made
+good.... Are you hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" she whispered. "But you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on and play!" he whispered with a terrible
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"But you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Braban&ccedil;onne! Quick!"</p>
+
+<p>She went, whimpering. Standing before the
+keyboard she pulled on her wooden gloves and
+struck the keys.</p>
+
+<p>Out over the infernal uproar below pealed
+the bells; the morning sky rang with the noble
+summons to all brave men. Once more the
+ancient tower trembled with the mighty out-crash
+of the battle hymn.</p>
+
+<p>With the last note she turned and looked
+down at him where he lay against the wall. He
+opened his glazing eyes and tried to smile at
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Bully," he whispered. "Could you recite&mdash;the
+words&mdash;to me&mdash;just so I could hear them
+on my way&mdash;West?"</p>
+
+<p>She left the keyboard, came and dropped
+on her knees beside him; and closing her eyes
+to check the tears sang in a low, tremulous,<pb n='261'/><anchor id='Pg261'/>
+girlish voice, De Lonlay's words, to the battle
+anthem of revolution.</p>
+
+<p>"Bully," he sighed. And spoke no more on
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>But the little mistress of the bells did not
+know his soul had passed.</p>
+
+<p>And the French officer who came leaping up
+the stairs, pistol lifted, halted in astonishment
+to see a dead man lying beside a sack of
+bombs and a young girl on her knees beside
+him, weeping and tremblingly intoning "La
+Braban&ccedil;onne."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='262'/><anchor id='Pg262'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XXI. THE GARDENER'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XXI. THE GARDENER'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XXI<lb/><lb/>
+THE GARDENER</head>
+
+<p>A week later, toward noon, as usual, the
+two American, muleteers, Smith and Glenn,
+sauntered over from their corral to the White
+Doe Tavern where, it being a meatless day,
+they ate largely of potato soup and of a
+tench, smoking hot.</p>
+
+<p>The tench had been caught that morning off
+the back doorstep, which was an ancient and
+mossy slab of limestone let into the coping of
+the river wall.</p>
+
+<p>Jean Courtray, the crippled inn-keeper,
+caught it. All that morning he had sat there
+in the sun on the river wall, half dozing, opening
+his dim eyes at intervals to gaze at his
+painted quill afloat among the water weeds of
+the little river Lesse. At intervals, too, he
+turned his head with that peculiar movement<pb n='263'/><anchor id='Pg263'/>
+of the old, and peered at his daughter, Maryette,
+and the Belgian gardener who were working
+among the potatoes in the garden.</p>
+
+<p>And at last he had hooked his fish and the
+emaciated young Belgian dropped his hoe and
+came over and released it from the hook where
+it lay flopping and quivering and glittering
+among the wild grasses on the river bank. And
+that was how Kid Glenn and Sticky Smith,
+American muleteers on duty at Saint Lesse,
+came to lunch on freshly caught tench at the
+Inn of the White Doe.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon, agreeably satiated, they rose
+from the table in the little dining room and
+strolled out to the garden in the rear of the
+inn, their Mexican spurs clanking. Maryette
+heard them; they tipped their caps to her;
+she acknowledged their salute gravely and continued
+to cultivate her garden with a hoe, the
+blond, consumptive Belgian trundling a rickety
+cultivator at her heels.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Stick," drawled Glenn. "Maryette's
+got her decoration on."</p>
+
+<p>From where they lounged by the river wall<pb n='264'/><anchor id='Pg264'/>
+they could see the cross of the Legion pinned
+to the girl's blouse.</p>
+
+<p>Both muleteers had been present at the investment
+the day before, when a general officer
+arrived from Paris and the entire garrison of
+Sainte Lesse had been paraded&mdash;an impressive
+total of three dozen men&mdash;six gendarmes and
+a brigadier; one remount sub-lieutenant and
+twenty troopers; a veterinary, two white American
+muleteers, and five American negro hostlers
+from Baton Rouge.</p>
+
+<p>The girl had nearly died of shyness during
+the ceremony, had endured the accolade with
+crimson cheeks, had stammered a whispered
+response to the congratulations of neighbors
+who had gathered to see the little bell-mistress
+of Sainte Lesse honoured by the country which
+she had served in the belfry of Nivelle.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>As she came past Smith and Glenn, trailing
+her hoe, the latter now sufficiently proficient
+in French, said gaily:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard from Jack again, Mamzelle Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl blushed:<pb n='265'/><anchor id='Pg265'/></p>
+
+<p>"I hear from Djack by every mail," she
+said, with all the transparent honesty that
+characterized her.</p>
+
+<p>Smith grinned:</p>
+
+<p>"Just like that! Well, tell him from me
+to quit fooling away his time in a hospital
+and come and get you or somebody is going
+to steal you."</p>
+
+<p>The girl was very happy; she stood there
+in the September sunshine leaning on her hoe
+and gazing half shyly, half humorously down
+the river where a string of American mules
+was being watered.</p>
+
+<p>Mellow Ethiopian laughter sounded from the
+distance as the Baton Rouge negroes exchanged
+pleasantries in limited French with
+a couple of gendarmes on the bank above them.
+And there, in the sunshine of the little garden
+by the river, war and death seemed very far
+away. Only at intervals the veering breeze
+brought to Sainte Lesse the immense vibration
+of the cannonade; only at intervals the
+high sky-clatter of an airplane reminded the
+village that the front was only a little north<pb n='266'/><anchor id='Pg266'/>
+of Nivelle, and that what had been Nivelle
+was not so very far away.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>"If you were <hi rend='italic'>my</hi> girl, Maryette," remarked
+Smith, "I'd die of worry in that hospital."</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>You</hi> might have reason to, Monsieur," retorted
+the girl demurely. "But you see it's
+Djack who is convalescing, not you."</p>
+
+<p>She had become accustomed to the ceaseless
+banter of Burley's two comrades&mdash;a banter
+entirely American, and which at first she was
+unable to understand. But now all things
+American, including accent and odd, perverted
+humour, had become very dear to her. The
+clink-clank of the muleteer's big spurs always
+set her heart beating; the sight of an arriving
+convoy from the Channel port thrilled her,
+and to her the trample of mules, the shouts
+of foreign negroes, the drawling, broken French
+spoken by the white muleteers made heavenly
+real to her the dream which love had so suddenly
+invaded, and into which, as suddenly,
+strode Death, clutching at Love.</p>
+
+<p>She had beaten him off&mdash;she had&mdash;or God
+had&mdash;routed Death, driven him from the dream.<pb n='267'/><anchor id='Pg267'/>
+For it was a dream to her still, and she thought
+she could never be able to comprehend the
+magic reality of it, even when at last her
+man, "Djack," came back to prove the blessed
+miracle which held her in the magic of its
+thrall.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>"Who's the guy with the wheelbarrow?" inquired
+Sticky Smith, rolling a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Karl, his name is," she answered; "&mdash;a
+Belgian refugee."</p>
+
+<p>"He looks like a Hun to me," remarked
+Glenn, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"He has his papers," said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>Glenn shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"With his little pink eyes of a pig and his
+whitish hair and eyebrows&mdash;well, maybe they
+make 'em like that in Belgium."</p>
+
+<p>"Papers," added Smith, "<hi rend='italic'>can</hi> be swiped."</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her head:</p>
+
+<p>"He's an invalid student from Ypres. He
+looks quite ill, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"He looks the lunger, all right. But Huns
+have it, too. What does he do&mdash;wander about
+town at will?"<pb n='268'/><anchor id='Pg268'/></p>
+
+<p>"He works for us, monsieur. Your suspicions
+are harsh. Karl is quite harmless, poor
+boy."</p>
+
+<p>"What does he do after hours?" demanded
+Sticky Smith, watching the man&oelig;uvres of the
+sickly blond youth and the wheelbarrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Smith, if you knew how innocent
+is his pastime!" she exclaimed, laughing. "He
+collects and studies moths and butterflies. Is
+there, if you please, a mania more harmless in
+the world?... And now I must return to my
+work, messieurs."</p>
+
+<p>As the two muleteers strode clanking away
+toward the canal in the meadow, the blond
+youth turned his head and looked after them
+out of eyes which were naturally pale and
+small, and which, as he watched the two Americans,
+seemed to grow paler and smaller yet.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon old Courtray, swathed in a
+shawl, sat on the mossy doorstep and fished
+among the water weeds of the river. The sun
+was low; work in the garden had ended.</p>
+
+<p>Maryette had gone up into her belfry to
+play the sunset hymn on the noble old carillon.
+Through the sunset sky the lovely bell-notes<pb n='269'/><anchor id='Pg269'/>
+floated far and wide, exquisitely chaste and
+aloof as the high-showering ecstasy of a skylark.</p>
+
+<p>As always the little village looked upward
+and listened, pausing in its humble duties as
+long as their little bell-mistress remained in
+her tower.</p>
+
+<p>After the hymn she played "Myn hart is vol
+verlangen" and "Het Lied der Vlamingen,"
+and ended with the delicate, bewitching little
+folk-song, "Myn Vryer," by Hasselt.</p>
+
+<p>Then in the red glow of the setting sun the
+girl laid aside her wooden gloves, rose from
+the ancient keyboard, wound up the drum, and,
+her duty done for the evening, came down out
+of the tower among the transparent evening
+shadows of the tree-lined village street.</p>
+
+<p>The sun hung over Nivelle hills, which had
+turned to amethyst. Sunbeams laced the little
+river in a red net through which old Courtray's
+quill stemmed the ripples. He still
+clutched his fishing pole, but his eyes were
+closed, his chin resting on his chest.</p>
+
+<p>Maryette came silently into the garden and
+looked at her father&mdash;looked at the blond Karl<pb n='270'/><anchor id='Pg270'/>
+seated on the river wall beside the dozing
+angler. The blond youth had a box on his
+knees into which he was intently peering.</p>
+
+<p>The girl came to the river wall and seated
+herself at her father's feet. The Belgian refugee
+student had already risen to attention, his
+heels together, but Maryette signed him to be
+seated again.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you found now, Karl?" she inquired
+in a cautiously modulated voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, mademoiselle, fancy! I haff by chance
+with my cultivator among your potatoes already
+twenty pup&aelig; of the magnificent moth, Sphinx
+Atropos, upturned! See! Regard them, mademoiselle!
+What lucky chance! What fortune
+for me, an entomologist, this wonderful sphinx
+moth to discover encased within its chrysalis!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl smiled at his enthusiasm:</p>
+
+<p>"But, Karl, those funny, smooth brown
+things which resemble little polished evergreen-cones
+are not rare in my garden. Often, when
+spading or hoeing among the potato vines, I
+uncover them."</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, the caterpillar which makes
+this chrysalis feeds by night on the leaves of<pb n='271'/><anchor id='Pg271'/>
+the potato, and, when ready to transform, burrows
+into the earth to become a <corr sic='chryalis'>chrysalis</corr> or
+pupa, as we call it. That iss why mademoiselle
+has often disinterred the pup&aelig; of this largest
+and strangest of our native sphinx-moths."</p>
+
+<p>Maryette leaned over and looked into the
+wooden box, where lay the chrysalides.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of moth do they make?" she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>He blinked his small, pale eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"The Death's Head," he said, complacently.</p>
+
+<p>The girl recoiled involuntarily:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath,
+"&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>that</hi> creature!"</p>
+
+<p>For everywhere in France the great moth,
+with its strange and ominous markings, is perfectly
+well known. To the superstitious it is
+a creature of evil omen in its fulvous, black
+and lead-coloured livery of death. For the
+broad, furry thorax bears a skull, and the big,
+mousy body the yellow ribs of a skeleton.</p>
+
+<p>Measuring often more than five inches across
+the expanded wings, its formidable size alone
+might be sufficient to inspire alarm, but in addition
+it possesses a horrid attribute unknown<pb n='272'/><anchor id='Pg272'/>
+among other moths and butterflies; it can
+utter a cry&mdash;a tiny shrill, shuddering complaint.
+Small wonder, perhaps, that the peasant
+holds it in horror&mdash;this sleek, furry, powerfully
+winged creature marked with skull and
+bones, which whirrs through the night and
+comes thudding against the window, and
+shrieks horridly when touched by a human
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"So <hi rend='italic'>that</hi> is what turns into the Death's Head
+moth," said the girl in a low voice as though
+to herself. "I never knew it. I thought those
+things were legless cock-chafers when I dug
+them out of potato hills. Karl, why do you
+keep them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, mademoiselle! To study them. To
+breed from them the moth. The Death's Head
+is magnificent."</p>
+
+<p>"God made it," admitted the girl with a
+faint shudder, "but I am afraid I could not
+love it. When do they hatch out?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is time now. It is not like others of the
+sphinx family. Incubation requires but a few
+weeks. These are nearly ready to emerge,
+mademoiselle."<pb n='273'/><anchor id='Pg273'/></p>
+
+<p>"Oh. And then what do they do?"</p>
+
+<p>"They mate."</p>
+
+<p>She was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"The males seek the females," he said in his
+pedantic, monotonous voice. "And so ardent
+are the lovers that although there be no female
+moth within five, eight, perhaps ten miles, yet
+will her lover surely search through the night
+for her and find her."</p>
+
+<p>Maryette shuddered again in spite of herself.
+The thought of this creature marked
+with the emblems of death and possessed of
+ardour, too, was distasteful.</p>
+
+<p>"Amour macabre&mdash;what an unpleasant
+thought, Karl. I do not care for your Death's
+Head and for the history of their amours."</p>
+
+<p>She turned and gently laid her head on her
+father's knees. The young man regarded her
+with a pallid sneer.</p>
+
+<p>Addressing her back, still holding his boxful
+of pup&aelig; on his bony knees, he said with
+the sneer quite audible in his voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Your famous savant, Fabre, first inspired
+me to study the sex habits of the Death's
+Head."<pb n='274'/><anchor id='Pg274'/></p>
+
+<p>She made no reply, her cheek resting on her
+father's knees.</p>
+
+<p>"It was because of his wonderful experiments
+with the Great Peacock moth and with
+others of the genus that I have studied to
+acquaint myself concerning the amours of the
+Death's Head. <hi rend='italic'>And I have discovered that he
+will find the female even if she be miles and
+miles away.</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>The man was grinning now in the dusk&mdash;grinning
+like a skull; but the girl's back was
+still turned and she merely found something
+in his voice not quite agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," she said in a low, quiet voice,
+"that I have now heard sufficient about the
+Death's Head moth."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;have I offended mademoiselle? I ask
+a thousand pardons&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Old Courtray awoke in the dusk.</p>
+
+<p>"My quill, Maryette," he muttered, "&mdash;see if
+it floats yet?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl bent over the water and strained
+her eyes. Her father tested the line with shaky
+hands. There was no fish on the hook.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Voyons!</hi> The <hi rend='italic'>asticot</hi> also is gone. Some<pb n='275'/><anchor id='Pg275'/>
+robber fish has been nibbling!" exclaimed the
+girl cheerfully, reeling in the line. "Father,
+one cannot fish and doze at the same time."</p>
+
+<p>"Eternal vigilance is the price of success&mdash;in
+peace as well as in war," said Karl, the student,
+as he aided Maryette to raise her father
+from the chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Vigilance," repeated the girl. "Yes, always
+now in France. Because always the
+enemy is listening." ... Her strong young
+arm around her father, she traversed the garden
+slowly toward the house. A pleasant
+odour came from the kitchen of the White Doe,
+where an old peasant woman was cooking.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='276'/><anchor id='Pg276'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XXII. THE SUSPECT'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XXII. THE SUSPECT'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XXII<lb/><lb/>
+THE SUSPECT</head>
+
+<p>That night she wrote to her lover at the
+great hospital in the south, where he lay slowly
+growing well:</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p><hi rend='smallcaps'>My Djack:</hi></p>
+
+<p>Today has been very beautiful, made so for me by my thoughts of you
+and by a warm September sun which makes for human happiness, too.</p>
+
+<p>I am wearing my ribbon of the Legion. Ah, my Djack, it belongs more
+rightly to you, who would not let me go alone to Nivelle that
+dreadful day. Why do they not give you the cross? They must be very
+stupid in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>All day my happy thoughts have been with you, my Djack. It all seems
+a blessed dream that we love each other. And I&mdash;oh, how could I have
+been so ignorant, so silly, not to know it sooner than I did!</p>
+
+<p>I don't know; I thought it was friendship. And that was so wonderful
+to me that I never dreamed any other miracle possible!</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='italic'>Allons</hi>, my Djack. Come and instruct me quickly, <pb n='277'/><anchor id='Pg277'/>because my desire
+for further knowledge is very ardent.</p>
+
+<p>The news? <hi rend='italic'>Cher ami</hi>, there is little. Always the far thunder beyond
+Nivelle in ruins; sometimes a battle-plane high in the blue; a
+convoy of your beloved mules arriving from the coast; nothing more
+exciting.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Smeet and Monsieur Glenn inquire always concerning you.
+They are brave and kind; their odd jests amuse me.</p>
+
+<p>My father caught a tench in the Lesse this morning.</p>
+
+<p>My gardener, Karl, collected many unpleasant creatures while hoeing
+our potatoes. Poor lad, he seems unhealthy. I am glad I could offer
+him employment.</p>
+
+<p>My Djack, there could not possibly be any mistake about him, could
+there? His papers are en r&egrave;gle. He is what he pretends, a Belgian
+student from Ypres in distress and ill health, is he not?</p>
+
+<p>But how can you answer me, you who lie there all alone in a hospital
+at Nice? Also, I am ashamed of myself for doubting the unfortunate
+young man. I am too happy to doubt anybody, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>And so good night, my Djack. Sleep sweetly, guarded by powerful
+angels.</p>
+
+<lg rend='right'>
+<l>Thy devoted,</l>
+<l><hi rend='smallcaps'>Maryette.</hi></l>
+</lg>
+</quote>
+  
+<p>She had been writing in the deserted caf&eacute;.
+Now she took a candle and went slowly up<pb n='278'/><anchor id='Pg278'/>stairs.
+On the white plaster wall of her bedroom
+was a Death's Head moth.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, startled for an instant, stood still;
+an unfeigned shiver of displeasure passed over
+her. Not that the Death's Head was an unfamiliar
+or terrifying sight to her; in late
+summer she usually saw one or two which had
+flown through some lighted window.</p>
+
+<p>But it was the amorous history of this creature
+which the student Karl had related that
+now repelled her. This night creature with
+the skull on its neck, once scarcely noticed, had
+now become a trifle repulsive.</p>
+
+<p>She went nearer, lifting the lighted candle.
+The thing crouched there with slanted wings.
+It was newly hatched, its sleek body still wet
+with the humors of incubation&mdash;wet as a
+soaked mouse. Its abdomen, too, seemed enormous,
+all swelled and distended with unfertilized
+eggs. No, there could be no question concerning
+the sex of the thing; this was a female,
+and her tumefied body was almost bursting
+with eggs.</p>
+
+<p>In startling design the yellow skull stood
+out; the ribs of the skeleton. Two tiny, fiery<pb n='279'/><anchor id='Pg279'/>
+eyes glimmered at the base of the antenn&aelig;&mdash;two
+minute jewelled sparks of glowing, lambent
+fire. They seemed to be watching her, maliciously
+askance.</p>
+
+<p>The very horrid part of it was that, if
+touched, the creature would cry out. The girl
+knew this, hesitated, looked at the open window
+through which it must have crawled, and sat
+down on her bed to consider the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," she said to herself resolutely.
+"God made it. It is harmless. If God thought
+fit to paint one of his lesser creatures like a
+skeleton, perhaps it was to remind us that
+life is brief and that we should lose no time
+to live it nobly in His sight.... I think that
+perhaps explains it."</p>
+
+<p>However, she did not undress.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite foolish to be afraid of this
+poor moth. I repeat that I am foolish. <hi rend='italic'>Allez</hi>&mdash;I
+am <hi rend='italic'>not</hi> afraid. I am no longer afraid. I&mdash;I
+admire this handiwork of God."</p>
+
+<p>She sat looking at the creature, her hands
+lying clasped in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a very odd thing," she said to herself,
+"that a lover can find this creature even if he<pb n='280'/><anchor id='Pg280'/>
+be miles and miles away.... Maybe he's on
+his way now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively she sprang up and closed her
+bedroom window.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, looking severely at the
+motionless moth, "you shall have no visitors in
+my room. You may remain here; I shall not
+disturb you; and tomorrow you will go away
+of your own accord. But I cannot permit you
+to receive company&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A heavy fall on the floor above checked her.
+Breathless, listening, she crept to her door.</p>
+
+<p>"Karl!" she called.</p>
+
+<p>Listening again, she could hear distant and
+vaguely dreadful sounds from the gardener-student's
+room above.</p>
+
+<p>She was frightened but she went up. The
+youth had had a bad hemorrhage. She sat
+beside him late into the night. After his
+breathing grew quieter, sitting there in silence
+she could hear odd sounds, rustling, squeaking
+sounds from the box of Death's Head chrysalids
+on the night table beside his bed.</p>
+
+<p>The pup&aelig; of the Death's Head were making
+merry in anticipation of the rapidly approach<pb n='281'/><anchor id='Pg281'/>ing
+change&mdash;the Great Adventure of their lives&mdash;the
+coming metamorphosis.</p>
+
+<p>The youth lay asleep now. As she
+extinguished the candle and stole from the room, all
+the pup&aelig; of the Death's Head began to squeak
+in the darkness.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>The student-gardener could do no more
+work for the present. He lay propped up in
+bed, pasty, scarlet lipped, and he seemed bald
+and lidless, so colourless were hair and eye-lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I do anything for you, Karl?" asked
+Maryette, coming in for a moment as usual in
+the intervals of her many duties.</p>
+
+<p>"The ink, if you would be so condescending&mdash;and
+a pen," he said, watching her out of
+hollow, sallow eyes of watery blue.</p>
+
+<p>She fetched both from the caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>She came again in another hour, knocking
+at his door, but he said rather sharply that
+he wished to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely noticing the querulous tone, she
+departed. She had much to do besides her
+duties in the belfry. Her father was an invalid<pb n='282'/><anchor id='Pg282'/>
+who required constant care; there was only
+one servant, an old peasant woman who cooked.
+The Government required her father to keep
+open the White Doe Tavern, and there was
+always a little business from the scanty
+garrison of Sainte Lesse, always a few meals to get,
+a few drinks to serve, and nobody now to do
+it except herself.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the belfry she had duties other than
+playing, than practice. Always at night the
+clock-drum was to be wound.</p>
+
+<p>She had no assistant. The town maintained
+none, and her salary as Mistress of the Bells
+of Sainte Lesse did not permit her to engage
+anybody to help her.</p>
+
+<p>So she oiled and wound all the machinery
+herself, adjusted and cared for the clock, swept
+the keyboard clean, inspected and looked after
+the wires leading to the tiers of bells overhead.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was work to do in the garden&mdash;a
+few minutes snatched between other duties.
+And when night arrived at last she was rather
+tired&mdash;quite weary on this night in particular,<pb n='283'/><anchor id='Pg283'/>
+having managed to fulfill all the duties of the
+sick youth as well as her own.</p>
+
+<p>The night was warm and fragrant. She
+sat in the dark at her open window for a while,
+looking out into the north where, along the
+horizon, heat lightning seemed to play. But
+it was only the reflected flashes of the guns.
+When the wind was right, she could hear
+them.</p>
+
+<p>She had even managed to write to her lover.
+Now, seated beside the open window, she was
+thinking of him. A dreamy, happy lethargy
+possessed her; she was on the first delicate
+verge of slumber, so close to it that all earthly
+sounds were dying out in her ears. Then, suddenly,
+she was awake, listening.</p>
+
+<p>A window had been opened in the room
+overhead.</p>
+
+<p>She went to the stars and called:</p>
+
+<p>"Karl!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" came the impatient reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. N-no, I thank you&mdash;" His voice became
+urbane with an apparent effort. "Thank
+you for inquiring&mdash;&mdash;"<pb n='284'/><anchor id='Pg284'/></p>
+
+<p>"I heard your window open&mdash;" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I am quite well. The air is
+mild and grateful.... I thank mademoiselle
+for her solicitude."</p>
+
+<p>She returned to her room and lighted her
+candle. On the white plaster wall sat the
+Death's Head moth.</p>
+
+<p>She had not been in her room all day. She
+was astonished that the moth had not left.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I have to put you out?" she thought
+dubiously. "Really, I can not keep my window
+closed for fear of visitors for you, Madam
+Death! I certainly shall be obliged to put you
+out."</p>
+
+<p>So she found a sheet of paper and a large
+glass tumbler. Over the moth she placed the
+tumbler, then slipped the sheet of paper under
+the glass between moth and wall.</p>
+
+<p>The thing cried and cried, beating at the
+glass with wings as powerful as a bird's, and
+the girl, startled and slightly repelled, placed
+the moth on her night table, imprisoned under
+the tumbler.</p>
+
+<p>For a while it fluttered and flapped and
+cried out in its strange, uncanny way, then<pb n='285'/><anchor id='Pg285'/>
+settled on the sheet of paper, quivering its
+wings, both eyes like living coals.</p>
+
+<p>Seated on the bedside, Maryette looked at it,
+schooling herself to think of it kindly as one
+of God's creatures before she released it at
+her open window.</p>
+
+<p>And, as she sat there, something came whizzing
+into the room through her window, circled
+around her at terrific speed with a humming,
+whispering whirr, then dropped with a
+solid thud on the night table beside the imprisoned
+female moth.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first suitor arrived from outer
+darkness&mdash;a big, powerful Death's Head moth
+with eyes aglow, the yellow skull displayed in
+startling contrast on his velvet-black body.</p>
+
+<p>The girl watched him, fascinated. He scrambled
+over to the tumbler, tested it with heavy
+antenn&aelig;; then, ardent and impatient, beat
+against the glass with muscular wings that
+clattered in the silence.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not the amorous fury of the
+creature striking the tumbler with resounding
+wings, not the glowing eyes, the strong, clawed
+feet, the Death's Head staring from its fune<pb n='286'/><anchor id='Pg286'/>real
+black thorax that held the girl's attention.
+It was something else; something entirely different
+riveted her eyes on the creature.</p>
+
+<p>For the cigar-shaped body, instead of bearing
+the naked ribs of a skeleton, was snow
+white.</p>
+
+<p>And now she began to understand. Somebody
+had already caught the moth, had
+wrapped around its body a cylinder of white
+tissue paper&mdash;tied it on with a fine, white
+silk thread.</p>
+
+<p>The moth was very still now, exploring the
+interstices between tumbler and table with
+heavy, pectinated antenn&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>Cautiously Maryette bent forward and
+dropped both hands on the moth.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the creature cried out horribly; it
+was like a mouse between her shrinking fingers;
+but she slipped the cylinder of tissue
+paper from its abdomen and released it with
+a shiver; and it darted and whizzed around the
+room, gyrating in whistling circles around her
+head until, unnerved, she struck at it again
+and again with empty hands, following, driv<pb n='287'/><anchor id='Pg287'/>ing
+it toward the open window, out of which
+it suddenly darted.</p>
+
+<p>But now there was another Death's Head in
+the room, a burly, headlong, infatuated male
+which drove headlong at the tumbler and clung
+to it, slipping, sliding, filling the room with
+a feathery tattoo of wings.</p>
+
+<p>It, also, had a snow-white body; and before
+she had seized the squeaking thing and had
+slipped the tissue wrapper from its body, another
+Death's Head whirred through the window;
+then another, then two; then others. The
+room swarmed; they were crawling all over
+the tumbler, the table, the bed. The room
+was filled with the soft, velvety roar of whirring
+wings beating on wall and ceiling and
+against the tumbler where Madam Death sat
+imprisoned, quivering her wings, her eyes two
+molten rubies, and the ghastly skull staring
+from her back.</p>
+
+<p>How Maryette ever brought herself to do it;
+how she did it at last, she had no very clear
+idea. The touch of the slippery, mousy bodies
+was fearsomely repugnant to her; the very
+sight of the great, skull-bearing things began<pb n='288'/><anchor id='Pg288'/>
+to sicken her physically. A dreadful, almost
+impalpable floss from their handled wings and
+bodies smeared her hands; the place vibrated
+with their tiny goblin cries.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow she managed to strip them of the
+tissue cylinders, drive them from where they
+crawled on ceiling, wall and sill into whistling
+flight. Amid a whirlwind of wings she fought
+them toward the open window; whizzing, flitting,
+circling they sped in widening spirals to
+escape her blows, where she stood half blinded
+in the vortex of the ghostly maelstrom.</p>
+
+<p>One by one they darted through the open
+window out into the night; and when the last
+spectral streak of grey had sped into outer
+darkness the girl slammed the windowpanes
+shut and leaned against the sill enervated, exhausted,
+revolted.</p>
+
+<p>The room was misty with the microscopic
+dust from the creatures' wings; on her palms
+and fingers were black stains and stains of
+livid orange; and across wall and ceiling
+streaks and smudges of rusty colour.</p>
+
+<p>She was still trembling when she washed the
+smears from her hands. Her fingers were<pb n='289'/><anchor id='Pg289'/>
+still unsteady as she smoothed out each tiny
+sheet of tissue paper and laid it on her night
+table. Then, seated on the bed's edge beside
+the lighted candle, she began to read the messages
+written in ink on these frail, translucent
+tissue missives.</p>
+
+<p>Every bit of tissue bore a message; the writing
+was microscopic, the script German, the
+language Flemish. Slowly, with infinite pains,
+the little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse translated
+to herself each message as she deciphered
+it.</p>
+
+<p>She was trembling more than ever when she
+finished. Every trace of colour had fled from
+her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as she sat there, struggling to keep
+her mind clear of the horror of the thing,
+striving to understand what was to be done,
+there came upon her window pane a sudden
+muffled drumming sound, and her frightened
+gaze fell upon a Death's Head moth outside,
+its eyes like coals, its misty wings beating
+furiously for admittance. And around its body
+was tied a cylinder of white tissue.</p>
+
+<p>But the girl needed no more evidence. The<pb n='290'/><anchor id='Pg290'/>
+wretched youth in the room overhead had already
+sealed his own doom with any one of
+these tissue cylinders. Better for him if the
+hemorrhage had slain him. Now a firing squad
+must do that much for him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, even still, the girl hesitated, almost
+incredulous, trying to comprehend the monstrous
+grotesquerie of the abominable plot.</p>
+
+<p>Intuition pointed to the truth; logic proved
+it; somewhere in the German trenches a comrade
+of this spy was awaiting these messages
+with a caged Death's Head female as the bait&mdash;a
+living loadstone wearing the terrific emblems
+of death&mdash;an unfailing magnet to draw
+the skull-bearing messengers for miles&mdash;had it
+not been that a <hi rend='italic'>nearer magnet deflected them
+in their flight!</hi></p>
+
+<p>That was it! That was what the miserable
+youth upstairs had not counted on. Chance
+had ruined him; destiny had sent Madam Death
+into the room below him to draw, with her
+macabre charms, every ardent winged messenger
+which he liberated from his bedroom
+window.</p>
+
+<p>The subtle effluvia permeating the night air<pb n='291'/><anchor id='Pg291'/>
+for miles around might have guided these messengers
+into the German trenches had not a
+nearer and more imperious perfume annihilated
+it. Headlong, amorous, impatient they
+had whirled toward the embraces of Madam
+Death; the nearer and more powerful perfume
+had drawn the half-maddened, half-drugged
+messengers. The spy in the room upstairs,
+like many Germans, had reasoned wrongly on
+sound premises. His logic had broken down,
+not his amazing scientific foundation. His
+theory was correct; his application stupid.</p>
+
+<p>And now this young man was about to die.
+Maryette understood that. She comprehended
+that his death was necessary; that it was the
+unavoidable sequence of what he had attempted
+to do. Trapped rats must be drowned;
+vermin exterminated by easiest and quickest
+methods; spies who betray one's native land
+pass naturally the same route.</p>
+
+<p>But this thing, this grotesque, incredible, terrible
+attempt to engraft treachery on one of
+nature's most amazing laws&mdash;this secret, cunning
+Teutonic reasoning, this scientific scoundrelism,
+this criminal enterprise based on pa<pb n='292'/><anchor id='Pg292'/>tient,
+plodding and German efficiency, still bewildered
+the girl.</p>
+
+<p>And yet she vaguely realized how science had
+been already prostituted to Prussian malignancy
+and fury; she had heard of flame jets,
+of tear-bombs, of bombs containing deadly
+germs; she herself had beheld the poison gas
+rolling back into the trenches at Nivelle under
+the town tower. Dimly she began to understand
+that the Hun, in his cunning savagery,
+had tricked, betrayed and polluted civilization
+itself into lending him her own secrets with
+which she was ultimately to be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>The very process of human thinking had
+been imitated by these monkeys of Europe&mdash;apes
+with the ferocity of hogs&mdash;and no souls,
+none&mdash;nothing to lift them inside the pale
+where dwells the human race.</p>
+
+<p>There came a rapping on the caf&eacute; door.
+The girl rose wearily; an immense weight
+seemed to crush her shoulders so that her
+knees had become unsteady.</p>
+
+<p>She opened the caf&eacute; door; it was Sticky
+Smith, come for his nightcap before turning
+in.<pb n='293'/><anchor id='Pg293'/></p>
+
+<p>"The man upstairs is a German spy," she
+said listlessly. "Had you not better go over
+and get a gendarme?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who's a spy? That Dutch shrimp you had
+in your garden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he?" demanded the muleteer with
+an oath.</p>
+
+<p>She placed her lighted candle on the bar.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," she said. "Read these first&mdash;we
+must be quite certain about what we do."</p>
+
+<p>She laid the squares of tissue paper out on
+the bar.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you read Flemish?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will translate into French for you.
+And first of all I must tell you how I came to
+possess these little letters written upon tissue.
+Please listen attentively."</p>
+
+<p>He rested his palm on the butt of his dangling
+automatic.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She told him the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>As she commenced to translate the tissue
+paper messages in a low, tremulous voice, the<pb n='294'/><anchor id='Pg294'/>
+sound of a door being closed and locked in
+the room overhead silenced her.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant she had stepped out to the
+stairs and called:</p>
+
+<p>"Karl!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply. Smith came out to the
+stair-well and listened.</p>
+
+<p>"It is his custom," she whispered, "to lock
+his door before retiring. That is what we
+heard."</p>
+
+<p>"Call again."</p>
+
+<p>"He can't hear me. He is in bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Call, all the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Karl!" she cried out in an unsteady voice.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='295'/><anchor id='Pg295'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XXIII. MADAM DEATH'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XXIII. MADAM DEATH'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XXIII<lb/><lb/>
+MADAM DEATH</head>
+
+<p>There was no reply, because the young man
+was hanging out over his window sill in the
+darkness trying to switch away, from her
+closed window below, the big, clattering
+Death's Head moth which obstinately and persistently
+fluttered there.</p>
+
+<p>What possessed the moth to continue battering
+its wings at the window of the room below?
+Had the other moths which he released
+done so, too? They had darted out of his
+room into the night, each garnished with a
+tissue robe. He supposed they had flown
+north; he had not looked out to see.</p>
+
+<p>What had gone wrong with this moth, then?</p>
+
+<p>He took his emaciated blond head between
+his bony fingers and pondered, probing for
+reason with German thoroughness&mdash;that cele<pb n='296'/><anchor id='Pg296'/>brated
+thoroughness which is invariably riddled
+with flaws.</p>
+
+<p>Of all contingencies he had thought&mdash;or so
+it seemed to him. He could not recollect any
+precaution neglected. He had come to Sainte
+Lesse for a clearly defined object and to make
+certain reports concerning matters of interest
+to the German military authorities north of
+Nivelle.</p>
+
+<p>The idea, inspired by the experiments of
+Henri Fabre, was original with him. Patiently,
+during the previous year, he had worked
+it out&mdash;had proved his theory by a series of
+experiments with moths of this species.</p>
+
+<p>He had arranged with his staff comrade,
+Dr. Gl&uuml;ck, for a forced hatching of the pup&aelig;
+which the latter had patiently bred from the
+enormous green and violet-banded caterpillars.</p>
+
+<p>At least one female Death's Head must be
+ready, caged in the trenches beyond Nivelle.
+Hundreds of pup&aelig; could not have died. Where,
+then, was his error&mdash;if, indeed, he had made
+any?</p>
+
+<p>Leaning from the window, he looked down<pb n='297'/><anchor id='Pg297'/>
+at the frantic moth, perplexed, a little uneasy
+now.</p>
+
+<p>"Swine!" he muttered. "What, then, ails you
+that you do not fly to the mistress awaiting
+you over yonder?"</p>
+
+<p>He could see the cylinder of white tissue
+shining on the creature's body, where it fluttered
+against the pane, illuminated by the rays
+of the candle from within the young girl's
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Could it be possible that the candle-light
+was proving the greater attraction?</p>
+
+<p>Even as the possibility entered his mind, he
+saw another Death's Head dart at the window
+below and join the first one. But this newcomer
+wore no tissue jacket.</p>
+
+<p>Then, out of the darkness the Death's Heads
+began to come to the window below, swarms of
+them, startling him with the racket of their
+wings.</p>
+
+<p>From where did they arrive? They could
+not be the moths he liberated. But.... <hi rend='italic'>Were
+they?</hi> Had some accident robbed their bodies
+of the tissue missives? Had they blundered
+into somebody's room and been robbed?<pb n='298'/><anchor id='Pg298'/></p>
+
+<p>Mystified, uneasy, he hung over his window
+sill, staring with sickening eyes at the winged
+tumult below.</p>
+
+<p>With patient, plodding logic he began to
+seek for the solution. What attracted these
+moths to the room below? Was it the candle-light?
+That alone could not be sufficient&mdash;could
+not contend with the more imperious
+attraction, the subtle effluvia stealing out of
+the north and appealing to the ruling passion
+which animated the frantic winged things below
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Patiently, methodically in his mind he probed
+about for some clue to the solution. The ruling
+passion animating the feathery whirlwind
+below was the necessity for mating and perpetuating
+the species.</p>
+
+<p>That was the dominant passion; the lure
+of candle-light a secondary attraction....
+Then, if this were so&mdash;and it had been proven
+to be a fact&mdash;then&mdash;then&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>what</hi> was in that
+young girl's bedroom just below him?</p>
+
+<p>Even as the question flashed in his mind
+he left the window, went to his door, listened,
+noiselessly unlocked it.<pb n='299'/><anchor id='Pg299'/></p>
+
+<p>A low murmur of voices came from the
+caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>He drew off both shoes, descended the stairs
+on the flat pads of his large, bony feet, listening
+all the while.</p>
+
+<p>Candle-light streamed out into the corridor
+from her open bedroom door; and he crept to
+the sill and peered in, searching the place with
+small, pale eyes.</p>
+
+<p>At first he noticed nothing to interest him,
+then, all in an instant, his gaze fell upon
+Madam Death under her prison of glass.</p>
+
+<p>There she sat, her great bulging abdomen
+distended with eggs, her lambent eyes shining
+with the terrible passion of anticipation. For
+one thing only she had been created. That
+accomplished she died. And there she crouched
+awaiting the fulfillment of her life's cycle with
+the blazing eyes of a demon.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>From the caf&eacute; below came the cautious murmur
+of voices. The young man already knew
+what they were whispering about; or, if he
+did not know he no longer cared.</p>
+
+<p>The patches of bright colour in his sunken<pb n='300'/><anchor id='Pg300'/>
+cheeks had died out in an ashen pallor. As
+far as he was concerned the world was now
+ended. And he knew it.</p>
+
+<p>He went into the bedroom and sat down
+on the bed's edge. His little, pale eyes wandered
+about the white room; the murmur of
+voices below was audible all the while.</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments' patient waiting, his
+gaze rested again on Madam Death, squatting
+there with wings sloped, and the skull and
+bones staring at him from her head and distended
+abdomen.</p>
+
+<p>After all there was an odd resemblance between
+himself and Madam Death. He had
+been born to fulfill one function, it appeared.
+So had she. And now, in his case as in hers,
+death was immediately to follow. This was
+sentiment, not science&mdash;the blind lobe of the
+German brain balancing grotesquely the reasoning
+lobe.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>The voices below had ceased. Presently he
+heard a cautious step on the stair.</p>
+
+<p>He had a little pill-box in his pocket. Methodically,
+without haste, he drew it out, chose<pb n='301'/><anchor id='Pg301'/>
+one white pellet, and, holding it between his
+bony thumb and forefinger, listened.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, somebody was coming up the stairs,
+very careful to make no sound.</p>
+
+<p>Well&mdash;there were various ways for a Death's
+Head Hussar to die for his War Lord. All
+were equally laudable. God&mdash;the God of Germany&mdash;the
+celestial friend and comrade of his
+War Lord&mdash;would presently correct him if he
+was transgressing military discipline or the etiquette
+of Kultur. As for the levelled rifles of
+the execution squad, he preferred another way....
+<hi rend='italic'>This</hi> way!...</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were already glazing when the
+burly form of Sticky Smith filled the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>He looked down at Madam Death under the
+tumbler beside him, then lifted his head and
+gazed at Smith with blinded eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Swine!" he said complacently, swaying
+gently forward and striking the floor with his
+face.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='302'/><anchor id='Pg302'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XXIV. BUBBLES'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XXIV. BUBBLES'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XXIV<lb/><lb/>
+BUBBLES</head>
+
+<p>An east wind was very likely to bring gas
+to the trenches north of the Sainte Lesse salient.
+A north wind, according to season,
+brought snow or rain or fog upon British,
+French, Belgian and Boche alike. Winds of
+the south carried distant exhalations from
+orchards and green fields into the pitted waste
+of ashes where that monstrous desolation
+stretched away beneath a thundering iron rain
+which beat all day, all night upon the dead
+flesh of the world.</p>
+
+<p>But the west wind was the vital wind, flowing
+melodiously through the trees&mdash;a clean,
+aromatic, refreshing wind, filling the sickened
+world with life again.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, too, it brought the pleasant
+music of the bells into far-away trenches, when<pb n='303'/><anchor id='Pg303'/>
+the little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse played
+the carillon. And when her friend, the great
+bell, Bayard, spoke through the resounding sky
+of France to a million men-at-arms in blue
+and steel, who were steadily forging hell's
+manacles for the uncaged Hun, the loyal western
+wind carried far beyond the trenches an
+ominous iron vibration that meant doom for
+the Beast.</p>
+
+<p>And the Beast heard, leering skyward out
+of pale pig-eyes, but did not comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>At the base corral down in the meadow,
+mules had been scarce recently, because a
+transport had been torpedoed. But the next
+transport from New Orleans escaped; the
+dusty column had arrived at Sainte Lesse from
+the Channel port, convoyed by American muleteers,
+as usual; new mules, new negroes, new
+Yankee faces invaded the town once more.</p>
+
+<p>However, it signified little to the youthful
+mistress-of-the-bells, Maryette Courtray,
+called "Carillonnette," for her Yankee lover
+still lay in his distant hospital&mdash;her muleteer,
+"Djack." So mules might bray, and negroes
+fill the Sainte Lesse meadows with their shout<pb n='304'/><anchor id='Pg304'/>ing
+laughter; and the lank, hawk-nosed Yankee
+muleteers might saunter clanking into the
+White Doe in search of meat or drink or
+tobacco, or a glimpse of the pretty bell-mistress,
+for all it meant to her.</p>
+
+<p>Her Djack lived; that was what occupied
+her mind; other men were merely men&mdash;even
+his comrades, Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn,
+assumed individuality to distinguish them
+from other men only because they were Djack's
+friends. And as for all other muleteers, they
+seemed to her as alike as Chinamen, leaving
+upon her young mind a general impression
+of long, thin legs and necks and the keen
+eyes of hunting falcons.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>She had washing to do that morning. Very
+early she climbed up into the ancient belfry,
+wound the drum so that the bells would play
+a few bars at the quarters and before each
+hour struck; and also in order that the carillon
+might ring mechanically at noon in case she
+had not returned to take her place at the keyboard
+with her wooden gloves.</p>
+
+<p>There was a light west wind rippling through<pb n='305'/><anchor id='Pg305'/>
+the tree tops; and everywhere sunshine lay
+brilliant on pasture and meadow under the
+purest of cobalt skies.</p>
+
+<p>In the garden her crippled father, swathed
+in shawls, dozed in his deep chair beside the
+river-wall, waking now and then to watch the
+quill on his long bamboo fish-pole, stemming
+the sparkling current of the little river Lesse.</p>
+
+<p>Sticky Smith, off duty and having filled himself
+to repletion with caf&eacute;-au-lait at the inn,
+volunteered to act as nurse, attendant, remover
+of fish and baiter of hook, while Maryette
+was absent at the stone-rimmed pool where
+the washing of all Sainte Lesse laundry had
+been accomplished for hundreds of years.</p>
+
+<p>"You promise not to go away?" she cautioned
+him in the simple, first-aid French she
+employed in speaking to him, and pausing with
+both arms raised to balance the loaded clothes-basket
+on her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Wee&mdash;wee!" he assured her with dignity.
+"Je fume mong peep! Je regard le vieux
+p&ecirc;cher. Voo poovay allay, Mademoiselle
+Maryette."<pb n='306'/><anchor id='Pg306'/></p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, then removed the basket from
+her head and set it on the grass.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind, Monsieur Steek-Smeet.
+I shall wash your underwear the very first
+garments I take out of my basket. Thank
+you a thousand times." She bent over with
+sweet solicitude and pressed her lips to her
+father's withered cheek:</p>
+
+<p>"Au revoir, my father <hi rend='italic'>ch&eacute;ri</hi>. An hour or
+two at the meadow-<hi rend='italic'>lavoir</hi> and I shall return
+to find thee. <hi rend='italic'>Bonne chance, mon p&egrave;re!</hi> Thou
+shalt surely catch a large and beautiful fish
+for luncheon before I return with my wash."</p>
+
+<p>She swung the basket of wash to her head
+again without effort, and went her way, following
+the deeply trodden sheep-path behind
+the White Doe Inn.</p>
+
+<p>The path wound down through a sloping pasture,
+across a footbridge spanning an arm of
+the Lesse which washed the base of the garden
+wall, then ascended a gentle aclivity among
+hazel thicket and tall sycamores, becoming for
+a little distance a shaded wood-path where
+thrushes sang ceaselessly in the sun-flecked
+undergrowth.<pb n='307'/><anchor id='Pg307'/></p>
+
+<p>But at the eastern edge of the copse the little
+hill fell away into an open, sunny meadow,
+fragrant with wild-flowers and clover, through
+which a rivulet ran deep and cold between
+grassy banks.</p>
+
+<p>It supplied the drinking water of Sainte
+Lesse; and a branch of it poured bubbling into
+the stone-rimmed <hi rend='italic'>lavoir</hi> where generations of
+Sainte Lesse maids had scrubbed the linen of
+the community, kneeling there amid wild flowers
+and fluttering butterflies in the shade of
+three tall elms.</p>
+
+<p>There was nobody at the pool; Maryette
+saw that as she came out of the hazel copse
+through the meadow. And very soon she was
+on her knees at the clear pool's edge, bare of
+arm and throat and bosom, her blue wool
+skirts trussed up, and elbow deep in snowy
+suds.</p>
+
+<p>Overhead the sky was a quivering, royal
+blue; the earth shimmered in its bath of sunshine;
+the west wind blowing carried away
+eastward the reverberations of the distant
+cannonade, so that not even the vibration of
+the concussions disturbed Sainte Lesse.<pb n='308'/><anchor id='Pg308'/></p>
+
+<p>A bullfinch was piping lustily in a young
+tree as she began her task; a blackbird answered
+from somewhere among the hawthorns
+with a bewildering series of complicated trills.</p>
+
+<p>As the little mistress-of-the-bells scrubbed
+and beat the clothes with her paddle, and
+rinsed and wrung them and soaped them
+afresh, she sang softly under her breath, to
+an ancient air of her <hi rend='italic'>pays</hi>, words that she
+improvised to fit it&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>vrai chanson de laveuse</hi>:</p>
+
+<lg rend='stanza'>
+<l>"A blackbird whistles</l>
+<l rend='i20'>I love!</l>
+<l>Over the thistles</l>
+<l>Butterflies hover,</l>
+<l>Each with her lover</l>
+<l rend='i20'>In love.</l>
+<l>Blue Demoiselles that glisten,</l>
+<l rend='i20'>Listen, I love!</l>
+<l>Wind of the west, oh, listen,</l>
+<l rend='i20'>I am in love!</l>
+<l>Sing my song, ye little gold bees!</l>
+<l>Opal bubbles around my knees</l>
+<l>All afloat in the soap-sud broth,</l>
+<l>Whisper it low to the snowy froth;</l>
+<l>And Thou who rulest the skies above,</l>
+<l>Mary, adored&mdash;I love&mdash;I love!"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>Slap-slap! went her paddle; the sud-spume
+flew like shreds of cotton; iridescent foam set<pb n='309'/><anchor id='Pg309'/>
+with bubbles swirled in the stone-edged basin,
+constantly swept away down stream by the
+current, constantly renewed as she soaped and
+scrubbed, kneeling there in the meadow grass
+above the pool.</p>
+
+<p>The blackbird came quite near to watch her;
+the bullfinch, attracted by her childish voice
+as she sang the song she was making, whistled
+bold response, silent only when the echoing
+slap of the paddle startled him where he sat
+on the trembling tip of an aspen.</p>
+
+<p>Blue dragon flies drifted on glimmering
+wings; she put them into her song; the meadow
+was gay with butterflies' painted wings; she
+sang about them, too. Cloud and azure sky,
+tree tops and clover, the tiny rivulet dancing
+through deep grasses, the wind furrowing the
+fields, all these she put into her <hi rend='italic'>chansonnette
+de laveuse</hi>. And always in the clear glass of
+the stream she seemed to see the smiling face
+of her friend, Djack&mdash;her lover who had
+opened her eyes of a child to all things beautiful
+in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice, from very far away, she
+fancied she heard the distant singing of the<pb n='310'/><anchor id='Pg310'/>
+negro muleteers sunning themselves down by
+the corral. She heard, at quarter-hour intervals,
+her bells melodiously recording time as it
+sped by; then there were intervals of that
+sweet stillness which is but a composite harmony
+of summer&mdash;the murmur of insects, the
+whisper of leaves and water, capricious seconds
+of intense silence, then the hushed voice
+of life exquisitely audible again.</p>
+
+<p>War, wickedness, the rage and cruelty of the
+Beast&mdash;all the vile and filthy ferocity of the
+ferocious Swine of the North became to her as
+unreal as a tragic legend half-forgotten. And
+death seemed very far away.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>Her washing was done; the wet clothing
+piled in her basket. Perspiration powdered
+her forehead and delicate little nose.</p>
+
+<p>Hot, flushed, breathing deeply and irregularly
+from her efforts under a vertical sun,
+she stood erect, loosening the blouse over her
+bosom to the breeze and pushing back the clustering
+masses of hair above her brow.</p>
+
+<p>The water laughed up at her, invitingly; the
+last floating castle of white foam swept past<pb n='311'/><anchor id='Pg311'/>
+her feet down stream. On the impulse of the
+moment she unlaced her blue wool skirt,
+dropped it around her feet, stepped from it;
+unbuckled both garters, stripped slippers and
+stockings from her feet, and waded out into
+the pool.</p>
+
+<p>The fresh, delicious coolness of the water
+thrilled and encouraged her to further adventure;
+she twisted up her splendid hair, bound
+it with her blue kerchief, flung blouse and
+chemisette from her, and gave herself to the
+sparkling stream with a sigh of ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>Alders swept the eastern edges of the current
+where the rivulet widened beyond the
+basin and ran south along the meadow's edge
+to the Wood of Sainte Lesse&mdash;a cool, unruffled
+flow, breast deep, floored with sand as soft as
+silver velvet.</p>
+
+<p>She waded, floated, swam a little, or, erect,
+roamed leisurely along the alder fringe, exploring
+the dim green haunts of frog and
+water-hen, stoat and b&eacute;cassine&mdash;a slim, wet
+dryad, gliding silently through sun and dappled
+shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Where the stream comes to Sainte Lesse<pb n='312'/><anchor id='Pg312'/>
+Wood, there is a hill set thick with hazel and
+clumps of fern, haunted by one roe-deer and
+numerous rabbits and pheasants.</p>
+
+<p>She was close to its base, now, gliding
+through the shade like some lithe creature
+of the forest; making no sound save where the
+current curled around her supple body in
+twisted necklaces of liquid light.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as she stood, peering cautiously
+through tangled branches for a glimpse of the
+little roe-deer, she heard a curious sound up
+on the hill&mdash;an inexplicable sound like metal
+striking stone.</p>
+
+<p>She stood as though frozen; clink, clink came
+the distant sound. Then all was still. But
+presently she saw a scared cock-pheasant,
+crouching low with flattened neck outstretched,
+run like a huge rat through the hazel growth,
+out across the meadow.</p>
+
+<p>She remained motionless, scarcely daring to
+draw her breath. Somebody had passed over
+the hill&mdash;if, indeed, he or she had actually continued
+on their mysterious way. Had they?
+But finally the intense quiet reassured her, and
+she concluded that whoever had made that<pb n='313'/><anchor id='Pg313'/>
+metallic sound had continued on toward Sainte
+Lesse Wood.</p>
+
+<p>She had taken with her a cake of soap.
+Now, here in the green shade, she made her
+ablutions, soaping herself from head to foot,
+turning her head leisurely from time to time
+to survey her leafy environment, or watch the
+flight of some tiny woodland bird, or study
+with pretty and speculative eyes the soap-suds
+swirling in a dimpled whirlpool around her
+thighs.</p>
+
+<p>The bubbles fascinated her; she played with
+them, capriciously, touching one here, one
+there, with tentative finger to see them explode
+in a tiny rainbow shower.</p>
+
+<p>Finally she chose a hollow stem from among
+a cluster of scented rushes, cleared it with a
+vigorous breath, soaped one end, and, touching
+it to the water, blew from it a prodigious
+bubble, all swimming with gold and purple
+hues.</p>
+
+<p>Into the air she tossed it, from the end of
+the hollow reed; the breeze caught it and
+wafted it upward until it burst.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='italic'>Then a strange thing happened!</hi> Before her<pb n='314'/><anchor id='Pg314'/>
+upturned eyes another bubble slowly arose
+from a clump of aspens out of the hazel thickets
+on the hill&mdash;a big, pearl-tinted, translucent
+bubble, as large as a melon. Upward it floated,
+slowly ascending to the tree-tops. There the
+wind caught it, drove it east, but it still
+mounted skyward, higher, higher, sailing always
+eastward, until it dwindled to the size
+of a thistledown and faded away in mid-air.</p>
+
+<p>Astounded, the little mistress-of-the-bells
+stood motionless, waist deep in the stream, lips
+parted, eyes straining to pierce the dazzling
+ether above.</p>
+
+<p>And then, before her incredulous gaze, another
+pearl-tinted, translucent bubble slowly
+floated upward from the thicket near the aspens,
+mounted until the breeze struck it, then
+soared away skyward and melted like a snowflake
+into the east.</p>
+
+<p>Moving as stealthily as some sinuous creature
+of the water-weeds, the girl stole forward,
+threading her way among the rushes, gliding,
+twisting around tussock and alder, creeping
+along fern-set banks, her eyes ever focused on<pb n='315'/><anchor id='Pg315'/>
+the clump of aspens quivering against the sky
+above the hazel.</p>
+
+<p>She could see nobody, hear not a sound from
+the thicket on the little hill. But another bubble
+rose above the aspens as she looked.</p>
+
+<p>Naked, she dared not advance into the woods&mdash;scarcely
+dared linger where she was, yet
+found enough courage to creep out on a carpet
+of moss and lie flat under a young fir,
+listening and watching.</p>
+
+<p>No more bubbles rose above the aspens;
+there was not a sound, not a movement in the
+hazel.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour or more she lay there; then,
+with infinite caution, she slipped back into the
+stream, waded across, crept into the meadow,
+and sped like a scared fawn along the bank
+until she stood panting by the stone-rimmed
+pool again.</p>
+
+<p>Sun and wind had dried her skin; she
+dressed rapidly, swung her basket to her head,
+and started swiftly for Sainte Lesse.</p>
+
+<p>Before she came in sight of the White Doe
+Tavern, she could hear the negro muleteers
+singing down by the corral.<pb n='316'/><anchor id='Pg316'/>
+Sticky Smith still squatted in the garden
+by the river-wall, smoking his pipe. Her father
+lay asleep in his chair, his wrinkled hands
+still clasping the fishing pole, the warm breeze
+blowing his white hair at the temples.</p>
+
+<p>She disposed of the wash; then she and
+Sticky Smith gently aroused the crippled bell-master
+and aided him into the house.</p>
+
+<p>The old peasant woman who cooked for the
+inn had soup ready. The noonday meal in
+Sainte Lesse had become an extremely simple
+affair.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Steek," said the girl carelessly,
+"did you ever, as a child, fly toy balloons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, Maryette. A old Eyetalian wop used
+to come 'round town selling them. He had a
+stick with about a hundred little balloons tied
+to it&mdash;red, blue, green, yellow&mdash;all kinds and
+colours. Whenever I had the price I bought
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"Did it fly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The gas in it wasn't much good unless
+you got a fresh one."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it fly high?"<pb n='317'/><anchor id='Pg317'/></p>
+
+<p>"Sure. Sky-high. I've seen 'em go clean out
+of sight when you got a fresh one."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody uses them here, do they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here? No, it wouldn't be allowed. A spy
+could send a message by one of those toy balloons."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," nodded Maryette thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Smith shook his head:</p>
+
+<p>"No, children wouldn't be permitted to play
+with them things now, Maryette."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there are not any toy balloons to be
+had here in Sainte Lesse?"</p>
+
+<p>"I rather guess not! Farther north there
+are."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"The artillery uses them."</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. The balloon and flying service
+use 'em, too. I've seen officers send them
+up. Probably it is to find out about upper air
+currents."</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Our</hi> flying service?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Ballons d'essai</hi>," she nodded carelessly.<pb n='318'/><anchor id='Pg318'/>
+But she was not yet entirely convinced regarding
+the theory she was pondering.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch she continued to be very busy
+in the laundry for a time, but the memory of
+those three little balloons above the aspens
+troubled her.</p>
+
+<p>Smith had gone on duty at the corral; Kid
+Glenn sauntered clanking into the bar and was
+there regaled with a <hi rend='italic'>bock</hi> and a <hi rend='italic'>tranche</hi>.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Keed," said Maryette, "are any
+of our airmen in Sainte Lesse today?"</p>
+
+<p>Glenn drained his glass and smacked his
+lips:</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No balloonists, either?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't guess so, Maryette. We've got the
+Boche flyers scared stiff. They don't come over
+our first lines anymore, and our own people
+are out yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Keed," she said, winningly sweet, "do you,
+in fact, love me a little&mdash;for Djack's sake?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm."</p>
+
+<p>"I borrow of you that automatic pistol.
+Yes?" She smiled at him engagingly.<pb n='319'/><anchor id='Pg319'/></p>
+
+<p>"Sure. Anything you want! What's the
+trouble, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her pretty shoulders:</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. It just came into my cowardly
+head that the path to the <hi rend='italic'>lavoir</hi> is lonely at
+sundown. And there are new muleteers in
+Sainte Lesse. And I must wash my clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon," he said gravely, unbuckling his
+weapon-filled holster and quietly strapping it
+around her shoulder with its pocketed belt of
+clips.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not require it this afternoon?"
+she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No fear. You won't either. Them mule-whacking
+coons is white."</p>
+
+<p>She understood.</p>
+
+<p>"Some men who seem whitest are blacker
+than any negro," she remarked. "<hi rend='italic'>Eh, bien!</hi>
+I thank you, Keed, <hi rend='italic'>mon ami</hi>, for your complaisance.
+You are very amiable to submit to
+the whim of a silly girl who suddenly becomes
+afraid of her own shadow."</p>
+
+<p>Glenn grinned and glanced significantly at
+the cross dangling from her bosom:</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," he said, "your government decorates<pb n='320'/><anchor id='Pg320'/>
+cowards. That's why it gave you the Legion."</p>
+
+<p>She blushed but looked up at him seriously:</p>
+
+<p>"Keed, if I flew a little toy balloon in the
+air, where would the west wind carry it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Into the Boche trenches," he replied, much
+interested in the idea. "If you've got one,
+we'll paint 'To hell with Willie' on it and set
+it afloat! But we'll have to get permission
+from the gendarmes first."</p>
+
+<p>She said, smiling:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, but I haven't any toy balloons."</p>
+
+<p>She picked up her basket with its new load
+of soiled linen, swung it gracefully to her
+head, ignoring his offered assistance, gave him
+a beguiling glance, and went away along the
+sheep-path.</p>
+
+<p>Once more she followed the deep-trodden and
+ancient trail through copse and pasture and
+over the stream down into the meadow, where
+the west wind furrowed the wild-flowers and
+the early afternoon sun fell hot.</p>
+
+<p>She set her clothes to soak, laid paddle
+and soap beside them, then, straightening up,
+remained erect on her knees, her intent gaze
+fixed on the distant clump of aspens, delicate<pb n='321'/><anchor id='Pg321'/>
+as mist above the hazel copse on the little
+hill beyond.</p>
+
+<p>It was a whole hour before her eyes caught
+the high glimmer of a tiny balloon. Only
+for a moment was it visible at that distance,
+then it became merged in the dazzling blue
+above the woods.</p>
+
+<p>She waited. At last she concluded that there
+were to be no more balloons. Then a sudden
+fear assailed her lest she had waited too long
+to investigate; and she sprang to her feet,
+hurried over the single plank used as a footbridge,
+and sped down through the alders.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there a pheasant ran headlong
+across her path; a rabbit or two scuttled
+through the ferns. Nearing the hazel copse
+she slackened speed and advanced with caution,
+scanning the thicket ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, on the ground in front of her,
+she caught sight of a small iron cylinder. Evidently
+it had rolled down there from the slope
+above.</p>
+
+<p>Very gingerly she approached and picked it
+up. It was not very heavy, not too big for
+her skirt pocket.<pb n='322'/><anchor id='Pg322'/></p>
+
+<p>As she slipped it into the pocket of her
+blue woolen peasant-skirt, her quick eye caught
+a movement among the hazel bushes on the
+hillside to her right. She sank to the ground
+and lay huddled there.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<pb n='323'/><anchor id='Pg323'/>
+<div rend='chapter'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='XXV. KAMERAD'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='XXV. KAMERAD'/>
+<head>CHAPTER XXV<lb/><lb/>
+KAMERAD</head>
+
+<p>Down the slope, through the thicket, came a
+man. She could see his legs only. He wore
+dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like
+Sticky Smith's and Kid Glenn's, only he wore
+no big, clanking Mexican spurs.</p>
+
+<p>The man passed in front of her, his burly
+body barely visible through the leaves, but
+not his features.</p>
+
+<p>She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried
+through the ferns of the warren, retracing
+her steps, and arrived breathless at the <hi rend='italic'>lavoir</hi>.
+And scarcely had she dropped to her knees
+and seized soap and paddle, than a squat,
+bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared
+on the opposite bank of the stream, stepping
+briskly out of the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>He did not notice her at first. He looked<pb n='324'/><anchor id='Pg324'/>
+about for a place to jump, found one, leaped
+safely across, and came on at a swinging stride
+across the meadow.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, bending above the water, suddenly
+struck sharply with her paddle.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee
+deep in clover.</p>
+
+<p>Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence,
+continued to soap and scrub and slap her
+wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of
+a child the chansonette she had made that
+morning. But out of the corner of her eyes
+she kept him in view&mdash;saw him come sauntering
+forward as though reassured, became
+aware that he had approached very near, was
+standing behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick
+up another soiled garment, she suddenly encountered
+his dark gaze; and her start and
+slight exclamation were entirely genuine.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Mon Dieu!</hi>" she said, with offended emphasis,
+"one does not approach people that way,
+without a word!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I frighten mademoiselle?" he asked,
+in recognizable French, but with an accent<pb n='325'/><anchor id='Pg325'/>
+unpleasantly familiar to her. "If I did, I am
+very sorry and I offer mademoiselle a thousand
+excuses and apologies."</p>
+
+<p>The girl, kneeling there in the clover,
+flashed a smile at him over her shoulder.
+The quick colour reddened his face and powerful
+neck. The girl had been right; her
+smile had been an answer that he was not
+going to ignore.</p>
+
+<p>"What a pretty spot for a <hi rend='italic'>lavoir</hi>," he said,
+stepping to the edge of the pool; "and what
+a pretty girl to adorn it!"</p>
+
+<p>Maryette tossed her head:</p>
+
+<p>"Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur.
+Do you not perceive that I am busy?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not impossible to exchange a polite
+word or two when people are busy, is it,
+mademoiselle?" he asked, laughing and showing
+a white and perfect set of teeth under a
+short, dark mustache.</p>
+
+<p>She continued to wring out her wash; but
+there was now a slight smile on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"May I not say who I am?" he asked persuasively.
+"May I not venture to speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Mon dieu</hi>, monsieur, there is liberty of<pb n='326'/><anchor id='Pg326'/>
+speech for all in France. That blackbird
+might be glad to know your name if you
+choose to tell him."</p>
+
+<p>"But I ask <hi rend='italic'>your</hi> permission to speak to
+<hi rend='italic'>you</hi>!" There seemed to be no sense of humour
+in this young man.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"I am not curious to hear who you are!...
+But if it affords you any relief to explain
+to the west wind what your name may
+be&mdash;" She ended with a disdainful shrug.
+After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes
+to his&mdash;lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes.
+But they were studying the stranger closely.</p>
+
+<p>He was a powerfully built, dark-skinned
+young man in the familiar khaki of the American
+muleteers, wearing their insignia, their
+cap, their holster and belt, and an extra
+pouch or wallet, loaded evidently with something
+heavy.</p>
+
+<p>She said, coolly:</p>
+
+<p>"You must be one of the new Yankee muleteers
+who came with that beautiful new herd
+of mules."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed:<pb n='327'/><anchor id='Pg327'/></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm an American muleteer. My name
+is Charles Braun. I came over in the last
+transport."</p>
+
+<p>"You know Steek?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Steek! Monsieur Steekee Smeete?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sticky Smith?"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Mais oui?</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>"I've met him," he replied curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"And Monsieur Keed Glenn?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've met Kid Glenn, too. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are friends of mine&mdash;very intimate
+friends. Of course," she added, nose up-tilted,
+"if they are not also <hi rend='italic'>your</hi> friends, any
+acquaintance with me will be very difficult
+for <hi rend='italic'>you</hi>, Monsieur Braun."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed easily and seated himself on
+the grass beside her; and, as he sat down, a
+metallic clinking sounded in his wallet.</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Tenez</hi>," she remarked, "you carry old iron
+and bottles about with you, I notice."</p>
+
+<p>"Snaffles, curbs and stirrup irons," he replied
+carelessly. And in the girl's heart there
+leaped the swift, fierce flame of certainty in
+suspicion.<pb n='328'/><anchor id='Pg328'/></p>
+
+<p>"Why do you bring all that ironmongery
+down here?" she inquired, with frankly childish
+curiosity, leisurely wringing out her linen.</p>
+
+<p>"A mule got away from the corral. I've
+been wandering around in the bushes trying
+to find him," he explained, so naturally and
+in such a friendly voice that she raised her
+eyes to look again at this young gallant who
+lingered here at the <hi rend='italic'>lavoir</hi> for the sake of her
+<hi rend='italic'>beaux yeux</hi>.</p>
+
+<p>Could this dark-eyed, smiling youth be a
+Hun spy? His smooth, boyish features, his
+crisp short hair and tiny mustache shading
+lips a trifle too red and overfull did not displease
+her. In his way he was handsome.</p>
+
+<p>His voice, too, was attractive, gaily persuasive,
+but it was his pronunciation of the
+letters c and d which had instantly set her
+on her guard.</p>
+
+<p>Seated on the bank near her, his roving
+eyes full of bold curiosity bent on her from
+time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little
+wreath out of long-stemmed clover and <hi rend='italic'>boutons
+d'or</hi>, he appeared merely an intrusive,
+irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse<pb n='329'/><anchor id='Pg329'/>
+himself with a few moments' rustic courtship
+here before he continued on his way.</p>
+
+<p>"You are exceedingly pretty," he said.
+"Will you tell me your name in exchange for
+mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maryette Courtray."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he exclaimed in quick recognition;
+"you are bell-mistress in Sainte Lesse, then!
+<hi rend='italic'>You</hi> are the celebrated carillonnette! I have
+heard about you. I suspected that you might
+be the little mistress of Sainte Lesse bells, because
+you wear the Legion&mdash;" He nodded his
+handsome head toward the decoration on her
+blouse.</p>
+
+<p>"And to think," he added effusively, "that
+it is just a mere slip of a girl who was decorated
+for bravery by France!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at him with all the beguilingly
+<hi rend='italic'>b&ecirc;te</hi> innocence of the young when flattered:</p>
+
+<p>"You are too amiable, monsieur. I really
+do not understand why they gave me the
+Legion. To encourage all French children,
+perhaps&mdash;because I really am a dreadful coward."
+She tapped the holster on her thigh
+and gazed at him quite guilelessly out of wide<pb n='330'/><anchor id='Pg330'/>
+and trustful eyes. "You see? I dare not
+even come here to wash my clothes unless I
+carry this&mdash;in case some Boche comes prowling."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose pistol is it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The weapon belongs to Monsieur Steek.
+When I come to wash here I borrow it."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you the sweetheart of Monsieur
+Steek?" he inquired, mimicking her pronunciation
+of "Stick," and at the same time fixing
+his dark eyes boldly and expressively on hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Does a young girl of my age have sweethearts?"
+she demanded scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"If she hasn't had one, it's time," he returned,
+staring hard at her with a persistent
+and fixed smile that had become almost
+offensive.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, la!" she exclaimed with a shrug of her
+youthful shoulders. "Perhaps you think I
+have time for such foolishness&mdash;what with
+housework to do and washing, and caring for
+my father, and my duties in the belfry every
+day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Youth passes swiftly, belle Maryette."<pb n='331'/><anchor id='Pg331'/></p>
+
+<p>"Imitate him, beau monsieur, and swiftly
+pass your way!"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>L'amour est doux, petite Marie!</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Je m'en moque!</hi>"</p>
+
+<p>He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his
+knees beside her, and rolled back his cuffs.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, "I'll help you wash. We
+two should finish quickly."</p>
+
+<p>"I am in no haste."</p>
+
+<p>"But it will give you an hour's leisure, belle
+Maryette."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall try to instruct you why, when we
+have our hour together."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to pay court to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am doing that now. My ardent courtship
+will already be accomplished, so that we
+need not waste our hour together!" He began
+to laugh and wring out the linen.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," she expostulated smilingly,
+"your apropos disturbs me. Have you the
+assurance to believe that you already appeal
+to my heart?"<pb n='332'/><anchor id='Pg332'/></p>
+
+<p>"Have I not appealed to it a little, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl averted her head coquettishly.
+For a few minutes they scrubbed away there
+together, side by side on their knees above
+the rim of the pool. Then, without warning,
+his hot, red lips burned her neck. Her
+swift recoil was also a shudder; her face
+flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do that!" she said sharply, straightening
+up in the grass where she was kneeling.</p>
+
+<p>"You are so adorable!" he pleaded in a low,
+tense voice.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence. She had moved
+aside and away from him on her knees; her
+head remained turned, too, and her features
+were set as though carven out of rosy marble.</p>
+
+<p>She was summoning every atom of resolution,
+every particle of courage to do what she
+must do. Every fibre in her revolted with
+the effort; but she steeled herself, and at last
+the forced smile was stamped on her lips, and
+she dared turn her head and meet his burning
+gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"You frighten me," she said&mdash;and her un<pb n='333'/><anchor id='Pg333'/>steady
+voice was convincing. "A young girl
+is not courted so abruptly."</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me," he murmured. "I could not
+help myself&mdash;your neck is so fragrant, so
+childlike&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you should treat me as you would a
+child!" she retorted pettishly. "Amuse me,
+if you aspire to any comradeship with me.
+Your behaviour does not amuse me at all."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall become comrades," he said confidently,
+"and you shall be sufficiently amused."</p>
+
+<p>"It requires time for two people to become
+comrades."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you give me an hour this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"What? A rendezvous?" she exclaimed,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean somewhere alone with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p>"But why? I am not yet old enough for
+such foolishness. It would not amuse me at
+all to be alone with you for an hour." She
+pouted and shrugged and absently plucked a
+hollow stem from the sedge.</p>
+
+<p>"It would amuse me much more to sit here<pb n='334'/><anchor id='Pg334'/>
+and blow bubbles," she added, clearing the
+stem with a quick breath and soaping the
+end of it.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with tormenting malice, she let her
+eyes rest sideways on him while she plunged
+the hollow stem into the water, withdrew it,
+dripping, and deliberately blew an enormous
+golden bubble from the end.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" she cried, detaching the bubble, apparently
+enchanted to see it float upward. "Is
+it not beautiful, my fairy balloon?"</p>
+
+<p>On her knees there beside the basin she
+blew bubble after bubble, detaching each with
+a slight movement of her wrist, and laughing
+delightedly to see them mount into the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>"You <hi rend='italic'>are</hi> a child," he said, worrying his red
+underlip with his teeth. "You're a baby, after
+all."</p>
+
+<p>She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then, children require toys to
+amuse them, not sighs and kisses and bold,
+brown eyes to frighten and perplex them.
+Have you any toys to amuse me if I give you
+an hour with me?"<pb n='335'/><anchor id='Pg335'/></p>
+
+<p>"Maryette, I can easily teach you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No! Will you bring me a toy to amuse
+me?&mdash;a clay pipe to blow bubbles? I adore
+bubbles."</p>
+
+<p>"If I promise to amuse you, will you give
+me an hour?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I?" she demanded with sudden
+caprice. "I have my wash to finish; then I
+have to see that my father has his soup; then
+I must attend to customers at the inn, go up
+to the belfry, oil the machinery, play the
+carillon later, wind the drum for the
+night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall come to you in the tower after the
+angelus," he said eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be too busy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"After the carillon, then! Promise, Maryette!"</p>
+
+<p>"And sit up there alone with you in the
+dark for an hour? <hi rend='italic'>Ma foi!</hi> How amusing!"
+She laughed in pretty derision. "I shall not
+even be able to blow bubbles!"</p>
+
+<p>Watching her pouting face intently, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I bring some toy balloons for you<pb n='336'/><anchor id='Pg336'/>
+to fly from the clock tower? Would that
+amuse you&mdash;you beautiful, perverse child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Little toy balloons!" she echoed, enchanted.
+"What pleasure to set them afloat from the
+belfry! Do you really promise to bring me
+some little toy balloons to fly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But <hi rend='italic'>you</hi> must promise not to speak
+about it to anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because the gendarmes wouldn't let us fly
+any balloons."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that they might think me a
+spy?" she inquired na&iuml;vely.</p>
+
+<p>"Or me," he rejoined with a light laugh.
+"So we shall have to be very discreet and go
+cautiously about our sport. And it ought to
+be great fun, Maryette, to sail balloons out
+over the German trenches. We'll tie a message
+to every one! Shall we, little comrade?"</p>
+
+<p>She clapped her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"That <hi rend='italic'>will</hi> enrage the Boches!" she cried,
+"You won't forget to bring the balloons?"</p>
+
+<p>"After the carillon," he nodded, staring at
+her intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Half past ten," she said; "not one minute<pb n='337'/><anchor id='Pg337'/>
+earlier. I cannot be disturbed when playing.
+Do you understand? Do you promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I promise not to bother
+you before half past ten."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Now let me do my washing
+here in peace."</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>She was still scrubbing her linen when he
+went reluctantly away across the meadow
+toward Sainte Lesse. And when she finally
+stood up, swung the basket to her head, and
+left the meadow, the sun hung low behind
+Sainte Lesse Wood and a rose and violet glow
+possessed the world.</p>
+
+<p>At the White Doe Inn she flew feverishly
+about her duties, aiding the ancient peasant
+woman with the simple preparations for dinner,
+giving her father his soup and helping
+him to bed, swallowing a mouthful herself as
+she hastened to finish her household tasks.</p>
+
+<p>Kid Glenn came in as usual for an <hi rend='italic'>aperitif</hi>
+while she was gathering up her wooden
+gloves.</p>
+
+<p>"Did a mule stray today from your corral?"
+she asked, filling his glass for him.<pb n='338'/><anchor id='Pg338'/></p>
+
+<p>"No," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead certain. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know one of the new muleteers
+named Braun?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know him by sight."</p>
+
+<p>"Keed!" she said, going up to him and placing
+both hands on his broad shoulders; "I
+play the carillon after the angelus. Bring
+Steek to the bell-tower half an hour after you
+hear the carillon end. You will hear it end;
+you will hear the quarter hour strike presently.
+Half an hour later, after the third
+quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring
+pistols. Do you promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! What's the row, Maryette?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know yet. I <hi rend='italic'>think</hi> we shall find a
+spy in the tower."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the belfry, <hi rend='italic'>parbleu</hi>! And you and
+Steek shall come up the stairs and you shall
+wait in the dark, there where the keyboard
+is, and where you see all the wires leading
+upward. You shall listen attentively, and
+I will be on the landing above, among my<pb n='339'/><anchor id='Pg339'/>
+bells. And when you hear me cry out to you,
+then you shall come running with pistols!"</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it understood? Give me your word,
+Keed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Allons! Assez!</hi>" she whispered excitedly.
+"Make prisoner any man you see there!&mdash;<hi rend='italic'>any</hi>
+man! You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"You bet!"</p>
+
+<p>"<hi rend='italic'>Any man!</hi>" she repeated slowly, "even if
+he wears the same uniform <hi rend='italic'>you</hi> wear."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"By God!" said Glenn under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"You suspect?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And if it <hi rend='italic'>is</hi> one of our German-American
+muleteers, we'll lynch him!" he
+whispered in a white rage.</p>
+
+<p>But Maryette shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said in a dull, even voice, "let the
+gendarmerie take him in charge. Spy or suspect,
+he must have his chance. That is the
+law in France."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't give rats a chance, do you?"<pb n='340'/><anchor id='Pg340'/></p>
+
+<p>"I give everything its chance," she said
+simply. "And so does my country."</p>
+
+<p>She drew the automatic pistol from her
+holster, examined it, raised her eyes gravely
+to the American beside her:</p>
+
+<p>"This is terrible for me," she added, in a
+low but steady voice. "If it were not for
+my country&mdash;" She made a grave gesture,
+turned, and went slowly out through the
+arched stone passage into the main street of
+the town. A few minutes later the angelus
+sounded sweetly over the woods and meadows
+of Sainte Lesse.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>At ten, as the last stroke of the hour ended,
+there came a charming, intimate little murmur
+of awakening bells; it grew sweeter,
+clearer, filling the starry sky, growing, exquisitely
+increasing in limpid, transparent volume,
+sweeping through the high, dim belfry
+like a great wind from Paradise carrying
+Heaven's own music out over the darkened
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>All Sainte Lesse came to its doorways to
+listen to the playing of their beloved Carillon<pb n='341'/><anchor id='Pg341'/>nette;
+the bell-music ebbed and swelled under
+the stars; the ancient Flemish masterpiece,
+written by some carillonneur whose bones had
+long been dust, became magnificently vital
+again under the enchanted hands of the little
+mistress of the bells.</p>
+
+<p>In fifteen minutes the carillon ended; a
+slight pause followed, then the quarter hour
+struck.</p>
+
+<p>With the last stroke of the bell, the girl
+drew off her wooden gloves, laid them on the
+keyboard, turned slowly in her seat, listening.
+A slight sound coming from the spiral staircase
+of stone set her heart beating violently.
+Had the suspected man violated his word?
+She drew the automatic pistol from her holster,
+rose, and stole up to the stone platform
+overhead, where, rising tier on tier into the
+darkness, the great carillon of Sainte Lesse
+loomed overhead.</p>
+
+<p>She listened uneasily. Had the man lied?
+It seemed to her as though her hammering
+heart must burst from her bosom with the
+terrible suspense of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a shadowy form appeared at the<pb n='342'/><anchor id='Pg342'/>
+head of the stairs, reaching the platform at
+one bound. And her heart seemed to stop as
+she realized that this man had arrived too
+early for her friends to be of any use to her.
+He had lied to her. And now she must take
+him unaided, or kill him there in the starlight
+under the looming bells.</p>
+
+<p>"Maryette!" he called. She did not stir.</p>
+
+<p>"Maryette!" he whispered. "Where are
+you, little sweetheart? Forgive me, I could
+not wait any longer. I adore you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>All at once he discovered her standing motionless
+in the shadow of the great bell Bayard&mdash;sprang
+toward her, eager, ardent, triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>"Maryette," he whispered, "I love you! I
+shall teach you what a lover is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he caught a glimpse of her face;
+the terrible expression in her eyes checked
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened?" he asked, bewildered.
+And then he caught sight of the pistol
+in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that for?" he demanded harshly.
+"Are you afraid to love me? Do you think<pb n='343'/><anchor id='Pg343'/>
+I'm the kind of lover to stop for a thing like
+that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She said, in a low, distinct voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move! Put up both hands instantly!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he snapped out, like the crack of
+a lash.</p>
+
+<p>"I know who you are. You're a Boche and
+no Yankee! Turn your back and raise your
+arms!"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment they looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," she said, steadily, "you had better
+explain your gas cylinders and balloons
+to the gendarmes at the Poste."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I'll explain them to you,
+<hi rend='italic'>now</hi>!&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you touch your pistol, I fire!&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But already he had whipped out his pistol;
+and she fired instantly, smashing his right
+hand to pulp.</p>
+
+<p>"You damned hell-cat!" he screamed,
+stretching out his shattered hand in an agony
+of impotent fury. Blood rained from it on
+the stone flags. Suddenly he started toward
+her.<pb n='344'/><anchor id='Pg344'/></p>
+
+<p>"Don't stir!" she whispered. "Turn your
+back and raise both arms!"</p>
+
+<p>His face became ghastly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go, in God's name!" he burst out
+in a strangled voice. "Don't send me before
+a firing squad! Listen to me, little comrade&mdash;I
+surrender myself to your mercy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then keep away from me! Keep your
+distance!" she cried, retreating. He followed,
+fawning:</p>
+
+<p>"Listen! We were such good comrades&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't come any nearer to me!" she called
+out sharply; but he still shuffled toward her,
+whimpering, drenched in blood, both hands
+uplifted.</p>
+
+<p>"Kamerad!" he whined, "Kamerad&mdash;" and
+suddenly launched a kick at her.</p>
+
+<p>She just avoided it, springing behind the
+bell Bayard; and he rushed at her and struck
+with both uplifted arms, showering her with
+blood, but not quite reaching her.</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness among the beams and the
+deep shadows of the bells she could hear him
+hunting for her, breathing heavily and mak<pb n='345'/><anchor id='Pg345'/>ing
+ferocious, inarticulate noises, as she
+swung herself up onto the first beam above
+and continued to crawl upward.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you, little fool?" he cried at
+length. "I have business with you before I
+cut your throat&mdash;that smooth, white throat of
+yours that I kissed down there by the <hi rend='italic'>lavoir</hi>!"
+There was no sound from her.</p>
+
+<p>He went back toward the stairs and began
+hunting about in the starlight for his pistol;
+but there was no parapet on the bell platform,
+and he probably concluded that it had fallen
+over the edge of the tower into the street.</p>
+
+<p>Supporting his wounded hand, he stood
+glaring blankly about him, and his bloodshot
+eyes presently fell on the door to the stairs.
+But he must have realized that flight would
+be useless for him if he left this girl alive in
+her bell-tower, ready to alarm the town the
+moment he ran for the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>With his left hand he fumbled under his
+tunic and disengaged a heavy trench knife
+from its sheath. The loss of blood was making
+his legs a trifle unsteady, but he pulled
+himself together and moved stealthily under<pb n='346'/><anchor id='Pg346'/>
+the shadows of beam and bell until he came
+to the spot he selected. And there he lay
+down, the hilt of the knife in his left hand,
+the blade concealed by his opened tunic.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>His heavy groans at last had their effect
+on the girl, who had climbed high up into the
+darkness, creeping from beam to beam and
+mounting from one tier of bells to another.</p>
+
+<p>Standing on the lowest beam, she cautiously
+looked out through an oubliette and saw him
+lying on his back near the sheer edge of the
+roof.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted
+against the stars, for he called up
+to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding
+to death and unable to move.</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments, opening his eyes
+again, he saw her standing on the roof beside
+him, looking down at him. And he whispered
+his appeal in the name of Christ. And in
+His name the little bell-mistress responded.</p>
+
+<p>When she had used the blue kerchief at her
+neck for a tourniquet and had checked the
+hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a<pb n='347'/><anchor id='Pg347'/>
+better opportunity to employ his knife. It
+would not do to bungle the affair. And he
+thought he knew how it could be properly
+done&mdash;if he could get her head in the crook
+of his muscular elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"Lift me, dear ministering angel," he whispered
+weakly.</p>
+
+<p>She stooped impulsively, hesitated, then,
+suddenly terrified at the blazing ferocity in
+his eyes, she shrank back at the same instant
+that his broad knife flashed in her very face.</p>
+
+<p>He was on his feet at a bound, and, as she
+raised her voice in a startled cry for help,
+he plunged heavily at her, but slipped and fell
+in his own blood. Then the clattering jingle
+of spurred boots on the stone stairs below
+caught his ear. He was trapped, and he
+realized it. He slowly got to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>As Smith and Glenn appeared, springing
+out of the low-arched door, the muleteer
+Braun turned and faced them.</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, then Glenn said,
+bitterly:</p>
+
+<p>"It's you, is it, you dirty Dutchman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hands up!" said Smith quietly. "Come<pb n='348'/><anchor id='Pg348'/>
+on, now; it's a case of 'Kamerad' for yours."</p>
+
+<p>Braun did not move to comply with the
+demand. Gradually it dawned on them that
+the man was game.</p>
+
+<p>"Maryette!" he called; "where are you?"</p>
+
+<p>Smith said curiously:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want with her, Braun?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to speak to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn
+sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>The girl crept out of the shadows. Her
+face was ghastly.</p>
+
+<p>Braun looked at her with pallid scorn:</p>
+
+<p>"You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I'd have
+made you a better lover than you'll ever have
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt,
+turned without a glance at Smith and
+Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And
+as he fell there between sky and earth, hurtling
+downward under the stars, Glenn's pistol
+flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair
+while falling.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely,
+turning on Smith. "Ain't that me all over<pb n='349'/><anchor id='Pg349'/>!&mdash;soft-hearted
+enough to do that skunk a kindness
+thataway!"</p>
+
+<p>But his youthful voice was shaking, and he
+stared at the edge of the abyss, listening to
+the far tumult now arising from the street
+below.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling
+his nervous voice with an effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "... Now,
+Maryette, put one arm around my neck, and
+me and the Kid will take you down them
+stairs, because you look tired&mdash;kind o' peeked
+and fussed, what with all this funny business
+going on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Steek! Steek!" she sobbed. "Oh, <hi rend='italic'>mon
+ami</hi>, Steek!"</p>
+
+<p>She began to cry bitterly. Smith picked
+her up in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"What you need is sleep," he said very
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>But she shook her head: she had business
+to transact on her knees that night&mdash;business
+with the Mother of God that would take all
+night long&mdash;and many, many other sleepless
+nights; and many candles.<pb n='350'/><anchor id='Pg350'/></p>
+
+<p>She put her left arm around Smith's neck
+and hid her tear-wet face on his shoulder.
+And, as he bore her out of the high tower
+and descended the unlighted, interminable
+stairs of stone, he heard her weeping against
+his breast and softly asking intercession in
+behalf of a dead young man who had tried
+to be to her a "Kamerad"&mdash;as he understood
+it&mdash;including the entire gamut, from amorous
+beast to fiend.</p>
+<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 25%'/>
+<p>There was a single candle lighted in the bar
+of the White Doe. On the "zinc," side by side,
+like birds on a rail, sat the two muleteers.
+In each big, sunburnt fist was an empty glass;
+their spurred feet dangled; they leaned forward
+where they sat, hunched up over their
+knees, heads slightly turned, as though intently
+listening. A haze of cigarette smoke
+dimmed the candle flame.</p>
+
+<p>The drone of an a&euml;roplane high in the midnight
+sky came to them at intervals. At last
+the sound died away under the far stars.</p>
+
+<p>By the smoky candle flame Kid Glenn un<pb n='351'/><anchor id='Pg351'/>folded
+and once more read the letter that
+kept them there:</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p>&mdash;I ought to get to Sainte Lesse somewhere around midnight. Don't
+say a word to Maryette.</p>
+
+<lg rend='right'>
+<l>Jack.</l>
+</lg>
+</quote>
+
+<p>Sticky Smith, reading over his shoulder,
+slowly rolled another cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"When Jack comes," he drawled, "it's
+a-goin' to he'p a lot. That Maryette girl's
+plumb done in."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure she's done in," nodded Kid Glenn.
+"Wouldn't it do in anybody to shoot up a
+young man an' then see him step off the top
+of a skyscraper?"</p>
+
+<p>Smith admitted that he himself had felt
+"kind er squeamish." He added: "Gawd, how
+he spread when he hit them flags! You
+didn't look at him, did you, Kid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw. Say, d'ya think Maryette has gone
+to bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno. When we left her up there in
+her room, I turned and took a peek to see
+she was comfy, but she was down onto both
+knees before that china virgin on the niche
+over her bed."<pb n='352'/><anchor id='Pg352'/></p>
+
+<p>"She oughter be in bed. You gotta sleep
+off a thing like that, or you feel punk next
+day," remarked Glenn, meditatively twirling
+the last drops of eau-de-vie around in his
+tumbler. Then he swallowed them and
+smacked his lips. "She'll come around all
+O.&nbsp;K. when she sees Jack," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"Goin' to let him wake her up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you see us stoppin' him? He'd kick
+the pants off us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sh-h-h!" motioned Smith; "there's a automobile!
+By gum! It's stopped!&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The two muleteers set their glasses on the
+bar, slid to the floor, and marched, clanking,
+into the covered way that led to the street.
+Smith undid the bolts. A young man stood
+outside in the starlight.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jack Burley, you old son of a gun!"
+drawled Glenn. "Gawd! You look fit for a
+dead one!"</p>
+
+<p>"We ain't told her!" whispered Smith.
+"She an' us done in a Fritz this evening, an'
+it sorter turned Maryette's stomach&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that she ain't well," explained Glenn
+hastily; "only a girl feels different. Stick<pb n='353'/><anchor id='Pg353'/>
+an' me, we just took a few drinks, but Maryette,
+soon as she got home, she just flopped
+down on her knees and asked that china virgin
+of hers to go easy on that there Fritz&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>They had conducted Burley to the bar; both
+their arms were draped around his shoulders;
+both talked to him at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"This here Fritz," began Glenn&mdash;but Burley
+freed himself from their embrace.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Maryette?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Smith jerked a silent thumb toward the
+ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>"In bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or prayin'."</p>
+
+<p>Burley flushed, hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"G'wan up, anyway," said Glenn. "I reckon
+it'll do her a heap o' good to lamp you, you
+old son of a gun!"</p>
+
+<p>Burley turned, went up the short flight of
+stairs to her closed door. There was candle-light
+shining through the transom. He
+knocked with a trembling hand. There was
+no answer. He knocked again; heard her
+uncertain step; stepped back as her door
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, a drooping figure in her night
+robe, stood listlessly on the threshold. Which
+of the muleteers it was who had come to her
+door she did not notice. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am very tired. Death is a dreadful
+thing. I can't put it from my mind. I am
+trying to pray&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her weary eyes and found herself
+looking into the face of her own lover.
+She turned very white, lovely eyes dilated.</p>
+
+<p>"Is&mdash;is it thou, Djack?"</p>
+
+<p>"C'est moi, ma ploo belle!"</p>
+
+<p>She melted into his tightening arms with a
+faint cry. Very high overhead, under the
+lustrous stars, an a&euml;roplane droned its uncharted
+way across a blood-soaked world.</p>
+
+</div>
+</body>
+
+<back>
+  
+<div rend='advertisement'>
+<index index='toc' level1='Advertisement' />
+<index index='pdf' level1='Advertisement' />
+<head>Popular Copyright Novels<lb/><lb/>
+AT MODERATE PRICES</head>
+
+<p>Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<lb/>
+A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Abner Daniel.</hi> By Will N. Harben.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Adventures of Gerard.</hi> By A. Conan Doyle.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Adventures of a Modest Man.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.</hi> By A. Conan Doyle.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.</hi> By Frank L. Packard.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>After House, The.</hi> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Alisa Paige.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Alton of Somasco.</hi> By Harold Bindloss.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>A Man's Man.</hi> By Ian Hay.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Amateur Gentleman, The.</hi> By Jeffery Farnol.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Andrew The Glad.</hi> By Maria Thompson Daviess.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Ann Boyd.</hi> By Will N. Harben.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Anna the Adventuress.</hi> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Another Man's Shoes.</hi> By Victor Bridges.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Ariadne of Allan Water.</hi> By Sidney McCall.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Armchair at the Inn, The.</hi> By F. Hopkinson Smith.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Around Old Chester.</hi> By Margaret Deland.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Athalie.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>At the Mercy of Tiberius.</hi> By Augusta Evans Wilson.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Auction Block, The.</hi> By Rex Beach.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Aunt Jane.</hi> By Jeanette Lee.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Aunt Jane of Kentucky.</hi> By Eliza C. Hall.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Awakening of Helena Richie.</hi> By Margaret Deland.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bambi.</hi> By Marjorie Benton Cooke.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bandbox, The.</hi> By Louis Joseph Vance.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Barbara of the Snows.</hi> By Harry Irving Green.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bar 20.</hi> By Clarence E. Mulford.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bar 20 Days.</hi> By Clarence E. Mulford.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Barrier, The.</hi> By Rex Beach.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Beasts of Tarzan, The.</hi> By Edgar Rice Burroughs.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Beechy.</hi> By Bettina Von Hutten.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bella Donna.</hi> By Robert Hichens.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Beloved Vagabond, The.</hi> By Wm. J. Locke.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Beltane the Smith.</hi> By Jeffery Farnol.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Ben Blair.</hi> By Will Lillibridge.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Betrayal, The.</hi> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Better Man, The.</hi> By Cyrus Townsend Brady.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Beulah.</hi> (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Beyond the Frontier.</hi> By Randall Parrish.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Black Is White.</hi> By George Barr McCutcheon.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Blind Man's Eyes, The.</hi> By Wm. MacHarg &amp; Edwin Balmer.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bob Hampton of Placer.</hi> By Randall Parrish.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bob, Son of Battle.</hi> By Alfred Ollivant.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Britton of the Seventh.</hi> By Cyrus Townsend Brady.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Broad Highway, The.</hi> By Jeffery Farnol.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bronze Bell, The.</hi> By Louis Joseph Vance.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Bronze Eagle, The.</hi> By Baroness Orczy.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Buck Peters, Ranchman.</hi> By Clarence E. Mulford.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Business of Life, The.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>By Right of Purchase.</hi> By Harold Bindloss.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cabbages and Kings.</hi> By O. Henry.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Calling of Dan Matthews, The.</hi> By Harold Bell Wright.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cape Cod Stories.</hi> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cap'n Dan's Daughter.</hi> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cap'n Eri.</hi> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cap'n Warren's Wards.</hi> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cardigan.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Carpet From Bagdad, The.</hi> By Harold MacGrath.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cease Firing.</hi> By Mary Johnson.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Chain of Evidence, A.</hi> By Carolyn Wells.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Chief Legatee, The.</hi> By Anna Katharine Green.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cleek of Scotland Yard.</hi> By T. W. Hanshew.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Clipped Wings.</hi> By Rupert Hughes.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Coast of Adventure, The.</hi> By Harold Bindloss.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Colonial Free Lance, A.</hi> By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Coming of Cassidy, The.</hi> By Clarence E. Mulford.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Coming of the Law, The.</hi> By Chas. A. Seltzer.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Conquest of Canaan, The.</hi> By Booth Tarkington.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Conspirators, The.</hi> By Robt. W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Counsel for the Defense.</hi> By Leroy Scott.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Court of Inquiry, A.</hi> By Grace S. Richmond.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Crime Doctor, The.</hi> By E.W. Hornung</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.</hi> By Rex Beach.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cross Currents.</hi> By Eleanor H. Porter.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cry in the Wilderness, A.</hi> By Mary E. Waller.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cynthia of the Minute.</hi> By Louis Jos. Vance.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Dark Hollow, The.</hi> By Anna Katharine Green.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Dave's Daughter.</hi> By Patience Bevier Cole.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Day of Days, The.</hi> By Louis Joseph Vance.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Day of the Dog, The.</hi> By George Barr McCutcheon.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Depot Master, The.</hi> By Joseph C. Lincoln.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Desired Woman, The.</hi> By Will N. Harben.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Destroying Angel, The.</hi> By Louis Joseph Vance.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Dixie Hart.</hi> By Will N. Harben.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Double Traitor, The.</hi> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Drusilla With a Million.</hi> By Elizabeth Cooper.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Eagle of the Empire, The.</hi> By Cyrus Townsend Brady.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>El Dorado.</hi> By Baroness Orczy.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Elusive Isabel.</hi> By Jacques Futrelle.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Empty Pockets.</hi> By Rupert Hughes.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Enchanted Hat, The.</hi> By Harold MacGrath.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Eye of Dread, The.</hi> By Payne Erskine.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Eyes of the World, The.</hi> By Harold Bell Wright.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<!-- FIXME: correction and bold in TXT -->
+<!-- FIXME: lg cannot contain pgIf -->
+<pgIf output='txt'>
+  <then>
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Felix O'Day.</hi> By F. Hopkinson Smith.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>54-40 or Fight.</hi> By Emerson Hough.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Fighting Chance, The.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Financier, The.</hi> By Theodore Dreiser.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Flamsted Quarries.</hi> By Mary E. Waller.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Flying Mercury, The.</hi> By Eleanor M. Ingram.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>For a Maiden Brave.</hi> By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Four Million, The.</hi> By O. Henry.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Four Pool's Mystery, The.</hi> By Jean Webster.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Fruitful Vine, The.</hi> By Robert Hichens.</l>
+</lg>
+  </then>
+  <else>
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Felix O'Day.</hi> By F. Hopkinson Smith.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>54-40 or Fight.</hi> By Emerson Hough.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'><corr sic='50-40'>54-40</corr> or Fight.</hi> By Emerson Hough.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Fighting Chance, The.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Financier, The.</hi> By Theodore Dreiser.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Flamsted Quarries.</hi> By Mary E. Waller.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Flying Mercury, The.</hi> By Eleanor M. Ingram.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>For a Maiden Brave.</hi> By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Four Million, The.</hi> By O. Henry.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Four Pool's Mystery, The.</hi> By Jean Webster.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Fruitful Vine, The.</hi> By Robert Hichens.</l>
+</lg>
+  </else>
+</pgIf>
+
+
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.</hi> By George Randolph Chester.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Gilbert Neal.</hi> By Will N. Harben.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Girl From His Town, The.</hi> By Marie Van Vorst.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.</hi> By Payne Erskine.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Girl Who Lived in the Woods, The.</hi> By Marjorie Benton
+Cook.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Girl Who Won, The.</hi> By Beth Ellis.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Glory of Clementina, The.</hi> By Wm. J. Locke.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Glory of the Conquered, The.</hi> By Susan Glaspell.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>God's Country and the Woman.</hi> By James Oliver Curwood.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>God's Good Man.</hi> By Marie Corelli.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Going Some.</hi> By Rex Beach.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Gold Bag, The.</hi> By Carolyn Wells.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Golden Slipper, The.</hi> By Anna Katharine Green.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Golden Web, The.</hi> By Anthony Partridge.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Gordon Craig.</hi> By Randall Parrish.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Greater Love Hath No Man.</hi> By Frank L. Packard.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Greyfriars Bobby.</hi> By Eleanor Atkinson.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Guests of Hercules, The.</hi> By C. N. &amp; A. M. Williamson.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Halcyone.</hi> By Elinor Glyn.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Happy Island</hi> (Sequel to Uncle William). By Jeannette Lee.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Havoc.</hi> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Heart of Philura, The.</hi> By Florence Kingsley.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Heart of the Desert, The.</hi> By Honor&eacute; Willsie.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Heart of the Hills, The.</hi> By John Fox, Jr.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Heart of the Sunset.</hi> By Rex Beach.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.</hi> By Elfrid A. Bingham.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Heather-Moon, The.</hi> By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Her Weight in Gold.</hi> By Geo. B. McCutcheon.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Hidden Children, The.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Hoosier Volunteer, The.</hi> By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Hopalong Cassidy.</hi> By Clarence E. Mulford.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>How Leslie Loved.</hi> By Anne Warner.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.</hi> By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Husbands of Edith, The.</hi> By George Barr McCutcheon</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>I Conquered.</hi> By Harold Titus.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Illustrious Prince, The.</hi> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Idols.</hi> By William J. Locke.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Indifference of Juliet, The.</hi> By Grace S. Richmond.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Inez.</hi> (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Infelice.</hi> By Augusta Evans Wilson.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>In Her Own Right.</hi> By John Reed Scott.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Initials Only.</hi> By Anna Katharine Green.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>In Another Girl's Shoes.</hi> By Berta Ruck.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Inner Law, The.</hi> By Will N. Harben.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Innocent.</hi> By Marie Corelli.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.</hi> By Sax Rohmer.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>In the Brooding Wild.</hi> By Ridgwell Cullum.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Intrigues, The.</hi> By Harold Bindloss.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Iron Trail, The.</hi> By Rex Beach.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Iron Woman, The.</hi> By Margaret Deland.</l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Ishmael.</hi> (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.</l>
+</lg>
+</div>
+
+
+<div rend='dustjacket'>
+<index index='pdf' level1='Jacket Flap Text'/>
+<index index='toc' level1='Jacket Flap Text'/>
+<head>BARBARIANS<lb/><lb/>
+By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</head>
+
+<p>In this story Mr. Chambers deals
+with the early years of the Great
+War. Sickened by what seems to
+them at that time indifference on the
+part of the American Government, an
+odd group of men meet on the decks
+of a mule transport. They have been
+drawn to this common rendezvous by
+a desire to enter the war and purge
+their souls in the fight for the freedom
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>There are twelve in the group,
+eight Americans, three Frenchmen,
+and a Belgian, and prominent among
+them is Jim Neeland, whose earlier
+experiences Mr. Chambers has related
+in the "Dark Star."</p>
+
+<p>Barbarians records the adventures
+of these men, not together, but singly
+or in groups, along the whole western
+battle front, from the Belgian coast
+to the mountains of Alsace. It is
+filled with unusual character sketches
+of the lives of the men in the
+Trenches, and of life in the little
+towns just inside the lines of Battle.
+Through it all there is great beauty
+and wonderful sense of justice and
+right that is indeed more precious
+than peace.</p>
+
+<p>Other Books by Robert W. Chambers:</p>
+
+<!-- FIXME: corr and bold formatting in TXT mode -->
+<!-- FIXME: lg cannot contain pgIf -->
+<pgIf output='txt'>
+  <then>
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Adventures of a Modest Man</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Alisa Paige</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Athalie</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Business of Life, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cardigan</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Conspirators, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Fighting Chance, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Hidden Children, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'><corr sic='The Girl Phillippa'>Girl Phillippa, The</corr></hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Red Republic, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Dark Star, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Who Goes There?</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Younger Set, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Japonette</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Streets of Ascalon</hi></l>
+</lg>
+  </then>
+  <else>
+<lg>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Adventures of a Modest Man</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'><corr sic='Ailsa'>Alisa</corr> Paige</hi></l>  
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Athalie</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Business of Life, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Cardigan</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Conspirators, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Fighting Chance, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Hidden Children, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'><corr sic='The Girl Phillippa'>Girl Phillippa, The</corr></hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Red Republic, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Dark Star, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Who Goes There?</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Younger Set, The</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Japonette</hi></l>
+<l><hi rend='bold'>Streets of Ascalon</hi></l>
+</lg>
+  </else>
+</pgIf>
+
+<lg>
+<l>A. L. BURT COMPANY</l>
+<l>Publishers,&mdash;New York</l>
+</lg>
+</div>
+
+
+<div rend='advertisement'>
+<index index='toc' level1='Advertisement' />
+<index index='pdf' level1='Advertisement' />
+<head>THE NEWEST BOOKS<lb/><lb/>
+IN POPULAR REPRINT FICTION</head>
+
+<p>Only Books of Superior Merit and Popularity are Published in this List</p>
+
+<!-- FIXME: corr and bold formatting in TXT --> 
+<pgIf output='txt'>
+  <then>
+<p><hi rend='bold'>TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR.</hi> By Edgar Rice
+Burroughs.</p>
+  </then>
+  <else>
+<p><hi rend='bold'>TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR<corr sic=','>.</corr></hi> By Edgar Rice
+Burroughs.</p>
+  </else>
+</pgIf>
+
+<p rend='i2'>The Tarzan books need no introduction. Thousands are waiting for this volume,
+being further adventures of TARZAN OF THE APES, and volume five
+of the series.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>LONG LIVE THE KING.</hi> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>This is a story of love, intrigue and adventure in a European court. In this
+story Mrs. Rinehart combines mystery, heart interest, and excitement of her past
+successes into a story that will be hailed as the most interesting of all her
+stories.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>WE CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING.</hi> By Rupert Hughes.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>A novel of metropolitan life, of a girl who had never had anything and of a
+man who had always had everything, and of the manner in which his richness
+and her poverty colored each other, and the lives of many other persons as well.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>BARBARIANS.</hi> By Robert W. Chambers.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>Brave, reckless, idealistic chaps&mdash;careless of peril, unafraid of death&mdash;who deliberately
+sought danger and the venturesome life as found during the war, over
+there. The adventures will hold the reader breathless and the romance will
+delight.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>THE FORFEIT.</hi> By Ridgwell Cullum.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>A ranch story of Montana which centers around the fact that the leader of
+the "Lightfoot Rustlers" and the likeable but devil-may-care brother of the hero
+are one and the same. Cullum is a "big" western story writer.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>UNDER HANDICAP.</hi> By Jackson Gregory.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>Here is a story which is a strong picture of the changing of a western desert
+into a land of usefulness, by irrigation. The story has a pleasing romance, yet
+exciting at times, with adventures of more than one kind. Every reader of
+"The Outlaw" will want this book.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>THE TRIUMPH.</hi> By Will N. Harben.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>Loyalty is the keynote of this story, loyalty of the hero to his patriotic duty,
+loyalty of a daughter to her father, and loyalty of a lover to his sweetheart.
+The followers, of Mr. Harben will enjoy another of his southern stories.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>PIP.</hi> By Ian Hay (Capt. Ian Hay Beith), Author of "The First
+Hundred Thousand."</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>A story of English school boys, their pleasures and pains, their sports and escapades,
+that might be called a modern "Tom Brown," but a Tom Brown brimming
+with laughter and with the slang of the day.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>MISS MILLION'S MAID.</hi> By Berta Ruck.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>Another ingenious Berta Ruck plot in which a high-spirited girl of twenty-three,
+well-bred, but penniless, flies in the face of tradition, becoming a maid of a
+newly-made heiress. So entangled grow the love affairs of mistress and maid
+that the reader has a merry time with the author in steering the girls on the
+road to happiness.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>ENOCH CRANE.</hi> By F. Hopkinson and F. Berkeley Smith.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>A story of New York specially. The scene is Waverly Place, in one of the
+characteristic old houses of that section. In this respect the story is very similar
+to "Peter," Mr. Smith's most popular book.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='bold'>PARTNERS OF THE NIGHT.</hi> By Leroy Scott.</p>
+
+<p rend='i2'>Although a detective story, it is one altogether different from those of the ordinary
+detective story writer. It is a story of the plain-clothes men and criminals
+of New York, with a splendid romance.</p>
+
+
+<p>For sale by all booksellers.</p>
+
+<p>A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East <corr sic='23d'>23rd</corr> Street, New York</p>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+  <divGen type='pgfooter' />
+</div>
+</back>
+</text>
+</TEI.2>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbarians by Robert W. Chambers
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Barbarians
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2008 [Ebook #25623]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARIANS***
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back
+into mid-air.]
+
+BARBARIANS
+
+By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"The Dark Star," "The Girl Philippa," "Who Goes There," Etc.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+With Frontispiece
+
+By A. I. KELLER
+
+                            ------------------
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+
+Publishers New York
+
+Published by arrangement with D. APPLETON & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+TO
+LYLE and MADELEINE MAHAN
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+  "Daughter of Light, the bestial wrath
+  Of Barbary besets thy path!
+  The Hun is beating his painted drum;
+  His war horns blare! The Hun is come!"
+
+  "Father, I feel his foetid breath:
+  The thick air reeks with the stench of death;
+  My will is Thine. Thy will be done
+  On Turk and Bulgar, Czech and Hun!"
+
+II
+
+  _She understands._
+  _Where the dead headland flare_
+  _Mocks sea and sand;_
+  _Where death-lights shed their glare_
+  _On No-Man's-Land._
+  _France takes her stand._
+  _Magnificently fair,_
+  _The Flaming Brand_
+  _Within her slender hand;_
+  _Christ's lilies in her hair._
+
+III
+
+  "Daughter of Grief, thy House is sand!
+  Thy towers are falling athwart the land.
+  They've flayed the earth to its ribs of chalk
+  And over its bones the spectres stalk!"
+
+  "Father, I see my high spires reel;
+  My breast is scarred by the Hun's hoofed heel.
+  What was, shall be! I read Thy sign:
+  Thy ocean yawns for the smitten swine!"
+
+IV
+
+  _Then, from Verdun_
+  _Pealed westward to the Somme_
+  _From every gun_
+  _God's summons: "Daughter! Come!"_
+  _Then the red sun_
+  _Stood still. Grew dumb_
+  _The universal hum_
+  _Of life, and numb_
+  _The lips of Life, undone_
+  _By Death.... And so--France won!_
+
+V
+
+  "Daughter of God, the End is here!
+  The swine rush on: the sea is near!
+  My wild flowers bloom on the trenches' edge;
+  My little birds sing by shore and sedge."
+
+  "Father, raise up my martyred land!
+  Clothe her bones with Thy magic hand;
+  Receive the Brand Thy angel lent,
+  And stanch my blood with Thy sacrament."
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. FED UP
+II. MAROONED
+III. CUCKOO!
+IV. RECONNAISSANCE
+V. PARNASSUS
+VI. IN FINISTERE
+VII. THE AIRMAN
+VIII. EN OBSERVATION
+IX. L'OMBRE
+X. THE GHOULS
+XI. THE SEED OF DEATH
+XII. FIFTY-FIFTY
+XIII. MULETEERS
+XIV. LA PLOO BELLE
+XV. CARILLONETTE
+XVI. DJACK
+XVII. FRIENDSHIP
+XVIII. THE AVIATOR
+XIX. HONOUR
+XX. LA BRABANCONNE
+XXI. THE GARDENER
+XXII. THE SUSPECT
+XXIII. MADAM DEATH
+XXIV. BUBBLES
+XXV. KAMERAD
+Advertisement
+Jacket Flap Text
+Advertisement
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FED UP
+
+
+So this is what happened to the dozen-odd malcontents who could no longer
+stand the dirty business in Europe and the dirtier politicians at home.
+
+There was treachery in the Senate, treason in the House. A plague of liars
+infested the Republic; the land was rotting with plots.
+
+But if the authorities at Washington remained incredulous, stunned into
+impotency, while the din of murder filled the world, a few mere men, fed
+up on the mess, sickened while awaiting executive galvanization, and
+started east to purge their souls.
+
+They came from the four quarters of the continent, drawn to the decks of
+the mule transport by a common sickness and a common necessity. Only two
+among them had ever before met. They represented all sorts, classes,
+degrees of education and of ignorance, drawn to a common rendezvous by
+coincidental nausea incident to the temporary stupidity and poltroonery of
+those supposed to represent them in the Congress of the Great Republic.
+
+The rendezvous was a mule transport reeking with its cargo, still tied up
+to the sun-scorched wharf where scores of loungers loafed and gazed up at
+the rail and exchanged badinage with the supercargo.
+
+The supercargo consisted of this dozen-odd fed-up ones--eight Americans,
+three Frenchmen and one Belgian.
+
+There was a young soldier of fortune named Carfax, recently discharged
+from the Pennsylvania State Constabulary, who seemed to feel rather sure
+of a commission in the British service.
+
+Beside him, leaning on the blistering rail, stood a self-possessed young
+man named Harry Stent. He had been educated abroad; his means were ample;
+his time his own. He had shot all kinds of big game except a Hun, he told
+another young fellow--a civil engineer--who stood at his left and whose
+name was Jim Brown.
+
+A youth on crutches, passing along the deck behind them, lingered,
+listening to the conversation, slightly amused at Stent's game list and
+his further ambition to bag a Boche.
+
+The young man's lameness resulted from a trench acquaintance with the game
+which Stent desired to hunt. His regiment had been, and still was, the 2nd
+Foreign Legion. He was on his way back, now, to finish his convalescence
+in his old home in Finistere. He had been a writer of stories for
+children. His name was Jacques Wayland.
+
+As he turned away from the group at the rail, still amused, a man
+advancing aft spoke to him by name, and he recognized an American painter
+whom he had met in Brittany.
+
+"You, Neeland?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I'm fed up with watchful waiting."
+
+"Where are you bound, ultimately?"
+
+"I've a hint that an Overseas unit can use me. And you, Wayland?"
+
+"Going to my old home in Finistere where I'll get well, I hope."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Second Foreign."
+
+"Oh. Get that leg in the trenches?" inquired Neeland.
+
+"Yes. Came over to recuperate. But Finistere calls me. I've _got_ to smell
+the sea off Eryx before I can get well."
+
+A pleasant-faced, middle-aged man, who stood near, turned his head and
+cast a professionally appraising glance at the young fellow on crutches.
+
+His name was Vail; he was a physician. It did not seem to him that there
+was much chance for the lame man's very rapid recovery.
+
+Three muleteers came on deck from below--all young men, all talking in
+loud, careless voices. They wore uniforms of khaki resembling the regular
+service uniform. They had no right to these uniforms.
+
+One of these young men had invented the costume. His name was Jack Burley.
+His two comrades were, respectively, "Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn. Both
+had figured in the squared circle. All three were fed up. They desired to
+wallop something, even if it were only a leather-rumped mule.
+
+Four other men completed the supercargo--three French youths who were
+returning for military duty and one Belgian. They had been waiters in New
+York. They also were fed up with the administration. They kept by
+themselves during the voyage. Nobody ever learned their names. They left
+the transport at Calais, reported, and were lost to sight in the flood of
+young men flowing toward the trenches.
+
+They completed the odd dozen of fed-up ones who sailed that day on the
+suffocating mule transport in quest of something they needed but could not
+find in America--something that lay somewhere amid flaming obscurity in
+that hell of murder beyond the Somme--their souls' salvation perhaps.
+
+Twelve fed-up men went. And what happened to all except the four French
+youths is known. Fate laid a guiding hand on the shoulder of Carfax and
+gave him a gentle shove toward the Vosges. Destiny linked arms with Stent
+and Brown and led them toward Italy. Wayland's rendezvous with Old Man
+Death was in Finistere. Neeland sailed with an army corps, but Chance met
+him at Lorient and led him into the strangest paths a young man ever
+travelled.
+
+As for Sticky Smith, Kid Glenn and Jack Burley, they were muleteers. Or
+thought they were. A muleteer has to do with mules. Nothing else is
+supposed to concern him.
+
+But into the lives of these three muleteers came things never dreamed of
+in their philosophy--never imagined by them even in their cups.
+
+As for the others, Carfax, Brown, Stent, Wayland, Neeland, this is what
+happened to each one of them. But the episode of Carfax comes first. It
+happened somewhere north of the neutral Alpine region where the Vosges
+shoulder their way between France and Germany.
+
+After he had exchanged a dozen words with a staff officer, he began to
+realize, vaguely, that he was done in.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MAROONED
+
+
+"Will they do anything for us?" repeated Carfax.
+
+The staff officer thought it very doubtful. He stood in the snow switching
+his wet puttees and looking out across a world of tumbled mountains. Over
+on his right lay Germany; on his left, France; Switzerland towered in ice
+behind him against an arctic blue sky.
+
+It grew warm on the Falcon Peak, almost hot in the sun. Snow was melting
+on black heaps of rocks; a black salamander, swollen, horrible, stirred
+from its stiff lethargy and crawled away blindly across the snow.
+
+"Our case is this," continued Carfax; "somebody's made a mistake. We've
+been forgotten. And if they don't relieve us rather soon some of us will
+go off our bally nuts. Do you get me, Major?"
+
+"I beg your pardon----"
+
+"Do you understand what I've been saying?"
+
+"Oh, yes; quite so."
+
+"Then ask yourself, Major, how long can four men stand it, cooped up here
+on this peak? A month, two months, three, five? But it's going on ten
+months--ten months of solitude--silence--not a sound, except when the
+snowslides go bellowing off into Alsace down there below our feet." His
+bronzed lip quivered. "I'll get aboard one if this keeps on."
+
+He kicked a lump of ice off into space; the staff officer glanced at him
+and looked away hurriedly.
+
+"Listen," said Carfax with an effort; "we're not regulars--not like the
+others. The Canadian division is different. Its discipline is
+different--in spite of Salisbury Plain and K. of K. In my regiment there
+are half-breeds, pelt-hunters, Nome miners, Yankees of all degrees,
+British, Canadians, gentlemen adventurers from Cosmopolis. They're good
+soldiers, but do you think they'd stay here? It is so in the Athabasca
+Battalion; it is the same in every battalion. They wouldn't stay here ten
+months. They couldn't. We are free people; we can't stand indefinite
+caging; we've got to have walking room once every few months."
+
+The staff officer murmured something.
+
+"I know; but good God, man! Four of us have been on this peak for nearly
+ten months. We've never seen a Boche, never heard a shot. Seasons come and
+go, rain falls, snow falls, the winds blow from the Alps, but nothing else
+comes to us except a half-frozen bird or two."
+
+The staff officer looked about him with an involuntary shiver. There was
+nothing to see except the sun on the wet, black rocks and the whitewashed
+observation station of solid stone from which wires sagged into the valley
+on the French side.
+
+"Well--good luck," he said hastily, looking as embarrassed as he felt.
+"I'll be toddling along."
+
+"Will you say a word to the General, like a good chap? Tell him how it is
+with us--four of us all alone up here since the beginning. There's Gary,
+Captain in the Athabasca Battalion, a Yankee if the truth were known;
+there's Flint, a cockney lieutenant in a Calgary battery; there's young
+Gray, a lieutenant and a Prince Edward Islander; and here's me, a major in
+the Yukon Battalion--four of us on the top of a cursed French
+mountain--ten months of each other, of solitude, silence--and the whole
+world rocking with battles--and not a sound up here--not a whisper! I tell
+you we're four sick men! We've got a grip on ourselves yet, but it's
+slipping. We're still fairly civil to each other, but the strain is
+killing. Sullen silences smother irritability, but--" he added in a
+peculiarly pleasant voice, "I expect we are likely to start killing each
+other if somebody doesn't get us out of here very damn quick."
+
+The staff captain's lips formed the words, "Awfully sorry! Good luck!" but
+his articulation was indistinct, and he went off hurriedly, still
+murmuring.
+
+Carfax stood in the snow, watching him clamber down among the rocks, where
+an alpinist orderly joined them.
+
+Gary presently appeared at the door of the observation station. "Has he
+gone?" he inquired, without interest.
+
+"Yes," said Carfax.
+
+"Is he going to do anything for us?"
+
+"I don't know.... _No!_"
+
+Gary lingered, kicked at a salamander, then turned and went indoors.
+Carfax sat down on a rock and sucked at his empty pipe.
+
+Later the three officers in the observation station came out to the door
+again and looked at him, but turned back into the doorway without saying
+anything. And after a while Carfax, feeling slightly feverish, went
+indoors, too.
+
+In the square, whitewashed room Gray and Flint were playing cut-throat
+poker; Gary was at the telephone, but the messages received or transmitted
+appeared to be of no importance. There had never been any message of
+importance from the Falcon Peak or to it. There was likely to be none.
+
+Ennui, inertia, dry rot--and four men, sometimes silently, sometimes
+violently cursing their isolation, but always cursing it--afraid in their
+souls lest they fall to cursing one another aloud as they had begun to
+curse in their hearts.
+
+Months ago rain had fallen; now snow fell, and vast winds roared around
+them from the Alps. But nothing else ever came to the Falcon Peak, except
+a fierce, red-eyed _Laemmergeyer_ sheering above the peak on enormous
+pinions, or a few little migrating birds fluttering down, half frozen,
+from the high air lanes. Now and then, also, came to them a staff officer
+from below, British sometimes, sometimes French, who lingered no longer
+than necessary and then went back again, down into friendly deeps where
+were trees and fields and familiar things and human companionship, leaving
+them to their hell of silence, of solitude, and of each other.
+
+The tide of war had never washed the base of their granite cliffs; the
+highest battle wave had thundered against the Vosges beyond earshot; not
+even a deadened echo of war penetrated those silent heights; not a Taube
+floated in the zenith.
+
+In the squatty, whitewashed ruin which once had been the eyrie of some
+petty predatory despot, and which now served as an observatory for two
+idle divisions below in the valley, stood three telescopes. Otherwise the
+furniture consisted of valises, trunks, a table and chairs, a few books,
+several newspapers, and some tennis balls lying on the floor.
+
+Carfax seated himself at one of the telescopes, not looking through it,
+his heavy eyes partly closed, his burnt-out pipe between his teeth.
+
+Gary rose from the telephone and joined the card players. They shuffled
+and dealt listlessly, seldom speaking save in monosyllables.
+
+After a while Carfax went over to the card table and the young lieutenant
+cashed in and took his place at the telescope.
+
+Below in the Alsatian valley spring had already started the fruit buds,
+and a delicate green edged the lower snow line.
+
+The lieutenant spoke of it wistfully; nobody paid any attention; he rose
+presently and went outdoors to the edge of the precipice--not too near,
+for fear he might be tempted to jump out through the sunshine, down into
+that inviting world of promise below.
+
+Far underneath him--very far down in the valley--a cuckoo called. Out of
+the depths floated the elfin halloo, the gaily malicious challenge of
+spring herself, shouted up melodiously from the plains of
+Alsace--_Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_--You poor, sullen, frozen foreigner
+up there on the snowy rocks!--_Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_ _Cuckoo!_
+
+The lieutenant of Yukon infantry, whose name was Gray, came back into the
+room.
+
+"There's a bird of sorts yelling like hell below," he said to the card
+players.
+
+Carfax ran over his cards, rejected three, and nodded. "Well, let him
+yell," he said.
+
+"What is it, a Boche dicky-bird insulting you?" asked Gary, in his Yankee
+drawl.
+
+Flint, declining to draw cards, got up and went out into the sunshine.
+When he returned to the table, he said: "It's a cuckoo.... I wish to God I
+were out of this," he added.
+
+They continued to play for a while without apparent interest. Each man had
+won his comrades' money too many times to care when Carfax added up debit
+and credit and wrote down each man's score. In nine months, alternately
+beggaring one another, they had now, it appeared, broken about even.
+
+Gary, an American in British uniform, twitched a newspaper toward himself,
+slouched in his chair, and continued to read for a while. The paper was
+French and two weeks old; he jerked it about irritably.
+
+Gray, resting his elbows on his knees, sat gazing vacantly out of the
+narrow window. For a smart officer he had grown slovenly.
+
+"If there was any trout fishing to be had," he began; but Flint laughed
+scornfully.
+
+"What are you laughing at? There must be trout in the valley down there
+where that bird is," insisted Gray, reddening.
+
+"Yes, and there are cows and chickens and houses and women. What of it?"
+
+Gary, in his faded service uniform of a captain, scowled over his
+newspaper. "It's bad enough to be here," he said heavily; "so don't let's
+talk about it. Quit disputing."
+
+Flint ignored the order.
+
+"If there was anything sportin' to do----"
+
+"Oh, shut up," muttered Carfax. "Do you expect sport on a hog-back?"
+
+Gray picked up a tennis ball and began to play it against the whitewashed
+stone wall, using the palm of his hand. Flint joined him presently; Gary
+went over to the telephone, set the receiver to his ear and spoke to some
+officer in the distant valley on the French side, continuing a spiritless
+conversation while watching the handball play. After a while he rose,
+shambled out and down among the rocks to the spring where snow lay,
+trodden and filthy, and the big, black salamanders crawled half stupefied
+in the sun. All his loathing and fear of them kindled again as it always
+did at sight of them. "Dirty beasts," he muttered, stumping and stumbling
+among the stunted fir trees; "some day they'll bite some of these damn
+fools who say they can't bite. And that'll end 'em."
+
+Flint and Gray continued to play handball in a perfunctory way while
+Carfax looked on from the telephone without interest. Gary came back, his
+shoes and puttees all over wet snow.
+
+"Unless," he said in a monotonous voice, "something happens within the
+next few days I'll begin to feel queer in my head; and if I feel it coming
+on, I'll blow my bally nut off. Or somebody's." And he touched his service
+automatic in its holster and yawned.
+
+After a dead silence:
+
+"Buck up," remarked Carfax; "think how our men must feel in Belfort, never
+letting off their guns. Ross rifles, too--not a shot at a Boche since the
+damn war began!"
+
+"God!" said Flint, smiting the ball with the palm of his hand, "to think
+of those Ross rifles rusting down there and to think of the pink-skinned
+pigs they could paunch so cleanly. Did you ever paunch a deer? What a mess
+of intestines all over the shop!"
+
+Gary, still standing, began to kick the snow from his shoes. Gray said to
+him: "For a dollar of your Yankee money I'd give you a shot at me with
+your automatic--you're that slack at practice."
+
+"If it goes on much longer like this I'll not have to pay for a shot at
+anybody," returned Gary, with a short laugh.
+
+Gray laughed too, disagreeably, stretching his facial muscles, but no
+sound issued.
+
+"We're all going crazy together up here; that's my idea," he said. "I
+don't know which I can stand most comfortably, your voices or your
+silence. Both make me sick."
+
+"Some day a salamander will nip you; then you'll go loco," observed Gary,
+balancing another tennis ball in his right hand. "Give me a shot at you?"
+he added. "I feel as though I could throw it clean through you. You look
+soft as a pudding to me."
+
+Far, clear, from infinite depths, the elf-like hail of the cuckoo came
+floating up to the window.
+
+To Flint, English born, the call meant more than it did to Canadian or
+Yankee.
+
+"In Devon," he said in an altered voice, "they'll be calling just now.
+There's a world of primroses in Devon.... And the thorn is as white as the
+damned snow is up here."
+
+Gary growled his impatience and his profile of a Greek fighter showed in
+clean silhouette against the window.
+
+"Aw, hell," he said, "did I come out here for this?--nine months of it?"
+He hurled the tennis ball at the wall. "Can the home talk, if you don't
+mind."
+
+The cuckoo was still calling.
+
+"Did you ever play cuckoo," asked Carfax, "at ten shillings a throw? It's
+not a bad game--if you're put to it for amusement."
+
+Nobody replied; Gray's sunken, boyish face betrayed no interest; he
+continued to toss a tennis ball against the wall and catch it on the
+rebound.
+
+Toward sundown the usual Alpine chill set in; a mist hung over the
+snow-edged cliffs; the rocks breathed steam under a foggy and battered
+moon.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CUCKOO!
+
+
+Carfax, on duty, sat hunched up over the telephone, reporting to the
+fortress.
+
+Gray came in, closed the wooden shutters, hung blankets over them, lighted
+an oil stove and then a candle. Flint took up the cards, looked at Gary,
+then flung them aside, muttering.
+
+Nobody attempted to read; nobody touched the cards again. An orderly came
+in with soup. The meal was brief and perfectly silent.
+
+Flint said casually, after the table had been cleared: "I haven't slept
+for a month. If I don't get some sleep I'll go queer. I warn you; that's
+all. I'm sorry to say it, but it's so."
+
+"They're dirty beasts to keep us here like this," muttered Gary--"nine
+months of it, and not a shot."
+
+"There'll be a few shots if things don't change," remarked Flint in a
+colourless voice. "I'm getting wrong in my head. I can feel it."
+
+Carfax turned from the switchboard with a forced laugh: "Thinking of
+shooting up the camp?"
+
+"That or myself," replied Flint in a quiet voice; "ever since that cuckoo
+called I've felt queer."
+
+Gary, brooding in his soiled tunic collar, began to mutter presently: "I
+once knew a man in a lighthouse down in Florida who couldn't stand it
+after a bit and jumped off."
+
+"Oh, we've heard that twenty times," interrupted Carfax wearily.
+
+Gray said: "_What_ a jump!--I mean down into Alsace below----"
+
+"You're all going dotty!" snapped Carfax. "Shut up or you'll be doing
+it--some of you."
+
+"I can't sleep. That's where I'm getting queer," insisted Flint. "If I
+could get a few hours' sleep now----"
+
+"I wish to God the Boches could reach you with a big gun. That would put
+you to sleep, all right!" said Gray.
+
+"This war is likely to end before any of us see a Fritz," said Carfax. "I
+could stand it, too, except being up here with such"--his voice dwindled
+to a mutter, but it sounded to Gary as though he had used the word
+"rotters."
+
+Flint's face had a white, strained expression; he began to walk about,
+saying aloud to himself: "If I could only sleep. That's the idea--sleep it
+off, and wake up somewhere else. It's the silence, or the voices--I don't
+know which. You dollar-crazy Yankees and ignorant Provincials don't
+realize what a cuckoo is. You've no traditions, anyway--no past, nothing
+to care for----"
+
+"Listen to 'Arry!" retorted Gary--"'Arry and his cuckoo!"
+
+Carfax stirred heavily. "Shut up!" he said, with an effort. "The thing is
+to keep doing something--something--anything--except quarrelling."
+
+He picked up a tennis ball. "Come on, you funking brutes! I'll teach you
+how to play cuckoo. Every man takes three tennis balls and stands in a
+corner of the room. I stand in the middle. Then you blow out the candle.
+Then I call 'cuckoo!' in the dark and you try to hit me, aiming by the
+sound of my voice. Every time I'm hit I pay ten shillings to the pool,
+take my place in a corner, and have a shot at the next man, chosen by lot.
+And if you throw three balls apiece and nobody hits me, then you each pay
+ten shillings to me and I'm cuckoo for another round."
+
+"We aim at random?" inquired Gray, mildly interested.
+
+"Certainly. It must be played in pitch darkness. When I call out cuckoo,
+you take a shot at where you think I am. If you all miss, you all pay. If
+I'm hit, I pay."
+
+Gary chose three tennis balls and retired to a corner of the room; Gray
+and Flint, urged into action, took three each, unwillingly.
+
+"Blow out the candle," said Carfax, who had walked into the middle of the
+room. Gary blew it out and the place was in darkness.
+
+They thought they heard Carfax moving cautiously, and presently he called,
+"Cuckoo!" A storm of tennis balls rebounded from the walls; "Cuckoo!"
+shouted Carfax, and the tennis balls rained all around him.
+
+Once more he called; not a ball hit him; and he struck a match where he
+was seated upon the floor.
+
+There was some perfunctory laughter of a feverish sort; the candle was
+relighted, tennis balls redistributed, and Carfax wrote down his winnings.
+
+The next time, however, Gray, throwing low, caught him. Again the candle
+was lighted, scores jotted down, a coin tossed, and Flint went in as
+cuckoo.
+
+It seemed almost impossible to miss a man so near, even in total darkness,
+but Flint lasted three rounds and was hit, finally, a stinging smack on
+the ear. And then Gary went in.
+
+It was hot work, but they kept at it feverishly, grimly, as though their
+very sanity depended upon the violence of their diversion. They threw the
+balls hard, viciously hard. A sort of silent ferocity seemed to seize
+them. A chance hit cut the skin over Flint's cheekbone, and when the
+candle was lighted, one side of his face was bright with blood.
+
+Early in the proceedings somebody had disinterred brandy and Schnapps from
+under a bunk. The room had become close; they all were sweating.
+
+Carfax emptied his iced glass, still breathing hard, tossed a shilling and
+sent in Gary as cuckoo.
+
+Flint, who never could stand spirits, started unsteadily for the candle,
+but could not seem to blow it out. He stood swaying and balancing on his
+heels, puffing out his smooth, boyish cheeks and blowing at hazard.
+
+"You're drunk," said Gray, thickly; but he was as flushed as the boy he
+addressed, only steadier of leg.
+
+"What's that?" retorted Flint, jerking his shoulders around and gazing at
+Gray out of glassy eyes.
+
+"Blow out that candle," said Gary heavily, "or I'll shoot it out! Do you
+get that?"
+
+"Shoot!" repeated Flint, staring vaguely into Gary's bloodshot eyes;
+"_you_ shoot, you old slacker----"
+
+"Shut up and play the game!" cut in Carfax, a menacing roar rising in his
+voice. "You're all slackers--and rotters, too. Play the game! Keep
+playing--hard!--or you'll go clean off your fool nuts!"
+
+Gary walked heavily over and knocked the tennis balls out of Flint's
+hands.
+
+"There's a better game than that," he said, his articulation very thick;
+"but it takes nerve--if you've got it, you spindle-legged little cockney!"
+
+Flint struck at him aimlessly. "I've got nerve," he muttered, "plenty of
+nerve, old top! What d'you want? I'm your man; I'll go you--eh, what?"
+
+"Go on with the game, I tell you!" bawled Carfax.
+
+Gary swung around: "Wait till I explain----"
+
+"No, don't wait! Keep going! Keep playing! Keep doing something, for God's
+sake!"
+
+"Will you wait!" shouted Gary. "I want to tell you----"
+
+Carfax made a hopeless gesture: "It's talk that will do the trick for us
+all----"
+
+"I want to tell you----"
+
+Carfax shrugged, emptied his full glass with a gesture of finality.
+
+"Then talk, damn you! And we'll all be at each other's throats before
+morning."
+
+Gary got Gray by the elbow: "Reggie, it's this way. We flip up for cuckoo.
+Whoever gets stuck takes a shot apiece from our automatics in the
+legs--eh, what?"
+
+"It's perfectly agreeable to me," assented Gray, in the mincing, elaborate
+voice characteristic of him when drunk.
+
+Flint wagged his head. "It's a sportin' game. I'm in," he said.
+
+Gary looked at Carfax. "A shot in the dark at a man's legs. And if he gets
+his--it will be Blighty in exchange for hell."
+
+Carfax, sullen with liquor, shoved his big hand into his pocket, produced
+a shilling, and tossed it.
+
+A brighter flush stained the faces which ringed him; the risky hazard of
+the affair cleared their sick minds to comprehension.
+
+Tails turned uppermost; Flint and Gary were eliminated. It lay between
+Carfax and Gray, and the older man won.
+
+"Mind you fire low," said the young fellow, with an excited laugh, and
+walked into the middle of the room.
+
+Gary blew out the candle. Presently from somewhere in the intense darkness
+Gray called "Cuckoo!" and instantly a slanting red flash lashed out
+through the gloom. And, when the deafening echo had nearly ceased:
+"Cuckoo!"
+
+Another pistol crashed. And after a swimming interval they heard him
+moving. "Cuckoo!" he called; a level flame stabbed the dark; something
+fell, thudding through the staccato uproar of the explosion. At the same
+moment the outer door opened on the crack and Carfax's orderly peeped in.
+
+Carfax struck a match with shaky fingers; the candle guttered, sank,
+flared on Flint, who was laughing without a sound. "Got the beggar, by
+God!" he whispered--"through the head! Look at him. Look at Reggie Gray!
+Tried for his head and got him----"
+
+He reeled back, chuckling foolishly, and levelled at Carfax. "Now I'll get
+you!" he simpered, and shot him through the face.
+
+As Carfax pitched forward, Gary fired.
+
+"Missed me, by God!" laughed Flint. "Shoot? Hell, yes. I'll show you how
+to shoot----"
+
+He struck the lighted candle with his left hand and laughed again in the
+thick darkness.
+
+"Shoot? I'll show you how to shoot, you old slacker----"
+
+Gary fired.
+
+After a silence Flint giggled in the choking darkness as the door opened
+cautiously again, and shot at the terrified orderly.
+
+"I'm a cockney, am I? And you don't think much of the Devon cuckoos, do
+you? Now I'll show you that I understand all kinds of cuckoos----"
+
+Both flashes split the obscurity at the same moment. Flint fell back
+against the wall and slid down to the floor. The outer door began to open
+again cautiously.
+
+But the orderly, half dressed, remained knee-deep in the snow by the
+doorway.
+
+After a long interval Gary struck a match, then went over and lit the
+candle. And, as he turned, Flint fired from where he lay on the floor and
+Gary swung heavily on one heel, took two uncertain steps. Then his pistol
+fell clattering; he sank to his knees and collapsed face downward on the
+stones.
+
+Flint, still lying where he had fallen, partly upright, against the wall,
+began to laugh, and died a few moments later, the wind from the slowly
+opening door stirring his fair hair and extinguishing the candle.
+
+And at last, through the opened door crept Carfax's orderly; peered into
+the darkness within, shivering in his unbuttoned tunic, his boots wet with
+snow.
+
+Dawn already whitened the east; and up out of the ghastly fog edging the
+German Empire, silhouetted, monstrous, against the daybreak, soared a
+_Laemmergeyer_, beating the livid void with enormous, unclean wings.
+
+The orderly heard its scream, shrank, cowering, against the door frame as
+the huge bird's ferocious red and yellow eyes blazed level with his.
+
+Suddenly, above the clamor of the _Laemmergeyer_, the shrill bell of the
+telephone began to ring.
+
+The terrible racket of the _Laemmergeyer_ filled the sky; the orderly
+stumbled into the room, slipped in a puddle of something wet, sent an
+empty bottle rolling and clinking away into the darkness; stumbled twice
+over prostrate bodies; reached the telephone, half fainting; whispered for
+help.
+
+After a long, long while, the horror still thickly clogging vein and
+brain, he scratched a match, hesitated, then holding it high, reeled
+toward the door with face averted.
+
+Outside the sun was already above the horizon, flashing over Haut Alsace
+at his feet.
+
+The _Laemmergeyer_ was a speck in the sky, poised over France.
+
+Up out of the infinite and sunlit chasm came a mocking, joyous hail--up
+through the sheer, misty gulf out of vernal depths: _Cuck_-oo! _Cuck_-oo!
+_Cuck_-oo!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+RECONNAISSANCE
+
+
+And that was the way Carfax ended--a tiny tragedy of incompetence compared
+to the mountainous official fiasco at Gallipoli. Here, a few perished
+among the filthy salamanders in the snow; there, thousands died in the
+burning Turkish gorse----
+
+                            ------------------
+
+But that's history; and its makers are already officially damned.
+
+But now concerning two others of the fed-up dozen on board the mule
+transport--Harry Stent and Jim Brown. Destiny linked arms with them; Fate
+jerked a mysterious thumb over her shoulder toward Italy. Chance detailed
+them for special duty as soon as they landed.
+
+It was a magnificent sight, the disembarking of the British overseas
+military force sent secretly into Italy.
+
+They continued to disembark and entrain at night. Nobody knew that British
+troops were in Italy.
+
+The infernal uproar along the Isonzo never ceased; the din of the guns
+resounded through the Trentino, but British and Canadian noses were
+sniffing at something beyond the Carnic Alps, along the slopes of which
+they continued to concentrate, Rifles, Kilties, and Gunners.
+
+There seemed to be no particular hurry. Details from the Canadian
+contingent were constantly sent out to familiarize themselves with the
+vast waste of tunneled mountains denting the Austrian sky-line to the
+northward; and all day long Dominion reconnoitering parties wandered among
+valleys, alms, forest, and peaks in company sometimes with Italian
+alpinists, sometimes by themselves, prying, poking, snooping about with
+all the emotionless pertinacity of Teuton tourists preoccupied with
+_wanderlust_, _kultur_, and _ewigkeit_.
+
+And one lovely September morning the British Military Observer with the
+Italian army, and his very British aid, sat on a sunny rock on the Col de
+la Reine and watched a Canadian northward reconnaissance--nothing much to
+see, except a solitary moving figure here and there on the mountains,
+crawling like a deerstalker across ledges and stretches of bracken--a few
+dots on the higher slopes, visible for a moment, then again invisible,
+then glimpsed against some lower snow patch, and gone again beyond the
+range of powerful glasses.
+
+"The Athabasca regiment, 13th Battalion," remarked the British Military
+Observer; "lively and rather noisy."
+
+"Really," observed his A. D. C.
+
+"Sturdy, half-disciplined beggars," continued the B. M. O., watching the
+mountain plank through his glasses; "every variety of adventurer in their
+ranks--cattlemen, ranchmen, Hudson Bay trappers, North West police,
+lumbermen, mail carriers, bear hunters, Indians, renegade frontiersmen,
+soldiers of fortune--a sweet lot, Algy."
+
+"Ow."
+
+"--And half of 'em unruly Yankees--the most objectionable half, you know."
+
+"A bad lot," remarked the Honorable Algy.
+
+"Not at all," said the B. M. O. complacently; "I've a relative of sorts
+with 'em--leftenant, I believe--a Yankee brother-in-law, in point of
+fact."
+
+"Ow."
+
+"Married a step-sister in the States. Must look him up some day,"
+concluded the B. M. O., adjusting his field glasses and focussing them on
+two dark dots moving across a distant waste of alpine roses along the edge
+of a chasm.
+
+One of the dots happened to be the "relative of sorts" just mentioned; but
+the B. M. O. could not know that. And a moment afterward the dots became
+invisible against the vast mass of the mountain, and did not again
+reappear within the field of the English officer's limited vision. So he
+never knew he had seen his relative of sorts.
+
+Up there on the alp, one of the dots, which at near view appeared to be a
+good-looking, bronzed young man in khaki, puttees, and mountain shoes,
+said to the other officer who was scrambling over the rocks beside him:
+
+"Did you ever see a better country for sheep?"
+
+"Bear, elk, goats--it's sure a great layout," returned the younger
+officer, a Canadian whose name was Stent.
+
+"Goats," nodded Brown--"sheep and goats. This country was made for them. I
+fancy they _have_ chamois here. Did you ever see one, Harry?"
+
+"Yes. They have a thing out here, too, called an ibex. You never saw an
+ibex, did you, Jim?"
+
+Brown, who had halted, shook his head. Stent stepped forward and stood
+silently beside him, looking out across the vast cleft in the mountains,
+but not using his field glasses.
+
+At their feet the cliffs fell away sheer into tremendous and dizzying
+depths; fir forests far below carpeted the abyss like wastes of velvet
+moss, amid which glistened a twisted silvery thread--a river. A world of
+mountains bounded the horizon.
+
+"Better make a note or two," said Stent briefly.
+
+They unslung their rifles, seated themselves in the warm sun amid a deep
+thicket of alpine roses, and remained silent and busy with pencil and
+paper for a while--two inconspicuous, brownish-grey figures, cuddled close
+among the greyish rocks, with nothing of military insignia about their
+dress or their round grey wool caps to differentiate them from
+sportsmen--wary stalkers of chamois or red deer--except that under their
+unbelted tunics automatics and cartridge belts made perceptible bunches.
+
+Just above them a line of stunted firs edged limits of perpetual snow, and
+rocks and glistening fields of crag-broken white carried the eye on upward
+to the dazzling pinnacle of the Col de la Reine, splitting the vast, calm
+blue above.
+
+Nothing except peaks disturbed the tranquil sky to the northward; not a
+cloud hung there. But westward mist clung to a few mountain flanks, and to
+the east it was snowing on distant crests.
+
+Brown, sketching rapidly but accurately, laughed a little under his
+breath.
+
+"To think," he said, "not a Boche dreams we are in the Carnic Alps. It's
+very funny, isn't it? Our surveyors are likely to be here in a day or two,
+I fancy."
+
+Stent, working more slowly and methodically on his squared map paper, the
+smoke drifting fragrantly from his brier pipe, nodded in silence, glancing
+down now and then at the barometer and compass between them.
+
+"Mentioning big game," he remarked presently, "I started to tell you about
+the ibex, Jim. I've hunted a little in the Eastern Alps."
+
+"I didn't know it," said Brown, interested.
+
+"Yes. A classmate of mine at the Munich Polytechnic invited me--Siurd von
+Glahn--a splendid fellow--educated at Oxford--just like one of us--nothing
+of the Boche about him at all----"
+
+Brown laughed: "A Boche is always a Boche, Harry. The black Prussian
+blood----"
+
+"No; Siurd was all white. Really. A charming, lovable fellow. Anyway, his
+dad had a shooting where there were chamois, reh, hirsch, and the king of
+all Alpine big game--ibex. And Siurd asked me."
+
+"Did you get an ibex?" inquired Brown, sharpening his pencil and glancing
+out across the valley at a cloud which had suddenly formed there.
+
+"I did."
+
+"What manner of beast is it?"
+
+"It has mountain sheep and goats stung to death. Take it from me, Jim,
+it's the last word in mountain sport. The chamois isn't in it. Pooh, I've
+seen chamois within a hundred yards of a mountain macadam highway. But the
+ibex? Not much! The man who stalks and kills an ibex has nothing more to
+learn about stalking. Chamois, red deer, Scotch stag make you laugh after
+you've done your bit in the ibex line."
+
+"How about our sheep and goat?" inquired Brown, staring at his comrade.
+
+"It's harder to get ibex."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"It really is, Jim."
+
+"What does your ibex resemble?"
+
+"It's a handsome beast, ashy grey in summer, furred a brownish yellow in
+winter, and with little chin whiskers and a pair of big, curved, heavily
+ridged horns, thick and flat and looking as though they ought to belong to
+something African, and twice as big."
+
+"Some trophy, what?" commented Brown, working away at his sketches.
+
+"Rather. The devilish thing lives along the perpetual snow line; and, for
+incredible stunts in jumping and climbing, it can give points to any Rocky
+Mountain goat. You try to get above it, spend the night there, and stalk
+it when it returns from nocturnal grazing in the stunted growth below.
+That's how."
+
+"And you got one?"
+
+"Yes. It took six days. We followed it for that length of time across the
+icy mountains, Siurd and I. I thought I'd die."
+
+"Cold work, eh?"
+
+Stent nodded, pocketed his sketch, fished out a packet of bread and
+chocolate from his pocket and, rolling over luxuriously in the sun among
+the alpine roses, lunched leisurely, flat on his back.
+
+Brown presently stretched out and reclined on his elbow; and while he ate
+he lazily watched a kestrel circling deep in the gulf below him.
+
+"I think," he said, half to himself, "that this is the most beautiful
+region on earth."
+
+Stent lifted himself on both elbows and gazed across the chasm at the
+lower slopes of the alm opposite, all ablaze with dewy wild flowers. Down
+it, between fern and crag and bracken, flashed a brook, broken into in
+silvery sections amid depths of velvet green below, where evidently it
+tumbled headlong into that thin, shining thread which was a broad river.
+
+"Yes," mused Stent, "Siurd von Glahn and I were comrades on many a foot
+tour through such mountains as these. He was a delightful fellow, my
+classmate Siurd----"
+
+Brown's swift rigid grip on his arm checked him to silence; there came the
+clink of an iron-shod foot on the ledge; they snatched their rifles from
+the fern patch; two figures stepped around the shelf of rock, looming up
+dark against the dazzling sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PARNASSUS
+
+
+Brown, squatting cross-legged among the alpine roses, squinted along his
+level rifle.
+
+"Halt!" he said with a pleasant, rising inflection in his quiet voice.
+"Stand very still, gentlemen," he added in German.
+
+"Drop your rifles. Drop 'em quick!" he repeated more sharply. "Up with
+your hands--hold them up high! Higher, if you please!--quickly. Now, then,
+what are you doing on this alp?"
+
+What they were doing seemed apparent enough--two gentlemen of Teutonic
+persuasion, out stalking game--deer, rehbok or chamois--one a tall, dark,
+nice-looking young fellow wearing the usual rough gray jacket with
+stag-horn buttons, green felt hat with feather, and leather breeches of
+the alpine hunter. His knees and aristocratic ankles were bare and
+bronzed. He laughed a little as he held up his arms.
+
+The other man was stout and stocky rather than fat. He had the square red
+face and bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and the spectacles of a
+Herr Professor. He held up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers
+spread out wide. They seemed rather soiled.
+
+From his _ruecksack_ stuck out a butterfly net in two sections and the
+deeply scalloped, silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss
+adorned his green felt hat; a green tin box punched full of holes was
+slung from his broad shoulders.
+
+Brown, lowering his rifle cautiously, was already getting to his feet from
+the trampled bracken, when, behind him, he heard Stent's astonished voice
+break forth in pedantic German:
+
+"Siurd! Is it _thou_ then?"
+
+"Harry Stent!" returned the dark, nice-looking young fellow amiably. And,
+in a delightful voice and charming English:
+
+"Pray, am I to offer you a shake hands," he inquired smilingly; "or shall
+I continue to invoke the Olympian gods with classically uplifted and
+imploring arms?"
+
+Brown let Stent pass forward. Then, stepping back, he watched the greeting
+between these two old classmates. His rifle, grasped between stock and
+barrel, hung loosely between both hands. His expression became vacantly
+good humoured; but his brain was working like lightning.
+
+Stent's firm hand encountered Von Glahn's and held it in questioning
+astonishment. Looking him in the eyes he said slowly: "Siurd, it is good
+to see you again. It is amazing to meet you this way. I am glad. I have
+never forgotten you.... Only a moment ago I was speaking to Brown about
+you--of our wonderful ibex hunt! I was telling Brown--my comrade--" he
+turned his head slightly and presented the two young men--"Mr. Brown, an
+American----"
+
+"American?" repeated Von Glahn in his gentle, well-bred voice, offering
+his hand. And, in turn, becoming sponsor, he presented his stocky
+companion as Dr. von Dresslin; and the ceremony instantly stiffened to a
+more rigid etiquette.
+
+Then, in his always gentle, graceful way, Von Glahn rested his hand
+lightly on Stent's shoulder:
+
+"You made us jump--you two Americans--as though you had been British. Of
+what could two Americans be afraid in the Carnic Alps to challenge a pair
+of wandering ibex stalkers?"
+
+"You forget that I am Canadian," replied Stent, forcing a laugh.
+
+"At that, you are practically American and civilian--" He glanced
+smilingly over their equipment, carelessly it seemed to Stent, as though
+verifying all absence of military insignia. "Besides," he added with his
+gentle humour, "there are no British in Italy. And no Italians in these
+mountains, I fancy; they have their own affairs to occupy them on the
+Isonzo I understand. Also, there is no war between Italy and Germany."
+
+Stent smiled, perfectly conscious of Brown's telepathic support in
+whatever was now to pass between them and these two Germans. He knew, and
+Brown knew, that these Germans must be taken back as prisoners; that,
+suspicious or not, they could not be permitted to depart again with a
+story of having met an American and a Canadian after ibex among the Carnic
+Alps.
+
+These two Germans were already their prisoners; but there was no hurry
+about telling them so.
+
+"How do you happen to be here, Siurd?" asked Stent, frankly curious.
+
+Von Glahn lifted his delicately formed eyebrows, then, amused:
+
+"Count von Plessis invites me; and"--he laughed outright--"he must have
+invited you, Harry, unless you are poaching!"
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Stent, for a brief second believing in the part he
+was playing; "I supposed this to be a free alp."
+
+He and Von Glahn laughed; and the latter said, still frankly amused:
+"_Soyez tranquille_, Messieurs; Count von Plessis permits my friends--in
+my company--to shoot the Queen's alm."
+
+With a lithe movement, wholly graceful, he slipped the _ruecksack_ from his
+shoulders, let it fall among the _alpenrosen_ beside his sporting rifle.
+
+"We have a long day and a longer night ahead of us," he said pleasantly,
+looking from Stent to Brown. "The snow limit lies just above us; the ibex
+should pass here at dawn on their way back to the peak. Shall we
+consolidate our front, gentlemen--and make it a Quadruple Entente?"
+
+Stent replied instantly: "We join you with thanks, Siurd. My one ibex hunt
+is no experience at all compared to your record of a veteran--" He looked
+full and significantly at Brown; continuing: "As you say, we have all day
+and--a long night before us. Let us make ourselves comfortable here in the
+sun before we take--our final stations."
+
+And they seated themselves in the lee of the crag, foregathering
+fraternally in the warm alpine sunshine.
+
+The Herr Professor von Dresslin grunted as he sat down. After he had
+lighted his pipe he grunted again, screwed together his butterfly net and
+gazed hard through thick-lensed spectacles at Brown.
+
+"Does it interest you, sir, the pursuit of the diurnal Lepidoptera?" he
+inquired, still staring intently at the American.
+
+"I don't know anything about them," explained Brown. "What are
+Lepidoptera?"
+
+"The _schmetterling_--the butterfly. In Amerika, sir, you have many fine
+species, notably Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus of the four
+varietal forms." His prominent eyes shifted from one detail of Brown's
+costume to another--not apparently an intelligent examination, but a sort
+of protruding and indifferent stare.
+
+His gaze, however, was arrested for a moment where the lump under Brown's
+tunic indicated something concealed--a hunting knife, for example. Brown's
+automatic was strapped there. But the bulging eyes, expressionless still,
+remained fixed for a second only, then travelled on toward the Ross
+rifle--the Athabasca Regiment having been permitted to exchange this
+beloved weapon for the British regulation piece recently issued to the
+Canadians. From behind the thick lenses of his spectacles the Herr
+Professor examined the rifle while his monotonously dreary voice continued
+an entomological monologue for Brown's edification. And all the while Von
+Glahn and Stent, reclining nearby among the ferns, were exchanging what
+appeared to be the frankest of confidences and the happiest of youthful
+reminiscences.
+
+"Of the Parnassians," rumbled on Professor von Dresslin, "here in the Alps
+we possess one notable example--namely, the Parnassus Apollo. It is for
+the capture of this never-to-be-sufficiently studied butterfly that I
+have, upon this ibex-hunting expedition, myself equipped with net and
+suitable paraphernalia."
+
+"I see," nodded Brown, eyeing the green tin box and the net. The Herr
+Professor's pop-eyed attention was now occupied with the service puttees
+worn by Brown. A sportsman also might have worn them, of course.
+
+"The Apollo butterfly," droned on Professor Dresslin, "iss a butterfly of
+the larger magnitude among European Lepidoptera, yet not of the largest.
+The Parnassians, allied to the Papilionidae, all live only in high
+altitudes, and are, by the thinly scaled and always-to-be-remembered red
+and plack ge-spotted wings, to be readily recognized. I haf already two
+specimens captured this morning. I haff the honour, sir, to exhibit them
+for your inspection----"
+
+He fished out a flat green box from his pocket, opened it under Brown's
+nose, leaning close enough to touch Brown with an exploring and furtive
+elbow--and felt the contour of the automatic.
+
+Amid a smell of carbolic and camphor cones Brown beheld, pinned side by
+side upon the cork-lined interior of the box, two curiously pretty
+butterflies.
+
+Their drooping and still pliable wings seemed as thin as white tissue
+paper; their bodies were covered with furry hairs. Brick-red and black
+spots decorated the frail membrane of the wings in a curiously pleasing
+harmony of pattern and of colour.
+
+"Very unusual," he said, with a vague idea he was saying the wrong thing.
+
+Monotonously, paying no attention, Professor von Dresslin continued: "I,
+the life history of the Parnassus Apollo, haff from my early youth
+investigated with minuteness, diligence, and patience."--His protuberant
+eyes were now fixed on Brown's rifle again.--"For many years I haff bred
+this Apollo butterfly from the egg, from the caterpillar, from the
+chrysalis. I have the negroid forms, the albino forms, the dwarf forms,
+the hybrid forms investigated under effery climatic condition. Notes
+sufficient for three volumes of quarto already exist as a residuum of my
+investigations----"
+
+He looked up suddenly into the American's face--which was the first sudden
+movement the Herr Professor had made----
+
+"Ach wass! Three volumes! It is nothing. Here iss material for thirty!--A
+lifetime iss too short to know all the secrets of a single species.... If
+I may inquire, sir, of what pattern is your most interesting and admirable
+rifle?"
+
+"A--Ross," said Brown, startled into a second's hesitation.
+
+"So? And, if I may inquire, of what nationality iss it, a R-r-ross?"
+
+"It's a Canadian weapon. We Americans use it a great deal for big game."
+
+"So?... And it iss also by the Canadian military employed perhaps, sir?"
+
+"I believe," said Brown, carelessly, "that the British Government has
+taken away the Ross rifle from the Canadians and given them the regulation
+weapon."
+
+"So? Permit--that I examine, sir?"
+
+Brown did not seem to hear him or notice the extended
+hand--blunt-fingered, hairy, persistent.
+
+The Professor, not discouraged, repeated: "Sir, _bitte darf ich_, may I be
+permitted?" And Brown's eyes flashed back a lightning shaft of inquiry.
+Then, carelessly smiling, he passed the Ross rifle over to the Herr
+Professor; and, at the same time, drew toward him that gentleman's
+silver-mounted weapon, and carelessly cocked it.
+
+"Permit me," he murmured, balancing it innocently in the hollow of his
+left arm, apparently preoccupied with admiration at the florid workmanship
+of stock and guard. No movement that the Herr Professor made escaped him;
+but presently he thought to himself--"The old dodo is absolutely
+unsuspicious. My nerves are out of order.... What odd eyes that Fritz
+has!"
+
+When Herr Professor von Dresslin passed back the weapon Brown laid the
+German sporting piece beside it with murmured complimentary comment.
+
+"Yess," said the German, "such rifles kill when properly handled. We
+Germans may cordially recommend them for our American--friends--" Here was
+the slightest hesitation--"Pardon! I mean that we may safely guarantee
+this rifle _to_ our friends."
+
+Brown looked thoughtfully at the thick lenses of the spectacles. The
+popeyes remained expressionless, utterly, Teutonically inscrutable. A big
+heather bee came buzzing among the _alpenrosen_. Its droning hum resembled
+the monotone of the Herr Professor.
+
+Behind them Brown heard Stent saying: "Do you remember our ambition to
+wear the laurels of Parnassus, Siurd? Do you remember our notes at the
+lectures on the poets? And our ambition to write at least one deathless
+poem apiece before we died?"
+
+Von Glahn's dark eyes narrowed with merriment and his gentle laugh and
+attractive voice sounded pleasantly in Brown's ears.
+
+"You wrote at least _one_ famous poem to Rosa," he said, still laughing.
+
+"To Rosa? Oh! Rosa of the Cafe Luitpold! By Jove I did, didn't I, Siurd?
+How on earth did you ever remember that?"
+
+"I thought it very pretty." He began to repeat aloud:
+
+  "Rosa with the winsome eyes,
+  When my beer you bring to me;
+  I can see through your disguise!
+  I my goddess recognize--
+  Hebe, young immortally,
+  Sweet nepenthe pouring me!"
+
+Stent laughed outright:
+
+"How funny to think of it now--and to think of Rosa!... And you, Siurd, do
+you forget that you also composed a most wonderful war-poem--to the metre
+of 'Fly, Eagle, Fly!' Do you remember how it began?
+
+  "Slay, Eagle, Slay!
+    They die who dare decry us!
+  Red dawns 'The Day.'
+    The western cliffs defy us!
+  Turn their grey flood
+  To seas of blood!
+  And, as they flee, Slay, Eagle! Slay!
+  For God has willed this German 'Day'!"
+
+"Enough," said Siurd Von Glahn, still laughing, but turning very red.
+"What a terrible memory you have, Harry! For heaven's sake spare my
+modesty such accurate reminiscences."
+
+"I thought it fine poetry--then," insisted Stent with a forced smile. But
+his voice had subtly altered.
+
+They looked at each other in silence, the reminiscent smile still stamped
+upon their stiffening lips.
+
+For a brief moment the years had seemed to fade--time was not--the
+sunshine of that careless golden age had seemed to warm them once again
+there where they sat amid the _alpenrosen_ below the snow line on the Col
+de la Reine.
+
+But it did not endure; everything concerning earth and heaven and life and
+death had so far remained unsaid between these two. And never would be
+said. Both understood that, perhaps.
+
+Then Von Glahn's sidelong and preoccupied glance fell on Stent's field
+glasses slung short around his neck. His rigid smile died out. Soldiers
+wore field glasses that way; hunters, when they carried them instead of
+spyglasses, wore them _en bandouliere_.
+
+He spoke, however, of other matters in his gentle, thoughtful
+voice--avoiding always any mention of politics and war--chatted on
+pleasantly with the familiarity and insouciance of old acquaintance. Once
+he turned slowly and looked at Brown--addressed him politely--while his
+dark eyes wandered over the American, noting every detail of dress and
+equipment, and the slight bulge at his belt line beneath the tunic.
+
+Twice he found pretext to pick up his rifle, but discarded it carelessly,
+apparently not noticing that Stent and Brown always resumed their own
+weapons when he touched his.
+
+Brown said to Von Glahn:
+
+"Ibex stalking is a new game to me. My friend Stent tells me that you are
+old at it."
+
+"I have followed some few ibex, Mr. Brown," replied the young man
+modestly. "And--other game," he added with a shrug.
+
+"I know how it's done in theory," continued the American; "and I am
+wondering whether we are to lie in this spot until dawn tomorrow or
+whether we climb higher and lie in the snow up there."
+
+"In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly where we shall lie tonight--Mr.
+Brown."
+
+There was an odd look in Siurd's soft brown eyes; he turned and spoke to
+Herr Professor von Dresslin, using dialect--and instantly appearing to
+recollect himself he asked pardon of Stent and Brown in his very perfect
+English.
+
+"I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun dialect: 'Ibex may be stirring,
+as it is already late afternoon. We ought now to use our glasses.' My
+family," he added apologetically, "come from the Traunwald; I forget and
+employ the vernacular at times."
+
+The Herr Professor unslung his telescope, set his rifle upright on the
+moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the
+blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he
+is drawing on the bowstring.
+
+Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of the same thing: the chance that
+these Germans might spy others of the Athabasca regiment prowling among
+the ferns and rocks of neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly at an end,
+anyway.
+
+They exchanged a glance; both picked up their rifles; Brown nodded almost
+imperceptibly. The tragic comedy was approaching its close.
+
+"_Hirsch_" grunted the Herr Professor--"_und stueck_--on the north
+alm"--staring through his telescope intently.
+
+"Accorded," said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing his spyglass and sweeping the
+distant crags. "_Stueck_ on the western shoulder," he added--"and a stag
+royal among them."
+
+"Of ten?"
+
+"Of twelve."
+
+After a silence: "Why are they galloping--I wonder--the herd-stag and
+_stueck_?"
+
+Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent's arm.
+
+"A _geier_, perhaps," suggested Siurd, his eye glued to his spyglass.
+
+"No ibex?" asked Stent in a voice a little forced.
+
+"_Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok_--high on the third
+peak--feeding."
+
+"Accorded," grunted the Herr Professor after an interval of search; and he
+closed his spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.
+
+His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually upon Brown, who was laying
+aside his own rifle again--and the German's expression did not alter.
+
+"Ibex!" exclaimed Von Glahn softly.
+
+Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted his field glasses on the
+third peak, and stood there, poised, slim and upright against the sky on
+the chasm's mossy edge.
+
+"I don't see your ibex, Siurd," he said, still searching.
+
+"On the third peak, _mon ami_"--drawing Stent familiarly to his side--the
+lightest caressing contact--merely enough to verify the existence of the
+automatic under his old classmate's tunic.
+
+If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch, neither did Brown notice it,
+watching them. Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not at all
+certain, because at that moment there came flopping along over the bracken
+and _alpenrosen_ a loppy winged butterfly--a large, whitish creature,
+seeming uncertain in its irresolute flight whether to alight at Brown's
+feet or go flapping aimlessly on over Brown's head.
+
+The Herr Professor snatched up his net--struck heavily toward the winged
+thing--a silent, terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle clutched
+together. Brown went down with a crash.
+
+At the shocking sound of the impact Stent wheeled from the abyss, then
+staggered back under the powerful shove from Von Glahn's nervous arm.
+Swaying, fighting frantically for foothold, there on the chasm's awful
+edge, he balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium. Von Glahn,
+rigid, watched him. Then, deathly white, his young eyes looking straight
+into the eyes of his old classmate--Stent lost the fight, fell outward,
+wider, dropping back into mid-air, down through sheer, tremendous
+depths--down there where the broad river seemed only a silver thread and
+the forests looked like beds of tender, velvet moss.
+
+After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus Apollo, still
+winging its erratic way where God willed it--a frail, dainty, translucent,
+wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf--symbol, perhaps of the soul
+already soaring up out of the terrific deeps below.
+
+The Herr Professor sweated and panted as he tugged at the silk
+handkerchief with which he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious
+American behind his back.
+
+"Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!" he grunted--"mit his pockets full of automatic
+clips. A Yankee, eh? What I tell you, Siurd?--English and Yankee they are
+one in blood and one at heart--pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what I
+told you already _gesternabend_? The British _schwein_ are in Italy
+already. Hola! Siurd! Take his feet and we turn him over _mal_!"
+
+But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning heavily against the crag, his
+back to the abyss, his blond head buried in both arms.
+
+So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too, began, with his powerful,
+stubby hands, to pull the unconscious man over on his back. And, as he
+worked, he hummed monotonously but contentedly in his bushy beard
+something about _something_ being "_ueber alles_"--God, perhaps, perhaps
+the blue sky overhead which covered him and his sickened friend alike, and
+the hurt enemy whose closed lids shut out the sky above--and the dead man
+lying very, very far below them--where river and forest and moss and
+Parnassus were now alike to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN FINISTERE
+
+
+It was a dirty trick that they played Stent and Brown--the three
+Mysterious Sisters, Fate, Chance, and Destiny. But they're always billed
+for any performance, be it vaudeville or tragedy; and there's no use
+hissing them off: they'll dog you from the stage entrance if they take a
+fancy to you.
+
+They dogged Wayland from the dock at Calais, where the mule transport
+landed, all the way to Paris, then on a slow train to Quimperle, and then,
+by stagecoach, to that little lost house on the moors, where ties held him
+most closely--where all he cared for in this world was gathered under a
+humble roof.
+
+In spite of his lameness he went duck-shooting the week after his arrival.
+It was rather forcing his convalescence, but he believed it would
+accelerate it to go about in the open air, as though there were nothing
+the matter with his shattered leg.
+
+So he hobbled down to the point he knew so well. He had longed for the sea
+off Eryx. It thundered at his feet.
+
+And, now, all around him through clamorous obscurity a watery light
+glimmered; it edged the low-driven clouds hurrying in from the sea; it
+outlined the long point of rocks thrust southward into the smoking
+smother.
+
+The din of the surf filled his ears; through flying patches of mist he
+caught glimpses of rollers bursting white against the reef; heard duller
+detonations along unseen sands, and shattering reports where heavy waves
+exploded among basalt rocks.
+
+His lean face of an invalid glistened with spray; salt water dripped from
+cap and coat, spangled the brown barrels of his fowling-piece, and ran
+down the varnished supports of both crutches where he leaned on them,
+braced forward against an ever-rising wind.
+
+At moments he seemed to catch glimpses of darker specks dotting the
+heaving flank of some huge wave. But it was not until the wild ducks rose
+through the phantom light and came whirring in from the sea that his gun,
+poked stiffly skyward, flashed in the pallid void. And then, sometimes, he
+hobbled back after the dead quarry while it still drove headlong inland,
+slanting earthward before the gale.
+
+Once, amid the endless thundering, in the turbulent desolation around him,
+through the roar of wind in his ears, he seemed to catch deadened sounds
+resembling distant seaward cannonading--_real_ cannonading--as though
+individual shots, dully distinct, dominated for a few moments the unbroken
+uproar of surf and gale.
+
+He listened, straining his ears, alert, intent upon the sounds he ought to
+recognize--the sounds he knew so well.
+
+Only the ceaseless pounding of the sea assailed his ears.
+
+Three wild duck, widgeon, came speeding through the fog; he breasted the
+wind, balanced heavily on both crutches and one leg, and shoved his gun
+upward.
+
+At the same instant the mist in front and overhead became noisy with wild
+fowl, rising in one great, panic-stricken, clamoring cloud. He hesitated;
+a muffled, thudding sound came to him over the unseen sea, growing louder,
+nearer, dominating the gale, increasing to a rattling clatter.
+
+Suddenly a great cloudy shape loomed up through the whirling mist
+ahead--an enormous shadow in the fog--a gigantic spectre rushing inland on
+vast and ghostly pinions.
+
+As the man shrank on his crutches, looking up, the aeroplane swept past
+overhead--a wounded, wavering, unsteady, unbalanced thing, its right
+aileron dangling, half stripped, and almost mangled to a skeleton.
+
+Already it was slanting lower toward the forest like a hard-hit duck,
+wing-crippled, fighting desperately for flight-power to the very end. Then
+the inland mist engulfed it.
+
+And after it hobbled Wayland, painfully, two brace of dead ducks and his
+slung fowling piece bobbing on his back, his rubber-shod crutches groping
+and probing among drenched rocks and gullies full of kelp, his left leg in
+splints hanging heavily.
+
+He could not go fast; he could not go very far. Further inland, foggy
+gorse gave place to broom and blighted bracken, all wet, sagging with
+rain. Then he crossed a swale of brown reeds and tussock set with little
+pools of water, opaque and grey in the rain.
+
+Where the outer moors narrowed he turned westward; then a strip of low,
+thorn-clad cliff confronted him, up which he toiled along a V-shaped cleft
+choked with ferns.
+
+The spectral forest of Laeis lay just beyond, its wind-tortured branches
+tossing under a leaden sky.
+
+East and west lonely moors stretched away into the depths of the mist;
+southward spread the sea; to the north lay the wide woods of Laeis, equally
+deserted now in this sad and empty land.
+
+He hobbled to the edge of the forest and stood knee deep in discoloured
+ferns, listening. The sombre beech-woods spread thick on either hand, a
+wilderness of crossed limbs and meshed branches to which still clung great
+clots of dull brown leaves.
+
+He listened, peering into sinister, grey depths. In the uncertain light
+nothing stirred except the clashing branches overhead; there was no sound
+except the wind's flowing roar and the ghostly noise of his own voice,
+hallooing through the solitude--a voice in the misty void that seemed to
+carry less sound than the straining cry of a sleeper in his dreams.
+
+If the aeroplane had landed, there was no sign here. How far had it
+struggled on, sheering the tree-tops, before it fell?--if indeed it had
+fallen somewhere in the wood's grey depths?
+
+As long as he had sufficient strength he prowled along the forest,
+entering it here and there, calling, listening, searching the foggy
+corridors of trees. The rotting brake crackled underfoot; the tree tops
+clashed and creaked above him.
+
+At last, having only enough strength left to take him home, he turned
+away, limping through the blotched and broken ferns, his crippled leg
+hanging stiffly in its splints, his gun and the dead ducks bobbing on his
+back.
+
+The trodden way was soggy with little pools full of drenched grasses and
+dead leaves; but at length came rising ground, and the blue-green,
+glimmering wastes of gorse stretching away before him through the
+curtained fog.
+
+A sheep path ran through; and after a little while a few trees loomed
+shadowy in the mist, and a low stone house took shape, whitewashed,
+flanked by barn, pigpen, and a stack of rotting seaweed.
+
+A few wet hens wandered aimlessly by the doorstep; a tiny bed of white
+clove-pinks and tall white phlox exhaled a homely welcome as the lame man
+hobbled up the steps, pulled the leather latchstring, and entered.
+
+In the kitchen an old Breton woman, chopping herbs, looked up at him out
+of aged eyes, shaking her head under its white coiffe.
+
+"It is nearly noon," she said. "You have been out since dawn. Was it wise,
+for a convalescent, Monsieur Jacques?"
+
+"Very wise, Marie-Josephine. Because the more exercise I take the sooner I
+shall be able to go back."
+
+"It is too soon to go out in such weather."
+
+"Ducks fly inland only in such weather," he retorted, smiling. "And we
+like roast widgeon, you and I, Marie-Josephine."
+
+And all the while her aged blue eyes were fixed on him, and over her
+withered cheeks the soft bloom came and faded--that pretty colour which
+Breton women usually retain until the end.
+
+"Thou knowest, Monsieur Jacques," she said, with a curiously quaint
+mingling of familiarity and respect, "that I do not counsel caution
+because I love thee and dread for thee again the trenches. But with thy
+leg hanging there like the broken wing of a _vanneau_----"
+
+He replied good humouredly:
+
+"Thou dost not know the Legion, Marie-Josephine. Every day in our trenches
+we break a comrade into pieces and glue him together again, just to make
+him tougher. Broken bones, once mended, are stronger than before."
+
+He was looking down at her where she sat by the hearth, slicing vegetables
+and herbs, but watching him all the while out of her lovely, faded eyes.
+
+"I understand, Monsieur Jacques, that you are like your father--God knows
+he was hardy and without fear--to the last"--she dropped her head--"Mary,
+glorious--intercede--" she muttered over her bowl of herbs.
+
+Wayland, resting on his crutches, unslung his ducks, laid them on the
+table, smoothed their beautiful heads and breasts, then slipped the
+soaking _bandouliere_ of his gun from his shoulder and placed the dripping
+piece against the chimney corner.
+
+"After I have scrubbed myself," he said, "and have put on dry clothes, I
+shall come to luncheon; and I shall have something very strange to tell
+you, Marie-Josephine."
+
+He limped away into one of the two remaining rooms--the other was
+hers--and closed his door.
+
+Marie-Josephine continued to prepare the soup. There was an egg for him,
+too; and a slice of cold pork and a _brioche_ and a jug of cider.
+
+In his room Wayland was whistling "Tipperary."
+
+Now and again, pausing in her work, she turned her eyes to his closed
+door--wonderful eyes that became miracles of tenderness as she listened.
+
+He came out, presently, dressed in his odd, ill-fitting uniform of the
+Legion, tunic unbuttoned, collarless of shirt, his bright, thick hair, now
+of decent length, in boyish disorder.
+
+Delicious odours of soup and of Breton cider greeted him; he seated
+himself; Marie-Josephine waited on him, hovered over him, tucked a sack of
+feathers under his maimed leg, placed his crutches in the corner beside
+the gun.
+
+Still eating, leisurely, he began:
+
+"Marie-Josephine--a strange thing has happened on Quesnel Moors which
+troubles me.... Listen attentively. It was while waiting for ducks on the
+Eryx Rocks, that once I thought I heard through the roar of wind and sea
+the sound of a far cannonading. But I said to myself that it was only the
+imagination of a haunted mind; that in my ears still thundered the
+cannonade of Lens."
+
+"Was it nevertheless true?" She had turned around from the fire where her
+own soup simmered in the kettle. As she spoke again she rose and came to
+the table.
+
+He said: "It must have been cannon that I heard. Because, not long
+afterward, out of the fog came a great aeroplane rushing inland from the
+sea--flying swiftly above me--right over me!--and staggering like a
+wounded duck--it had one aileron broken--and sheered away into the fog,
+northward, Marie-Josephine."
+
+Her work-worn hands, tightly clenched, rested now on the table and she
+leaned there, looking down at him.
+
+"Was it an enemy--this airship, Jacques?"
+
+"In the mist flying and the ragged clouds I could not tell. It might have
+been English. It must have been, I think--coming as it came from the sea.
+But I am troubled, Marie-Josephine. Were the guns at sea an enemy's guns?
+Did the aeroplane come to earth in safety? Where? In the Forest of Lais? I
+found no trace of it."
+
+She said, tremulous perhaps from standing too long motionless and intent:
+
+"Is it possible that the Boches would come into these solitary moors,
+where there are no people any more, only the creatures of the Lais woods,
+and the curlew and the lapwings which pass at evening?"
+
+He ate thoughtfully and in silence for a while; then:
+
+"They go, usually--the Boches--where there is plunder--murder to be
+done.... Spying to be done.... God knows what purpose animates the
+Huns.... After all, Lorient is not so far away.... Yet it surely must have
+been an English aeroplane, beaten off by some enemy ship--a submarine
+perhaps. God send that the rocks of the Isle des Chouans take care of
+her--with their teeth!"
+
+He drank his cider--a sip or two only--then, setting aside the glass:
+
+"I went from the Rocks of Eryx to Lais Woods. I called as loudly as I
+could; the wind whirled my voice back into my throat.... I am not yet very
+strong....
+
+"Then I went into the wood as far as my strength permitted. I heard and
+saw nothing, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"Would they be dead?" she asked.
+
+"They were planing to earth. I don't know how much control they had,
+whether they could steer--choose a landing place. There are plenty of safe
+places on these moors."
+
+"If their airship is crippled, what can they do, these English flying men,
+out there on the moors in the rain and wind? When the coast guard passes
+we must tell him."
+
+"After lunch I shall go out again as far as my strength allows.... If the
+rain would cease and the mist lift, one might see something--be of some
+use, perhaps----"
+
+"Ought you to go, Monsieur Jacques?"
+
+"Could I fail to try to find them--Englishmen--and perhaps injured? Surely
+I should go, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"The coast guard----"
+
+"He passed the Eryx Rocks at daylight. He is at Sainte-Ylva now. Tonight,
+when I see his comrade's lantern, I shall stop him and report. But in the
+meanwhile I must go out and search."
+
+"Spare thyself--for the trenches, Jacques. Remain indoors today." She
+began to unpin the coiffe which she always wore ceremoniously at meals
+when he was present.
+
+He smiled: "Thou knowest I must go, Marie-Josephine."
+
+"And if thou come upon them in the forest and they are Huns?"
+
+He laughed: "They are English, I tell thee, Marie-Josephine!"
+
+She nodded; under her breath, staring at the rain-lashed window: "Like thy
+father, thou must go forth," she muttered; "go always where thy spirit
+calls. And once _he_ went. And came no more. And God help us all in
+Finistere, where all are born to grief."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE AIRMAN
+
+
+She had seated herself on a stool by the hearth. Presently she spread her
+apron with trembling fingers, took the glazed bowl of soup upon her lap
+and began to eat, slowly, casting long, unquiet glances at him from time
+to time where he still at table leaned heavily, looking out into the rain.
+
+When he caught her eye he smiled, summoning her with a nod of his boyish
+head. She set aside her bowl obediently, and, rising, brought him his
+crutches. And at the same moment somebody knocked lightly on the outer
+door.
+
+Marie-Josephine had unpinned her coiffe. Now she pinned it on over her
+_bonnet_ before going to the door, glancing uneasily around at him while
+she tied her tresses and settled the delicate starched wings of her
+bonnet.
+
+"That's odd," he said, "that knocking," staring at the door. "Perhaps it
+is the lost Englishman."
+
+"God send them," she whispered, going to the door and opening it.
+
+It certainly seemed to be one of the lost Englishmen--a big,
+square-shouldered, blond young fellow, tall and powerful, in the leather
+dress of an aeronaut. His glass mask was lifted like the visor of a
+tilting helmet, disclosing a red, weather-beaten face, wet with rain.
+Strength, youth, rugged health was their first impression of this
+leather-clad man from the clouds.
+
+He stepped inside the house immediately, halted when he caught sight of
+Wayland in his undress uniform, glanced involuntarily at his crutches and
+bandaged leg, cast a quick, penetrating glance right and left; then he
+spoke pleasantly in his hesitating, imperfect French--so oddly imperfect
+that Wayland could not understand him at all.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded in English.
+
+The airman seemed astonished for an instant, then a quick smile broke out
+on his ruddy features:
+
+"I say, this _is_ lucky! Fancy finding an Englishman here!--wherever this
+place may be." He laughed. "Of course I know I'm 'somewhere in France,' as
+the censor has it, but I'm hanged if I know where!"
+
+"Come in and shut the door," said Wayland, reassured. Marie-Josephine
+closed the door. The aeronaut came forward, stood dripping a moment, then
+took the chair to which Wayland pointed, seating himself as though a
+trifle tired.
+
+"Shot down," he explained, gaily. "An enemy submarine winged us out yonder
+somewhere. I tramped over these bally moors for hours before I found a
+sign of any path. A sheepwalk brought me here."
+
+"You are lucky. There is only one house on these moors--this! Who are
+you?" asked Wayland.
+
+"West--flight-lieutenant, 10th division, Cinque-Ports patrolling
+squadron."
+
+"Good heavens, man! What are you doing in Finistere?"
+
+"_What!_"
+
+"You are in Brittany, province of Finistere. Didn't you know it?"
+
+The air-officer seemed astounded. Presently he said: "The dirty weather
+foxed us. Then that fellow out yonder winged us. I was glad enough to see
+a coast line."
+
+"Did you fall?"
+
+"No; we controlled our landing pretty well."
+
+"Where did you land?"
+
+There was a second's hesitation; the airman looked at Wayland, glanced at
+his crippled leg.
+
+"Out there near some woods," he said. "My pilot's there now trying to
+patch up.... You are not French, are you?"
+
+"American."
+
+"Oh! A--volunteer, I presume."
+
+"Foreign Legion--2d."
+
+"I see. Back from the trenches with a leg."
+
+"It's nearly well. I'll be back soon."
+
+"Can you walk?" asked the airman so abruptly that Wayland, looking at him,
+hesitated, he did not quite know why.
+
+"Not very far," he replied, cautiously. "I can get to the window with my
+crutches pretty well."
+
+And the next moment he felt ashamed of his caution when the airman laughed
+frankly.
+
+"I need a guide to some petrol," he said. "Evidently you can't go with
+me."
+
+"Haven't you enough petrol to take you to Lorient?"
+
+"How far is Lorient?"
+
+Wayland told him.
+
+"I don't know," said the flight-lieutenant; "I'll have to try to get
+somewhere. I suppose it is useless for me to ask," he added, "but have
+you, by any chance, a bit of canvas--an old sail or hammock?--I don't need
+much. That's what I came for--and some shellac and wire, and a screwdriver
+of sorts? We need patching as well as petrol; and we're a little short of
+supplies."
+
+Wayland's steady gaze never left him, but his smile was friendly.
+
+"We're in a tearing hurry, too," added the flight-lieutenant, looking out
+of the window.
+
+Wayland smiled. "Of course there's no petrol here. There's nothing here. I
+don't suppose you could have landed in a more deserted region if you had
+tried. There's a chateau in the Lais woods, but it's closed; owner and
+servants are at the war and the family in Paris."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody has cleared out; the war has
+stripped the country; and there never were any people on these moors,
+excepting shooting parties and, in the summer, a stray artist or two from
+Quimperle."
+
+The lieutenant looked at him. "You say there is nobody here--between here
+and Lorient? No--troops?"
+
+"There's nothing to guard. The coast is one vast shoal. Ships pass hull
+down. Once a day a coast guard patrols along the cliffs----"
+
+"When?"
+
+"He has passed, unfortunately. Otherwise he might signal by relay to
+Lorient and have them send you out some petrol. By the way--are you
+hungry?"
+
+The flight-lieutenant showed all his firm, white teeth under a yellow
+mustache, which curled somewhat upward. He laughed in a carefree way, as
+though something had suddenly eased his mind of perplexity--perhaps the
+certainty that there was no possible chance for petrol. Certainty is said
+to be more endurable than suspense.
+
+"I'll stop for a bite--if you don't mind--while my pilot tinkers out
+yonder," he said. "We're not in such a bad way. It might easily have been
+worse. Do you think you could find us a bit of sail, or something, to use
+for patching?"
+
+Wayland indicated an old high-backed chair of oak, quaintly embellished
+with ancient leather in faded blue and gold. It had been a royal chair in
+its day, or the Fleur-de-Lys lied.
+
+The flight-lieutenant seated himself with a rather stiff bow.
+
+"If you need canvas"--Wayland hesitated--then, gravely: "There are, in my
+room, a number of artists' _toiles_--old chassis with the blank canvas
+still untouched."
+
+"Exactly what we need!" exclaimed the other. "What luck, now, to meet a
+painter in such a place as this!"
+
+"They belonged to my father," explained Wayland. "We--Marie-Josephine and
+I--have always kept my father's old canvases and colours--everything of
+his.... I'll be glad to give them to a British soldier.... They're about
+all I have that was his--except that oak chair you sit on."
+
+He rose on his crutches, spoke briefly in Breton to Marie-Josephine, then
+limped slowly away to his room.
+
+When he returned with half a dozen blank canvases the flight-lieutenant,
+at table, was eating pork and black bread and drinking Breton cider.
+
+Wayland seated himself, laid both crutches across his knees, picked up one
+of the chassis, and began to rip from it the dusty canvas. It was like
+tearing muscles from his own bones. But he smiled and chatted on,
+casually, with the air-officer, who ate as though half starved.
+
+"I suppose," said Wayland, "you'll start back across the Channel as soon
+as you secure petrol enough?"
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"You could go by way of Quimper or by Lorient. There's petrol to be had at
+both places for military purposes"--leisurely continuing to rip the big
+squares of canvas from the frames.
+
+The airman, still eating, watched him askance at intervals.
+
+"I've brought what's left of the shellac; it isn't much use, I fear. But
+here is his hammer and canvas stretcher, and the remainder of the nails he
+used for stretching his canvases," said Wayland, with an effort to speak
+carelessly.
+
+"Many thanks. You also are a painter, I take it."
+
+Wayland laid one hand on the sleeve of his uniform and laughed.
+
+"I _was_ a writer. But there are only soldiers in the world now."
+
+"Quite so ... This is an odd place for an American to live in."
+
+"My father bought it years ago. He was a painter of peasant life." He
+added, lowering his voice, although Marie-Josephine understood no English:
+"This old peasant woman was his model many years ago. She also kept house
+for him. He lived here; I was born here."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, but my father desired that I grow up a good Yankee. I was at school
+in America when he--died."
+
+The airman continued to eat very busily.
+
+"He died--out there"--Wayland looked through the window, musingly. "There
+was an Iceland schooner wrecked off the Isle des Chouans. And no
+life-saving crew short of Ylva Light. So my father went out in his little
+American catboat, all alone.... Marie-Josephine saw his sail off Eryx
+Rocks ... for a few moments ... and saw it no more."
+
+The airman, still devouring his bread and meat, nodded in silence.
+
+"That is how it happened," said Wayland. "The French authorities notified
+me. There was a little money and this hut, and--Marie-Josephine. So I came
+here; and I write children's stories--that sort of thing.... It goes well
+enough. I sell a few to American publishers. Otherwise I shoot and fish
+and read ... when war does not preoccupy me...."
+
+He smiled, experiencing the vague relief of talking to somebody in his
+native tongue. Quesnel Moors were sometimes very lonely.
+
+"It's been a long convalescence," he continued, smilingly. "One of their
+'coal-boxes' did this"--touching his leg. "When I was able to move I went
+to America. But the sea off the Eryx called me back; and the authorities
+permitted me to come down here. I'm getting well very fast now."
+
+He had stripped every chassis of its canvas, and had made a roll of the
+material.
+
+"I'm very glad to be of any use to you," he said pleasantly, laying the
+roll on the table.
+
+Marie-Josephine, on her low chair by the hearth, sat listening to every
+word as though she had understood. The expression in her faded eyes varied
+constantly; solicitude, perplexity, vague uneasiness, a recurrent glimmer
+of suspicion were succeeded always by wistful tenderness when her gaze
+returned to Wayland and rested on his youthful face and figure with a
+pride forever new.
+
+Once she spoke in mixed French and Breton:
+
+"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques, _mon cheri_?"
+
+"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do you?"
+
+"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"
+
+"He has the tricks of speech. Also his accent is of an English university.
+There is no mistaking it."
+
+"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed in the universities of England?"
+
+"Yes.... But----"
+
+"_Gar a nous, mon p'tit_, Jacques. In Finistere a stranger is a suspect.
+Since earliest times they have done us harm in Finistere. The
+strangers--God knows what centuries of evil they have wrought."
+
+"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned again to the airman, who had
+now satisfied his hunger and had already risen to gather up the roll of
+canvas, the hammer, nails, and shellac.
+
+"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially. "I'll take these articles,
+if I may. It's very good of you ... I'm in a tearing hurry----"
+
+"Won't your pilot come over and eat a bit?"
+
+"I'll take him this bread and meat, if I may. Many thanks." He held out
+his heavily gloved hand with a friendly smile, nodded to Marie-Josephine.
+And as he hurriedly turned to go, the ancient carving on the high-backed
+chair caught him between the buttons of his leather coat, tearing it wide
+open over the breast. And Wayland saw the ribbon of the Iron Cross there
+fastened to a sea-grey tunic.
+
+There was a second's frightful silence.
+
+"What's that you wear?" said Wayland hoarsely. "Stop! Stand where you----"
+
+"Halt! Don't touch that shotgun!" cried the airman sharply. But Wayland
+already had it in his hands, and the airman fired twice at him where he
+stood--steadied the automatic to shoot again, but held his fire, seeing it
+would not be necessary. Besides, he did not care to shoot the old woman
+unless military precaution made it advisable; and she was on her knees,
+her withered arms upflung, shielding the prostrate body with her own.
+
+"You Yankee fool," he snapped out harshly--"it is your own fault, not
+mine!... Like the rest of your imbecile nation you poke your nose where it
+has no business! And I--" He ceased speaking, realizing that his words
+remained unheard.
+
+After a moment he backed toward the door, carrying the canvas roll under
+his left arm and keeping his eye carefully on the prostrate man. Also, one
+can never trust the French!--he was quite ready for that old woman there
+on the floor who was holding the dead boy's head to her breast, muttering:
+"My darling! My child!--Oh, little son of Marie-Josephine!--I told thee--I
+warned thee of the stranger in Finistere!... Marie--holy--intercede!...
+All--all are born to grief in Finistere!..."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EN OBSERVATION
+
+
+The incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from
+Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had
+notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was
+very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.
+
+Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately
+playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle
+and Isole, had seen a werewolf in Lais Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two
+legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two
+enormous eyes.
+
+The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes
+Lighthouse; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of
+Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to
+keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.
+
+That an enemy airman had done murder in Finistere was now certain; but
+that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very
+improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel,
+at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.
+
+That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des
+Chouettes and Finistere, and landing men, seemed to be practically an
+impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.
+
+But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been
+established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and
+rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck,
+and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild
+boar roamed and rooted unmolested?
+
+And where in Finistere was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for
+the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the
+enemy's flag had vanished from the seas?
+
+Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went
+out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British
+expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of
+troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French
+and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines
+put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for
+any possible aerial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the
+coasts.
+
+Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various
+rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.
+
+And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion,
+Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the
+Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to verify or
+discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.
+
+The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy
+and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers
+and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges
+loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of
+Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.
+
+Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate
+this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become
+temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an
+American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow
+Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental
+Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a
+very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a
+promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman,
+however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.
+
+He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finistere pretty
+well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and
+because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be
+reasonable as well as original.
+
+It had been a stiff walk across country--fifteen miles, as against thirty
+odd around by road--but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the
+affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield,
+crossing the marshes, skirting _etangs_, a solitary figure in the waste,
+easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+L'OMBRE
+
+
+Aulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October
+leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered,
+unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns,
+startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound
+except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of
+brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or
+one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly
+along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and
+cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.
+
+It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were
+long past timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen
+branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was
+littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which
+broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the
+acrid odour of decay.
+
+Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but
+he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a
+high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.
+
+It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens
+stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing
+underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.
+
+Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint
+sounds--perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken,
+or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of
+some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily
+conceding him right of way.
+
+After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of
+stone stood, and where there should have been gates.
+
+But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.
+
+He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had
+softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become
+indistinguishable.
+
+Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded
+panes were broken; nobody came to the closed and discoloured door of
+massive oak.
+
+The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away
+between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three
+deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.
+
+Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal
+burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in
+his autumn migration.
+
+The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the
+house--a low, weather-ravaged structure in the grassy glade, ringed by a
+square, wet moat.
+
+There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed
+the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and
+continued on into the forest.
+
+An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned
+and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.
+
+A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching
+his approach.
+
+As he crossed the bridge he took off his cap.
+
+"Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired. "Would you be kind enough
+to say to her that I arrive from Lorient at her request?"
+
+"I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said in flawless English.
+
+He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force."
+
+"May I see your credentials, Captain Neeland?" She had descended the
+single step of crumbling stone.
+
+"Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerning _your_ identity?"
+
+There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown.
+Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made
+her skin seem so white.
+
+"What proof of my identity do you expect?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Only one word, Madame."
+
+She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle toward him. "L'Ombre," she
+whispered.
+
+From his pocket he drew his credentials and offered them. Among them was
+her own letter to the authorities at Lorient.
+
+After she had examined them she handed them back to him.
+
+"Will you come in, Captain Neeland--or, perhaps we had better seat
+ourselves on the bridge--in order to lose no time--because I wish you to
+see for yourself----"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment came into her cheeks:
+"It may seem absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times--what I am going
+to say to you--concerning L'Ombre----"
+
+She had turned; he followed; and at her grave gesture of invitation, he
+seated himself beside her on the coping of mossy stone which ran like a
+bench under the parapet of the little bridge.
+
+"Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did
+not suppose myself to be superstitious.... I really am not--unless--except
+for this one matter of L'Ombre.... My English governess drove superstition
+out of my head.... Still, living in Finistere--here in this house"--she
+flushed again--"I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but
+I am sure you are too courteous--... It required some courage for me to
+write to Lorient. But, if it might possibly help my country--to risk
+ridicule--of course I do not hesitate."
+
+She looked uncertainly at the young man's pleasant, serious face, and, as
+though reassured:
+
+"I shall have to tell you a little about myself first--so that you may
+understand better."
+
+"Please," he said gravely.
+
+"Then--my father and my only brother died a year ago, in battle.... It
+happened in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had maintained only two men
+servants here. They went with their classes. One old woman remains." She
+looked up with a forced smile. "I need not explain to you that our
+circumstances are much straitened. You have only to look about you to see
+that ... our poverty is not recent; it always has been so within my
+memory--only growing a little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes
+began during the Vendee.... But that is of no interest ... except
+that--through coincidence, of course--every time a new misfortune comes
+upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still
+mystified, but interested.
+
+"Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked.
+
+"I thought it resembled a fish----"
+
+"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the shadow'."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you know, also, that there is a fish called 'L'Ombre'?"
+
+"No; I did not know that."
+
+"There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L'Ombre does not belong
+here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high altitudes where waters are
+icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord
+me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning
+my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything
+... _everything_...."
+
+"I am interested," he assured her pleasantly.
+
+"Then--it is a legend--perhaps a superstition in our family--that any
+misfortune to us--_and to France_--is always preceded by two invariable
+omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in
+the waters of our moat--" She turned her head slowly and looked down over
+the parapet of the bridge.--"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is
+that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong--all striking the same
+hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really
+is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I,
+myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vendee the clocks
+persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted
+the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at
+that hour.... L'Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o'clock
+one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong.
+
+"And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L'Ombre appeared in the
+moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week,
+until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the
+light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain
+Neeland----"
+
+"I am intensely interested," he repeated, watching the lovely, sensitive
+face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed
+again.
+
+"It is only to explain--perhaps to justify myself for writing--for asking
+that an officer be sent here from Lorient for a few days----"
+
+"I understand, Countess."
+
+"Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself--for my own fears--my
+personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be
+coincident with my country's mishaps.... So I thought--if they sent an
+officer who would be kind enough to understand----"
+
+"I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?"
+
+"Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o'clock in the afternoon."
+
+"And--the clocks?"
+
+"For a week they have been all wrong."
+
+"What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously.
+
+"Five."
+
+"No matter where the hands point?"
+
+"No matter. I have tried to regulate them. I have done everything I could
+do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I
+have"--a pale smile touched her lips--"I have been a little
+wakeful--perhaps a trifle uneasy--on my country's account. You
+understand...." Pride and courage had permitted her no more than
+uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely
+bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to
+understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the
+race whose name she bore.
+
+The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his
+respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly
+believed what she told him.
+
+But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was
+another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena
+other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in
+medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on
+earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it. And
+this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however
+accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to
+comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood
+of every Breton ever born.
+
+But he merely said with pleasant deference: "I can very easily understand
+your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of
+great nervous tension in France--of heart-racking suspense----"
+
+She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe me, Monsieur."
+
+"I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a
+natural explanation concerning these matters."
+
+"I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no
+explanation."
+
+"Of course there must be one," he insisted carelessly. "Is there anything
+in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?"
+
+"There are five clocks in the house. Why should they all go wrong at the
+same time and in the same manner?"
+
+He smiled. "I don't know," he said frankly. "I'll investigate, if you will
+permit me."
+
+"Of course.... And, about L'Ombre. What could explain its presence in the
+moat? It is a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited in its
+range. My father has often said that, except L'Ombre which has appeared at
+long intervals in our moat, L'Ombre never has been seen in Brittany."
+
+"From where does this clear water come which fills the moat?" he asked,
+smiling.
+
+"From living springs in the bottom."
+
+"No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long subterranean vein of water
+connects these springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere--in the
+Pyrenees, perhaps--" He hesitated, for the explanation seemed as
+far-fetched as the water.
+
+Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained politely silent.
+
+Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five times. They both sat listening
+intently. From the depths of the ancient mansion, the other clocks
+repeated the strokes, first one, then another, then two sounding their
+clear little bells almost in unison. All struck five. He drew out his
+watch and looked at it. The hour was three in the afternoon.
+
+After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid, relaxed. He muttered
+something about making an examination of the clocks, adding that to adjust
+and regulate them would be a simple matter.
+
+She sat very still beside him on the stone coping--her dark eyes wandered
+toward the forest--wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied--the visionary
+eyes of a Bretonne, full of the mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.
+
+Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence of her thoughts:
+"Madame," he said, "have you heard any rumours concerning enemy
+airships--or, undersea boats?"
+
+The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him: "No, but something has been
+happening in the Aulnes Etang."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't know. But every day the wild ducks rise from it in fright--clouds
+of them--and the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with their clamour."
+
+"A poacher?"
+
+"I know of none remaining here in Finistere."
+
+"Have you seen anything in the sky? An eagle?"
+
+"Only the wild fowl whirling above the _etang_."
+
+"You have heard nothing--from the clouds?"
+
+"Only the _vanneaux_ complaining and the wild curlew answering."
+
+"Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely troubled.
+
+She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of
+the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.
+
+For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between
+surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging
+there, colourless, translucent--a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid
+element through which it loomed.
+
+L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the
+stream reflected the facade of that ancient house.
+
+Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming,
+and, seeing them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.
+
+An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with
+the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped--but not yet quite realizing
+it.
+
+In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky
+overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in
+the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant
+tree, a subtle and suspended threat.
+
+He said tritely and with an effort: "For everything there are natural
+causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence....
+Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?"
+
+"Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer
+be sent here? Tell me truthfully, are _you_ annoyed?"
+
+"No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense
+of depression which was creeping over him.
+
+He looked down again at the grey wraith in the water, then, as they turned
+and walked slowly back across the bridge together, he said, suddenly:
+
+"_Something_ is wrong somewhere in Finistere. That is evident to me. There
+have been too many rumours from too many sources. By sea and land they
+come--rumours of things half seen, half heard--glimpses of enemy aircraft,
+sea-craft. Yet their presence would appear to be an impossibility in the
+light of the military intelligence which we possess.
+
+"But we have investigated every rumour; although I, personally, know of no
+report which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these rumours persist; they
+come thicker and faster day by day. But this--" He hesitated, then
+smiled--"this seems rather different----"
+
+"I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule----"
+
+"Countess----"
+
+"You are too considerate to say so.... And perhaps I have become
+nervous--imagining things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it is the
+sadness of the past year--the strangeness of it, and----"
+
+She sighed unconsciously.
+
+"It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she said.
+
+"Indeed it must be very lonely here," he returned in a low voice.
+
+"Yes.... Aulnes Wood is--too remote for them to send our wounded here for
+their convalescence. I offered Aulnes. Then I offered myself, saying that
+I was ready to go anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there are
+already too many volunteers. They take only the trained in hospitals. I am
+untrained, and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody wanted me."
+
+She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest.
+
+"So there is nothing for me to do," she said, "except to remain here and
+sew for the hospitals." ... She looked out thoughtfully across the
+fern-grown _carrefour_: "Therefore I sew all day by the latticed window
+there--all day long, day after day--and when one is young and when there
+is nobody--nothing to look at except the curlew flying--nothing to hear
+except the _vanneaux_, and the clocks striking the hour----"
+
+Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted her proud little head and
+smiled, and her tone grew firm again:
+
+"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming a trifle morbid. It is entirely
+physical; my heart is quite undaunted."
+
+"You heart, Madame, is but a part of the great, undaunted heart of
+France."
+
+"Yes ... therefore there could be no fear--no doubt of God.... Affairs go
+well with France, Monsieur?--may I ask without military impropriety?"
+
+"France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame. And her destiny is victory
+and light."
+
+"Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing for so long.... Thank you,
+Monsieur."
+
+He said quietly: "The Light shall break. We must not doubt it, we English.
+Nor can you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and hellish Darkness which
+has been let loose upon the world to assail it. You shall live to see
+light, Madame--and I also shall see it--perhaps----"
+
+She looked up at the young man, met his eyes, and looked elsewhere,
+gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.
+
+On the doorstep of the house they paused. "Is it possible," she asked,
+"that an enemy aeroplane could land in the Aulnes Etang?--L'Etang aux
+Vanneaux?"
+
+"In the Etang?" he repeated, a little startled. "How large is it, this
+Etang aux Vanneaux?"
+
+"It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile
+across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds--like a
+man without a face--and only two great eyes--" She forced a pale smile.
+"Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen
+dress that way.... I wondered----"
+
+He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache.
+
+"One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed
+invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions--a
+new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer.
+
+"It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usual
+_Albatross_ type, with a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for
+lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment,
+munitions, and a very large crew.
+
+"And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as
+noiseless as a high-class automobile."
+
+"Has such an one been seen in Brittany?"
+
+"Such a machine has been reported--many, many times--as though not one but
+hundreds were in Finistere. And, what is very disquieting to us--a report
+has arrived from a distant and totally independent source--from
+Sweden--that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in
+Germany by the hundreds."
+
+After a moment's silence she stepped into the house; he followed.
+
+The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age
+had more than softened and cooerdinated the ancient furnishings, it had
+rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and
+monotonous.
+
+Her chair and workbasket stood by a latticed window; she seated herself
+and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace
+fussing over a little mantel clock--a gilt and ebony affair of the
+consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself
+and containing the works, bell and dial.
+
+When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck
+five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at
+intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his
+attempts with a shrug of annoyance.
+
+"_I_ can't do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across
+the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?"
+
+She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a
+modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he
+gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently
+struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a
+perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him through the
+house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.
+
+When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering
+their striking mechanism--that every clock in the house persisted in
+striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden,
+odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and
+stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.
+
+As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught
+glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors,
+through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts;
+of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted
+the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.
+
+And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable
+things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had
+turned to mould--where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where
+only the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was
+slowly yielding--under the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries, moth
+and dust and rust.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE GHOULS
+
+
+They dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne
+served them--old Anne of Faeouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette,
+her velvet bodice and her _chaussons_ broidered with the rose.
+
+Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver--garrulous,
+deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that
+second infancy which comes before the night.
+
+"_Ouidame!_ It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty
+gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin
+and end in the Woods of Aulnes--alas!--in the Woods and the House of
+Aulnes----"
+
+"The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.
+
+"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young,
+Monsieur--and the world was young, too, _mon Capitaine--helas!_--but the
+Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is
+older, _beau jeune homme_--only the sea is older--the sea which always was
+and will be."
+
+"Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "--to
+France!--I have the honour--" She touched her glass to his and they
+saluted France with the ancient wine of France--a sip, a faint smile, and
+silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment.
+
+"This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking.
+But--but there will be sun enough another year."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"_B'en oui!_ The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the
+Woods of Aulnes. _Non pas._ There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes
+where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with Our Lady
+of Aulnes in shining vestments all----"
+
+"She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear.
+
+"In shining robes of grace--_oui-da_!--the martyrs and the acolytes of
+God. It is I who tell you, _beau jeune homme_--I, Anne of Faeouette. I saw
+them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the
+brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed
+Lady----"
+
+"She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the chatelaine of
+Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.
+
+Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit
+returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes--some graceful shade come back out
+of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles--the
+exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vendee drowned and
+washed it out in blood.
+
+"I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident,
+in months."
+
+Old Anne of Faeouette laid them fresh napkins and set two crystal bowls
+beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat.
+
+"_Ho fois!_" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods
+of Aulnes; they never change--they never change.... The golden people of
+Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."
+
+The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the
+trees."
+
+"_Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine!_
+And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant
+gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth,
+no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair--the Loup-Garou!--O Lady of Aulnes,
+adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"
+
+The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content,
+so full of faith in months----"
+
+A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the
+forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling,
+swinging wide, drifting against the dying light of day, southward toward
+the sea.
+
+"There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.
+
+Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild
+fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds.
+
+"Is there a path to the Etang?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Yes. I will go with you----"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"No. Show me the path."
+
+His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house
+beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the
+house, L'Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not
+speak of it to each other. At the forest's edge he halted: "Is this the
+path?"
+
+"Yes.... May I not go?"
+
+"No--please."
+
+"Is there danger?"
+
+"No.... I don't know if there is any danger."
+
+"Will you be cautious, then?"
+
+He turned and looked at her in the dim light. Standing so for a little
+while they remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet breath. She held
+out one hand, slowly; half way he bent and touched her fingers with his
+lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly at her side.
+
+After he had been gone a long while, she turned away, moving with head
+lowered. At the bridge she waited for him.
+
+A red moon rose low in the east. It became golden above the trees, paler
+higher, and deathly white in mid-heaven.
+
+It was long after midnight when she went into the house to light fresh
+candles. In the intense darkness before dawn she lighted two more and set
+them in an upper window on the chance that they might guide him back.
+
+At five in the morning every clock struck five.
+
+She was not asleep; she was lying on a lounge beside the burning candles,
+listening, when the door below burst open and there came the trampling
+rush of feet, the sound of blows, a fall----
+
+A loud voice cried:--"Because you are armed and not in uniform!--you
+British swine!"--
+
+And the pistol shots crashed through the house.
+
+On the stairs she swayed for an instant, grasped blindly at the rail.
+Through the floating smoke below the dead man lay there by the latticed
+window--where they had sat together--he and she----
+
+Spectres were flitting to and fro--grey shapes without faces--things with
+eyes. A loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely upon her shrinking
+brain:
+
+"You there on the stairs!--do you hear? What are those candles? Signals?"
+
+She looked down at the dead man.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+Through the crackling racket of the fusillade, down, down into roaring
+darkness she fell.
+
+After a few moments her slim hand moved, closed over the dead man's. And
+moved no more.
+
+In the moat L'Ombre still remained, unstirring; old Anne lay in the
+kitchen dying; and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with ghastly shapes
+which had no faces, only eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SEED OF DEATH
+
+
+It was Dr. Vail whose identification secured burial for Neeland, not in
+the American cemetery, but in Aulnes Wood.
+
+When the raid into Finistere ended, and the unclean birds took flight,
+Vail, at Quimper, ordered north with his unit, heard of the tragedy, and
+went to Aulnes. And so Neeland was properly buried beside the youthful
+chatelaine. Which was, no doubt, what his severed soul desired. And
+perhaps hers desired it, too.
+
+Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders, got gassed, and came back to New
+York.
+
+He had aged ten years in as many months.
+
+Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing from time to time at Vail's
+pallid face, and the latter understood the professional interest of the
+younger man.
+
+"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally.
+
+"You don't look very fit, Doctor."
+
+"No.... I'm _going West_."
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why do you think that you are--_going West_?"
+
+"There's a thing over there, born of gas. It's a living thing, animal or
+vegetable. I don't know which. It's only recently been recognized. We call
+it the 'Seed of Death.'"
+
+Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older man in silence.
+
+Vail went on, slowly: "It's properly named. It is always fatal. A man may
+live for a few months. But, once gassed, even in the slightest degree, if
+that germ is inhaled, death is certain."
+
+After a silence Gray began: "Do you have any apprehension--" And did not
+finish the sentence.
+
+Vail shrugged. "It's interesting, isn't it?" he said with pleasant
+impersonality.
+
+After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing anything about it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It's working in the dark, of course. I'm feeling rottener every
+day."
+
+He rested his handsome head on one thin hand:
+
+"I don't want to die, Gray, but I don't know how to keep alive. It's odd,
+isn't it? I don't wish to die. It's an interesting world. I want to see
+how the local elections turn out in New York."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Certainly. That is what worries me more than anything. We Allies are sure
+to win. I'm not worrying about that. But I'd like to live to see Tammany a
+dead cock in the pit!"
+
+Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly, and then, solemn again,
+said:
+
+"I'd like to live to see this country aspire to something really noble."
+
+"After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing to stifle aspiration."
+
+It was not only because Vail had been gazing upon death in every phase,
+every degree--on brutal destruction wholesale and in detail; but also he
+had been standing on the outer escarpment of Civilization and had watched
+the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering, undermining,
+gradually engulfing the world itself and all its ancient liberties.
+
+He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to sail to France next day were
+alone together on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the infernal heat
+of a summer day in town.
+
+On the avenue below motor cars moved north and south, hansoms crept slowly
+along the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people passed listlessly under
+the electric lights--the nine--and--seventy sweating tribes.
+
+For, on such summer nights, under the red moon, an exodus from the East
+Side peoples the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle along the
+gilded grilles and still facades of stone, up and down, to and fro, in
+quest of God knows what--of air perhaps, perhaps of happiness, or of
+something even vaguer. But whatever it may be that starts them into
+painful motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration is a part of their
+unrest.
+
+"There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail--"also her inevitable shadow,
+tyranny."
+
+"We need more light; that's all," said Gray.
+
+"When light streams in from every angle no shadow is possible."
+
+"The millennium? I get you.... In this country the main thing is that
+there is _some_ light. A single ray, however feeble, and even coming from
+one fixed angle only, means aspiration, life...."
+
+He lighted a cigar.
+
+"As you know," he remarked, "there is a flower called _Aconitum_. It is
+also known by the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower. Direct
+sunlight kills it. It flourishes only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower it
+also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly poison.... As you say, the
+necessary thing in this world is light from every angle."
+
+His cigar glimmered dully through the silence. Presently he went on;
+"Speaking of tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized and
+tolerated business carried on successfully by those born with a genius for
+it. It flourishes in the shade--like the Helmet-Flower.... But the sun in
+this Western Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually killing
+off our local tyrants--slowly, almost imperceptibly but inexorably,
+killing 'em off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive--tyrants of
+every degree born to the business of tyranny and making a success at it."
+
+He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:
+
+"There are our tyrants of industry," he said; "tyrants of politics,
+tyrants of religion--great and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants,
+all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling under this fierce western
+sun of ours----"
+
+He laughed without mirth, turning his worn and saddened eyes on Gray:
+
+"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also it is a state of mind--a
+delusion, a ruling passion--strong even in death.... The odd part of it is
+that a tyrant never knows he's one.... He invariably mistakes himself for
+a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story if you care to listen....
+Or, we can go to some cheerful show or roof-garden----"
+
+"Go on with your story," said Gray.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+FIFTY-FIFTY
+
+
+Vail began:
+
+Tyranny was purely a matter of business with this little moral shrimp
+about whom I'm going to tell you. I was standing between a communication
+trench and a crater left by a mine which was being "consolidated," as they
+have it in these days.... All around me soldiers of the third line swarmed
+and clambered over the debris, digging, hammering, shifting planks and
+sandbags from south to north, lugging new timbers, reels of barbed wire,
+ladders, cases of ammunition, machine guns, trench mortars.
+
+The din of the guns was terrific; overhead our own shells passed with a
+deafening, clattering roar; the Huns continued to shell the town in front
+of us where our first and second lines were still fighting in the streets
+and houses while the third line were reconstructing a few yards of
+trenches and a few craters won.
+
+Stretchers and bearers from my section had not yet returned from the
+emergency dressing station; the crater was now cleared up except of enemy
+dead, whose partly buried arms and legs still stuck out here and there. A
+company of the Third Foreign Legion had just come into the crater and had
+taken station at the loopholes under the parapet of sandbags.
+
+As soon as the telephone wires were stretched as far as our crater a
+message came for me to remain where I was until further orders. I had just
+received this message and was walking along, slowly, behind the rank of
+soldiers, who stood leaning against the parapet with their rifles thrust
+through the loops, when somebody said in English--in East Side New York
+English I mean--"Ah, there, Doc!"
+
+A soldier had turned toward me, both hands still grasping his resting
+rifle. In the "horizon blue" uniform and ugly, iron, shrapnel-proof helmet
+strapped to his bullet head I failed to recognize him.
+
+"It's me, 'Duck' Werner," he said, as I stood hesitating.... You know who
+he is, political leader in the 50th Ward, here. I was astounded.
+
+"What do you know about it?" he added. "Me in a tin derby potting
+Fritzies! And there's Heinie, too, and Pick-em-up Joe--the whole bunch
+sewed up in this here trench, oh my God!"
+
+I went over to him and stood leaning against the parapet beside him.
+
+"Duck," I said, amazed, "how did _you_ come to enlist in the Foreign
+Legion?"
+
+"Aw," he replied with infinite disgust, "I got drunk."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Me and Heinie and Joe was follerin' the races down to Boolong when this
+here war come and put everything on the blink. Aw, hell, sez I, come on
+back to Parus an' look 'em over before we skiddoo home--meanin' the dames
+an' all like that. Say, we done what I said; we come back to Parus, an' we
+got in wrong! Listen, Doc; them dames had went crazy over this here war
+graft. Veeve France, sez they. An' by God! we veeved.
+
+"An' one of 'em at Maxeems got me soused, and others they fixed up Heinie
+an' Joe, an' we was all wavin' little American flags and yellin' 'To hell
+with the Hun!' Then there was a interval for which I can't account to
+nobody.
+
+"All I seem to remember is my marchin' in the boolyvard along with a guy
+in baggy red pants, and my chewin' the rag in a big, hot room full o'
+soldiers; an' Heinie an' Joe they was shoutin', 'Wow! Lemme at 'em. Veeve
+la France!' Wha' d'ye know about me? Ain't I the mark from home?"
+
+"You didn't realize that you were enlisting?"
+
+"Aw, does it make any difference to these here guys what you reelize, or
+what you don't? I ask you, Doc?"
+
+He spat disgustedly upon the sand, rolled his quid into the other cheek,
+wiped his thin lips with the back of his right hand, then his fingers
+mechanically sought the trigger guard again and he cast a perfunctory
+squint up at the parapet.
+
+"Believe me," he said, "a guy can veeve himself into any kind of trouble
+if he yells loud enough. I'm getting mine."
+
+"Well, Duck," I said, "it's a good game----"
+
+"Aw," he retorted angrily, "it ain't my graft an' you know it. What do I
+care who veeves over here?--An' the 50th Ward goin' to hell an' all!"
+
+I strove to readjust my mind to understand what he had said. I was, you
+know, that year, the Citizen's Anti-Graft leader in the 50th Ward.... I
+am, still, if I live; and if I ever can get anything into my head except
+the stupendous din of this war and the cataclysmic problems depending upon
+its outcome.... Well, it was odd to remember that petty political conflict
+as I stood there in the trenches under the gigantic shadow of world-wide
+disaster--to find myself there, talking with this sallow, wiry, shifty
+ward leader--this corrupt little local tyrant whom I had opposed in the
+50th Ward--this ex-lightweight bruiser, ex-gunman--this dirty little
+political procurer who had been and was everything brutal, stealthy, and
+corrupt.
+
+I looked at him curiously; turned and glanced along the line where,
+presently, I recognized his two familiars, Heinie Baum and Pick-em-up Joe
+Brady with whom he had started off to "Parus" on a month's summer junket,
+and with whom he had stumbled so ludicrously into the riff-raff ranks of
+the 3rd Foreign Legion. Doubtless the 1st and 2nd Legions couldn't stand
+him and his two friends, although in one company there were many Americans
+serving.
+
+Thinking of these things, the thunder of the cannonade shaking sand from
+the parapet, I became conscious that the rat eyes of Duck Werner were
+furtively watching me.
+
+"You can do me dirt, now, can't you, Doc?" he said with a leer.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Aw, as if I had to tell you. I got some sense left."
+
+Suddenly his sallow visage under the iron helmet became distorted with
+helpless fury; he fairly snarled; his thin lips writhed as he spat out the
+suspicion which had seized him:
+
+"By God, Doc, if you do that!--if you leave me here caged up an' go home
+an' raise hell in the 50th--with me an' Joe here----"
+
+After a breathless pause: "Well," said I, "what will you do about
+it?"--for he was looking murder at me.
+
+Neither of us spoke again for a few moments; an officer, smoking a
+cigarette, came up between Heinie and Pick-em-up Joe, adjusted a periscope
+and set his eye to it. Through the sky above us the shells raced as though
+hundreds of shaky express trains were rushing overhead on rickety aerial
+tracks, deafening the world with their outrageous clatter.
+
+"Listen, Doc----"
+
+I looked up into his altered face--a sallow, earnest face, fiercely
+intent. Every atom of the man's intelligence was alert, concentrated on
+me, on my expression, on my slightest movement.
+
+"Doc," he said, "let's talk business. We're men, we are, you an' me. I've
+fought you plenty times. I _know_. An' I guess you are on to me, too. I
+ain't no squealer; you know that anyway. Perhaps I'm everything else you
+claim I am when you make parlor speeches to Gussie an' Reggie an' when you
+stand on a bar'l in Avenoo A an' say: 'my friends' to Billy an' Izzy an'
+Pete the Wop.
+
+"All right. Go to it! I'm it. I got mine. That's what I'm there for.
+But--when I get mine, the guys that back me get theirs, too. My God, Doc,
+let's talk business! What's a little graft between friends?"
+
+"Duck," I said, "you own the 50th Ward. You are no fool. Why is it not
+possible for you to understand that some men don't graft?"
+
+"Aw, can it!" he retorted fiercely. "What else is there to chase except
+graft? What else is there, I ask you? Graft! Ain't there graft into
+everything God ever made? An' don't the smart guy get it an' take his an'
+divide the rest same as you an' me?"
+
+"You can't comprehend that I don't graft, can you, Duck?"
+
+"What do you call it what you get, then? The wages of Reeform? And what do
+you hand out to your lootenants an' your friends?"
+
+"Service."
+
+"Hey? Well, all right. But what's in it for you? Where do you get yours,
+Doc?"
+
+"There's nothing in it for me except to give honest service to the people
+who trust me."
+
+"Listen," he persisted with a sort of ferocious patience; "you ain't on no
+bar'l now; an' you ain't calling no Ginneys and no Kikes your friends.
+You're just talkin' to me like there wasn't nobody else onto this damn
+planet excep' us two guys. Get that?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And I'm tellin' you that I get mine same as any one who ain't a loonatic.
+Get that?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"All right. Now I know you ain't no nut. Which means that you get yours,
+whatever you call it. And _now_ will you talk business?"
+
+"What business do you want to talk, Duck?" I added; "I should say that you
+already have your hands rather full of business and Lebel rifles----"
+
+"Aw' Gawd; _this_? This ain't business. I was a damn fool and I'm doin'
+time like any souse what the bulls pinch. Only I get more than thirty
+days, I do. That's what's killin' me, Doc!--Duck Werner in a tin lid,
+suckin' soup an' shootin' Fritzies when I oughter be in Noo York with me
+fren's lookin' after business. Can you beat it?" he ended fiercely.
+
+He chewed hard on his quid for a few moments, staring blankly into space
+with the detached ferocity of a caged tiger.
+
+"What are they a-doin' over there in the 50th?" he demanded. "How do I
+know whose knifin' me with the boys? I don't mean your party. You're here
+same as I am. I mean Mike the Kike, and the regular Reepublican
+nomination, I do.... And, how do I know when _you_ are going back?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+"_Are_ you?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Doc, will you talk business, man to man?"
+
+"Duck, to tell you the truth, the hell that is in full blast over
+here--this gigantic, world-wide battle of nations--leaves me, for the
+time, uninterested in ward politics."
+
+"Stop your kiddin'."
+
+"Can't you comprehend it?"
+
+"Aw, what do you care about what Kink wins? If we was Kinks, you an' me,
+all right. But we ain't Doc. We're little fellows. Our graft ain't big
+like the Dutch Emperor's, but maybe it comes just as regular on pay day.
+Ich ka bibble."
+
+"Duck," I said, "you explain your presence here by telling me that you
+enlisted while drunk. How do you explain my being here?"
+
+"You're a Doc. I guess there must be big money into it," he returned with
+a wink.
+
+"I draw no pay."
+
+"I believe you," he remarked, leering. "Say, don't you do that to me, Doc.
+I may be unfortunit; I'm a poor damn fool an' I know it. But don't tell me
+you're here for your health."
+
+"I won't repeat it, Duck," I said, smiling.
+
+"Much obliged. Now for God's sake let's talk business. You think you've
+got me cinched. You think you can go home an' raise hell in the 50th while
+I'm doin' time into these here trenches. You sez to yourself, 'O there
+ain't nothin' to it!' An' then you tickles yourself under the ribs, Doc.
+You better make a deal with me, do you hear? Gimme mine, and you can have
+yours, too; and between us, if we work together, we can hand one to Mike
+the Kike that'll start every ambulance in the city after him. Get me?"
+
+"There's no use discussing such things----"
+
+"All right. I won't ask you to make it fifty-fifty. Gimme half what I
+oughter have. You can fix it with Curley Tim Brady----"
+
+"Duck, this is no time----"
+
+"Hell! It's all the time I've got! What do you expec' out here, a caffy
+dansong? I don't see no corner gin-mills around neither. Listen, Doc, quit
+up-stagin'! You an' me kick the block off'n this here Kike-Wop if we get
+together. All I ask of you is to talk business----"
+
+I moved aside, and backward a little way, disgusted with the ratty soul of
+the man, and stood looking at the soldiers who were digging out bombproof
+burrows all along the trench and shoring up the holes with heavy, green
+planks.
+
+Everybody was methodically busy in one way or another behind the long rank
+of Legionaries who stood at the loops, the butts of the Lebel rifles
+against their shoulders.
+
+Some sawed planks to shore up dugouts; some were constructing short
+ladders out of the trunks of slender green saplings; some filled sacks
+with earth to fill the gaps on the parapet above; others sharpened pegs
+and drove them into the dirt facade of the trench, one above the other, as
+footholds for the men when a charge was ordered.
+
+Behind me, above my head, wild flowers and long wild grasses drooped over
+the raw edge of the parados, and a few stalks of ripening wheat trailed
+there or stood out against the sky--an opaque, uncertain sky which had
+been so calmly blue, but which was now sickening with that whitish pallor
+which presages a storm.
+
+Once or twice there came the smashing tinkle of glass as a periscope was
+struck and a vexed officer, still holding it, passed it to a rifleman to
+be laid aside.
+
+Only one man was hit. He had been fitting a shutter to the tiny embrasure
+between sandbags where a machine gun was to be mounted; and the bullet
+came through and entered his head in the center of the triangle between
+nose and eyebrows.
+
+A little later when I was returning from that job, walking slowly along
+the trench, Pick-em-up Joe hailed me cheerfully, and I glanced up to where
+he and Heinie stood with their rifles thrust between the sandbags and
+their grimy fists clutching barrel and butt.
+
+"Hello, Heinie!" I said pleasantly. "How are you, Joe?"
+
+"Commong ca va?" inquired Heinie, evidently mortified at his situation and
+condition, but putting on the careless front of a gunman in a strange
+ward.
+
+Pick-em-up Joe added jauntily: "Well, Doc, what's the good word?"
+
+"France," I replied, smiling; "Do you know a better word?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "Noo York. Say, what's your little graft over here, Doc?"
+
+"You and I reverse roles, Pick-em-up; you _stop_ bullets; _I_ pick 'em
+up--after you're through with 'em."
+
+"The hell you say!" he retorted, grinning. "Well, grab it from me, if it
+wasn't for the Jack Johnsons and the gas, a gun fight in the old 50th
+would make this war look like Luna Park! It listens like it, too, only
+this here show is all fi-_nally_, with Bingle's Band playin' circus tunes
+an' the supes hollerin' like they seen real money."
+
+He was a merry ruffian, and he controlled the "coke" graft in the 50th
+while Heinie was perpetual bondsman for local Magdalenes.
+
+"Well, ain't we in Dutch--us three guys!" he remarked with forced
+carelessness. "We sure done it that time."
+
+"Did you do business with Duck?" inquired Pick-em-up, curiously.
+
+"Not so he noticed it. Joe, can't you and Heinie rise to your
+opportunities? This is the first time in your lives you've ever been
+decent, ever done a respectable thing. Can't you start in and live
+straight--think straight? You're wearing the uniform of God's own
+soldiers; you're standing shoulder to shoulder with men who are fighting
+God's own battle. The fate of every woman, every child, every unborn baby
+in Europe--and in America, too--depends on your bravery. If you don't win
+out, it will be our turn next. If you don't stop the Huns--if you don't
+come back at them and wipe them out, the world will not be worth
+inhabiting."
+
+I stepped nearer: "Heinie," I said, "you know what your trade has been,
+and what it is called. Here's your chance to clean yourself. Joe--you've
+dealt out misery, insanity, death, to women and children. You're called
+the Coke King of the East Side. Joe, we'll get you sooner or later. Don't
+take the trouble to doubt it. Why not order a new pack and a fresh deal?
+Why not resolve to live straight from this moment--here where you have
+taken your place in the ranks among real men--here where this army stands
+for liberty, for the right to live! You've got your chance to become a
+real man; so has Heinie. And when you come back, we'll stand by you----"
+
+"An' gimme a job choppin' tickets in the subway!" snarled Heinie. "Expec'
+me to squeal f'r that? Reeform, hey? Show me a livin' in it an' I carry a
+banner. But there ain't nothing into it. How's a guy to live if there
+ain't no graft into nothin'?"
+
+Joe touched his gas-mask with a sneer: "He's pushin' the yellow stuff at
+us, Heinie," he said; and to me: "You get _yours_ all right. I don't know
+what it is, but you get it, same as me an' Heinie an' Duck. _I_ don't know
+what it is," he repeated impatiently; "maybe it's dough; maybe it's them
+suffragettes with their silk feet an' white gloves what clap their hands
+at you. _I_ ain't saying nothin' to _you_, am I? Then lemme alone an' go
+an' talk business with Duck over there----"
+
+Officers passed rapidly between the speaker and me and continued east and
+west along the ranks of riflemen, repeating in calm, steady voices:
+
+"Fix bayonets, _mes enfants_; make as little noise as possible. Everybody
+ready in ten minutes. Ladders will be distributed. Take them with you. The
+bomb-throwers will leave the trench first. Put on goggles and respirators.
+Fix bayonets and set one foot on the pegs and ladders ... all ready in
+seven minutes. Three mines will be exploded. Take and hold the craters....
+Five minutes!... When the mines explode that is your signal. Bombers lead.
+Give them a leg up and follow.... Three minutes...."
+
+From a communication trench a long file of masked bomb-throwers appeared,
+loaded sacks slung under their left arms, bombs clutched in their right
+hands; and took stations at every ladder and row of freshly driven pegs.
+
+"One minute!" repeated the officers, selecting their own ladders and
+drawing their long knives and automatics.
+
+As I finished adjusting my respirator and goggles a muffled voice at my
+elbow began: "Be a sport, Doc! Gimme a chanst! Make it fifty-fifty----"
+
+"_Allez!_" shouted an officer through his respirator.
+
+Against the sky all along the parapet's edge hundreds of bayonets wavered
+for a second; then dark figures leaped up, scrambled, crawled forward,
+rose, ran out into the sunless, pallid light.
+
+Like surf bursting along a coast a curtain of exploding shells stretched
+straight across the debris of what had been a meadow--a long line of livid
+obscurity split with flame and storms of driving sand and gravel. Shrapnel
+leisurely unfolded its cottony coils overhead and the iron helmets rang
+under the hail.
+
+Men fell forward, backward, sideways, remaining motionless, or rolling
+about, or rising to limp on again. There was smoke, now, and mire, and the
+unbroken rattle of machine guns.
+
+Ahead, men were fishing in their sacks and throwing bombs like a pack of
+boys stoning a snake; I caught glimpses of them furiously at work from
+where I knelt beside one fallen man after another, desperately busy with
+my own business.
+
+Bearers ran out where I was at work, not my own company but some French
+ambulance sections who served me as well as their own surgeons where, in a
+shell crater partly full of water, we found some shelter for the wounded.
+
+Over us black smoke from the Jack Johnsons rolled as it rolls out of the
+stacks of soft-coal burning locomotives; the outrageous din never
+slackened, but our deafened ears had become insensible under the repeated
+blows of sound, yet not paralyzed. For I remember, squatting there in that
+shell crater, hearing a cricket tranquilly tuning up between the
+thunderclaps which shook earth and sods down on us and wrinkled the pool
+of water at our feet.
+
+The Legion had taken the trench; but the place was a rabbit warren where
+hundreds of holes and burrows and ditches and communicating runways made a
+bewildering maze.
+
+And everywhere in the dull, flame-shot obscurity, the Legionaries ran
+about like ghouls in their hoods and round, hollow eye-holes; masked
+faces, indistinct in the smoke, loomed grotesque and horrible as Ku-Klux
+where the bayonets were at work digging out the enemy from blind burrows,
+turning them up from their bloody forms.
+
+Rifles blazed down into bomb-proofs, cracked steadily over the heads of
+comrades who piled up sandbags to block communication trenches;
+grenade-bombs rained down through the smoke into trenches, blowing bloody
+gaps in huddling masses of struggling Teutons until they flattened back
+against the parados and lifted arms and gun-butts stammering out,
+"Comrades! Comrades!"--in the ghastly irony of surrender.
+
+A man whose entire helmet, gas-mask, and face had been blown off, and who
+was still alive and trying to speak, stiffened, relaxed, and died in my
+arms. As I rolled him aside and turned to the next man whom the bearers
+were lowering into the crater, his respirator and goggles fell apart, and
+I found myself looking into the ashy face of Duck Werner.
+
+As we laid him out and stripped away iron helmet and tunic, he said in a
+natural and distinct voice.
+
+"Through the belly, Doc. Gimme a drink."
+
+There was no more water or stimulant at the moment and the puddle in the
+crater was bloody. He said, patiently, "All right; I can wait.... It's in
+the belly.... It ain't nothin', is it?"
+
+I said something reassuring, something about the percentage of recovery I
+believe, for I was exceedingly busy with Duck's anatomy.
+
+"Pull me through, Doc?" he inquired calmly.
+
+"Sure...."
+
+"Aw, listen, Doc. Don't hand me no cones of hokey-pokey. Gimme a deck of
+the stuff. Dope out the coke. Do I get mine this trip?"
+
+I looked at him, hesitating.
+
+"Listen, Doc, am I hurted bad? Gimme a hones' deal. Do I croak?"
+
+"Don't talk, Duck----"
+
+"Dope it straight. _Do_ I?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought you'd say that," he returned serenely. "Now I'm goin' to fool
+you, same as I fooled them guys at Bellevue the night that Mike the Kike
+shot me up in the subway."
+
+A pallid sneer stretched his thin and burning lips; in his ratty eyes
+triumph gleamed.
+
+"I've went through worse than this. I ain't hurted bad. I ain't got mine
+just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak--an' that bum, Mike the
+Kike, handin' me fren's the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though
+his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that I'll get up an'--an'
+go--home--" His voice flattened out and he lay silent.
+
+Working over the next man beyond him and glancing around now and then to
+discover a _brancardier_ who might take Duck to the rear, I presently
+caught his eyes fixed on me.
+
+"Say, Doc, will you talk--business?" he asked in a dull voice.
+
+"Be quiet, Duck, the bearers will be here in a minute or two----"
+
+"T'hell wit them guys! I'm askin' you will you make it fifty-fifty--'r'
+somethin'--" Again his voice trailed away, but his bright ratty eyes were
+indomitable.
+
+I was bloodily occupied with another patient when something struck me on
+the shoulder--a human hand, clutching it. Duck was sitting upright, eyes
+a-glitter, the other hand pressed heavily over his abdomen.
+
+"Fifty-fifty!" he cried in a shrill voice. "F'r Christ's sake, Doc, talk
+business--" And life went out inside him--like the flame of a suddenly
+snuffed candle--while he still sat there....
+
+I heard the air escaping from his lungs before he toppled over.... I swear
+to you it sounded like a whispered word--"business."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"Then came their gas--a great, thick, yellow billow of it pouring into our
+shell hole.... I couldn't get my mask on fast enough ... and here I am,
+Gray, wondering, but really knowing.... Are you stopping at the Club
+tonight?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Vail got to his feet unsteadily: "I'm feeling rather done in.... Won't sit
+up any longer, I guess.... See you in the morning?"
+
+"Yes," said Gray.
+
+"Good-night, then. Look in on me if you leave before I'm up."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+And that is how Gray saw him before he sailed--stopped at his door,
+knocked, and, receiving no response, opened and looked in. After a few
+moments' silence he understood that the "Seed of Death" had sprouted.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MULETEERS
+
+
+Lying far to the southwest of the battle line, only when a strong
+northwest wind blew could Sainte Lesse hear the thudding of cannon beyond
+the horizon. And once, when the northeast wind had blown steadily for a
+week, on the wings of the driving drizzle had come a faint but dreadful
+odour which hung among the streets and lanes until the wind changed.
+
+Except for the carillon, nothing louder than the call of a cuckoo, the
+lowing of cattle or a goatherd's piping ever broke the summer silence in
+the little town. Birds sang; a shallow river rippled; breezes ruffled
+green grain into long, silvery waves across the valley; sunshine fell on
+quiet streets, on scented gardens unsoiled by war, on groves and meadows,
+and on the stone-edged brink of brimming pools where washerwomen knelt
+among the wild flowers, splashing amid floating pyramids of snowy suds.
+
+And into the exquisite peace of this little paradise rode John Burley with
+a thousand American mules.
+
+The town had been warned of this impending visitation; had watched
+preparations for it during April and May when a corral was erected down in
+a meadow and some huts and stables were put up among the groves of poplar
+and sycamore, and a small barracks was built to accommodate the negro
+guardians of the mules and a peloton of gendarmes under a fat brigadier.
+
+Sainte Lesse as yet knew nothing personally of the American mule or of
+Burley. Sainte Lesse heard both before it beheld either--Burley's loud,
+careless, swaggering voice above the hee-haw of his trampling herds:
+
+"All I ask for is human food, Smith--not luxuries--just food!--and that of
+the commonest kind."
+
+And now an immense volume of noise and dust enveloped the main street of
+Sainte Lesse, stilling the quiet noon gossip of the town, silencing the
+birds, awing the town dogs so that their impending barking died to amazed
+gurgles drowned in the din of the mules.
+
+Astride a cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule, erect in his saddle, talkative,
+gesticulating, good-humoured, famished but gay, rode Burley at the head of
+the column, his reckless grey eyes glancing amiably right and left at the
+good people of Sainte Lesse who clustered silently at their doorways under
+the trees to observe the passing of this noisy, unfamiliar procession.
+
+Mules, dust; mules, dust, and then more mules, all enveloped in dust,
+clattering, ambling, trotting, bucking, shying, kicking, halting, backing;
+and here and there an American negro cracking a long snake whip with
+strange, aboriginal ejaculations; and three white men in khaki riding
+beside the trampling column, smoking cigarettes.
+
+"Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn rode mules on the column's flank; Burley
+continued to lead on his wall-eyed animal, preceded now by the fat
+brigadier of the gendarmerie, upon whom he had bestowed a cigarette.
+
+Burley, talking all the while from his saddle to whoever cared to listen,
+or to himself if nobody cared to listen, rode on in the van under the
+ancient bell-tower of Sainte Lesse, where a slim, dark-eyed girl looked up
+at him as he passed, a faint smile hovering on her lips.
+
+"Bong jour, Mademoiselle," continued Burley, saluting her _en passant_
+with two fingers at the vizor of his khaki cap, as he had seen British
+officers salute. "I compliment you on your silent but eloquent welcome to
+me, my comrades, my coons, and my mules. Your charming though slightly
+melancholy smile bids us indeed welcome to your fair city. I thank you; I
+thank all the inhabitants for this unprecedented ovation. Doubtless a
+municipal banquet awaits us----"
+
+Sticky Smith spurred up.
+
+"Did you see the inn?" he asked. "There it is, to the right."
+
+"It looks good to me," said Burley. "Everything looks good to me except
+these accursed mules. Thank God, that seems to be the corral--down in the
+meadow there, Brigadeer!"
+
+The fat brigadier drew bridle; Burley burst into French:
+
+"Esker--esker----"
+
+"_Oui_," nodded the brigadier, "that is where we are going."
+
+"Bong!" exclaimed Burley with satisfaction; and, turning to Sticky Smith:
+"Stick, tell the coons to hustle. We're there!"
+
+Then, above the trampling, whip-cracking, and shouting of the negroes,
+from somewhere high in the blue sky overhead, out of limpid, cloudless
+heights floated a single bell-note, then another, another, others
+exquisitely sweet and clear, melting into a fragment of heavenly melody.
+
+Burley looked up into the sky; the negroes raised their sweating, dark
+faces in pleased astonishment; Stick and Kid Glenn lifted puzzled visages
+to the zenith. The fat brigadier smiled and waved his cigarette:
+
+"_Il est midi, messieurs._ That is the carillon of Sainte Lesse."
+
+The angelic melody died away. Then, high in the old bell-tower, a great
+resonant bell struck twelve times.
+
+Said the brigadier:
+
+"When the wind is right, they can hear our big bell, Bayard, out there in
+the first line trenches----"
+
+Again he waved his cigarette toward the northeast, then reined in his
+horse and backed off into the flowering meadow, while the first of the
+American mules entered the corral, the herd following pellmell.
+
+The American negroes went with the mules to a hut prepared for them inside
+the corral--it having been previously and carefully explained to France
+that an American mule without its negro complement was as galvanic and
+unaccountable as a beheaded chicken.
+
+Burley burst into French again, like a shrapnel shell:
+
+"Esker--esker----"
+
+"_Oui_," said the fat brigadier, "there is an excellent inn up the street,
+messieurs." And he saluted their uniform, the same being constructed of
+cotton khaki, with a horseshoe on the arm and an oxidized metal mule on
+the collar. The brigadier wondered at and admired the minute nicety of
+administrative detail characterizing a government which clothed even its
+muleteers so becomingly, yet with such modesty and dignity.
+
+He could not know that the uniform was unauthorized and the insignia an
+invention of Sticky Smith, aiming to counteract any social stigma that
+might blight his sojourn in France.
+
+"For," said Sticky Smith, before they went aboard the transport at New
+Orleans, "if you dress a man in khaki, with some gimcrack on his sleeve
+and collar, you're level with anybody in Europe. Which," he added to
+Burley, "will make it pleasant if any emperors or kings drop in on us for
+a drink or a quiet game behind the lines."
+
+"Also," added Burley, "it goes with the ladies." And he and Kid Glenn
+purchased uniforms similar to Smith's and had the horseshoe and mule
+fastened to sleeve and collar.
+
+"They'll hang you fellows for francs-tireurs," remarked a battered soldier
+of fortune from the wharf as the transport cast off and glided gradually
+away from the sun-blistered docks.
+
+"Hang _who_?" demanded Burley loudly from the rail above.
+
+"What's a frank-tiroor?" inquired Sticky Smith.
+
+"And who'll hang us?" shouted Kid Glenn from the deck of the moving
+steamer.
+
+"The Germans will if they catch you in that uniform," retorted the
+battered soldier of fortune derisively. "You chorus-boy mule drivers will
+wish you wore overalls and one suspender if the Dutch Kaiser nails you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+LA PLOO BELLE
+
+
+They had been nearly three weeks on the voyage, three days in port, four
+more on cattle trains, and had been marching since morning from the
+nearest railway station at Estville-sur-Lesse.
+
+Now, lugging their large leather hold-alls, they started up the main
+street of Sainte Lesse, three sunburnt, loud-talking Americans, young,
+sturdy, careless of glance and voice and gesture, perfectly
+self-satisfied.
+
+Their footsteps echoed loudly on the pavement of this still, old town,
+lying so quietly in the shadow of its aged trees and its sixteenth century
+belfry, where the great bell, Bayard, had hung for hundreds of years, and,
+tier on tier above it, clustered in set ranks the fixed bells of the
+ancient carillon.
+
+"Some skyscraper," observed Burley, patronizing the bell-tower with a
+glance.
+
+As he spoke, they came to the inn, a very ancient hostelry built into a
+remnant of the old town wall, and now a part of it. On the signboard was
+painted a white doe; and that was the name of the inn.
+
+So they trooped through the stone-arched tunnel, ushered by a lame
+innkeeper; and Burley, chancing to turn his head and glance back through
+the shadowy stone passage, caught a glimpse in the outer sunshine of the
+girl whose dark eyes had inspired him with jocular eloquence as he rode on
+his mule under the bell-tower of Sainte Lesse.
+
+"A peach," he said to Smith. And the sight of her apparently going to his
+head, he burst into French: "Tray chick! Tray, tray chick! I'm glad I've
+got on this uniform and not overalls and one suspender."
+
+"What's biting you?" inquired Smith.
+
+"Nothing, Stick, nothing. But I believe I've seen the prettiest girl in
+the world right here in this two-by-four town."
+
+Stick glanced over his shoulder, then shrugged:
+
+"She's ornamental, only she's got a sad on."
+
+But Burley trudged on with his leather hold-all, muttering to himself
+something about the prettiest girl in the world.
+
+The "prettiest girl in the world" continued her way unconscious of the
+encomiums of John Burley and the critique of Sticky Smith. Her way,
+however, seemed to be the way of Burley and his two companions, for she
+crossed the sunny street and entered the White Doe by the arched door and
+tunnel-like passage.
+
+Unlike them, however, she turned to the right in the stone corridor,
+opened a low wooden door, crossed the inn parlour, ascended a short
+stairway, and entered a bedroom.
+
+Here, standing before a mirror, she unpinned her straw hat, smoothed her
+dark hair, resting her eyes pensively for a few moments on her reflected
+face. Then she sauntered listlessly about the little room in performance
+of those trivial, aimless offices, entirely feminine, such as opening all
+the drawers in her clothes-press, smoothing out various frilly objects and
+fabrics, investigating a little gilded box and thoughtfully inspecting its
+contents, which consisted of hair-pins. Fussing here, lingering there,
+loitering by her bird-cage, where a canary cheeped its greeting and hopped
+and hopped; bending over a cluster of white phlox in a glass of water to
+inhale the old-fashioned perfume, she finally tied on a fresh apron and
+walked slowly out to the ancient, vaulted kitchen.
+
+An old peasant woman was cooking, while a young one washed dishes.
+
+"Are the American gentlemen still at table, Julie?" she inquired.
+
+"Mademoiselle Maryette, they are devouring everything in the house!"
+exclaimed old Julie, flinging both hands toward heaven. "_Tenez_,
+mamzelle, I have heard of eating in ancient days, I have read of
+Gargantua, I have been told of banquets, of feasting, of appetites! But
+there is one American in there! Mamzelle Maryette, if I should swear to
+you that he is on his third chicken and that a row of six pint bottles of
+'93 Margaux stand empty on the cloth at his elbow, I should do no penance
+for untruthfulness. _Tenez, Mamzelle Maryette, regardez un peu par
+l'oubliette_--" And old Julie slid open the wooden shutter on the crack
+and Maryette bent forward and surveyed the dining room outside.
+
+They were laughing very loud in there, these three Americans--three
+powerful, sun-scorched young men, very much at their ease around the
+table, draining the red Bordeaux by goblets, plying knife and fork with
+joyous and undiminished vigour.
+
+The tall one with the crisp hair and clear, grayish eyes--he of the three
+chickens--was already achieving the third--a crisply browned bird, fresh
+from the spit, fragrant and smoking hot. At intervals he buttered great
+slices of rye bread, or disposed of an entire young potato, washing it
+down with a goblet of red wine, but always he returned to the rich roasted
+fowl which he held, still impaled upon its spit, and which he carved as he
+ate, wings, legs, breast falling in steaming flakes under his skillful
+knife blade.
+
+Sticky Smith finally pushed aside his drained glass and surveyed an empty
+plate frankly and regretfully, unable to continue. He said:
+
+"I'm going to bed and I'm going to sleep twenty-four hours. After that I'm
+going to eat for twenty-four more hours, and then I'll be in good shape.
+Bong soir."
+
+"Aw, stick around with the push!" remonstrated Kid Glenn thickly, impaling
+another potato upon his fork and gesticulating with it.
+
+Smith gazed with surfeited but hopeless envy upon Burley's magnificent
+work with knife and fork, saw him crack a seventh bottle of Bordeaux,
+watched him empty the first goblet.
+
+But even Glenn's eyes began to dull in spite of himself, his head nodded
+mechanically at every mouthful achieved.
+
+"I gotta call it off, Jack," he yawned. "Stick and I need the sleep if you
+don't. So here's where we quit----"
+
+"Let me tell you about that girl," began Burley. "I never saw a
+prettier--" But Glenn had appetite neither for food nor romance:
+
+"Say, listen. Have a heart, Jack! We need the sleep!"
+
+Stick had already risen; Glenn shoved back his chair with a gigantic yawn
+and shambled to his feet.
+
+"I want to tell you," insisted Burley, "that she's what the French call
+tray, tray chick----"
+
+Stick pointed furiously at the fowl:
+
+"Chick? I'm fed up on chick! Maybe she is some chick, as you say, but it
+doesn't interest me. Goo'bye. Don't come battering at my door and wake me
+up, Jack. Be a sport and lemme alone----"
+
+He turned and shuffled out, and Glenn followed, his Mexican spurs
+clanking.
+
+Burley jeered them:
+
+"Mollycoddles! Come on and take in the town with us!"
+
+But they slammed the door behind them, and he heard them stumbling and
+clanking up stairs.
+
+So Burley, gazing gravely at his empty plate, presently emptied the last
+visible bottle of Bordeaux, then stretching his mighty arms and superb
+chest, fished out a cigarette, set fire to it, unhooked the cartridge-belt
+and holster from the back of his chair, buckled it on, rose, pulled on his
+leather-peaked cap, and drew a deep breath of contentment.
+
+For a moment he stood in the centre of the room, as though in pleasant
+meditation, then he slowly strode toward the street door, murmuring to
+himself: "Tray, tray chick. The prettiest girl in the world.... La ploo
+belle fille du monde ... la ploo belle...."
+
+He strolled as far as the corral down in the meadow by the stream, where
+he found the negro muleteers asleep and the mules already watered and fed.
+
+For a while he hobnobbed with the three gendarmes on duty there,
+practicing his kind of French on them and managing to understand and be
+understood more or less--probably less.
+
+But the young man was persistent; he desired to become that easy master of
+the French language that his tongue-tied comrades believed him to be. So
+he practiced garrulously upon the polite, suffering gendarmes.
+
+He related to them his experience on shipboard with a thousand mutinous
+mules to pacify, feed, water, and otherwise cherish. They had, it
+appeared, encountered no submarines, but enjoyed several alarms from
+destroyers which eventually proved to be British.
+
+"A cousin of mine," explained Burley, "Ned Winters, of El Paso, went down
+on the steamer _John B. Doty_, with eleven hundred mules and six niggers.
+The Boches torpedoed the ship and then raked the boats. I'd like to get a
+crack at one Boche before I go back to God's country."
+
+The gendarmes politely but regretfully agreed that it was impracticable
+for Burley to get a crack at a Hun; and the American presently took
+himself off to the corral, after distributing cigarettes and establishing
+cordial relations with the Sainte Lesse Gendarmerie.
+
+He waked up a negro and inspected the mules; that took a long time. Then
+he sought out the negro blacksmith, awoke him, and wrote out some
+directions.
+
+"The idea is," he explained, "that whenever the French in this sector need
+mules they draw on our corral. We are supposed to keep ten or eleven
+hundred mules here all the time and look after them. Shipments come every
+two weeks, I believe. So after you've had another good nap, George, you
+wake up your boys and get busy. And there'll be trouble if things are not
+in running order by tomorrow night."
+
+"Yas, suh, Mistuh Burley," nodded the sleepy blacksmith, still blinking in
+the afternoon sunshine.
+
+"And if you need an interpreter," added Burley, "always call on me until
+you learn French enough to get on. Understand, George?"
+
+"Yas, suh."
+
+"Because," said Burley, walking away, "a thorough knowledge of French
+idioms is necessary to prevent mistakes. When in doubt always apply to me,
+George, for only a master of the language is competent to deal with these
+French people."
+
+It was his one vanity, his one weakness. Perhaps, because he so ardently
+desired proficiency, he had already deluded himself with the belief that
+he was a master of French.
+
+So, belt and loaded holster sagging, and large silver spurs clicking and
+clinking at every step, John Burley sauntered back along the almost
+deserted street of Sainte Lesse, thinking sometimes of his mules,
+sometimes of the French language, and every now and then of a dark-eyed,
+dark-haired girl whose delicately flushed and pensive gaze he had
+encountered as he had ridden into Sainte Lesse under the old belfry.
+
+"Stick Smith's a fool," he thought to himself impatiently. "Tray chick
+doesn't mean 'some chicken.' It means a pretty girl, in French."
+
+He looked up at the belfry as he passed under it, and at the same moment,
+from beneath the high, gilded dragon which crowned its topmost spire, a
+sweet bell-note floated, another, others succeeding in crystalline
+sweetness, linked in a fragment of some ancient melody. Then they ceased;
+then came a brief silence; the great bell he had heard before struck five
+times.
+
+"Lord!--that's pretty," he murmured, moving on and turning into the arched
+tunnel which was the entrance to the White Doe Inn.
+
+Wandering at random, he encountered the innkeeper in the parlour, studying
+a crumpled newspaper through horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose.
+
+"Tray jolie," said Burley affably, seating himself with an idea of further
+practice in French.
+
+"_Plait-il?_"
+
+"The bells--tray beau!"
+
+The old man straightened his bent shoulders a little proudly.
+
+"For thirty years, m'sieu, I have been Carillonneur of Sainte Lesse." He
+smiled; then, saddened, he held out both hands toward Burley. The fingers
+were stiff and crippled with rheumatism.
+
+"No more," he said slowly; "the carillon is ended for me. The great art is
+no more for Jean Courtray, Master of Bells."
+
+"What is a carillon?" inquired John Burley simply.
+
+Blank incredulity was succeeded by a shocked expression on the old man's
+visage. After a silence, in mild and patient protest, he said:
+
+"I am Jean Courtray, Carillonneur of Sainte Lesse.... Have you never heard
+of the carillon of Sainte Lesse, or of me?"
+
+"Never," said Burley. "We don't have anything like that in America."
+
+The old carillonneur, Jean Courtray, began to speak in a low voice of his
+art, his profession, and of the great carillon of forty-six bells in the
+ancient tower of Sainte Lesse.
+
+A carillon, he explained, is a company of fixed bells tuned according to
+the chromatic scale and ranging through several octaves. These bells,
+rising tier above tier in a belfry, the smallest highest, the great,
+ponderous bells of the bass notes lowest, are not free to swing, but are
+fixed to huge beams, and are sounded by clappers connected by a wilderness
+of wires to a keyboard which is played upon by the bell-master or
+carillonneur.
+
+He explained that the office of bell-master was an ancient one and greatly
+honoured; that the bell-master was also a member of the municipal
+government; that his salary was a fixed one; that not only did he play
+upon the carillon on fete days, market days, and particular occasions, but
+he also travelled and gave concerts upon the few existing carillons of
+other ancient towns and cities, not alone in France where carillons were
+few, but in Belgium and Holland, where they still were comparatively many,
+although the German barbarians had destroyed some of the best at Liege,
+Arras, Dixmude, Termonde, and Ypres.
+
+"Monsieur," he went on in a voice which began to grow a little unsteady,
+"the Huns have destroyed the ancient carillons of Louvain and of Mechlin.
+In the superb bell-tower of Saint Rombold I have played for a thousand
+people; and the Carillonneur, Monsieur Vincent, and the great bell-master,
+Josef Denyn, have come to me to congratulate me with tears in their
+eyes--in their eyes----"
+
+There were tears in his own now, and he bent his white head and looked
+down at the worn floor under his crippled feet.
+
+"Alas," he said, "for Denyn--and for Saint Rombold's tower. The Hun has
+passed that way."
+
+After a silence:
+
+"Who is it now plays the carillon in Sainte Lesse!" asked Burley.
+
+"My daughter, Maryette. Sainte Lesse has honoured me in my daughter, whom
+I myself instructed. My daughter--the little child of my old age,
+monsieur--is mistress of the bells of Sainte Lesse.... They call her
+Carillonnette in Sainte Lesse----"
+
+The door opened and the girl came in.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CARILLONETTE
+
+
+Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn remained a week at Sainte Lesse, then left with
+the negroes for Calais to help bring up another cargo of mules, the
+arrival of which was daily expected.
+
+A peloton of the Train-des-Equipages and three Remount troopers arrived at
+Sainte Lesse to take over the corral. John Burley remained to explain and
+interpret the American mule to these perplexed troopers.
+
+Morning, noon, and night he went clanking down to the corral, his
+cartridge belt and holster swinging at his hip. But sometimes he had a
+little leisure.
+
+Sainte Lesse knew him as a mighty eater and as a lusty drinker of good red
+wine; as a mighty and garrulous talker, too, he became known, ready to
+accost anybody in the quiet and subdued old town and explode into French
+at the slightest encouragement.
+
+But Burley had only women and children and old men on whom to practice his
+earnest and voluble French, for everybody else was at the front.
+
+Children adored him--adored his big, silver spurs, his cartridge belt and
+pistol, the metal mule decorating his tunic collar, his six feet two of
+height, his quick smile, the even white teeth and grayish eyes of this
+American muleteer, who always had a stick of barley sugar to give them or
+an amazing trick to perform for them with a handkerchief or coin that
+vanished under their very noses at the magic snap of his finger.
+
+Old men gossiped willingly with him; women liked him and their rare smiles
+in the war-sobered town of Sainte Lesse were often for him as he sauntered
+along the quiet street, clanking, swaggering, affable, ready for
+conversation with anybody, and always ready for the small, confident hands
+that unceremoniously clasped his when he passed by where children played.
+
+As for Maryette Courtray, called Carillonnette, she mounted the bell-tower
+once every hour, from six in the morning until nine o'clock in the
+evening, to play the passing of Time toward that eternity into which it is
+always and ceaselessly moving.
+
+After nine o'clock Carillonnette set the drum and wound it; and through
+the dark hours of the night the bells played mechanically every hour for a
+few moments before Bayard struck.
+
+Between these duties the girl managed the old inn, to which, since the
+war, nobody came any more--and with these occupations her life was
+full--sufficiently full, perhaps, without the advent of John Burley.
+
+They met with enough frequency for her, if not for him. Their encounters
+took place between her duties aloft at the keyboard under the successive
+tiers of bells and his intervals of prowling among his mules.
+
+Sometimes he found her sewing in the parlour--she could have gone to her
+own room, of course; sometimes he encountered her in the corridor, in the
+street, in the walled garden behind the inn, where with basket and pan she
+gathered vegetables in season.
+
+There was a stone seat out there, built against the southern wall, and in
+the shadowed coolness of it she sometimes shelled peas.
+
+During such an hour of liberty from the bell-tower he found the dark-eyed
+little mistress of the bells sorting various vegetables and singing under
+her breath to herself the carillon music of Josef Denyn.
+
+"Tray chick, mademoiselle," he said, with a cheerful self-assertion, to
+hide the embarrassment which always assailed him when he encountered her.
+
+"You know, Monsieur Burley, you should not say '_tres chic_' to me," she
+said, shaking her pretty head. "It sounds a little familiar and a little
+common."
+
+"Oh," he exclaimed, very red. "I thought it was the thing to say."
+
+She smiled, continuing to shell the peas, then, with her sensitive and
+slightly flushed face still lowered, she looked at him out of her dark
+blue eyes.
+
+"Sometimes," she said, "young men say '_tres chic_.' It depend on when and
+how one says it."
+
+"Are there times when it is all right for me to say it?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes, I think so.... How are your mules today?"
+
+"The same," he said, "--ready to bite or kick or eat their heads off. The
+Remount took two hundred this morning."
+
+"I saw them pass," said the girl. "I thought perhaps you also might be
+departing."
+
+"Without coming to say good-bye--to _you_!" he stammered.
+
+"Oh, conventions must be disregarded in time of war," she returned
+carelessly, continuing to shell peas. "I really thought I saw you riding
+away with the mules."
+
+"That man," said Burley, much hurt, "was a bow-legged driver of the
+Train-des-Equipages. I don't think he resembles me."
+
+As she made no comment and expressed no contrition for her mistake, he
+gazed about him at the sunny garden with a depressed expression. However,
+this changed presently to a bright and hopeful one.
+
+"Vooz ate tray, tray belle, mademoiselle!" he asserted cheerfully.
+
+"Monsieur!" Vexed perhaps as much at her own quick blush as his abrupt
+eulogy, she bit her lip and looked at him with an ominously level gaze.
+Then, suddenly, she smiled.
+
+"Monsieur Burley, one does _not_ so express one's self without reason,
+without apropos, without--without encouragement----"
+
+She blushed again, vividly. Under her wide straw hat her delicate,
+sensitive face and dark blue eyes were beautiful enough to inspire eulogy
+in any young man.
+
+"Pardon," he said, confused by her reprimand and her loveliness. "I shall
+hereafter only _think_ you are pretty, mademoiselle--mais je ne le dirais
+ploo."
+
+"That would be perhaps more--_comme il faut_, monsieur."
+
+"Ploo!" he repeated with emphasis. "Ploo jamais! Je vous jure----"
+
+"_Merci_; it is not perhaps necessary to swear quite so solemnly,
+monsieur."
+
+She raised her eyes from the pan, moving her small, sun-tanned hand
+through the heaps of green peas, filling her palm with them and idly
+letting them run through her slim fingers.
+
+"L'amour," he said with an effort--"how funny it is--isn't it,
+mademoiselle?"
+
+"I know nothing about it," she replied with decision, and rose with her
+pan of peas.
+
+"Are you going, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have I offended you?"
+
+"No."
+
+He trailed after her down the garden path between rows of blue larkspurs
+and hollyhocks--just at her dainty heels, because the brick walk was too
+narrow for both of them.
+
+"Ploo," he repeated appealingly.
+
+Over her shoulder she said with disdain:
+
+"It is not a topic for conversation among the young, monsieur--what you
+call _l'amour_." And she entered the kitchen, where he had not the
+effrontery to follow her.
+
+That evening, toward sunset, returning from the corral, he heard, high in
+the blue sky above him, her bell-music drifting; and involuntarily
+uncovering, he stood with bared head looking upward while the celestial
+melody lasted.
+
+And that evening, too, being the fete of Alincourt, a tiny neighbouring
+village across the river, the bell-mistress went up into the tower after
+dinner and played for an hour for the little neighbour hamlet across the
+river Lesse.
+
+All the people who remained in Sainte Lesse and in Alincourt brought out
+their chairs and their knitting in the calm, fragrant evening air and
+remained silent, sadly enraptured while the unseen player at her keyboard
+aloft in the belfry above set her carillon music adrift under the summer
+stars--golden harmonies that seemed born in the heavens from which they
+floated; clear, exquisitely sweet miracles of melody filling the world of
+darkness with magic messages of hope.
+
+Those widowed or childless among her listeners for miles around in the
+darkness wept quiet tears, less bitter and less hopeless for the divine
+promise of the sky music which filled the night as subtly as the scent of
+flowers saturates the dusk.
+
+Burley, listening down by the corral, leaned against a post, one powerful
+hand across his eyes, his cap clasped in the other, and in his heart the
+birth of things ineffable.
+
+For an hour the carillon played. Then old Bayard struck ten times. And
+Burley thought of the trenches and wondered whether the mellow thunder of
+the great bell was audible out there that night.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+DJACK
+
+
+There came a day when he did not see Maryette as he left for the corral in
+the morning.
+
+Her father, very stiff with rheumatism, sat in the sun outside the arched
+entrance to the inn.
+
+"No," he said, "she is going to be gone all day today. She has set and
+wound the drum in the belfry so that the carillon shall play every hour
+while she is absent."
+
+"Where has she gone?" inquired Burley.
+
+"To play the carillon at Nivelle."
+
+"Nivelle!" he exclaimed sharply.
+
+"_Oui, monsieur._ The Mayor has asked for her. She is to play for an hour
+to entertain the wounded." He rested his withered cheek on his hand and
+looked out through the window at the sunshine with aged and tragic eyes.
+"It is very little to do for our wounded," he added aloud to himself.
+
+Burley had sent twenty mules to Nivelle the night before, and had heard
+some disquieting rumours concerning that town.
+
+Now he walked out past the dusky, arched passageway into the sunny street
+and continued northward under the trees to the barracks of the
+Gendarmerie.
+
+"_Bon jour l'ami Gargantua!_" exclaimed the fat, jovial brigadier who had
+just emerged with boots shining, pipe-clay very apparent, and all rosy
+from a fresh shave.
+
+"Bong joor, mon vieux copain!" replied Burley, preoccupied with some
+papers he was sorting. "Be good enough to look over my papers."
+
+The brigadier took them and examined them.
+
+"Are they _en regle_?" demanded Burley.
+
+"_Parfaitement, mon ami._"
+
+"Will they take me as far as Nivelle?"
+
+"Certainly. But your mules went forward last night with the Remount----"
+
+"I know. I wish to inspect them again before the veterinary sees them.
+Telephone to the corral for a saddle mule."
+
+The brigadier went inside to telephone and Burley started for the corral
+at the same time.
+
+His cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule was saddled and waiting when he
+arrived; he stuffed his papers into the breast of his tunic and climbed
+into the saddle.
+
+"Allongs!" he exclaimed. "Hoop!"
+
+                            ------------------
+
+Half way to Nivelle, on an overgrown, bushy, circuitous path which was the
+only road open between Nivelle and Sainte Lesse, he overtook Maryette,
+driving her donkey and ancient market cart.
+
+"Carillonnette!" he called out joyously. "Maryette! C'est je!"
+
+The girl, astonished, turned her head, and he spurred forward on his
+wall-eyed mount, evincing cordial symptoms of pleasure in the encounter.
+
+"Wee, wee!" he cried. "Je voolay veneer avec voo!" And ere the girl could
+protest, he had dismounted, turning the wall-eyed one's nose southward,
+and had delivered a resounding whack upon the rump of that temperamental
+animal.
+
+"Allez! Go home! Beat it!" he cried.
+
+The mule lost no time but headed for the distant corral at a canter; and
+Burley, grinning like a great, splendid, intelligent dog who has just done
+something to be proud of, stepped into the market cart and seated himself
+beside Maryette.
+
+"Who told you where I am going?" she asked, scarcely knowing whether to
+laugh or let loose her indignation.
+
+"Your father, Carillonnette."
+
+"Why did you follow me?"
+
+"I had nothing else to do----"
+
+"Is that the reason?"
+
+"I like to be with you----"
+
+"Really, monsieur! And you think it was not necessary to consult my
+wishes?"
+
+"Don't you like to be with me?" he asked, so naively that the girl blushed
+and bit her lip and shook the reins without replying.
+
+They jogged on through the disused byway, the filbert bushes brushing axle
+and traces; but presently the little donkey relapsed into a walk again,
+and the girl, who had counted on that procedure when she started from
+Sainte Lesse, did not urge him.
+
+"Also," she said in a low voice, "I have been wondering who permits you to
+address me as Carillonnette. Also as Maryette. You have been, heretofore,
+quite correct in assuming that mademoiselle is the proper form of
+address."
+
+"I was so glad to see you," he said, so simply that she flushed again and
+offered no further comment.
+
+For a long while she let him do the talking, which was perfectly agreeable
+to him. He talked on every subject he could think of, frankly practicing
+idioms on her, pleased with his own fluency and his progress in French.
+
+After a while she said, looking around at him with a curiosity quite
+friendly:
+
+"Tell me, Monsieur Burley, _why_ did you desire to come with me today?"
+
+He started to reply, but checked himself, looking into the dark blue and
+engaging eyes. After a moment the engaging eyes became brilliantly
+serious.
+
+"Tell me," she repeated. "Is it because there were some rumours last
+evening concerning Nivelle?"
+
+"Wee!"
+
+"Oh," she nodded, thoughtfully.
+
+After driving for a little while in silence she looked around at him with
+an expression on her face which altered it exquisitely.
+
+"Thank you, my friend," she murmured.... "And if you wish to call me
+Carillonnette--do so."
+
+"I do want to. And my name's Jack.... If you don't mind."
+
+Her eyes were fixed on her donkey's ears.
+
+"Djack," she repeated, musingly. "Jacques--Djack--it's the same, isn't
+it--Djack?"
+
+He turned red and she laughed at him, no longer afraid.
+
+"Listen, my friend," she said, "it is _tres beau_--what have you done."
+
+"Vooz etes tray belle----"
+
+"_Non!_ Please stop! It is not a question of me----"
+
+"Vooz etes tray chick----"
+
+"Stop, Djack! That is not good manners! No! I was merely saying that--you
+have done something very nice. Which is quite true. You heard rumours that
+Nivelle had become unsafe. People whispered last evening--something about
+the danger of a salient being cut at its base.... I heard the gossip in
+the street. Was that why you came after me?"
+
+"Wee."
+
+"Thank you, Djack."
+
+She leaned a trifle forward in the cart, her dimpled elbows on her knees,
+the reins sagging.
+
+Blue and rosy jays flew up before them, fluttering away through the
+thickets; a bullfinch whistled sweetly from a thorn bush, watching them
+pass under him, unafraid.
+
+"You see," she said, half to herself, "I _had_ to come. Who could refuse
+our wounded? There is no bell-master in our department; and only one
+bell-mistress.... To find anyone else to play the Nivelle carillon one
+would have to pierce the barbarians' lines and search the ruins of
+Flanders for a _Beiaardier_--a _Klokkenist_, as they call a carillonneur
+in the low countries.... But the Mayor asked it, and our wounded are
+waiting. You understand, _mon ami_ Djack, I had to come."
+
+He nodded.
+
+She added, naively:
+
+"God watches over our trenches. We shall be quite safe in Nivelle."
+
+A dull boom shook the sunlit air. Even in the cart they could feel the
+vibration.
+
+An hour later, everywhere ahead of them, a vast, confused thundering was
+steadily increasing, deepening with every ominous reverberation.
+
+Where two sandy wood roads crossed, a mounted gendarme halted them and
+examined their papers.
+
+"My poor child," he said to the girl, shaking his head, "the wounded at
+Nivelle were taken away during the night. They are fighting there now in
+the streets."
+
+"In Nivelle streets!" faltered the girl.
+
+"_Oui, mademoiselle._ Of the carillon little remains. The Boches have been
+shelling it since daylight. Turn again. And it is better that you turn
+quickly, because it is not known to us what is going on in that wooded
+district over there. For if they get a foothold in Nivelle on this drive
+they might cross this road before evening."
+
+The girl sat grief-stricken and silent in the cart, staring at the woods
+ahead where the road ran through taller saplings and where, here and
+there, mature trees towered.
+
+All around them now the increasing thunder rolled and echoed and shook the
+ground under them. Half a dozen gendarmes came up at a gallop. Their
+officer drew bridle, seized the donkey's head and turned animal and cart
+southward.
+
+"Go back," he said briefly, recognizing Burley and returning his salute.
+"You may have to take your mules out of Sainte Lesse!" he added, as he
+wheeled his horse. "We are getting into trouble out here, _nom de Dieu_!"
+
+Maryette's head hung as the donkey jogged along, trotting willingly
+because his nose was now pointed homeward.
+
+The girl drove with loose and careless rein and in silence; and beside her
+sat Burley, his troubled gaze always reverting to the despondent form
+beside him.
+
+"Too bad, little girl," he said. "But another time our wounded shall
+listen to your carillon."
+
+"Never at Nivelle.... The belfry is being destroyed.... The sweetest
+carillon in France--the oldest, the most beautiful.... Fifty-six bells,
+Djack--a wondrous wilderness of bells rising above where one stands in the
+belfry, tier on tier, tier on tier, until one's gaze is lost amid the
+heavenly company aloft.... Oh, Djack! And the great bell, Clovis! He hangs
+there--through hundreds of years he has spoken with his great voice of
+God!--so that they heard him for miles and miles across the land----"
+
+"Maryette--I am so sorry for you----"
+
+"Oh! Oh! My carillon of Nivelle! My beloved carillon!"
+
+"Maryette, dear! My little Carillonnette----"
+
+"No--my heart is broken----"
+
+"Vooz ates tray, tray belle----"
+
+The sudden crashing of heavy feet in the bushes checked him; but it was
+too late to heed it now--too late to reach for his holster. For all around
+them swarmed the men in sea-grey, jerking the donkey off his forelegs,
+blocking the little wheels with great, dirty fists, seizing Burley from
+behind and dragging him violently out of the cart.
+
+A near-sighted officer, thin and spare as Death, was talking in a loud,
+nasal voice and squinting at Burley where he still struggled, red and
+exasperated, in the clutches of four soldiers:
+
+"Also! That is no uniform known to us or to any nation at war with us.
+That is not regulation in England--that collar insignia. This is a case of
+a franc-tireur! Now, then, you there in your costume de fantasie! What
+have you to say, eh?"
+
+There was a silence; Burley ceased struggling.
+
+"Answer, do you hear? What are you?"
+
+"American."
+
+"Pig-dog!" shouted the gaunt officer. "So you are one of those Yankee
+muleteers in your uniform, and armed! It is sufficient that you are
+American. If it had not been for America this war would be ended! But it
+is not enough, apparently, that you come here with munitions and food,
+that you insult us at sea, that you lie about us and slander us and send
+your shells and cartridges to England to slay our people! No! Also you
+must come to insult us in your clown's uniform and with your pistol--" The
+man began to choke with fury, unable to continue, except by gesture.
+
+But the jerky gestures were terribly significant: soldiers were already
+pushing Burley across the road toward a great oak tree; six men fell out
+and lined up.
+
+"M-my Government--" stammered the young fellow--but was given no
+opportunity to speak. Very white, the chill sweat standing on his forehead
+and under his eyes, he stood against the oak, lips compressed, grey eyes
+watching what was happening to him.
+
+Suddenly he understood it was all over.
+
+"Djack!"
+
+He turned his gaze toward Maryette, where she struggled toward him, held
+by two soldiers.
+
+"Maryette--Carillonnette--" His voice suddenly became steady, perfectly
+clear. "_Je vous aime_, Carillonnette."
+
+"Oh, Djack! Djack!" she cried in terror.
+
+He heard the orders; was aware of the levelled rifles; but his reckless
+greyish eyes were now fixed on her, and he began to laugh almost
+mischievously.
+
+"Vooz etes tray belle," he said, "--tray, tray chick----"
+
+"Djack!"
+
+But the clang of the volley precluded any response from him except the
+half tender, half reckless smile that remained on his youthful face where
+he lay looking up at the sky with pleasant, sightless eyes, and a sunbeam
+touching the metal mule on his blood-wet collar.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FRIENDSHIP
+
+
+She tried once more to lift the big, warm, flexible body, exerting all her
+slender strength. It was useless. It was like attempting to lift the
+earth. The weight of the body frightened her.
+
+Again she sank down among the ferns under the great oak tree; once more
+she took his blood-smeared head on her lap, smoothing the bright, wet
+hair; and her tears fell slowly upon his upturned face.
+
+"My friend," she stammered, "--my kind, droll friend.... The first friend
+I ever had----"
+
+The gun thunder beyond Nivelle had ceased; an intense stillness reigned in
+the forest; only a leaf moved here and there on the aspens.
+
+A few forest flies whirled about her, but as yet no ominous green flies
+came--none of those jewelled harbingers of death which appear with
+horrible promptness and as though by magic from nowhere when anything dies
+in the open world.
+
+Her donkey, still attached to the little gaily painted market cart, had
+wandered on up the sandy lane, feeding at random along the fern-bordered
+thickets which walled in the Nivelle byroad on either side.
+
+Presently her ear caught a slight sound; something stirred somewhere in
+the woods behind her. After an interval of terrible stillness there came a
+distant crashing of footsteps among dead leaves and underbrush.
+
+Horror of the Hun still possessed her; the victim of Prussian ferocity
+still lay across her knees. She dared not take the chance that friendly
+ears might hear her call for aid--dared not raise her voice in appeal lest
+she awaken something monstrous, unclean, inconceivable--the unseen thing
+which she could hear at intervals prowling there among dead leaves in the
+demi-light of the woods.
+
+Suddenly her heart leaped with fright; a man stepped cautiously out of the
+woods into the road; another, dressed in leather, with dry blood caked on
+his face, followed.
+
+The first comer, a French gendarme, had already caught sight of the donkey
+and market cart; had turned around instinctively to look for their owner.
+Now he discovered her seated there among the ferns under the oak tree.
+
+"In the name of God," he growled, "what's that child doing there!"
+
+The airman in leather followed him across the road to the oak; the girl
+looked up at them out of dark, tear-marred eyes that seemed dazed.
+
+"Well, little one!" rumbled the big, red-faced gendarme. "What's your
+name?--you who sit here all alone at the wood's edge with a dead man
+across your knees?"
+
+She made an effort to find her voice--to control it.
+
+"I am Maryette Courtray, bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse," she answered,
+trembling.
+
+"And--this young man?"
+
+"They shot him--the Prussians, monsieur."
+
+"My poor child! Was he your lover, then?"
+
+Her tear-filled eyes widened:
+
+"Oh, no," she said naively; "it is sadder than that. He was my friend."
+
+The big gendarme scratched his chin; then, with an odd glance at the young
+airman who stood beside him:
+
+"To lose a friend is indeed sadder than to lose a lover. What was your
+friend's name, little one?"
+
+She pressed her hand to her forehead in an effort to search among her
+partly paralyzed thoughts:
+
+"Djack.... That is his name.... He was the first real friend I ever had."
+
+The airman said:
+
+"He is one of my countrymen--an American muleteer, Jack Burley--in charge
+at Sainte Lesse."
+
+At the sound of the young man's name pronounced in English the girl began
+to cry. The big gendarme bent over and patted her cheek.
+
+"_Allons_," he growled; "courage! little mistress of the bells! Let us
+place your friend in your pretty market cart and leave this accursed
+place, in God's name!"
+
+He straightened up and looked over his shoulder.
+
+"For the Boches are in Nivelle woods," he added, with an oath, "and we
+ought to be on our way to Sainte Lesse, if we are to arrive there at all.
+_Allons_, comrade, take him by the head!"
+
+So the wounded airman bent over and took the body by the shoulders; the
+gendarme lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed, holding to
+one of the sagging arms, as though fearing that these strangers might take
+away from her this dead man who had been so much more to her than a mere
+lover.
+
+When they laid him in the market cart she released his sleeve with a sob.
+Still crying, she climbed to the seat of the cart and gathered up the
+reins. Behind her, flat on the floor of the cart, the airman and the
+gendarme had seated themselves, with the young man's body between them.
+They were opening his tunic and shirt now and were whispering together,
+and wiping away blood from the naked shoulders and chest.
+
+"He's still warm, but there's no pulse," whispered the airman. "He's dead
+enough, I guess, but I'd rather hear a surgeon say so."
+
+The gendarme rose, stepped across to the seat, took the reins gently from
+the girl.
+
+"Weep peacefully, little one," he said; "it does one good. Tears are the
+tisane which strengthens the soul."
+
+"Ye-es.... But I am remembering that--that I was not very k-kind to him,"
+she sobbed. "It hurts--_here_--" She pressed a slim hand over her breast.
+
+"_Allons!_ Friends quarrel. God understands. Thy friend back there--he
+also understands now."
+
+"Oh, I hope he does!... He spoke to me so tenderly--yet so gaily. He was
+even laughing at me when they shot him. He was so kind--and droll--" She
+sobbed anew, clasping her hands and pressing them against her quivering
+mouth to check her grief.
+
+"Was it an execution, then?" demanded the gendarme in his growling voice.
+
+"They said he must be a franc-tireur to wear such a uniform----"
+
+"Ah, the scoundrels! Ah, the assassins! And so they murdered him there
+under the tree?"
+
+"Ah, God! Yes! I seem to see him standing there now--his grey, kind
+eyes--and no thought of fear--just a droll smile--the way he had with
+me--" whispered the girl, "the way--_his_ way--with me----"
+
+"Child," said the gendarme, pityingly, "it _was_ love!"
+
+But she shook her head, surprised, the tears still running down her tanned
+cheeks:
+
+"Monsieur, it was more serious than love; it was friendship."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE AVIATOR
+
+
+Where the Fontanes highroad crosses the byroad to Sainte Lesse they were
+halted by a dusty column moving rapidly west--four hundred American mules
+convoyed by gendarmerie and remount troopers.
+
+The sweating riders, passing at a canter, shouted from their saddles to
+the big gendarme in the market cart that neither Nivelle nor Sainte Lesse
+were to be defended at present, and that all stragglers were being
+directed to Fontanes and Le Marronnier. Mules and drivers defiled at a
+swinging trot, enveloped in torrents of white dust; behind them rode a
+peloton of the remount, lashing recalcitrant animals forward; and in the
+rear of these rolled automobile ambulances, red crosses aglow in the rays
+of the setting sun.
+
+The driver of the last ambulance seemed to be ill; his head lay on the
+shoulder of a Sister of Charity who had taken the steering wheel.
+
+The gendarme beside Maryette signalled her to stop; then he got out of the
+market cart and, lifting the body of the American muleteer in his powerful
+arms, strode across the road. The airman leaped from the market cart and
+followed him.
+
+Between them they drew out a stretcher, laid the muleteer on it, and
+shoved it back into the vehicle.
+
+There was a brief consultation, then they both came back to Maryette, who,
+rigid in her seat and very pale, sat watching the procedure in silence.
+
+The gendarme said:
+
+"I go to Fontanes. There's a dressing station on the road. It appears that
+your young man's heart hasn't quite stopped yet----"
+
+The girl rose excitedly to her feet, but the gendarme gently forced her
+back into her seat and laid the reins in her hands. To the airman he
+growled:
+
+"I did not tell this poor child to hope; I merely informed her that her
+friend yonder is still breathing. But he's as full of holes as a pepper
+pot!" He frowned at Maryette: "_Allons!_ My comrade here goes to Sainte
+Lesse. Drive him there now, in God's name, before the Uhlans come
+clattering on your heels!"
+
+He turned, strode away to the ambulance once more, climbed in, and placed
+one big arm around the sick driver's shoulder, drawing the man's head down
+against his breast.
+
+"_Bonne chance!_" he called back to the airman, who had now seated himself
+beside Maryette. "Explain to our little bell-mistress that we're taking
+her friend to a place where they fool Death every day--where to cheat the
+grave is a flourishing business! Good-bye! Courage! En route, brave Sister
+of the World!"
+
+The Sister of Charity turned and smiled at Maryette, made her a friendly
+gesture, threw in the clutch, and, twisting the steering wheel with both
+sun-browned hands, guided the machine out onto the road and sped away
+swiftly after the cloud of receding dust.
+
+"Drive on, mademoiselle," said the airman quietly.
+
+In his accent there was something poignantly familiar to Maryette, and she
+turned with a start and looked at him out of her dark blue, tear-marred
+eyes.
+
+"Are _you_ also American?" she asked.
+
+"Gunner observer, American air squadron, mademoiselle."
+
+"An airman?"
+
+"Yes. My machine was shot down in Nivelle woods an hour ago."
+
+After a silence, as they jogged along between the hazel thickets in the
+warm afternoon sunshine:
+
+"Were you acquainted with my friend?" she asked wistfully.
+
+"With Jack Burley? A little. I knew him in Calais."
+
+The tears welled up into her eyes:
+
+"Could you tell me about him?... He was my first friend.... I did not
+understand him in the beginning, monsieur. Among children it is different;
+I had known boys--as one knows them at school. But a man, never--and,
+indeed, I had not thought I had grown up until--he came--Djack--to live at
+our inn.... The White Doe at Sainte Lesse, monsieur. My father keeps it."
+
+"I see," nodded the airman gravely.
+
+"Yes--that is the way. He came--my first friend, Djack--with mules from
+America, monsieur--one thousand mules. And God knows Sainte Lesse had
+never seen the like! As for me--I thought I was a child still--until--do
+you understand, monsieur?"
+
+"Yes, Maryette."
+
+"Yes, that is how I found I was grown up. He was a man, not a boy--that is
+how I found out. So he became my first friend. He was quite droll, and
+very big and kind--and timid--following me about--oh, it was quite droll
+for both of us, because at first I was afraid, but pretended not to be."
+
+She smiled, then suddenly her eyes filled with the tragedy again, and she
+began to whimper softly to herself, with a faint sound like a hovering
+pigeon.
+
+"Tell me about him," said the airman.
+
+She staunched her tears with the edge of her apron.
+
+"It was that way with us," she managed to say. "I was enchanted and a
+little frightened--it being my first friendship. He was so big, so droll,
+so kind.... We were on our way to Nivelle this morning. I was to play the
+carillon--being mistress of the bells at Sainte Lesse--and there was
+nobody else to play the bells at Nivelle; and the wounded desired to hear
+the carillon."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So Djack came after me--hearing rumours of Prussians in that direction.
+They were true--oh, God!--and the Prussians caught us there where you
+found us."
+
+She bowed her supple figure double on the seat, covering her face with her
+sun-browned hands.
+
+The airman drove on, whistling "La Brabanconne" under his breath, and deep
+in thought. From time to time he glanced at the curved figure beside him;
+but he said no more for a long time.
+
+Toward sunset they drove into the Sainte Lesse highway.
+
+He spoke abruptly, dryly:
+
+"Anybody can weep for a friend. But few avenge their dead."
+
+She looked up, bewildered.
+
+They drove under the old Sainte Lesse gate as he spoke. The sunlight lay
+pink across the walls and tipped the turret of the watch tower with fire.
+
+The town seemed very still; nothing was to be seen on the long main street
+except here and there a Spahi horseman _en vidette_, and the clock-tower
+pigeons circling in their evening flight.
+
+The girl, Maryette, looked dumbly into the fading daylight when the cart
+stopped before her door. The airman took her gently by the arm, and that
+awakened her. As though stiffened by fatigue she rose and climbed to the
+sidewalk. He took her unresisting arm and led her through the tunnelled
+wall and into the White Doe Inn.
+
+"Get me some supper," he said. "It will take your mind off your troubles."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bread, wine, and some meat, if you have any. I'll be back in a few
+moments."
+
+He left her at the inn door and went out into the street, whistling "La
+Brabanconne." A cavalryman directed him to the military telephone
+installed in the house of the notary across the street.
+
+His papers identified him; the operator gave him his connection; they
+switched him to the headquarters of his air squadron, where he made his
+report.
+
+"Shot down?" came the sharp exclamation over the wire.
+
+"Yes, sir, about eleven-thirty this morning on the north edge of Nivelle
+forest."
+
+"The machine?"
+
+"Done for, sir. They have it."
+
+"You?"
+
+"A scratch--nothing. I had to run."
+
+"What else have you to report?"
+
+The airman made his brief report in an unemotional voice. Ending it, he
+asked permission to volunteer for a special service. And for ten minutes
+the officer at the other end of the wire listened to a proposition which
+interested him intensely.
+
+When the airman finished, the officer said:
+
+"Wait till I relay this matter."
+
+For a quarter of an hour the airman waited. Finally the operator half
+turned on his camp chair and made a gesture for him to resume the
+receiver.
+
+"If you choose to volunteer for such service," came the message, "it is
+approved. But understand--you are not ordered on such duty."
+
+"I understand. I volunteer."
+
+"Very well. Munitions go to you immediately by automobile. It is expected
+that the wind will blow from the west by morning. By morning, also, all
+reserves will arrive in the west salient. What is to be your signal?"
+
+"The carillon from the Nivelle belfry."
+
+"What tune?"
+
+"'La Brabanconne.' If not that, then the tocsin on the great bell,
+Clovis."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+In the tiny cafe the crippled innkeeper sat, his aged, wistful eyes
+watching three leather-clad airmen who had been whispering together around
+a table in the corner all the afternoon.
+
+They nodded in silence to the new arrival, and he joined them.
+
+Daylight faded in the room; the drum in the Sainte Lesse belfry, set to
+play before the hour sounded, began to turn aloft; the silvery notes of
+the carillon seemed to shower down from the sky, filling the twilight
+world with angelic melody. Then, in resonant beauty, the great bell,
+Bayard, measured the hour.
+
+The airman who had just arrived went to a sink, washed the caked blood
+from his face and tied it up with a first-aid bandage. Then he began to
+pace the cafe, his head bent in thought, his nervous hands clasped behind
+him.
+
+The room was dusky when he came back to the table where his three comrades
+still sat consulting in whispers. The old innkeeper had fallen asleep on
+his chair by the window. There was no light in the room except what came
+from stars.
+
+"Well," said one of the airmen in a carefully modulated voice, "what are
+you going to do, Jim?"
+
+"Stay."
+
+"What's the idea?"
+
+The bandaged airman rested both hands on the stained table-top:
+
+"We quit Nivelle tonight, but our reserves are already coming up and we
+are to retake Nivelle tomorrow. You flew over the town this morning,
+didn't you?"
+
+All three said yes.
+
+"You took photographs?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then you know that our trenches pass under the bell-tower?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. The wind is north. When the Boches enter our trenches they'll
+try to gas our salient while the wind holds. But west winds are predicted
+after sunrise tomorrow. I'm going to get into the Nivelle belfry tonight
+with a sack of bombs. I'm going to try to explode their gas cylinders if I
+can. The tocsin is the signal for our people in the salient."
+
+"You're crazy!" remarked one of the airmen.
+
+"No; I'll bluff it out. I'm to have a Boche uniform in a few moments."
+
+"You _are_ crazy! You know what they'll do to you, don't you, Jim?"
+
+The bandaged airman laughed, but in his eyes there was an odd flicker like
+a tiny flame. He whistled "La Brabanconne" and glanced coolly about the
+room.
+
+One of the airmen said to another in a whisper:
+
+"There you are. Ever since they got his brother he's been figuring on
+landing a whole bunch of Huns at one clip. This is going to finish him,
+this business."
+
+Another said:
+
+"Don't try anything like that, Jim----"
+
+"Sure, I'll try it," interrupted the bandaged airman pleasantly. "When are
+you fellows going?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"All right. Take my report. Wait a moment----"
+
+"For God's sake, Jim, act sensibly!"
+
+The bandaged airman laughed, fished out from his clothing somewhere a note
+book and pencil. One of the others turned an electric torch on the table;
+the bandaged man made a little sketch, wrote a few lines which the others
+studied.
+
+"You can get that note to headquarters in half an hour, can't you, Ed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right. I'll wait here for my answer."
+
+"You know what risk you run, Jim?" pleaded the youngest of the airmen.
+
+"Oh, certainly. All right, then. You'd better be on your way."
+
+After they had left the room, the bandaged airman sat beside the table,
+thinking hard in the darkness.
+
+Presently from somewhere across the dusky river meadow the sudden roar of
+an airplane engine shattered the silence; then another whirring racket
+broke out; then another.
+
+He heard presently the loud rattle of his comrades' machines from high
+above him in the star-set sky; he heard the stertorous breathing of the
+old innkeeper; he heard again the crystalline bell-notes break out aloft,
+linger in linked harmonies, die away; he heard Bayard's mellow thunder
+proclaim the hour once more.
+
+There was a watch on his wrist, but it had been put out of business when
+his machine fell in Nivelle woods. Glancing at it mechanically he saw the
+phosphorescent dial glimmer faintly under shattered hands that remained
+fixed.
+
+An hour later Bayard shook the starlit silence ten times.
+
+As the last stroke boomed majestically through the darkness an automobile
+came racing into the long, unlighted street of Sainte Lesse and halted,
+panting, at the door of the White Doe Inn.
+
+The airman went out to the doorstep, saluted the staff captain who leaned
+forward from the tonneau and turned a flash on him. Then, satisfied, the
+officer lifted a bundle from the tonneau and handed it to the airman. A
+letter was pinned to the bundle.
+
+After the airman had read the letter twice, the staff captain leaned a
+trifle nearer.
+
+"Do you think it can be done?" he demanded bluntly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Very well. Here are your munitions, too."
+
+He lifted from the tonneau a bomb-thrower's sack, heavy and full. The
+airman took it and saluted.
+
+"It means the cross," said the staff captain dryly. And to the engineer
+chauffeur: "Let loose!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HONOUR
+
+
+For a moment the airman stood watching and listening. The whir of the
+receding car died away in the night.
+
+Then, carrying his bundle and his bomber's sack, heavy with latent death,
+he went into the inn and through the cafe, where the sleeping innkeeper
+sat huddled, and felt his way cautiously to the little dining room.
+
+The wooden shutters had been closed; a candle flared on the table.
+Maryette sat beside it, her arms extended across the cloth, her head
+bowed.
+
+He thought she was asleep, but she looked up as his footfall sounded on
+the bare floor.
+
+She was so pale that he asked her if she felt ill.
+
+"No. I have been thinking of my friend," she replied in a low but steady
+voice.
+
+"He may live," said the airman. "He was alive when we lifted him."
+
+The girl nodded as though preoccupied--an odd, mysterious little nod, as
+though assenting to some intimate, inward suggestion of her own mind.
+
+Then she raised her dark blue eyes to the airman, who was still standing
+beside the table, the sack of bombs hanging from his left shoulder, the
+bundle under his arm.
+
+"Here is supper," she said, looking around absently at the few dishes.
+Then she folded her hands on the table's edge and sat silent, as though
+lost in thought.
+
+He placed the sack carefully on a cane chair beside him, the bundle on the
+floor, and seated himself opposite her. There was bread, meat, and a
+bottle of red wine. The girl declined to eat, saying that she had supped.
+
+"Your friend Jack," he said again, after a long silence, "--I have seen
+worse cases. He may live, mademoiselle."
+
+"That," she said musingly, in her low, even voice, "is now in God's
+hands." She gave the slightest movement to her shoulders, as though easing
+them a trifle of that burden. "I have prayed. You saw me weep. That is
+ended--so much. Now--" and across her eyes shot a blue gleam, "--now I am
+ready to listen to _you_! In the cart--out on the road there--you said
+that anybody can weep, but that few dare avenge."
+
+"Yes," he drawled, "I said that."
+
+"Very well, then; tell me _how_!"
+
+"What do _you_ want to avenge? Your friend?"
+
+"His country's honour, and mine! If he had been slain--otherwise--I should
+have perhaps mourned him, confident in the law of France. But--I have seen
+the Rhenish swine on French soil--I saw the Boches do this thing in
+France. It is not merely my friend I desire to avenge; it is the triple
+crime against his life, against the honour of his country and of mine."
+She had not raised her voice; had not stirred in her chair.
+
+The airman, who had stopped eating, sat with fork in hand, listening,
+regarding her intently.
+
+"Yes," he said, resuming his meal, "I understand quite well what you mean.
+Some such philosophy sent my elder brother and me over here from New
+York--the wild hogs trampling through Belgium--the ferocious herds from
+the Rhine defacing, defiling, rending, obliterating all that civilized man
+has reverenced for centuries.... That's the idea--the world-wide menace of
+these unclean hordes--and the murderous filth of them!... They got my
+brother."
+
+He shrugged, realizing that his face had flushed with the heat of inner
+fires.
+
+"Coolness does it," he added, almost apologetically, "--method and
+coolness. The world must keep its head clear: yellow fever and smallpox
+have been nearly stamped out; the Hun can be eliminated--with intelligence
+and clear thinking.... And I'm only an American airman who has been shot
+down like a winged heron whose comrades have lingered a little to comfort
+him and have gone on.... Yes, but a winged heron can still stab, little
+mistress of the bells.... And every blow counts.... Listen
+attentively--for Jack's sake ... and for the sake of France. For I am
+going to explain to you how you can strike--if you want to."
+
+"I am listening," said Maryette serenely.
+
+"We may not live through it. Even my orders do not send me to do this
+thing; they merely permit it. Are you contented to go with me?"
+
+She nodded, the shadow of a smile on her lips.
+
+"Very well. You play the carillon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You can play 'La Brabanconne'?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On the bells?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He rose, went around the table, carrying his chair with him, and seated
+himself beside her. She inclined her pale, pretty head; he placed his lips
+close to her ear, speaking very slowly and distinctly, explaining his plan
+in every minute detail.
+
+While he was still speaking in a whisper, the street outside filled with
+the trample of arriving cavalry. The Spahis were leaving the environs of
+Sainte Lesse; _chasseurs a cheval_ followed from still farther afield,
+escorting ambulances from the Nivelle hospitals now being abandoned.
+
+"The trenches at Nivelle are being emptied," said the airman.
+
+"And do you mean that you and I are to go there, to Nivelle?" she asked.
+
+"That is exactly what I mean. In an hour I shall be in the Nivelle belfry.
+Will you be there with me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "You can play 'La Brabanconne' on the bells
+while I blow hell out of them in the redoubt below us!"
+
+The infantry from the Nivelle trenches began to pass. There were a few
+wagons, a battery of seventy-fives, a soup kitchen or two and a long
+column of mules from Fontanes.
+
+Two American muleteers knocked at the inn door and came stamping into the
+hallway, asking for a loaf and a bottle of red wine. Maryette rose from
+the table to find provisions; the airman got up also, saying in English:
+
+"Where do you come from, boys?"
+
+"From Fontanes corral," they replied, surprised to hear their own tongue
+spoken.
+
+"Do you know Jack Burley, one of your people?"
+
+"Sure. He's just been winged bad."
+
+"The Huns done him up something fierce," added the other.
+
+"Very bad?"
+
+Maryette came back with a loaf and two bottles.
+
+"I seen him at Fontanes," replied the muleteer, taking the provisions from
+the girl. "He's all shot to pieces, but they say he'll pull through."
+
+The airman turned to Maryette:
+
+"Jack will get well," he translated bluntly.
+
+The girl, who had just refused the money offered by the American muleteer,
+turned sharply, became deadly white for a second, then her face flamed
+with a hot and splendid colour.
+
+One of the muleteers said:
+
+"Is this here his girl?"
+
+"Yes," nodded the airman.
+
+The muleteer became voluble, patting Maryette on one arm and then on the
+other:
+
+"J'ai vue Jack Burley, mamzelle, toot a l'heure! Il est bien, savvy voo!
+Il est tray, tray bien! Bocoo de trou! N'importe! Il va tray bien! Savvy
+voo? Jack Burley, l'ami de voo! Comprenny? On va le guerir toot sweet!
+Wee! Wee! Wee!----"
+
+The girl flung her arms around the amazed muleteer's neck and kissed him
+impetuously on both cheeks. The muleteer blushed and his comrade fidgeted.
+Only the girl remained unembarrassed.
+
+Half laughing, half crying, terribly excited, and very lovely to look
+upon, she caught both muleteers by their sleeves and poured out a torrent
+of questions. With the airman's aid she extracted what information they
+had to offer; and they went their way, flustered, still blushing, clasping
+bread and bottles to their agitated breasts.
+
+The airman looked her keenly in the eyes as she came back from the door,
+still intensely excited, adorably transfigured. She opened her lips to
+speak--the happy exclamation on her lips, already half uttered, died
+there.
+
+"Well?" inquired the airman quietly.
+
+Dumb, still breathing rapidly, she returned his gaze in silence.
+
+"Now that your friend Jack is going to live--what next?" asked the airman
+pleasantly.
+
+For a full minute she continued to stare at him without a word.
+
+"No need to avenge him now," added the airman, watching her.
+
+"No." She turned, gazed vaguely into space. After a moment she said, as
+though to herself: "But his country's honour--and mine? That reckoning
+still remains! Is it not true?"
+
+The airman said, with a trace of pity in his voice, for the girl seemed
+very young:
+
+"You need not go with me to Nivelle just because you promised."
+
+"Oh," she said simply, "I must go, of course--it being a question of our
+country's honour."
+
+"I do not ask it. Nor would Jack, your friend. Nor would your own country
+ask it of you, Maryette Courtray."
+
+She replied serenely:
+
+"But _I_ ask it--of _myself_. Do you understand, monsieur?"
+
+"Perfectly." He glanced mechanically at his useless wrist watch, then
+inquired the time. She went to her room, returned, wearing a little jacket
+and carrying a pair of big, wooden gloves.
+
+"It is after eleven o'clock," she said. "I brought my jacket because it is
+cold in all belfries. It will be cold in Nivelle, up there in the tower
+under Clovis."
+
+"You really mean to go with me?"
+
+She did not even trouble to reply to the question. So he picked up his
+packet and his sack of bombs, and they went out, side by side, under the
+tunnelled wall.
+
+Infantry from Nivelle trenches were still plodding along the dark street
+under the trees; dull gleams came from their helmets and bayonets in the
+obscure light of the stars.
+
+The girl stood watching them for a few moments, then her hand sought the
+airman's arm:
+
+"If there is to be a battle in the street here, my father cannot remain."
+
+The airman nodded, went out into the street and spoke to a passing
+officer. He, in turn, signalled the driver of a motor omnibus to halt.
+
+The little bell-mistress entered the tavern, followed by two soldiers. In
+a few moments they came out bearing, chair-fashion between them, the
+crippled innkeeper.
+
+The old man was much alarmed, but his daughter followed beside him to the
+omnibus, in which were several lamed soldiers.
+
+"_Et toi?_" he quavered as they lifted him in. "What of thee, Maryette?"
+
+"I follow," she called out cheerily. "I rejoin thee--" the bus moved
+on--"God knows when or where!" she added under her breath.
+
+The airman was whispering to a fat staff officer when she rejoined him.
+All three looked up in silence at the belfry of Sainte Lesse, looming
+above them, a monstrous shadow athwart the stars. A moment later an
+automobile, arriving from the south, drew up in front of the inn.
+
+"_Bonne chance_," said the fat officer abruptly; he turned and waddled
+swiftly away in the darkness. They saw him mount his horse. His legs stuck
+out sideways.
+
+"Now," whispered the airman, with a nod to the chauffeur.
+
+The little bell-mistress entered the car, her wooden gloves tucked under
+one arm. The airman followed with his packet and his sack of bombs. The
+chauffeur started his engine.
+
+The middle of the road was free to him; the edges were occupied by the
+retreating infantry. As the car started, very slowly, cautiously feeling
+its way out of Sainte Lesse, the fat staff officer turned his horse and
+trotted up alongside. The car stopped, the engine still running.
+
+"It's understood?" asked the officer in a low voice. "It's to be when we
+hear 'La Brabanconne'?"
+
+"When you hear 'La Brabanconne.'"
+
+"Understood," said the staff officer crisply, saluted and drew bridle. And
+the car moved out into the starlit night along an endless column of
+retreating soldiers, who were laughing, smoking, and chatting as though
+not in the least depressed by their withdrawal from the dry and cosy
+trenches of Nivelle which they were abandoning.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"LA BRABANCONNE"
+
+
+No shells were falling in Nivelle as they left the car on the outskirts of
+the town and entered the long main street. That was all of Nivelle, a
+long, treeless main street from which branched a few alleys.
+
+Smouldering debris of what had been houses illuminated the street. There
+were no other lights. Nothing stirred except a gaunt cat flitting like a
+shadow along the gutter. There was not a sound save the faint stirring of
+the cinders over which pale flames played fitfully.
+
+Abandoned trenches ditched the little town in every direction; temporary
+shelters made of boughs, sheds, and broken-down wagons stood along the
+street. Otherwise, all impedimenta, materials, and stores had apparently
+been removed by the retreating columns. There was little wreckage except
+the burning debris of the few shell-struck houses--a few rags, a few piles
+of firewood, a bundle of straw and hay here and there.
+
+High, mounting toward the stars, the ancient tower with its gilded
+hippogriff dominated the place--a vast, vague shape brooding over the
+single mile-long street and grimy alleys branching from it.
+
+Nobody guarded the portal; the ancient doors stood wide open; pitch
+darkness reigned within.
+
+"Do you know the way?" whispered the airman.
+
+"Yes. Take hold of my hand."
+
+He dared not use his flash. Carrying bundle and bombsack under one arm, he
+sought for her hand and encountered it. Cool, slim fingers closed over
+his.
+
+After a few moments' stealthy advance, she whispered:
+
+"Here are the stairs. Be careful; they twist."
+
+She started upward, feeling with her feet for every stone step. The ascent
+appeared to be interminable; the narrowing stone spiral seemed to have no
+end. Her hand grew warm within his own.
+
+But at last they felt a fresh wind blowing and caught a glimpse of stars
+above them.
+
+Then, tier on tier, the bells of the carillon, fixed to their great beams,
+appeared above them--a shadowy, bewildering wilderness of bells, rising,
+rank above rank, until they vanished in the darkness overhead. Beside
+them, almost touching them, loomed the great bell Clovis, a gigantic mass
+bulking enormously in that shadowy place.
+
+A sonorous wind flowed through the open tower, eddying among the bells--a
+strong, keen night wind blowing from the north.
+
+The airman walked to the south parapet and looked down. Below him in the
+starlight, like an indistinct map spread out, lay the Nivelle redoubt and
+the trench with its gabions, its sand bags, its timbers, its dugouts.
+
+Very far away to the southeast they could see the glare of rockets and
+exploding shells, but the sound of the bombardment did not reach them.
+North, a single searchlight played and switched across the clouds; west,
+all was dark.
+
+"They'll arrive just before dawn," said the airman, placing his sack of
+bombs on the pavement under the parapet. "Come, little bell-mistress, take
+me to see your keyboard."
+
+"It is below--a few steps. This way--if you will follow me----"
+
+She turned to the stone stairs again, descended a dozen steps, opened a
+door on a narrow landing.
+
+And there, in the starlight, he saw the keyboard and the bewildering maze
+of wires running up and branching like a huge web toward the tiers of
+bells above.
+
+He looked at the keyboard curiously. The little mistress of the bells
+displayed the two wooden gloves with which she encased her hands when she
+played the carillon.
+
+"It would be impossible for one to play unless one's hands are armoured,"
+she explained.
+
+"It is almost a lost art," he mused aloud, "--this playing the
+carillon--this wonderful bell-music of the middle ages. There are few
+great bell-masters in this day."
+
+"Few," she said dreamily.
+
+"And"--he turned and stared at her--"few mistresses of the bells, I
+imagine."
+
+"I think I am the only one in France or in Flanders.... And there are few
+carillons left. The Huns are battering them down. Towers of the ancient
+ages are falling everywhere in Flanders and in France under their shell
+fire. Very soon there will be no more of the old carillons left; no more
+bell-music in the world." She sighed heavily. "It is a pity."
+
+She seated herself at the keyboard.
+
+"Dare I play?" she asked, looking up over her shoulder.
+
+"No; it would only mean a shell from the Huns."
+
+She nodded, laid the wooden gloves beside her and let her delicate hands
+wander over the mute keys.
+
+Leaning beside her the airman quietly explained the plan they were to
+follow.
+
+"With dawn they will come creeping into Nivelle--the Huns," he said. "I
+have one of their officers' uniforms in that bundle above. I shall try to
+pass as a general officer. You see, I speak German. My education was
+partly ruined in Germany. So I'll get on very well, I expect.
+
+"And directly under us is the trench and the main redoubt. They'll occupy
+that first thing. They'll swarm there--the whole trench will be crawling
+with them. They'll install their gas cylinders at once, this wind being
+their wind.
+
+"But with sunrise the wind changes--and whether it changes or not, I don't
+care," he added. "I've got them at last where I want them."
+
+The girl looked up at him. He smiled that terrifying smile of his:
+
+"With the explosion of my first bomb among their gas cylinders you are to
+start these bells above us. Are you afraid?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are to play 'La Brabanconne.' That is the signal to our trenches."
+
+"I have often played it," she said coolly.
+
+"Not in the teeth of a barbarian army. Not in the faces of a murderous
+soldiery."
+
+The girl sat quite still for a few moments; then looking up at him, and
+very pale in the starlight:
+
+"Do you think they will tear me to pieces, monsieur?"
+
+He said:
+
+"I mean to hold those stairs with my sack of bombs until our people enter
+the trenches. If they can do it in an hour we will be all right."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is only a half-hour affair from our salient. I allow our people an
+hour."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But if, even now, you had rather go back----"
+
+"_No!_"
+
+"There is no disgrace in going back."
+
+"You said once, 'anybody can weep for friend and country. Few avenge
+either.' I am--happy--to be among the few."
+
+He nodded. After a moment he said:
+
+"I'll bet you something. My country is all right, but it's sick. It's
+got a nauseous dose of verbiage to spew up--something it's
+swallowed--something about being too proud to fight.... My brother and I
+couldn't stand it, so we came to France.... He was in the photo air
+service. He was in mufti--and about two miles up, I believe. Six Huns went
+for him.... And winged him. He had to land behind their lines.... In
+mufti.... Well--I've never found courage to hear the details. I can't
+stand them--yet."
+
+"Your brother--is dead, monsieur?" she asked timidly.
+
+"Oh, yes. With--circumstances. Well, then--after that, from an ordinary,
+commonplace man I became a machine for the extermination of vermin. That's
+all I am--an animated magazine of Persian powder--or I do it in any handy
+way. It's not a sporting proposition, you see, just get rid of them any
+old way. You don't understand, do you?"
+
+"A--little."
+
+"But it's slow work--slow work," he muttered vaguely, "--and the world is
+crawling--crawling with them. But if God guides my bomb this time and if I
+hit one of their gas cylinders--_that_ ought to be worth while."
+
+In the starlight his features became tense and terrible; she shivered in
+her threadbare jacket.
+
+After a few moments' silence he went away up the steps to put on his
+German uniform. When he descended again she had a troubled question for
+him to answer:
+
+"But how shall you account for me, a French girl, monsieur, if they come
+to the belfry?"
+
+A heavy flush darkened his face:
+
+"Little mistress of the bells, I shall pretend to be what the Huns are. Do
+you know how they treat French women?"
+
+"I have heard," she said faintly.
+
+"Then if they come and find you here as my--_prisoner_--they will think
+they understand."
+
+The colour flamed in her face and she bowed it, resting her elbows on the
+keyboard.
+
+"Come," he said, "don't be distressed. Does it matter what a Hun thinks?
+Come; let's be cheerful. Can you hum for me 'La Brabanconne'?"
+
+She did not reply.
+
+"Well, never mind," he said. "But it's a grand battle anthem.... We
+Americans have one.... It's out of fashion. And after all, I had rather
+hear 'La Brabanconne' when the time comes.... What a terrible admission!
+But what Americans have done to my country is far more terrible. The
+nation's sick--sick!... I prefer 'La Brabanconne' for the time being."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The Prussians entered Nivelle a little before dawn. The airman had been
+watching the street below. Down there in the slight glow from the cinders
+of what once had been a cottage a cat had been squatting, staring at the
+bed of coals, as though she were once more installed upon the family
+hearthstone.
+
+Then something unseen as yet by the airman attracted the animal's
+attention. Alert, crouching, she stared down the vista of dark, deserted
+houses, then turned and fled like a ghost.
+
+For a long while the airman perceived nothing. Suddenly close to the house
+facades on either side of the street, shadowy forms came gliding forward.
+
+They passed the glowing embers and went on toward Sainte-Lesse; jaegers,
+with knapsacks on back and rifles trailing; and on their heads oddly
+shaped pot helmets with battered looking visors.
+
+One or two motorcyclists followed, whizzing through the desolate street
+and into the country beyond.
+
+After a few minutes, out of the throat of the darkness emerged a solid
+column of infantry. In a moment, beneath the bell tower, the ground was
+swarming with Huns; every inch of the earth became infested with them;
+fields, hedges, alleys crawled alive with Germans. They overran every
+road, every street, every inch of open country; their wagons choked the
+main thoroughfare, they were already establishing themselves in the
+redoubt below, in the trench, running in and out of dugouts and all over
+scarp, counter-scarp, parades and parapet, ant-like in energy, busy with
+machine gun, trench mortar, installing telephones, searchlights,
+periscopes, machine guns.
+
+Automobiles arrived--two armoured cars and grey passenger machines in
+which there were officers.
+
+The airman laid his hand on Maryette's arm.
+
+"Little bell-mistress," he said, "German officers are coming into the
+tower. I want them to find you in my arms when they come up into this
+belfry. Understand me, and forgive me."
+
+"I--understand," she whispered.
+
+"Play your part bravely. Will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He put his arms around her; they stood rigid, listening.
+
+"Now!" he whispered, and drew her close, kissing her.
+
+Spurred boots clattered on the stone floor:
+
+"Herr Je!" exclaimed an astonished voice. Somebody laughed. But the airman
+coolly pushed the girl aside, and as the faint grey light of dawn fell on
+his field uniform bearing the ribbon of the iron cross, two pairs of
+spurred heels hastily clinked together and two hands flew to the oddly
+shaped helmet visors.
+
+"Also!" exclaimed the airman in a mincing Berlin accent. "When I require a
+corps of observers I usually send my aide. That being now quite perfectly
+understood, you gentlemen will give yourselves the trouble to descend as
+you have come. Further, you will place a sentry at the tower door, and
+inform enquirers that General Count von Gierdorff and his staff are
+occupying the Nivelle belfry for purposes of observation."
+
+The astounded officers saluted steadily; and if they imagined that the
+mythical staff of this general officer was clustered aloft somewhere up
+there where the bells hung it was impossible to tell by the strained
+expressions on their wooden countenances.
+
+However, it was evidently perfectly plain to them what the high Excellenz
+was about in this vaulted room where wires led aloft to an unseen carillon
+on the landing in the belfry above.
+
+The airman nodded; they went. And when their clattering steps echoed far
+below on the spiral stone stairs, the airman motioned to the little
+bell-mistress. She followed him up the short flight to where the bells
+hung.
+
+"We're in for it now," he said. "If High Command comes into this place to
+investigate then I shall have to hold those stairs.... It's growing quite
+light in the east. Which way is the wind?"
+
+"North," she said in a steady voice. She was terribly pale.
+
+He went to the parapet and looked over, half wondering, perhaps, whether
+he would receive a rifle shot through the head.
+
+Far below at the foot of the bell-tower the dimly discerned Nivelle
+redoubt, swarming with men, was being armed; and, to the south, wired he
+thought, but could not see distinctly.
+
+Then, as the dusk of early dawn grew greyer, the first rifle shots rattled
+out in the west. The French salient was saluting the wire-stringers.
+
+Back under shelter they tumbled; whistles sounded distantly; a trench
+mortar crashed; then the accentless tattoo of machine guns broke from
+every emplacement.
+
+"The east is turning a little yellow," he said calmly. "I believe this
+matter is going through. Toss some dust into the air. Which way?"
+
+"North," said the girl.
+
+"Good. I think they're placing their cylinders. I think I can see them
+laying their coils. I'm certain of it. What luck!"
+
+The airman was becoming excited and his voice trembled a little with the
+effort to control it.
+
+"It's growing pink in the east. Try a handful of dust again," he suggested
+almost gaily.
+
+"North," she said briefly, watching the dust aloft.
+
+"Luck's with us! Look at the east! If their High Command keeps his nose
+out of this place!--if he _does_!--Look at the east, little bell-mistress!
+It's all gold! There's pink up higher. I can see a faint tinge of blue,
+too. Can you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+A minute dragged like a year in prison. Then:
+
+"Try the wind again," he said in a strained voice.
+
+"North."
+
+"Oh, luck! Luck!" he muttered, slinging his sack of bombs over his
+shoulder. "We've got them! We've certainly got them! What's that! An
+airplane! Look, little girl--one of our planes is up. There's another!
+Which way is the wind?"
+
+"North."
+
+"Got 'em!" he snapped between his teeth. "Run over to the stairs. Listen!
+Is anybody coming up?"
+
+"I can hear nothing."
+
+"Stand there and listen. Never mind the row the guns are making; listen
+for somebody on the stairs. Look how light it's getting! The sun will push
+up before many minutes. We've got 'em! _Got 'em!_ Wet your finger and try
+the wind!"
+
+"North."
+
+"North here, too. What do you know about that! Luck! Luck's with us! And
+we've got 'em--!" he lifted his clenched hand and laughed at her. "Like
+that!" he said, his blue eyes blazing. "They're getting ready to gas
+below. Look at 'em! Glory to God! I can see two cylinders directly under
+me. They're manning the nozzles! Every man is masking at his post! Anybody
+on the stairs! Any sound?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Are you certain?"
+
+"It is as still as death below."
+
+"Try the dust. The wind's changing, I think. Quick! Which way?"
+
+"_West._"
+
+"Oh, glory! Glory to God! They feel it below! They know. The wind has
+changed. Off came their respirators. No gas this morning, eh? Yes, by God,
+there will be gas enough for all----!"
+
+He caught up a bomb, leaned over the parapet, held it aloft, poised,
+aiming steadily for one second of concentrated cooerdination of mind and
+muscle. Then straight down he launched it. The cylinder beneath him was
+shattered and a green geyser of gas burst from it deluging the trench.
+
+Already a second bomb followed the first, then another, and then a third;
+and with the last report another cylinder in the trench below burst into
+thick green billows of death and flowed over the ground, _west_.
+
+Two more bombs whirled down, bursting on a machine gun; then the airman
+turned with a cry of triumph, and at the same instant the sun rose above
+the hills and flung a golden ray straight across his face.
+
+To Maryette the man stood transfigured, like the Blazing Guardian of the
+Flaming Sword.
+
+"Ring out your Brabanconne!" he cried. "Let the Huns hear the war song of
+the land they've trampled! Now! Little bell-mistress, arm your white hands
+with your wooden gloves and make this old carillon speak in brass and
+iron!"
+
+He caught her by the arm; they ran down the short flight of steps; she
+drew on her wooden gloves and sprang to the keyboard.
+
+"I'll hold the stairs!" he cried. "I can hold these stairs for an hour
+against the whole world in arms. Now, then! The Brabanconne!"
+
+Above the roaring confusion and the explosions far below, from high up in
+the sky a clear bell note floated as though out of Heaven itself--another,
+others, crystalline clear, imperious, filling all the sky with their
+amazing and terrible beauty.
+
+The mistress of the bells struck the keyboard with armoured
+hands--beautiful, slender, avenging hands; the bells above her crashed out
+into the battle-song of Flanders, filling sky and earth with its splendid
+defiance of the Hun.
+
+The airman, bomb in hand, stood at the head of the stone stairs; the
+ancient tower rocked with the fiercely magnificent anthem of revolt--the
+war cry of a devastated land--the land that died to save the world--the
+martyr, Belgium, still prone in the deathly trance awaiting her certain
+resurrection.
+
+The rising sun struck the tower where three score ancient bells poured
+from metal throats their heavenly summons to battle!
+
+The Hun heard it, tumbling, clawing, strangling below in the hellish
+vapours of his own death-fog; and now, from the rear his sky-guns hurled
+shrapnel at the carillon in the belfry of Nivelle.
+
+Clouds possessed the tower--soft, white, fleecy clouds rolling, unfolding,
+floating about the ancient buttresses and gargoyles. An iron hail rained
+on slate and parapet and resounding bell-metal. But the bells pealed and
+pealed in clear-voiced beauty, and Clovis, the great iron giant, hung,
+scarcely sonorous under the shrapnel rain.
+
+Suddenly there were bayonets on the stairs--the clatter of heavy
+feet--alien faces on the threshold. Then a bomb flew, and the terrible
+crash cleared the stairs.
+
+Twice more the clatter came with the clank of bayonets and guttural cries;
+but both died out in the infernal roar of the grenades exploding inside
+that stony spiral. And no more bayonets flickered on the stairs.
+
+The airman, frozen to a statue, listened. Again and again he thought he
+could hear bugles, but the roar from below blotted out the distant call.
+
+"Little bell-mistress!"
+
+She turned her head, her hands still striking the keyboard. He spoke
+through the confusion of the place:
+
+"Sound the tocsin!"
+
+Then Clovis thundered from the belfry like a great gun fired, booming out
+over the world. Around the iron colossus shrapnel swept in gusts; Clovis
+thundered on, annihilating all sound except his own tremendous voice,
+heedless of shell and bullet, disdainful of the hell's shambles below,
+where masked French infantry were already leaping the parapets of Nivelle
+Redoubt into the squirming masses below.
+
+The airman shouted at her through the tumult:
+
+"They murdered my brother. Did I tell you? They hacked him to slivers with
+their bayonets. I've settled the reckoning down in the gas there--their
+own green gas, damn them! You don't understand what I say, do you? He was
+my brother----"
+
+A frightful explosion blew in the oubliette; the room rattled and
+clattered with shrapnel.
+
+The airman swayed where he stood in the swirling smoke, lurched up against
+the stone coping, slid down to his knees.
+
+When his eyes opened the little bell-mistress was bending over him.
+
+"They got me," he gasped. All the front of his tunic was sopping red.
+
+"They said it meant the cross--if I made good.... Are you hurt?"
+
+"Oh, no!" she whispered. "But you----"
+
+"Go on and play!" he whispered with a terrible effort.
+
+"But you----"
+
+"The Brabanconne! Quick!"
+
+She went, whimpering. Standing before the keyboard she pulled on her
+wooden gloves and struck the keys.
+
+Out over the infernal uproar below pealed the bells; the morning sky rang
+with the noble summons to all brave men. Once more the ancient tower
+trembled with the mighty out-crash of the battle hymn.
+
+With the last note she turned and looked down at him where he lay against
+the wall. He opened his glazing eyes and tried to smile at her.
+
+"Bully," he whispered. "Could you recite--the words--to me--just so I
+could hear them on my way--West?"
+
+She left the keyboard, came and dropped on her knees beside him; and
+closing her eyes to check the tears sang in a low, tremulous, girlish
+voice, De Lonlay's words, to the battle anthem of revolution.
+
+"Bully," he sighed. And spoke no more on earth.
+
+But the little mistress of the bells did not know his soul had passed.
+
+And the French officer who came leaping up the stairs, pistol lifted,
+halted in astonishment to see a dead man lying beside a sack of bombs and
+a young girl on her knees beside him, weeping and tremblingly intoning "La
+Brabanconne."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE GARDENER
+
+
+A week later, toward noon, as usual, the two American, muleteers, Smith
+and Glenn, sauntered over from their corral to the White Doe Tavern where,
+it being a meatless day, they ate largely of potato soup and of a tench,
+smoking hot.
+
+The tench had been caught that morning off the back doorstep, which was an
+ancient and mossy slab of limestone let into the coping of the river wall.
+
+Jean Courtray, the crippled inn-keeper, caught it. All that morning he had
+sat there in the sun on the river wall, half dozing, opening his dim eyes
+at intervals to gaze at his painted quill afloat among the water weeds of
+the little river Lesse. At intervals, too, he turned his head with that
+peculiar movement of the old, and peered at his daughter, Maryette, and
+the Belgian gardener who were working among the potatoes in the garden.
+
+And at last he had hooked his fish and the emaciated young Belgian dropped
+his hoe and came over and released it from the hook where it lay flopping
+and quivering and glittering among the wild grasses on the river bank. And
+that was how Kid Glenn and Sticky Smith, American muleteers on duty at
+Saint Lesse, came to lunch on freshly caught tench at the Inn of the White
+Doe.
+
+After luncheon, agreeably satiated, they rose from the table in the little
+dining room and strolled out to the garden in the rear of the inn, their
+Mexican spurs clanking. Maryette heard them; they tipped their caps to
+her; she acknowledged their salute gravely and continued to cultivate her
+garden with a hoe, the blond, consumptive Belgian trundling a rickety
+cultivator at her heels.
+
+"Look, Stick," drawled Glenn. "Maryette's got her decoration on."
+
+From where they lounged by the river wall they could see the cross of the
+Legion pinned to the girl's blouse.
+
+Both muleteers had been present at the investment the day before, when a
+general officer arrived from Paris and the entire garrison of Sainte Lesse
+had been paraded--an impressive total of three dozen men--six gendarmes
+and a brigadier; one remount sub-lieutenant and twenty troopers; a
+veterinary, two white American muleteers, and five American negro hostlers
+from Baton Rouge.
+
+The girl had nearly died of shyness during the ceremony, had endured the
+accolade with crimson cheeks, had stammered a whispered response to the
+congratulations of neighbors who had gathered to see the little
+bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse honoured by the country which she had served
+in the belfry of Nivelle.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+As she came past Smith and Glenn, trailing her hoe, the latter now
+sufficiently proficient in French, said gaily:
+
+"Have you heard from Jack again, Mamzelle Maryette?"
+
+The girl blushed:
+
+"I hear from Djack by every mail," she said, with all the transparent
+honesty that characterized her.
+
+Smith grinned:
+
+"Just like that! Well, tell him from me to quit fooling away his time in a
+hospital and come and get you or somebody is going to steal you."
+
+The girl was very happy; she stood there in the September sunshine leaning
+on her hoe and gazing half shyly, half humorously down the river where a
+string of American mules was being watered.
+
+Mellow Ethiopian laughter sounded from the distance as the Baton Rouge
+negroes exchanged pleasantries in limited French with a couple of
+gendarmes on the bank above them. And there, in the sunshine of the little
+garden by the river, war and death seemed very far away. Only at intervals
+the veering breeze brought to Sainte Lesse the immense vibration of the
+cannonade; only at intervals the high sky-clatter of an airplane reminded
+the village that the front was only a little north of Nivelle, and that
+what had been Nivelle was not so very far away.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"If you were _my_ girl, Maryette," remarked Smith, "I'd die of worry in
+that hospital."
+
+"_You_ might have reason to, Monsieur," retorted the girl demurely. "But
+you see it's Djack who is convalescing, not you."
+
+She had become accustomed to the ceaseless banter of Burley's two
+comrades--a banter entirely American, and which at first she was unable to
+understand. But now all things American, including accent and odd,
+perverted humour, had become very dear to her. The clink-clank of the
+muleteer's big spurs always set her heart beating; the sight of an
+arriving convoy from the Channel port thrilled her, and to her the trample
+of mules, the shouts of foreign negroes, the drawling, broken French
+spoken by the white muleteers made heavenly real to her the dream which
+love had so suddenly invaded, and into which, as suddenly, strode Death,
+clutching at Love.
+
+She had beaten him off--she had--or God had--routed Death, driven him from
+the dream. For it was a dream to her still, and she thought she could
+never be able to comprehend the magic reality of it, even when at last her
+man, "Djack," came back to prove the blessed miracle which held her in the
+magic of its thrall.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+"Who's the guy with the wheelbarrow?" inquired Sticky Smith, rolling a
+cigarette.
+
+"Karl, his name is," she answered; "--a Belgian refugee."
+
+"He looks like a Hun to me," remarked Glenn, bluntly.
+
+"He has his papers," said the girl.
+
+Glenn shrugged.
+
+"With his little pink eyes of a pig and his whitish hair and
+eyebrows--well, maybe they make 'em like that in Belgium."
+
+"Papers," added Smith, "_can_ be swiped."
+
+The girl shook her head:
+
+"He's an invalid student from Ypres. He looks quite ill, I think."
+
+"He looks the lunger, all right. But Huns have it, too. What does he
+do--wander about town at will?"
+
+"He works for us, monsieur. Your suspicions are harsh. Karl is quite
+harmless, poor boy."
+
+"What does he do after hours?" demanded Sticky Smith, watching the
+manoeuvres of the sickly blond youth and the wheelbarrow.
+
+"Monsieur Smith, if you knew how innocent is his pastime!" she exclaimed,
+laughing. "He collects and studies moths and butterflies. Is there, if you
+please, a mania more harmless in the world?... And now I must return to my
+work, messieurs."
+
+As the two muleteers strode clanking away toward the canal in the meadow,
+the blond youth turned his head and looked after them out of eyes which
+were naturally pale and small, and which, as he watched the two Americans,
+seemed to grow paler and smaller yet.
+
+That afternoon old Courtray, swathed in a shawl, sat on the mossy doorstep
+and fished among the water weeds of the river. The sun was low; work in
+the garden had ended.
+
+Maryette had gone up into her belfry to play the sunset hymn on the noble
+old carillon. Through the sunset sky the lovely bell-notes floated far and
+wide, exquisitely chaste and aloof as the high-showering ecstasy of a
+skylark.
+
+As always the little village looked upward and listened, pausing in its
+humble duties as long as their little bell-mistress remained in her tower.
+
+After the hymn she played "Myn hart is vol verlangen" and "Het Lied der
+Vlamingen," and ended with the delicate, bewitching little folk-song, "Myn
+Vryer," by Hasselt.
+
+Then in the red glow of the setting sun the girl laid aside her wooden
+gloves, rose from the ancient keyboard, wound up the drum, and, her duty
+done for the evening, came down out of the tower among the transparent
+evening shadows of the tree-lined village street.
+
+The sun hung over Nivelle hills, which had turned to amethyst. Sunbeams
+laced the little river in a red net through which old Courtray's quill
+stemmed the ripples. He still clutched his fishing pole, but his eyes were
+closed, his chin resting on his chest.
+
+Maryette came silently into the garden and looked at her father--looked at
+the blond Karl seated on the river wall beside the dozing angler. The
+blond youth had a box on his knees into which he was intently peering.
+
+The girl came to the river wall and seated herself at her father's feet.
+The Belgian refugee student had already risen to attention, his heels
+together, but Maryette signed him to be seated again.
+
+"What have you found now, Karl?" she inquired in a cautiously modulated
+voice.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle, fancy! I haff by chance with my cultivator among your
+potatoes already twenty pupae of the magnificent moth, Sphinx Atropos,
+upturned! See! Regard them, mademoiselle! What lucky chance! What fortune
+for me, an entomologist, this wonderful sphinx moth to discover encased
+within its chrysalis!"
+
+The girl smiled at his enthusiasm:
+
+"But, Karl, those funny, smooth brown things which resemble little
+polished evergreen-cones are not rare in my garden. Often, when spading or
+hoeing among the potato vines, I uncover them."
+
+"Mademoiselle, the caterpillar which makes this chrysalis feeds by night
+on the leaves of the potato, and, when ready to transform, burrows into
+the earth to become a chrysalis or pupa, as we call it. That iss why
+mademoiselle has often disinterred the pupae of this largest and strangest
+of our native sphinx-moths."
+
+Maryette leaned over and looked into the wooden box, where lay the
+chrysalides.
+
+"What kind of moth do they make?" she asked.
+
+He blinked his small, pale eyes:
+
+"The Death's Head," he said, complacently.
+
+The girl recoiled involuntarily:
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, "--_that_ creature!"
+
+For everywhere in France the great moth, with its strange and ominous
+markings, is perfectly well known. To the superstitious it is a creature
+of evil omen in its fulvous, black and lead-coloured livery of death. For
+the broad, furry thorax bears a skull, and the big, mousy body the yellow
+ribs of a skeleton.
+
+Measuring often more than five inches across the expanded wings, its
+formidable size alone might be sufficient to inspire alarm, but in
+addition it possesses a horrid attribute unknown among other moths and
+butterflies; it can utter a cry--a tiny shrill, shuddering complaint.
+Small wonder, perhaps, that the peasant holds it in horror--this sleek,
+furry, powerfully winged creature marked with skull and bones, which
+whirrs through the night and comes thudding against the window, and
+shrieks horridly when touched by a human hand.
+
+"So _that_ is what turns into the Death's Head moth," said the girl in a
+low voice as though to herself. "I never knew it. I thought those things
+were legless cock-chafers when I dug them out of potato hills. Karl, why
+do you keep them?"
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle! To study them. To breed from them the moth. The Death's
+Head is magnificent."
+
+"God made it," admitted the girl with a faint shudder, "but I am afraid I
+could not love it. When do they hatch out?"
+
+"It is time now. It is not like others of the sphinx family. Incubation
+requires but a few weeks. These are nearly ready to emerge, mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh. And then what do they do?"
+
+"They mate."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"The males seek the females," he said in his pedantic, monotonous voice.
+"And so ardent are the lovers that although there be no female moth within
+five, eight, perhaps ten miles, yet will her lover surely search through
+the night for her and find her."
+
+Maryette shuddered again in spite of herself. The thought of this creature
+marked with the emblems of death and possessed of ardour, too, was
+distasteful.
+
+"Amour macabre--what an unpleasant thought, Karl. I do not care for your
+Death's Head and for the history of their amours."
+
+She turned and gently laid her head on her father's knees. The young man
+regarded her with a pallid sneer.
+
+Addressing her back, still holding his boxful of pupae on his bony knees,
+he said with the sneer quite audible in his voice:
+
+"Your famous savant, Fabre, first inspired me to study the sex habits of
+the Death's Head."
+
+She made no reply, her cheek resting on her father's knees.
+
+"It was because of his wonderful experiments with the Great Peacock moth
+and with others of the genus that I have studied to acquaint myself
+concerning the amours of the Death's Head. _And I have discovered that he
+will find the female even if she be miles and miles away._"
+
+The man was grinning now in the dusk--grinning like a skull; but the
+girl's back was still turned and she merely found something in his voice
+not quite agreeable.
+
+"I think," she said in a low, quiet voice, "that I have now heard
+sufficient about the Death's Head moth."
+
+"Ah--have I offended mademoiselle? I ask a thousand pardons----"
+
+Old Courtray awoke in the dusk.
+
+"My quill, Maryette," he muttered, "--see if it floats yet?"
+
+The girl bent over the water and strained her eyes. Her father tested the
+line with shaky hands. There was no fish on the hook.
+
+"_Voyons!_ The _asticot_ also is gone. Some robber fish has been
+nibbling!" exclaimed the girl cheerfully, reeling in the line. "Father,
+one cannot fish and doze at the same time."
+
+"Eternal vigilance is the price of success--in peace as well as in war,"
+said Karl, the student, as he aided Maryette to raise her father from the
+chair.
+
+"Vigilance," repeated the girl. "Yes, always now in France. Because always
+the enemy is listening." ... Her strong young arm around her father, she
+traversed the garden slowly toward the house. A pleasant odour came from
+the kitchen of the White Doe, where an old peasant woman was cooking.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE SUSPECT
+
+
+That night she wrote to her lover at the great hospital in the south,
+where he lay slowly growing well:
+
+
+    MY DJACK:
+
+    Today has been very beautiful, made so for me by my thoughts of
+    you and by a warm September sun which makes for human happiness,
+    too.
+
+    I am wearing my ribbon of the Legion. Ah, my Djack, it belongs
+    more rightly to you, who would not let me go alone to Nivelle that
+    dreadful day. Why do they not give you the cross? They must be
+    very stupid in Paris.
+
+    All day my happy thoughts have been with you, my Djack. It all
+    seems a blessed dream that we love each other. And I--oh, how
+    could I have been so ignorant, so silly, not to know it sooner
+    than I did!
+
+    I don't know; I thought it was friendship. And that was so
+    wonderful to me that I never dreamed any other miracle possible!
+
+    _Allons_, my Djack. Come and instruct me quickly, because my
+    desire for further knowledge is very ardent.
+
+    The news? _Cher ami_, there is little. Always the far thunder
+    beyond Nivelle in ruins; sometimes a battle-plane high in the
+    blue; a convoy of your beloved mules arriving from the coast;
+    nothing more exciting.
+
+    Monsieur Smeet and Monsieur Glenn inquire always concerning you.
+    They are brave and kind; their odd jests amuse me.
+
+    My father caught a tench in the Lesse this morning.
+
+    My gardener, Karl, collected many unpleasant creatures while
+    hoeing our potatoes. Poor lad, he seems unhealthy. I am glad I
+    could offer him employment.
+
+    My Djack, there could not possibly be any mistake about him, could
+    there? His papers are en regle. He is what he pretends, a Belgian
+    student from Ypres in distress and ill health, is he not?
+
+    But how can you answer me, you who lie there all alone in a
+    hospital at Nice? Also, I am ashamed of myself for doubting the
+    unfortunate young man. I am too happy to doubt anybody, perhaps.
+
+    And so good night, my Djack. Sleep sweetly, guarded by powerful
+    angels.
+
+                    Thy devoted,
+                    MARYETTE.
+
+
+She had been writing in the deserted cafe. Now she took a candle and went
+slowly upstairs. On the white plaster wall of her bedroom was a Death's
+Head moth.
+
+The girl, startled for an instant, stood still; an unfeigned shiver of
+displeasure passed over her. Not that the Death's Head was an unfamiliar
+or terrifying sight to her; in late summer she usually saw one or two
+which had flown through some lighted window.
+
+But it was the amorous history of this creature which the student Karl had
+related that now repelled her. This night creature with the skull on its
+neck, once scarcely noticed, had now become a trifle repulsive.
+
+She went nearer, lifting the lighted candle. The thing crouched there with
+slanted wings. It was newly hatched, its sleek body still wet with the
+humors of incubation--wet as a soaked mouse. Its abdomen, too, seemed
+enormous, all swelled and distended with unfertilized eggs. No, there
+could be no question concerning the sex of the thing; this was a female,
+and her tumefied body was almost bursting with eggs.
+
+In startling design the yellow skull stood out; the ribs of the skeleton.
+Two tiny, fiery eyes glimmered at the base of the antennae--two minute
+jewelled sparks of glowing, lambent fire. They seemed to be watching her,
+maliciously askance.
+
+The very horrid part of it was that, if touched, the creature would cry
+out. The girl knew this, hesitated, looked at the open window through
+which it must have crawled, and sat down on her bed to consider the
+situation.
+
+"After all," she said to herself resolutely. "God made it. It is harmless.
+If God thought fit to paint one of his lesser creatures like a skeleton,
+perhaps it was to remind us that life is brief and that we should lose no
+time to live it nobly in His sight.... I think that perhaps explains it."
+
+However, she did not undress.
+
+"I am quite foolish to be afraid of this poor moth. I repeat that I am
+foolish. _Allez_--I am _not_ afraid. I am no longer afraid. I--I admire
+this handiwork of God."
+
+She sat looking at the creature, her hands lying clasped in her lap.
+
+"It's a very odd thing," she said to herself, "that a lover can find this
+creature even if he be miles and miles away.... Maybe he's on his way
+now----"
+
+Instinctively she sprang up and closed her bedroom window.
+
+"No," she said, looking severely at the motionless moth, "you shall have
+no visitors in my room. You may remain here; I shall not disturb you; and
+tomorrow you will go away of your own accord. But I cannot permit you to
+receive company----"
+
+A heavy fall on the floor above checked her. Breathless, listening, she
+crept to her door.
+
+"Karl!" she called.
+
+Listening again, she could hear distant and vaguely dreadful sounds from
+the gardener-student's room above.
+
+She was frightened but she went up. The youth had had a bad hemorrhage.
+She sat beside him late into the night. After his breathing grew quieter,
+sitting there in silence she could hear odd sounds, rustling, squeaking
+sounds from the box of Death's Head chrysalids on the night table beside
+his bed.
+
+The pupae of the Death's Head were making merry in anticipation of the
+rapidly approaching change--the Great Adventure of their lives--the coming
+metamorphosis.
+
+The youth lay asleep now. As she extinguished the candle and stole from
+the room, all the pupae of the Death's Head began to squeak in the
+darkness.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The student-gardener could do no more work for the present. He lay propped
+up in bed, pasty, scarlet lipped, and he seemed bald and lidless, so
+colourless were hair and eye-lashes.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, Karl?" asked Maryette, coming in for a moment
+as usual in the intervals of her many duties.
+
+"The ink, if you would be so condescending--and a pen," he said, watching
+her out of hollow, sallow eyes of watery blue.
+
+She fetched both from the cafe.
+
+She came again in another hour, knocking at his door, but he said rather
+sharply that he wished to sleep.
+
+Scarcely noticing the querulous tone, she departed. She had much to do
+besides her duties in the belfry. Her father was an invalid who required
+constant care; there was only one servant, an old peasant woman who
+cooked. The Government required her father to keep open the White Doe
+Tavern, and there was always a little business from the scanty garrison of
+Sainte Lesse, always a few meals to get, a few drinks to serve, and nobody
+now to do it except herself.
+
+Then, in the belfry she had duties other than playing, than practice.
+Always at night the clock-drum was to be wound.
+
+She had no assistant. The town maintained none, and her salary as Mistress
+of the Bells of Sainte Lesse did not permit her to engage anybody to help
+her.
+
+So she oiled and wound all the machinery herself, adjusted and cared for
+the clock, swept the keyboard clean, inspected and looked after the wires
+leading to the tiers of bells overhead.
+
+Then there was work to do in the garden--a few minutes snatched between
+other duties. And when night arrived at last she was rather tired--quite
+weary on this night in particular, having managed to fulfill all the
+duties of the sick youth as well as her own.
+
+The night was warm and fragrant. She sat in the dark at her open window
+for a while, looking out into the north where, along the horizon, heat
+lightning seemed to play. But it was only the reflected flashes of the
+guns. When the wind was right, she could hear them.
+
+She had even managed to write to her lover. Now, seated beside the open
+window, she was thinking of him. A dreamy, happy lethargy possessed her;
+she was on the first delicate verge of slumber, so close to it that all
+earthly sounds were dying out in her ears. Then, suddenly, she was awake,
+listening.
+
+A window had been opened in the room overhead.
+
+She went to the stars and called:
+
+"Karl!"
+
+"What?" came the impatient reply.
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"No. N-no, I thank you--" His voice became urbane with an apparent effort.
+"Thank you for inquiring----"
+
+"I heard your window open--" she said.
+
+"Thank you. I am quite well. The air is mild and grateful.... I thank
+mademoiselle for her solicitude."
+
+She returned to her room and lighted her candle. On the white plaster wall
+sat the Death's Head moth.
+
+She had not been in her room all day. She was astonished that the moth had
+not left.
+
+"Shall I have to put you out?" she thought dubiously. "Really, I can not
+keep my window closed for fear of visitors for you, Madam Death! I
+certainly shall be obliged to put you out."
+
+So she found a sheet of paper and a large glass tumbler. Over the moth she
+placed the tumbler, then slipped the sheet of paper under the glass
+between moth and wall.
+
+The thing cried and cried, beating at the glass with wings as powerful as
+a bird's, and the girl, startled and slightly repelled, placed the moth on
+her night table, imprisoned under the tumbler.
+
+For a while it fluttered and flapped and cried out in its strange, uncanny
+way, then settled on the sheet of paper, quivering its wings, both eyes
+like living coals.
+
+Seated on the bedside, Maryette looked at it, schooling herself to think
+of it kindly as one of God's creatures before she released it at her open
+window.
+
+And, as she sat there, something came whizzing into the room through her
+window, circled around her at terrific speed with a humming, whispering
+whirr, then dropped with a solid thud on the night table beside the
+imprisoned female moth.
+
+It was the first suitor arrived from outer darkness--a big, powerful
+Death's Head moth with eyes aglow, the yellow skull displayed in startling
+contrast on his velvet-black body.
+
+The girl watched him, fascinated. He scrambled over to the tumbler, tested
+it with heavy antennae; then, ardent and impatient, beat against the glass
+with muscular wings that clattered in the silence.
+
+But it was not the amorous fury of the creature striking the tumbler with
+resounding wings, not the glowing eyes, the strong, clawed feet, the
+Death's Head staring from its funereal black thorax that held the girl's
+attention. It was something else; something entirely different riveted her
+eyes on the creature.
+
+For the cigar-shaped body, instead of bearing the naked ribs of a
+skeleton, was snow white.
+
+And now she began to understand. Somebody had already caught the moth, had
+wrapped around its body a cylinder of white tissue paper--tied it on with
+a fine, white silk thread.
+
+The moth was very still now, exploring the interstices between tumbler and
+table with heavy, pectinated antennae.
+
+Cautiously Maryette bent forward and dropped both hands on the moth.
+
+Instantly the creature cried out horribly; it was like a mouse between her
+shrinking fingers; but she slipped the cylinder of tissue paper from its
+abdomen and released it with a shiver; and it darted and whizzed around
+the room, gyrating in whistling circles around her head until, unnerved,
+she struck at it again and again with empty hands, following, driving it
+toward the open window, out of which it suddenly darted.
+
+But now there was another Death's Head in the room, a burly, headlong,
+infatuated male which drove headlong at the tumbler and clung to it,
+slipping, sliding, filling the room with a feathery tattoo of wings.
+
+It, also, had a snow-white body; and before she had seized the squeaking
+thing and had slipped the tissue wrapper from its body, another Death's
+Head whirred through the window; then another, then two; then others. The
+room swarmed; they were crawling all over the tumbler, the table, the bed.
+The room was filled with the soft, velvety roar of whirring wings beating
+on wall and ceiling and against the tumbler where Madam Death sat
+imprisoned, quivering her wings, her eyes two molten rubies, and the
+ghastly skull staring from her back.
+
+How Maryette ever brought herself to do it; how she did it at last, she
+had no very clear idea. The touch of the slippery, mousy bodies was
+fearsomely repugnant to her; the very sight of the great, skull-bearing
+things began to sicken her physically. A dreadful, almost impalpable floss
+from their handled wings and bodies smeared her hands; the place vibrated
+with their tiny goblin cries.
+
+Somehow she managed to strip them of the tissue cylinders, drive them from
+where they crawled on ceiling, wall and sill into whistling flight. Amid a
+whirlwind of wings she fought them toward the open window; whizzing,
+flitting, circling they sped in widening spirals to escape her blows,
+where she stood half blinded in the vortex of the ghostly maelstrom.
+
+One by one they darted through the open window out into the night; and
+when the last spectral streak of grey had sped into outer darkness the
+girl slammed the windowpanes shut and leaned against the sill enervated,
+exhausted, revolted.
+
+The room was misty with the microscopic dust from the creatures' wings; on
+her palms and fingers were black stains and stains of livid orange; and
+across wall and ceiling streaks and smudges of rusty colour.
+
+She was still trembling when she washed the smears from her hands. Her
+fingers were still unsteady as she smoothed out each tiny sheet of tissue
+paper and laid it on her night table. Then, seated on the bed's edge
+beside the lighted candle, she began to read the messages written in ink
+on these frail, translucent tissue missives.
+
+Every bit of tissue bore a message; the writing was microscopic, the
+script German, the language Flemish. Slowly, with infinite pains, the
+little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse translated to herself each message as
+she deciphered it.
+
+She was trembling more than ever when she finished. Every trace of colour
+had fled from her cheeks.
+
+Then, as she sat there, struggling to keep her mind clear of the horror of
+the thing, striving to understand what was to be done, there came upon her
+window pane a sudden muffled drumming sound, and her frightened gaze fell
+upon a Death's Head moth outside, its eyes like coals, its misty wings
+beating furiously for admittance. And around its body was tied a cylinder
+of white tissue.
+
+But the girl needed no more evidence. The wretched youth in the room
+overhead had already sealed his own doom with any one of these tissue
+cylinders. Better for him if the hemorrhage had slain him. Now a firing
+squad must do that much for him.
+
+Yet, even still, the girl hesitated, almost incredulous, trying to
+comprehend the monstrous grotesquerie of the abominable plot.
+
+Intuition pointed to the truth; logic proved it; somewhere in the German
+trenches a comrade of this spy was awaiting these messages with a caged
+Death's Head female as the bait--a living loadstone wearing the terrific
+emblems of death--an unfailing magnet to draw the skull-bearing messengers
+for miles--had it not been that a _nearer magnet deflected them in their
+flight!_
+
+That was it! That was what the miserable youth upstairs had not counted
+on. Chance had ruined him; destiny had sent Madam Death into the room
+below him to draw, with her macabre charms, every ardent winged messenger
+which he liberated from his bedroom window.
+
+The subtle effluvia permeating the night air for miles around might have
+guided these messengers into the German trenches had not a nearer and more
+imperious perfume annihilated it. Headlong, amorous, impatient they had
+whirled toward the embraces of Madam Death; the nearer and more powerful
+perfume had drawn the half-maddened, half-drugged messengers. The spy in
+the room upstairs, like many Germans, had reasoned wrongly on sound
+premises. His logic had broken down, not his amazing scientific
+foundation. His theory was correct; his application stupid.
+
+And now this young man was about to die. Maryette understood that. She
+comprehended that his death was necessary; that it was the unavoidable
+sequence of what he had attempted to do. Trapped rats must be drowned;
+vermin exterminated by easiest and quickest methods; spies who betray
+one's native land pass naturally the same route.
+
+But this thing, this grotesque, incredible, terrible attempt to engraft
+treachery on one of nature's most amazing laws--this secret, cunning
+Teutonic reasoning, this scientific scoundrelism, this criminal enterprise
+based on patient, plodding and German efficiency, still bewildered the
+girl.
+
+And yet she vaguely realized how science had been already prostituted to
+Prussian malignancy and fury; she had heard of flame jets, of tear-bombs,
+of bombs containing deadly germs; she herself had beheld the poison gas
+rolling back into the trenches at Nivelle under the town tower. Dimly she
+began to understand that the Hun, in his cunning savagery, had tricked,
+betrayed and polluted civilization itself into lending him her own secrets
+with which she was ultimately to be destroyed.
+
+The very process of human thinking had been imitated by these monkeys of
+Europe--apes with the ferocity of hogs--and no souls, none--nothing to
+lift them inside the pale where dwells the human race.
+
+There came a rapping on the cafe door. The girl rose wearily; an immense
+weight seemed to crush her shoulders so that her knees had become
+unsteady.
+
+She opened the cafe door; it was Sticky Smith, come for his nightcap
+before turning in.
+
+"The man upstairs is a German spy," she said listlessly. "Had you not
+better go over and get a gendarme?"
+
+"Who's a spy? That Dutch shrimp you had in your garden?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he?" demanded the muleteer with an oath.
+
+She placed her lighted candle on the bar.
+
+"Wait," she said. "Read these first--we must be quite certain about what
+we do."
+
+She laid the squares of tissue paper out on the bar.
+
+"Do you read Flemish?" she whispered.
+
+"No, ma'am----"
+
+"Then I will translate into French for you. And first of all I must tell
+you how I came to possess these little letters written upon tissue. Please
+listen attentively."
+
+He rested his palm on the butt of his dangling automatic.
+
+"Go on," he said.
+
+She told him the circumstances.
+
+As she commenced to translate the tissue paper messages in a low,
+tremulous voice, the sound of a door being closed and locked in the room
+overhead silenced her.
+
+The next instant she had stepped out to the stairs and called:
+
+"Karl!"
+
+There was no reply. Smith came out to the stair-well and listened.
+
+"It is his custom," she whispered, "to lock his door before retiring. That
+is what we heard."
+
+"Call again."
+
+"He can't hear me. He is in bed."
+
+"Call, all the same."
+
+"Karl!" she cried out in an unsteady voice.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MADAM DEATH
+
+
+There was no reply, because the young man was hanging out over his window
+sill in the darkness trying to switch away, from her closed window below,
+the big, clattering Death's Head moth which obstinately and persistently
+fluttered there.
+
+What possessed the moth to continue battering its wings at the window of
+the room below? Had the other moths which he released done so, too? They
+had darted out of his room into the night, each garnished with a tissue
+robe. He supposed they had flown north; he had not looked out to see.
+
+What had gone wrong with this moth, then?
+
+He took his emaciated blond head between his bony fingers and pondered,
+probing for reason with German thoroughness--that celebrated thoroughness
+which is invariably riddled with flaws.
+
+Of all contingencies he had thought--or so it seemed to him. He could not
+recollect any precaution neglected. He had come to Sainte Lesse for a
+clearly defined object and to make certain reports concerning matters of
+interest to the German military authorities north of Nivelle.
+
+The idea, inspired by the experiments of Henri Fabre, was original with
+him. Patiently, during the previous year, he had worked it out--had proved
+his theory by a series of experiments with moths of this species.
+
+He had arranged with his staff comrade, Dr. Glueck, for a forced hatching
+of the pupae which the latter had patiently bred from the enormous green
+and violet-banded caterpillars.
+
+At least one female Death's Head must be ready, caged in the trenches
+beyond Nivelle. Hundreds of pupae could not have died. Where, then, was his
+error--if, indeed, he had made any?
+
+Leaning from the window, he looked down at the frantic moth, perplexed, a
+little uneasy now.
+
+"Swine!" he muttered. "What, then, ails you that you do not fly to the
+mistress awaiting you over yonder?"
+
+He could see the cylinder of white tissue shining on the creature's body,
+where it fluttered against the pane, illuminated by the rays of the candle
+from within the young girl's room.
+
+Could it be possible that the candle-light was proving the greater
+attraction?
+
+Even as the possibility entered his mind, he saw another Death's Head dart
+at the window below and join the first one. But this newcomer wore no
+tissue jacket.
+
+Then, out of the darkness the Death's Heads began to come to the window
+below, swarms of them, startling him with the racket of their wings.
+
+From where did they arrive? They could not be the moths he liberated.
+But.... _Were they?_ Had some accident robbed their bodies of the tissue
+missives? Had they blundered into somebody's room and been robbed?
+
+Mystified, uneasy, he hung over his window sill, staring with sickening
+eyes at the winged tumult below.
+
+With patient, plodding logic he began to seek for the solution. What
+attracted these moths to the room below? Was it the candle-light? That
+alone could not be sufficient--could not contend with the more imperious
+attraction, the subtle effluvia stealing out of the north and appealing to
+the ruling passion which animated the frantic winged things below him.
+
+Patiently, methodically in his mind he probed about for some clue to the
+solution. The ruling passion animating the feathery whirlwind below was
+the necessity for mating and perpetuating the species.
+
+That was the dominant passion; the lure of candle-light a secondary
+attraction.... Then, if this were so--and it had been proven to be a
+fact--then--then--_what_ was in that young girl's bedroom just below him?
+
+Even as the question flashed in his mind he left the window, went to his
+door, listened, noiselessly unlocked it.
+
+A low murmur of voices came from the cafe.
+
+He drew off both shoes, descended the stairs on the flat pads of his
+large, bony feet, listening all the while.
+
+Candle-light streamed out into the corridor from her open bedroom door;
+and he crept to the sill and peered in, searching the place with small,
+pale eyes.
+
+At first he noticed nothing to interest him, then, all in an instant, his
+gaze fell upon Madam Death under her prison of glass.
+
+There she sat, her great bulging abdomen distended with eggs, her lambent
+eyes shining with the terrible passion of anticipation. For one thing only
+she had been created. That accomplished she died. And there she crouched
+awaiting the fulfillment of her life's cycle with the blazing eyes of a
+demon.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+From the cafe below came the cautious murmur of voices. The young man
+already knew what they were whispering about; or, if he did not know he no
+longer cared.
+
+The patches of bright colour in his sunken cheeks had died out in an ashen
+pallor. As far as he was concerned the world was now ended. And he knew
+it.
+
+He went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed's edge. His little, pale
+eyes wandered about the white room; the murmur of voices below was audible
+all the while.
+
+After a few moments' patient waiting, his gaze rested again on Madam
+Death, squatting there with wings sloped, and the skull and bones staring
+at him from her head and distended abdomen.
+
+After all there was an odd resemblance between himself and Madam Death. He
+had been born to fulfill one function, it appeared. So had she. And now,
+in his case as in hers, death was immediately to follow. This was
+sentiment, not science--the blind lobe of the German brain balancing
+grotesquely the reasoning lobe.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+The voices below had ceased. Presently he heard a cautious step on the
+stair.
+
+He had a little pill-box in his pocket. Methodically, without haste, he
+drew it out, chose one white pellet, and, holding it between his bony
+thumb and forefinger, listened.
+
+Yes, somebody was coming up the stairs, very careful to make no sound.
+
+Well--there were various ways for a Death's Head Hussar to die for his War
+Lord. All were equally laudable. God--the God of Germany--the celestial
+friend and comrade of his War Lord--would presently correct him if he was
+transgressing military discipline or the etiquette of Kultur. As for the
+levelled rifles of the execution squad, he preferred another way....
+_This_ way!...
+
+His eyes were already glazing when the burly form of Sticky Smith filled
+the doorway.
+
+He looked down at Madam Death under the tumbler beside him, then lifted
+his head and gazed at Smith with blinded eyes.
+
+"Swine!" he said complacently, swaying gently forward and striking the
+floor with his face.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BUBBLES
+
+
+An east wind was very likely to bring gas to the trenches north of the
+Sainte Lesse salient. A north wind, according to season, brought snow or
+rain or fog upon British, French, Belgian and Boche alike. Winds of the
+south carried distant exhalations from orchards and green fields into the
+pitted waste of ashes where that monstrous desolation stretched away
+beneath a thundering iron rain which beat all day, all night upon the dead
+flesh of the world.
+
+But the west wind was the vital wind, flowing melodiously through the
+trees--a clean, aromatic, refreshing wind, filling the sickened world with
+life again.
+
+Sometimes, too, it brought the pleasant music of the bells into far-away
+trenches, when the little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse played the
+carillon. And when her friend, the great bell, Bayard, spoke through the
+resounding sky of France to a million men-at-arms in blue and steel, who
+were steadily forging hell's manacles for the uncaged Hun, the loyal
+western wind carried far beyond the trenches an ominous iron vibration
+that meant doom for the Beast.
+
+And the Beast heard, leering skyward out of pale pig-eyes, but did not
+comprehend.
+
+At the base corral down in the meadow, mules had been scarce recently,
+because a transport had been torpedoed. But the next transport from New
+Orleans escaped; the dusty column had arrived at Sainte Lesse from the
+Channel port, convoyed by American muleteers, as usual; new mules, new
+negroes, new Yankee faces invaded the town once more.
+
+However, it signified little to the youthful mistress-of-the-bells,
+Maryette Courtray, called "Carillonnette," for her Yankee lover still lay
+in his distant hospital--her muleteer, "Djack." So mules might bray, and
+negroes fill the Sainte Lesse meadows with their shouting laughter; and
+the lank, hawk-nosed Yankee muleteers might saunter clanking into the
+White Doe in search of meat or drink or tobacco, or a glimpse of the
+pretty bell-mistress, for all it meant to her.
+
+Her Djack lived; that was what occupied her mind; other men were merely
+men--even his comrades, Sticky Smith and Kid Glenn, assumed individuality
+to distinguish them from other men only because they were Djack's friends.
+And as for all other muleteers, they seemed to her as alike as Chinamen,
+leaving upon her young mind a general impression of long, thin legs and
+necks and the keen eyes of hunting falcons.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+She had washing to do that morning. Very early she climbed up into the
+ancient belfry, wound the drum so that the bells would play a few bars at
+the quarters and before each hour struck; and also in order that the
+carillon might ring mechanically at noon in case she had not returned to
+take her place at the keyboard with her wooden gloves.
+
+There was a light west wind rippling through the tree tops; and everywhere
+sunshine lay brilliant on pasture and meadow under the purest of cobalt
+skies.
+
+In the garden her crippled father, swathed in shawls, dozed in his deep
+chair beside the river-wall, waking now and then to watch the quill on his
+long bamboo fish-pole, stemming the sparkling current of the little river
+Lesse.
+
+Sticky Smith, off duty and having filled himself to repletion with
+cafe-au-lait at the inn, volunteered to act as nurse, attendant, remover
+of fish and baiter of hook, while Maryette was absent at the stone-rimmed
+pool where the washing of all Sainte Lesse laundry had been accomplished
+for hundreds of years.
+
+"You promise not to go away?" she cautioned him in the simple, first-aid
+French she employed in speaking to him, and pausing with both arms raised
+to balance the loaded clothes-basket on her head.
+
+"Wee--wee!" he assured her with dignity. "Je fume mong peep! Je regard le
+vieux pecher. Voo poovay allay, Mademoiselle Maryette."
+
+She hesitated, then removed the basket from her head and set it on the
+grass.
+
+"You are very kind, Monsieur Steek-Smeet. I shall wash your underwear the
+very first garments I take out of my basket. Thank you a thousand times."
+She bent over with sweet solicitude and pressed her lips to her father's
+withered cheek:
+
+"Au revoir, my father _cheri_. An hour or two at the meadow-_lavoir_ and I
+shall return to find thee. _Bonne chance, mon pere!_ Thou shalt surely
+catch a large and beautiful fish for luncheon before I return with my
+wash."
+
+She swung the basket of wash to her head again without effort, and went
+her way, following the deeply trodden sheep-path behind the White Doe Inn.
+
+The path wound down through a sloping pasture, across a footbridge
+spanning an arm of the Lesse which washed the base of the garden wall,
+then ascended a gentle aclivity among hazel thicket and tall sycamores,
+becoming for a little distance a shaded wood-path where thrushes sang
+ceaselessly in the sun-flecked undergrowth.
+
+But at the eastern edge of the copse the little hill fell away into an
+open, sunny meadow, fragrant with wild-flowers and clover, through which a
+rivulet ran deep and cold between grassy banks.
+
+It supplied the drinking water of Sainte Lesse; and a branch of it poured
+bubbling into the stone-rimmed _lavoir_ where generations of Sainte Lesse
+maids had scrubbed the linen of the community, kneeling there amid wild
+flowers and fluttering butterflies in the shade of three tall elms.
+
+There was nobody at the pool; Maryette saw that as she came out of the
+hazel copse through the meadow. And very soon she was on her knees at the
+clear pool's edge, bare of arm and throat and bosom, her blue wool skirts
+trussed up, and elbow deep in snowy suds.
+
+Overhead the sky was a quivering, royal blue; the earth shimmered in its
+bath of sunshine; the west wind blowing carried away eastward the
+reverberations of the distant cannonade, so that not even the vibration of
+the concussions disturbed Sainte Lesse.
+
+A bullfinch was piping lustily in a young tree as she began her task; a
+blackbird answered from somewhere among the hawthorns with a bewildering
+series of complicated trills.
+
+As the little mistress-of-the-bells scrubbed and beat the clothes with her
+paddle, and rinsed and wrung them and soaped them afresh, she sang softly
+under her breath, to an ancient air of her _pays_, words that she
+improvised to fit it--_vrai chanson de laveuse_:
+
+  "A blackbird whistles
+            I love!
+  Over the thistles
+  Butterflies hover,
+  Each with her lover
+            In love.
+  Blue Demoiselles that glisten,
+            Listen, I love!
+  Wind of the west, oh, listen,
+            I am in love!
+  Sing my song, ye little gold bees!
+  Opal bubbles around my knees
+  All afloat in the soap-sud broth,
+  Whisper it low to the snowy froth;
+  And Thou who rulest the skies above,
+  Mary, adored--I love--I love!"
+
+Slap-slap! went her paddle; the sud-spume flew like shreds of cotton;
+iridescent foam set with bubbles swirled in the stone-edged basin,
+constantly swept away down stream by the current, constantly renewed as
+she soaped and scrubbed, kneeling there in the meadow grass above the
+pool.
+
+The blackbird came quite near to watch her; the bullfinch, attracted by
+her childish voice as she sang the song she was making, whistled bold
+response, silent only when the echoing slap of the paddle startled him
+where he sat on the trembling tip of an aspen.
+
+Blue dragon flies drifted on glimmering wings; she put them into her song;
+the meadow was gay with butterflies' painted wings; she sang about them,
+too. Cloud and azure sky, tree tops and clover, the tiny rivulet dancing
+through deep grasses, the wind furrowing the fields, all these she put
+into her _chansonnette de laveuse_. And always in the clear glass of the
+stream she seemed to see the smiling face of her friend, Djack--her lover
+who had opened her eyes of a child to all things beautiful in the world.
+
+Once or twice, from very far away, she fancied she heard the distant
+singing of the negro muleteers sunning themselves down by the corral. She
+heard, at quarter-hour intervals, her bells melodiously recording time as
+it sped by; then there were intervals of that sweet stillness which is but
+a composite harmony of summer--the murmur of insects, the whisper of
+leaves and water, capricious seconds of intense silence, then the hushed
+voice of life exquisitely audible again.
+
+War, wickedness, the rage and cruelty of the Beast--all the vile and
+filthy ferocity of the ferocious Swine of the North became to her as
+unreal as a tragic legend half-forgotten. And death seemed very far away.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+Her washing was done; the wet clothing piled in her basket. Perspiration
+powdered her forehead and delicate little nose.
+
+Hot, flushed, breathing deeply and irregularly from her efforts under a
+vertical sun, she stood erect, loosening the blouse over her bosom to the
+breeze and pushing back the clustering masses of hair above her brow.
+
+The water laughed up at her, invitingly; the last floating castle of white
+foam swept past her feet down stream. On the impulse of the moment she
+unlaced her blue wool skirt, dropped it around her feet, stepped from it;
+unbuckled both garters, stripped slippers and stockings from her feet, and
+waded out into the pool.
+
+The fresh, delicious coolness of the water thrilled and encouraged her to
+further adventure; she twisted up her splendid hair, bound it with her
+blue kerchief, flung blouse and chemisette from her, and gave herself to
+the sparkling stream with a sigh of ecstasy.
+
+Alders swept the eastern edges of the current where the rivulet widened
+beyond the basin and ran south along the meadow's edge to the Wood of
+Sainte Lesse--a cool, unruffled flow, breast deep, floored with sand as
+soft as silver velvet.
+
+She waded, floated, swam a little, or, erect, roamed leisurely along the
+alder fringe, exploring the dim green haunts of frog and water-hen, stoat
+and becassine--a slim, wet dryad, gliding silently through sun and dappled
+shadow.
+
+Where the stream comes to Sainte Lesse Wood, there is a hill set thick
+with hazel and clumps of fern, haunted by one roe-deer and numerous
+rabbits and pheasants.
+
+She was close to its base, now, gliding through the shade like some lithe
+creature of the forest; making no sound save where the current curled
+around her supple body in twisted necklaces of liquid light.
+
+Then, as she stood, peering cautiously through tangled branches for a
+glimpse of the little roe-deer, she heard a curious sound up on the
+hill--an inexplicable sound like metal striking stone.
+
+She stood as though frozen; clink, clink came the distant sound. Then all
+was still. But presently she saw a scared cock-pheasant, crouching low
+with flattened neck outstretched, run like a huge rat through the hazel
+growth, out across the meadow.
+
+She remained motionless, scarcely daring to draw her breath. Somebody had
+passed over the hill--if, indeed, he or she had actually continued on
+their mysterious way. Had they? But finally the intense quiet reassured
+her, and she concluded that whoever had made that metallic sound had
+continued on toward Sainte Lesse Wood.
+
+She had taken with her a cake of soap. Now, here in the green shade, she
+made her ablutions, soaping herself from head to foot, turning her head
+leisurely from time to time to survey her leafy environment, or watch the
+flight of some tiny woodland bird, or study with pretty and speculative
+eyes the soap-suds swirling in a dimpled whirlpool around her thighs.
+
+The bubbles fascinated her; she played with them, capriciously, touching
+one here, one there, with tentative finger to see them explode in a tiny
+rainbow shower.
+
+Finally she chose a hollow stem from among a cluster of scented rushes,
+cleared it with a vigorous breath, soaped one end, and, touching it to the
+water, blew from it a prodigious bubble, all swimming with gold and purple
+hues.
+
+Into the air she tossed it, from the end of the hollow reed; the breeze
+caught it and wafted it upward until it burst.
+
+_Then a strange thing happened!_ Before her upturned eyes another bubble
+slowly arose from a clump of aspens out of the hazel thickets on the
+hill--a big, pearl-tinted, translucent bubble, as large as a melon. Upward
+it floated, slowly ascending to the tree-tops. There the wind caught it,
+drove it east, but it still mounted skyward, higher, higher, sailing
+always eastward, until it dwindled to the size of a thistledown and faded
+away in mid-air.
+
+Astounded, the little mistress-of-the-bells stood motionless, waist deep
+in the stream, lips parted, eyes straining to pierce the dazzling ether
+above.
+
+And then, before her incredulous gaze, another pearl-tinted, translucent
+bubble slowly floated upward from the thicket near the aspens, mounted
+until the breeze struck it, then soared away skyward and melted like a
+snowflake into the east.
+
+Moving as stealthily as some sinuous creature of the water-weeds, the girl
+stole forward, threading her way among the rushes, gliding, twisting
+around tussock and alder, creeping along fern-set banks, her eyes ever
+focused on the clump of aspens quivering against the sky above the hazel.
+
+She could see nobody, hear not a sound from the thicket on the little
+hill. But another bubble rose above the aspens as she looked.
+
+Naked, she dared not advance into the woods--scarcely dared linger where
+she was, yet found enough courage to creep out on a carpet of moss and lie
+flat under a young fir, listening and watching.
+
+No more bubbles rose above the aspens; there was not a sound, not a
+movement in the hazel.
+
+For an hour or more she lay there; then, with infinite caution, she
+slipped back into the stream, waded across, crept into the meadow, and
+sped like a scared fawn along the bank until she stood panting by the
+stone-rimmed pool again.
+
+Sun and wind had dried her skin; she dressed rapidly, swung her basket to
+her head, and started swiftly for Sainte Lesse.
+
+Before she came in sight of the White Doe Tavern, she could hear the negro
+muleteers singing down by the corral. Sticky Smith still squatted in the
+garden by the river-wall, smoking his pipe. Her father lay asleep in his
+chair, his wrinkled hands still clasping the fishing pole, the warm breeze
+blowing his white hair at the temples.
+
+She disposed of the wash; then she and Sticky Smith gently aroused the
+crippled bell-master and aided him into the house.
+
+The old peasant woman who cooked for the inn had soup ready. The noonday
+meal in Sainte Lesse had become an extremely simple affair.
+
+"Monsieur Steek," said the girl carelessly, "did you ever, as a child, fly
+toy balloons?"
+
+"Sure, Maryette. A old Eyetalian wop used to come 'round town selling
+them. He had a stick with about a hundred little balloons tied to it--red,
+blue, green, yellow--all kinds and colours. Whenever I had the price I
+bought one."
+
+"Did it fly?"
+
+"Yes. The gas in it wasn't much good unless you got a fresh one."
+
+"Would it fly high?"
+
+"Sure. Sky-high. I've seen 'em go clean out of sight when you got a fresh
+one."
+
+"Nobody uses them here, do they?"
+
+"Here? No, it wouldn't be allowed. A spy could send a message by one of
+those toy balloons."
+
+"Oh," nodded Maryette thoughtfully.
+
+Smith shook his head:
+
+"No, children wouldn't be permitted to play with them things now,
+Maryette."
+
+"Then there are not any toy balloons to be had here in Sainte Lesse?"
+
+"I rather guess not! Farther north there are."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"The artillery uses them."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I don't know. The balloon and flying service use 'em, too. I've seen
+officers send them up. Probably it is to find out about upper air
+currents."
+
+"_Our_ flying service?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"_Ballons d'essai_," she nodded carelessly. But she was not yet entirely
+convinced regarding the theory she was pondering.
+
+After lunch she continued to be very busy in the laundry for a time, but
+the memory of those three little balloons above the aspens troubled her.
+
+Smith had gone on duty at the corral; Kid Glenn sauntered clanking into
+the bar and was there regaled with a _bock_ and a _tranche_.
+
+"Monsieur Keed," said Maryette, "are any of our airmen in Sainte Lesse
+today?"
+
+Glenn drained his glass and smacked his lips:
+
+"No, ma'am," he said.
+
+"No balloonists, either?"
+
+"I don't guess so, Maryette. We've got the Boche flyers scared stiff. They
+don't come over our first lines anymore, and our own people are out
+yonder."
+
+"Keed," she said, winningly sweet, "do you, in fact, love me a little--for
+Djack's sake?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"I borrow of you that automatic pistol. Yes?" She smiled at him
+engagingly.
+
+"Sure. Anything you want! What's the trouble, Maryette?"
+
+She shrugged her pretty shoulders:
+
+"Nothing. It just came into my cowardly head that the path to the _lavoir_
+is lonely at sundown. And there are new muleteers in Sainte Lesse. And I
+must wash my clothes."
+
+"I reckon," he said gravely, unbuckling his weapon-filled holster and
+quietly strapping it around her shoulder with its pocketed belt of clips.
+
+"You will not require it this afternoon?" she asked.
+
+"No fear. You won't either. Them mule-whacking coons is white."
+
+She understood.
+
+"Some men who seem whitest are blacker than any negro," she remarked.
+"_Eh, bien!_ I thank you, Keed, _mon ami_, for your complaisance. You are
+very amiable to submit to the whim of a silly girl who suddenly becomes
+afraid of her own shadow."
+
+Glenn grinned and glanced significantly at the cross dangling from her
+bosom:
+
+"Sure," he said, "your government decorates cowards. That's why it gave
+you the Legion."
+
+She blushed but looked up at him seriously:
+
+"Keed, if I flew a little toy balloon in the air, where would the west
+wind carry it?"
+
+"Into the Boche trenches," he replied, much interested in the idea. "If
+you've got one, we'll paint 'To hell with Willie' on it and set it afloat!
+But we'll have to get permission from the gendarmes first."
+
+She said, smiling:
+
+"I'm sorry, but I haven't any toy balloons."
+
+She picked up her basket with its new load of soiled linen, swung it
+gracefully to her head, ignoring his offered assistance, gave him a
+beguiling glance, and went away along the sheep-path.
+
+Once more she followed the deep-trodden and ancient trail through copse
+and pasture and over the stream down into the meadow, where the west wind
+furrowed the wild-flowers and the early afternoon sun fell hot.
+
+She set her clothes to soak, laid paddle and soap beside them, then,
+straightening up, remained erect on her knees, her intent gaze fixed on
+the distant clump of aspens, delicate as mist above the hazel copse on the
+little hill beyond.
+
+It was a whole hour before her eyes caught the high glimmer of a tiny
+balloon. Only for a moment was it visible at that distance, then it became
+merged in the dazzling blue above the woods.
+
+She waited. At last she concluded that there were to be no more balloons.
+Then a sudden fear assailed her lest she had waited too long to
+investigate; and she sprang to her feet, hurried over the single plank
+used as a footbridge, and sped down through the alders.
+
+Here and there a pheasant ran headlong across her path; a rabbit or two
+scuttled through the ferns. Nearing the hazel copse she slackened speed
+and advanced with caution, scanning the thicket ahead.
+
+Suddenly, on the ground in front of her, she caught sight of a small iron
+cylinder. Evidently it had rolled down there from the slope above.
+
+Very gingerly she approached and picked it up. It was not very heavy, not
+too big for her skirt pocket.
+
+As she slipped it into the pocket of her blue woolen peasant-skirt, her
+quick eye caught a movement among the hazel bushes on the hillside to her
+right. She sank to the ground and lay huddled there.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+KAMERAD
+
+
+Down the slope, through the thicket, came a man. She could see his legs
+only. He wore dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like Sticky Smith's
+and Kid Glenn's, only he wore no big, clanking Mexican spurs.
+
+The man passed in front of her, his burly body barely visible through the
+leaves, but not his features.
+
+She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried through the ferns of the
+warren, retracing her steps, and arrived breathless at the _lavoir_. And
+scarcely had she dropped to her knees and seized soap and paddle, than a
+squat, bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared on the opposite bank
+of the stream, stepping briskly out of the bushes.
+
+He did not notice her at first. He looked about for a place to jump, found
+one, leaped safely across, and came on at a swinging stride across the
+meadow.
+
+The girl, bending above the water, suddenly struck sharply with her
+paddle.
+
+Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee deep in clover.
+
+Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence, continued to soap and
+scrub and slap her wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of a child
+the chansonette she had made that morning. But out of the corner of her
+eyes she kept him in view--saw him come sauntering forward as though
+reassured, became aware that he had approached very near, was standing
+behind her.
+
+Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick up another soiled garment, she
+suddenly encountered his dark gaze; and her start and slight exclamation
+were entirely genuine.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" she said, with offended emphasis, "one does not approach
+people that way, without a word!"
+
+"Did I frighten mademoiselle?" he asked, in recognizable French, but with
+an accent unpleasantly familiar to her. "If I did, I am very sorry and I
+offer mademoiselle a thousand excuses and apologies."
+
+The girl, kneeling there in the clover, flashed a smile at him over her
+shoulder. The quick colour reddened his face and powerful neck. The girl
+had been right; her smile had been an answer that he was not going to
+ignore.
+
+"What a pretty spot for a _lavoir_," he said, stepping to the edge of the
+pool; "and what a pretty girl to adorn it!"
+
+Maryette tossed her head:
+
+"Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur. Do you not perceive that I am
+busy?"
+
+"It is not impossible to exchange a polite word or two when people are
+busy, is it, mademoiselle?" he asked, laughing and showing a white and
+perfect set of teeth under a short, dark mustache.
+
+She continued to wring out her wash; but there was now a slight smile on
+her lips.
+
+"May I not say who I am?" he asked persuasively. "May I not venture to
+speak?"
+
+"_Mon dieu_, monsieur, there is liberty of speech for all in France. That
+blackbird might be glad to know your name if you choose to tell him."
+
+"But I ask _your_ permission to speak to _you_!" There seemed to be no
+sense of humour in this young man.
+
+She laughed:
+
+"I am not curious to hear who you are!... But if it affords you any relief
+to explain to the west wind what your name may be--" She ended with a
+disdainful shrug. After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes to
+his--lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes. But they were studying the
+stranger closely.
+
+He was a powerfully built, dark-skinned young man in the familiar khaki of
+the American muleteers, wearing their insignia, their cap, their holster
+and belt, and an extra pouch or wallet, loaded evidently with something
+heavy.
+
+She said, coolly:
+
+"You must be one of the new Yankee muleteers who came with that beautiful
+new herd of mules."
+
+He laughed:
+
+"Yes, I'm an American muleteer. My name is Charles Braun. I came over in
+the last transport."
+
+"You know Steek?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Steek! Monsieur Steekee Smeete?"
+
+"Sticky Smith?"
+
+"_Mais oui?_"
+
+"I've met him," he replied curtly.
+
+"And Monsieur Keed Glenn?"
+
+"I've met Kid Glenn, too. Why?"
+
+"They are friends of mine--very intimate friends. Of course," she added,
+nose up-tilted, "if they are not also _your_ friends, any acquaintance
+with me will be very difficult for _you_, Monsieur Braun."
+
+He laughed easily and seated himself on the grass beside her; and, as he
+sat down, a metallic clinking sounded in his wallet.
+
+"_Tenez_," she remarked, "you carry old iron and bottles about with you, I
+notice."
+
+"Snaffles, curbs and stirrup irons," he replied carelessly. And in the
+girl's heart there leaped the swift, fierce flame of certainty in
+suspicion.
+
+"Why do you bring all that ironmongery down here?" she inquired, with
+frankly childish curiosity, leisurely wringing out her linen.
+
+"A mule got away from the corral. I've been wandering around in the bushes
+trying to find him," he explained, so naturally and in such a friendly
+voice that she raised her eyes to look again at this young gallant who
+lingered here at the _lavoir_ for the sake of her _beaux yeux_.
+
+Could this dark-eyed, smiling youth be a Hun spy? His smooth, boyish
+features, his crisp short hair and tiny mustache shading lips a trifle too
+red and overfull did not displease her. In his way he was handsome.
+
+His voice, too, was attractive, gaily persuasive, but it was his
+pronunciation of the letters c and d which had instantly set her on her
+guard.
+
+Seated on the bank near her, his roving eyes full of bold curiosity bent
+on her from time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little wreath out of
+long-stemmed clover and _boutons d'or_, he appeared merely an intrusive,
+irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse himself with a few moments'
+rustic courtship here before he continued on his way.
+
+"You are exceedingly pretty," he said. "Will you tell me your name in
+exchange for mine?"
+
+"Maryette Courtray."
+
+"Oh," he exclaimed in quick recognition; "you are bell-mistress in Sainte
+Lesse, then! _You_ are the celebrated carillonnette! I have heard about
+you. I suspected that you might be the little mistress of Sainte Lesse
+bells, because you wear the Legion--" He nodded his handsome head toward
+the decoration on her blouse.
+
+"And to think," he added effusively, "that it is just a mere slip of a
+girl who was decorated for bravery by France!"
+
+She smiled at him with all the beguilingly _bete_ innocence of the young
+when flattered:
+
+"You are too amiable, monsieur. I really do not understand why they gave
+me the Legion. To encourage all French children, perhaps--because I really
+am a dreadful coward." She tapped the holster on her thigh and gazed at
+him quite guilelessly out of wide and trustful eyes. "You see? I dare not
+even come here to wash my clothes unless I carry this--in case some Boche
+comes prowling."
+
+"Whose pistol is it?" he asked.
+
+"The weapon belongs to Monsieur Steek. When I come to wash here I borrow
+it."
+
+"Are you the sweetheart of Monsieur Steek?" he inquired, mimicking her
+pronunciation of "Stick," and at the same time fixing his dark eyes boldly
+and expressively on hers.
+
+"Does a young girl of my age have sweethearts?" she demanded scornfully.
+
+"If she hasn't had one, it's time," he returned, staring hard at her with
+a persistent and fixed smile that had become almost offensive.
+
+"Oh, la!" she exclaimed with a shrug of her youthful shoulders. "Perhaps
+you think I have time for such foolishness--what with housework to do and
+washing, and caring for my father, and my duties in the belfry every day!"
+
+"Youth passes swiftly, belle Maryette."
+
+"Imitate him, beau monsieur, and swiftly pass your way!"
+
+"_L'amour est doux, petite Marie!_"
+
+"_Je m'en moque!_"
+
+He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his knees beside her, and rolled
+back his cuffs.
+
+"Come," he said, "I'll help you wash. We two should finish quickly."
+
+"I am in no haste."
+
+"But it will give you an hour's leisure, belle Maryette."
+
+"Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?"
+
+"I shall try to instruct you why, when we have our hour together."
+
+"Do you mean to pay court to me?"
+
+"I am doing that now. My ardent courtship will already be accomplished, so
+that we need not waste our hour together!" He began to laugh and wring out
+the linen.
+
+"Monsieur," she expostulated smilingly, "your apropos disturbs me. Have
+you the assurance to believe that you already appeal to my heart?"
+
+"Have I not appealed to it a little, Maryette?"
+
+The girl averted her head coquettishly. For a few minutes they scrubbed
+away there together, side by side on their knees above the rim of the
+pool. Then, without warning, his hot, red lips burned her neck. Her swift
+recoil was also a shudder; her face flushed.
+
+"Don't do that!" she said sharply, straightening up in the grass where she
+was kneeling.
+
+"You are so adorable!" he pleaded in a low, tense voice.
+
+There was a long silence. She had moved aside and away from him on her
+knees; her head remained turned, too, and her features were set as though
+carven out of rosy marble.
+
+She was summoning every atom of resolution, every particle of courage to
+do what she must do. Every fibre in her revolted with the effort; but she
+steeled herself, and at last the forced smile was stamped on her lips, and
+she dared turn her head and meet his burning gaze.
+
+"You frighten me," she said--and her unsteady voice was convincing. "A
+young girl is not courted so abruptly."
+
+"Forgive me," he murmured. "I could not help myself--your neck is so
+fragrant, so childlike----"
+
+"Then you should treat me as you would a child!" she retorted pettishly.
+"Amuse me, if you aspire to any comradeship with me. Your behaviour does
+not amuse me at all."
+
+"We shall become comrades," he said confidently, "and you shall be
+sufficiently amused."
+
+"It requires time for two people to become comrades."
+
+"Will you give me an hour this evening?"
+
+"What? A rendezvous?" she exclaimed, laughing.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You mean somewhere alone with you?"
+
+"Will you, Maryette?"
+
+"But why? I am not yet old enough for such foolishness. It would not amuse
+me at all to be alone with you for an hour." She pouted and shrugged and
+absently plucked a hollow stem from the sedge.
+
+"It would amuse me much more to sit here and blow bubbles," she added,
+clearing the stem with a quick breath and soaping the end of it.
+
+Then, with tormenting malice, she let her eyes rest sideways on him while
+she plunged the hollow stem into the water, withdrew it, dripping, and
+deliberately blew an enormous golden bubble from the end.
+
+"Look!" she cried, detaching the bubble, apparently enchanted to see it
+float upward. "Is it not beautiful, my fairy balloon?"
+
+On her knees there beside the basin she blew bubble after bubble,
+detaching each with a slight movement of her wrist, and laughing
+delightedly to see them mount into the sunshine.
+
+"You _are_ a child," he said, worrying his red underlip with his teeth.
+"You're a baby, after all."
+
+She said:
+
+"Very well, then, children require toys to amuse them, not sighs and
+kisses and bold, brown eyes to frighten and perplex them. Have you any
+toys to amuse me if I give you an hour with me?"
+
+"Maryette, I can easily teach you----"
+
+"No! Will you bring me a toy to amuse me?--a clay pipe to blow bubbles? I
+adore bubbles."
+
+"If I promise to amuse you, will you give me an hour?" he asked.
+
+"How can I?" she demanded with sudden caprice. "I have my wash to finish;
+then I have to see that my father has his soup; then I must attend to
+customers at the inn, go up to the belfry, oil the machinery, play the
+carillon later, wind the drum for the night----"
+
+"I shall come to you in the tower after the angelus," he said eagerly.
+
+"I shall be too busy----"
+
+"After the carillon, then! Promise, Maryette!"
+
+"And sit up there alone with you in the dark for an hour? _Ma foi!_ How
+amusing!" She laughed in pretty derision. "I shall not even be able to
+blow bubbles!"
+
+Watching her pouting face intently, he said:
+
+"Suppose I bring some toy balloons for you to fly from the clock tower?
+Would that amuse you--you beautiful, perverse child?"
+
+"Little toy balloons!" she echoed, enchanted. "What pleasure to set them
+afloat from the belfry! Do you really promise to bring me some little toy
+balloons to fly?"
+
+"Yes. But _you_ must promise not to speak about it to anybody."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because the gendarmes wouldn't let us fly any balloons."
+
+"You mean that they might think me a spy?" she inquired naively.
+
+"Or me," he rejoined with a light laugh. "So we shall have to be very
+discreet and go cautiously about our sport. And it ought to be great fun,
+Maryette, to sail balloons out over the German trenches. We'll tie a
+message to every one! Shall we, little comrade?"
+
+She clapped her hands.
+
+"That _will_ enrage the Boches!" she cried, "You won't forget to bring the
+balloons?"
+
+"After the carillon," he nodded, staring at her intently.
+
+"Half past ten," she said; "not one minute earlier. I cannot be disturbed
+when playing. Do you understand? Do you promise?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I promise not to bother you before half past ten."
+
+"Very well. Now let me do my washing here in peace."
+
+                            ------------------
+
+She was still scrubbing her linen when he went reluctantly away across the
+meadow toward Sainte Lesse. And when she finally stood up, swung the
+basket to her head, and left the meadow, the sun hung low behind Sainte
+Lesse Wood and a rose and violet glow possessed the world.
+
+At the White Doe Inn she flew feverishly about her duties, aiding the
+ancient peasant woman with the simple preparations for dinner, giving her
+father his soup and helping him to bed, swallowing a mouthful herself as
+she hastened to finish her household tasks.
+
+Kid Glenn came in as usual for an _aperitif_ while she was gathering up
+her wooden gloves.
+
+"Did a mule stray today from your corral?" she asked, filling his glass
+for him.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Dead certain. Why?"
+
+"Do you know one of the new muleteers named Braun?"
+
+"I know him by sight."
+
+"Keed!" she said, going up to him and placing both hands on his broad
+shoulders; "I play the carillon after the angelus. Bring Steek to the
+bell-tower half an hour after you hear the carillon end. You will hear it
+end; you will hear the quarter hour strike presently. Half an hour later,
+after the third quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring pistols. Do
+you promise?"
+
+"Sure! What's the row, Maryette?"
+
+"I don't know yet. I _think_ we shall find a spy in the tower."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the belfry, _parbleu_! And you and Steek shall come up the stairs and
+you shall wait in the dark, there where the keyboard is, and where you see
+all the wires leading upward. You shall listen attentively, and I will be
+on the landing above, among my bells. And when you hear me cry out to you,
+then you shall come running with pistols!"
+
+"For heaven's sake----"
+
+"Is it understood? Give me your word, Keed!"
+
+"Sure!----"
+
+"_Allons! Assez!_" she whispered excitedly. "Make prisoner any man you see
+there!--_any_ man! You understand?"
+
+"You bet!"
+
+"_Any man!_" she repeated slowly, "even if he wears the same uniform _you_
+wear."
+
+There was a silence. Then:
+
+"By God!" said Glenn under his breath.
+
+"You suspect?"
+
+"Yes. And if it _is_ one of our German-American muleteers, we'll lynch
+him!" he whispered in a white rage.
+
+But Maryette shook her head.
+
+"No," she said in a dull, even voice, "let the gendarmerie take him in
+charge. Spy or suspect, he must have his chance. That is the law in
+France."
+
+"You don't give rats a chance, do you?"
+
+"I give everything its chance," she said simply. "And so does my country."
+
+She drew the automatic pistol from her holster, examined it, raised her
+eyes gravely to the American beside her:
+
+"This is terrible for me," she added, in a low but steady voice. "If it
+were not for my country--" She made a grave gesture, turned, and went
+slowly out through the arched stone passage into the main street of the
+town. A few minutes later the angelus sounded sweetly over the woods and
+meadows of Sainte Lesse.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+At ten, as the last stroke of the hour ended, there came a charming,
+intimate little murmur of awakening bells; it grew sweeter, clearer,
+filling the starry sky, growing, exquisitely increasing in limpid,
+transparent volume, sweeping through the high, dim belfry like a great
+wind from Paradise carrying Heaven's own music out over the darkened
+earth.
+
+All Sainte Lesse came to its doorways to listen to the playing of their
+beloved Carillonnette; the bell-music ebbed and swelled under the stars;
+the ancient Flemish masterpiece, written by some carillonneur whose bones
+had long been dust, became magnificently vital again under the enchanted
+hands of the little mistress of the bells.
+
+In fifteen minutes the carillon ended; a slight pause followed, then the
+quarter hour struck.
+
+With the last stroke of the bell, the girl drew off her wooden gloves,
+laid them on the keyboard, turned slowly in her seat, listening. A slight
+sound coming from the spiral staircase of stone set her heart beating
+violently. Had the suspected man violated his word? She drew the automatic
+pistol from her holster, rose, and stole up to the stone platform
+overhead, where, rising tier on tier into the darkness, the great carillon
+of Sainte Lesse loomed overhead.
+
+She listened uneasily. Had the man lied? It seemed to her as though her
+hammering heart must burst from her bosom with the terrible suspense of
+the moment.
+
+Suddenly a shadowy form appeared at the head of the stairs, reaching the
+platform at one bound. And her heart seemed to stop as she realized that
+this man had arrived too early for her friends to be of any use to her. He
+had lied to her. And now she must take him unaided, or kill him there in
+the starlight under the looming bells.
+
+"Maryette!" he called. She did not stir.
+
+"Maryette!" he whispered. "Where are you, little sweetheart? Forgive me, I
+could not wait any longer. I adore you----"
+
+All at once he discovered her standing motionless in the shadow of the
+great bell Bayard--sprang toward her, eager, ardent, triumphant.
+
+"Maryette," he whispered, "I love you! I shall teach you what a lover
+is----"
+
+Suddenly he caught a glimpse of her face; the terrible expression in her
+eyes checked him.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked, bewildered. And then he caught sight of the
+pistol in her hand.
+
+"What's that for?" he demanded harshly. "Are you afraid to love me? Do you
+think I'm the kind of lover to stop for a thing like that----"
+
+She said, in a low, distinct voice:
+
+"Don't move! Put up both hands instantly!"
+
+"What!" he snapped out, like the crack of a lash.
+
+"I know who you are. You're a Boche and no Yankee! Turn your back and
+raise your arms!"
+
+For a moment they looked at each other.
+
+"I think," she said, steadily, "you had better explain your gas cylinders
+and balloons to the gendarmes at the Poste."
+
+"No," he said, "I'll explain them to you, _now_!----"
+
+"If you touch your pistol, I fire!----"
+
+But already he had whipped out his pistol; and she fired instantly,
+smashing his right hand to pulp.
+
+"You damned hell-cat!" he screamed, stretching out his shattered hand in
+an agony of impotent fury. Blood rained from it on the stone flags.
+Suddenly he started toward her.
+
+"Don't stir!" she whispered. "Turn your back and raise both arms!"
+
+His face became ghastly.
+
+"Let me go, in God's name!" he burst out in a strangled voice. "Don't send
+me before a firing squad! Listen to me, little comrade--I surrender myself
+to your mercy----"
+
+"Then keep away from me! Keep your distance!" she cried, retreating. He
+followed, fawning:
+
+"Listen! We were such good comrades----"
+
+"Don't come any nearer to me!" she called out sharply; but he still
+shuffled toward her, whimpering, drenched in blood, both hands uplifted.
+
+"Kamerad!" he whined, "Kamerad--" and suddenly launched a kick at her.
+
+She just avoided it, springing behind the bell Bayard; and he rushed at
+her and struck with both uplifted arms, showering her with blood, but not
+quite reaching her.
+
+In the darkness among the beams and the deep shadows of the bells she
+could hear him hunting for her, breathing heavily and making ferocious,
+inarticulate noises, as she swung herself up onto the first beam above and
+continued to crawl upward.
+
+"Where are you, little fool?" he cried at length. "I have business with
+you before I cut your throat--that smooth, white throat of yours that I
+kissed down there by the _lavoir_!" There was no sound from her.
+
+He went back toward the stairs and began hunting about in the starlight
+for his pistol; but there was no parapet on the bell platform, and he
+probably concluded that it had fallen over the edge of the tower into the
+street.
+
+Supporting his wounded hand, he stood glaring blankly about him, and his
+bloodshot eyes presently fell on the door to the stairs. But he must have
+realized that flight would be useless for him if he left this girl alive
+in her bell-tower, ready to alarm the town the moment he ran for the
+stairs.
+
+With his left hand he fumbled under his tunic and disengaged a heavy
+trench knife from its sheath. The loss of blood was making his legs a
+trifle unsteady, but he pulled himself together and moved stealthily under
+the shadows of beam and bell until he came to the spot he selected. And
+there he lay down, the hilt of the knife in his left hand, the blade
+concealed by his opened tunic.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+His heavy groans at last had their effect on the girl, who had climbed
+high up into the darkness, creeping from beam to beam and mounting from
+one tier of bells to another.
+
+Standing on the lowest beam, she cautiously looked out through an
+oubliette and saw him lying on his back near the sheer edge of the roof.
+
+Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted against the stars, for
+he called up to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding to death and
+unable to move.
+
+After a few moments, opening his eyes again, he saw her standing on the
+roof beside him, looking down at him. And he whispered his appeal in the
+name of Christ. And in His name the little bell-mistress responded.
+
+When she had used the blue kerchief at her neck for a tourniquet and had
+checked the hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a better
+opportunity to employ his knife. It would not do to bungle the affair. And
+he thought he knew how it could be properly done--if he could get her head
+in the crook of his muscular elbow.
+
+"Lift me, dear ministering angel," he whispered weakly.
+
+She stooped impulsively, hesitated, then, suddenly terrified at the
+blazing ferocity in his eyes, she shrank back at the same instant that his
+broad knife flashed in her very face.
+
+He was on his feet at a bound, and, as she raised her voice in a startled
+cry for help, he plunged heavily at her, but slipped and fell in his own
+blood. Then the clattering jingle of spurred boots on the stone stairs
+below caught his ear. He was trapped, and he realized it. He slowly got to
+his feet.
+
+As Smith and Glenn appeared, springing out of the low-arched door, the
+muleteer Braun turned and faced them.
+
+There was a silence, then Glenn said, bitterly:
+
+"It's you, is it, you dirty Dutchman!"
+
+"Hands up!" said Smith quietly. "Come on, now; it's a case of 'Kamerad'
+for yours."
+
+Braun did not move to comply with the demand. Gradually it dawned on them
+that the man was game.
+
+"Maryette!" he called; "where are you?"
+
+Smith said curiously:
+
+"What do you want with her, Braun?"
+
+"I want to speak to her."
+
+"Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn sullenly.
+
+The girl crept out of the shadows. Her face was ghastly.
+
+Braun looked at her with pallid scorn:
+
+"You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I'd have made you a better lover
+than you'll ever have now!"
+
+He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt, turned without a glance at
+Smith and Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And as he fell there
+between sky and earth, hurtling downward under the stars, Glenn's pistol
+flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair while falling.
+
+"Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely, turning on Smith. "Ain't that me
+all over!--soft-hearted enough to do that skunk a kindness thataway!"
+
+But his youthful voice was shaking, and he stared at the edge of the
+abyss, listening to the far tumult now arising from the street below.
+
+"Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling his nervous voice with an
+effort.
+
+"Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "... Now, Maryette, put one arm around my
+neck, and me and the Kid will take you down them stairs, because you look
+tired--kind o' peeked and fussed, what with all this funny business going
+on----"
+
+"Oh, Steek! Steek!" she sobbed. "Oh, _mon ami_, Steek!"
+
+She began to cry bitterly. Smith picked her up in his arms.
+
+"What you need is sleep," he said very gently.
+
+But she shook her head: she had business to transact on her knees that
+night--business with the Mother of God that would take all night long--and
+many, many other sleepless nights; and many candles.
+
+She put her left arm around Smith's neck and hid her tear-wet face on his
+shoulder. And, as he bore her out of the high tower and descended the
+unlighted, interminable stairs of stone, he heard her weeping against his
+breast and softly asking intercession in behalf of a dead young man who
+had tried to be to her a "Kamerad"--as he understood it--including the
+entire gamut, from amorous beast to fiend.
+
+                            ------------------
+
+There was a single candle lighted in the bar of the White Doe. On the
+"zinc," side by side, like birds on a rail, sat the two muleteers. In each
+big, sunburnt fist was an empty glass; their spurred feet dangled; they
+leaned forward where they sat, hunched up over their knees, heads slightly
+turned, as though intently listening. A haze of cigarette smoke dimmed the
+candle flame.
+
+The drone of an aeroplane high in the midnight sky came to them at
+intervals. At last the sound died away under the far stars.
+
+By the smoky candle flame Kid Glenn unfolded and once more read the letter
+that kept them there:
+
+
+    --I ought to get to Sainte Lesse somewhere around midnight. Don't
+    say a word to Maryette.
+
+                    Jack.
+
+
+Sticky Smith, reading over his shoulder, slowly rolled another cigarette.
+
+"When Jack comes," he drawled, "it's a-goin' to he'p a lot. That Maryette
+girl's plumb done in."
+
+"Sure she's done in," nodded Kid Glenn. "Wouldn't it do in anybody to
+shoot up a young man an' then see him step off the top of a skyscraper?"
+
+Smith admitted that he himself had felt "kind er squeamish." He added:
+"Gawd, how he spread when he hit them flags! You didn't look at him, did
+you, Kid?"
+
+"Naw. Say, d'ya think Maryette has gone to bed?"
+
+"I dunno. When we left her up there in her room, I turned and took a peek
+to see she was comfy, but she was down onto both knees before that china
+virgin on the niche over her bed."
+
+"She oughter be in bed. You gotta sleep off a thing like that, or you feel
+punk next day," remarked Glenn, meditatively twirling the last drops of
+eau-de-vie around in his tumbler. Then he swallowed them and smacked his
+lips. "She'll come around all O. K. when she sees Jack," he added.
+
+"Goin' to let him wake her up?"
+
+"Can you see us stoppin' him? He'd kick the pants off us----"
+
+"Sh-h-h!" motioned Smith; "there's a automobile! By gum! It's
+stopped!----"
+
+The two muleteers set their glasses on the bar, slid to the floor, and
+marched, clanking, into the covered way that led to the street. Smith
+undid the bolts. A young man stood outside in the starlight.
+
+"Well, Jack Burley, you old son of a gun!" drawled Glenn. "Gawd! You look
+fit for a dead one!"
+
+"We ain't told her!" whispered Smith. "She an' us done in a Fritz this
+evening, an' it sorter turned Maryette's stomach----"
+
+"Not that she ain't well," explained Glenn hastily; "only a girl feels
+different. Stick an' me, we just took a few drinks, but Maryette, soon as
+she got home, she just flopped down on her knees and asked that china
+virgin of hers to go easy on that there Fritz----"
+
+They had conducted Burley to the bar; both their arms were draped around
+his shoulders; both talked to him at the same time.
+
+"This here Fritz," began Glenn--but Burley freed himself from their
+embrace.
+
+"Where's Maryette?" he demanded.
+
+Smith jerked a silent thumb toward the ceiling.
+
+"In bed?"
+
+"Or prayin'."
+
+Burley flushed, hesitated.
+
+"G'wan up, anyway," said Glenn. "I reckon it'll do her a heap o' good to
+lamp you, you old son of a gun!"
+
+Burley turned, went up the short flight of stairs to her closed door.
+There was candle-light shining through the transom. He knocked with a
+trembling hand. There was no answer. He knocked again; heard her uncertain
+step; stepped back as her door opened.
+
+The girl, a drooping figure in her night robe, stood listlessly on the
+threshold. Which of the muleteers it was who had come to her door she did
+not notice. She said:
+
+"I am very tired. Death is a dreadful thing. I can't put it from my mind.
+I am trying to pray----"
+
+She lifted her weary eyes and found herself looking into the face of her
+own lover. She turned very white, lovely eyes dilated.
+
+"Is--is it thou, Djack?"
+
+"C'est moi, ma ploo belle!"
+
+She melted into his tightening arms with a faint cry. Very high overhead,
+under the lustrous stars, an aeroplane droned its uncharted way across a
+blood-soaked world.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POPULAR COPYRIGHT NOVELS
+
+AT MODERATE PRICES
+
+
+Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of
+A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction
+
+*Abner Daniel.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Adventures of Gerard.* By A. Conan Doyle.
+*Adventures of a Modest Man.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.* By A. Conan Doyle.
+*Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.* By Frank L. Packard.
+*After House, The.* By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+*Alisa Paige.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Alton of Somasco.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*A Man's Man.* By Ian Hay.
+*Amateur Gentleman, The.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Andrew The Glad.* By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+*Ann Boyd.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Anna the Adventuress.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Another Man's Shoes.* By Victor Bridges.
+*Ariadne of Allan Water.* By Sidney McCall.
+*Armchair at the Inn, The.* By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+*Around Old Chester.* By Margaret Deland.
+*Athalie.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*At the Mercy of Tiberius.* By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+*Auction Block, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Aunt Jane.* By Jeanette Lee.
+*Aunt Jane of Kentucky.* By Eliza C. Hall.
+*Awakening of Helena Richie.* By Margaret Deland.
+
+*Bambi.* By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+*Bandbox, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Barbara of the Snows.* By Harry Irving Green.
+*Bar 20.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Bar 20 Days.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Barrier, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Beasts of Tarzan, The.* By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+*Beechy.* By Bettina Von Hutten.
+*Bella Donna.* By Robert Hichens.
+*Beloved Vagabond, The.* By Wm. J. Locke.
+*Beltane the Smith.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Ben Blair.* By Will Lillibridge.
+*Betrayal, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Better Man, The.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*Beulah.* (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+*Beyond the Frontier.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Black Is White.* By George Barr McCutcheon.
+*Blind Man's Eyes, The.* By Wm. MacHarg & Edwin Balmer.
+*Bob Hampton of Placer.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Bob, Son of Battle.* By Alfred Ollivant.
+*Britton of the Seventh.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*Broad Highway, The.* By Jeffery Farnol.
+*Bronze Bell, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Bronze Eagle, The.* By Baroness Orczy.
+*Buck Peters, Ranchman.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Business of Life, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*By Right of Purchase.* By Harold Bindloss.
+
+*Cabbages and Kings.* By O. Henry.
+*Calling of Dan Matthews, The.* By Harold Bell Wright.
+*Cape Cod Stories.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap'n Dan's Daughter.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap'n Eri.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cap'n Warren's Wards.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Cardigan.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Carpet From Bagdad, The.* By Harold MacGrath.
+*Cease Firing.* By Mary Johnson.
+*Chain of Evidence, A.* By Carolyn Wells.
+*Chief Legatee, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Cleek of Scotland Yard.* By T. W. Hanshew.
+*Clipped Wings.* By Rupert Hughes.
+*Coast of Adventure, The.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*Colonial Free Lance, A.* By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+*Coming of Cassidy, The.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*Coming of the Law, The.* By Chas. A. Seltzer.
+*Conquest of Canaan, The.* By Booth Tarkington.
+*Conspirators, The.* By Robt. W. Chambers.
+*Counsel for the Defense.* By Leroy Scott.
+*Court of Inquiry, A.* By Grace S. Richmond.
+*Crime Doctor, The.* By E.W. Hornung
+*Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.* By Rex Beach.
+*Cross Currents.* By Eleanor H. Porter.
+*Cry in the Wilderness, A.* By Mary E. Waller.
+*Cynthia of the Minute.* By Louis Jos. Vance.
+
+*Dark Hollow, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Dave's Daughter.* By Patience Bevier Cole.
+*Day of Days, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Day of the Dog, The.* By George Barr McCutcheon.
+*Depot Master, The.* By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+*Desired Woman, The.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Destroying Angel, The.* By Louis Joseph Vance.
+*Dixie Hart.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Double Traitor, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Drusilla With a Million.* By Elizabeth Cooper.
+
+*Eagle of the Empire, The.* By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+*El Dorado.* By Baroness Orczy.
+*Elusive Isabel.* By Jacques Futrelle.
+*Empty Pockets.* By Rupert Hughes.
+*Enchanted Hat, The.* By Harold MacGrath.
+*Eye of Dread, The.* By Payne Erskine.
+*Eyes of the World, The.* By Harold Bell Wright.
+
+*Felix O'Day.* By F. Hopkinson Smith.
+*54-40 or Fight.* By Emerson Hough.
+*Fighting Chance, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Financier, The.* By Theodore Dreiser.
+*Flamsted Quarries.* By Mary E. Waller.
+*Flying Mercury, The.* By Eleanor M. Ingram.
+*For a Maiden Brave.* By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+*Four Million, The.* By O. Henry.
+*Four Pool's Mystery, The.* By Jean Webster.
+*Fruitful Vine, The.* By Robert Hichens.
+
+*Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.* By George Randolph Chester.
+*Gilbert Neal.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Girl From His Town, The.* By Marie Van Vorst.
+*Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.* By Payne Erskine.
+*Girl Who Lived in the Woods, The.* By Marjorie Benton Cook.
+*Girl Who Won, The.* By Beth Ellis.
+*Glory of Clementina, The.* By Wm. J. Locke.
+*Glory of the Conquered, The.* By Susan Glaspell.
+*God's Country and the Woman.* By James Oliver Curwood.
+*God's Good Man.* By Marie Corelli.
+*Going Some.* By Rex Beach.
+*Gold Bag, The.* By Carolyn Wells.
+*Golden Slipper, The.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*Golden Web, The.* By Anthony Partridge.
+*Gordon Craig.* By Randall Parrish.
+*Greater Love Hath No Man.* By Frank L. Packard.
+*Greyfriars Bobby.* By Eleanor Atkinson.
+*Guests of Hercules, The.* By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
+
+*Halcyone.* By Elinor Glyn.
+*Happy Island* (Sequel to Uncle William). By Jeannette Lee.
+*Havoc.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Heart of Philura, The.* By Florence Kingsley.
+*Heart of the Desert, The.* By Honore Willsie.
+*Heart of the Hills, The.* By John Fox, Jr.
+*Heart of the Sunset.* By Rex Beach.
+*Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.* By Elfrid A. Bingham.
+*Heather-Moon, The.* By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+*Her Weight in Gold.* By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
+*Hidden Children, The.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+*Hoosier Volunteer, The.* By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
+*Hopalong Cassidy.* By Clarence E. Mulford.
+*How Leslie Loved.* By Anne Warner.
+*Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.* By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
+*Husbands of Edith, The.* By George Barr McCutcheon
+
+*I Conquered.* By Harold Titus.
+*Illustrious Prince, The.* By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+*Idols.* By William J. Locke.
+*Indifference of Juliet, The.* By Grace S. Richmond.
+*Inez.* (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+*Infelice.* By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+*In Her Own Right.* By John Reed Scott.
+*Initials Only.* By Anna Katharine Green.
+*In Another Girl's Shoes.* By Berta Ruck.
+*Inner Law, The.* By Will N. Harben.
+*Innocent.* By Marie Corelli.
+*Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.* By Sax Rohmer.
+*In the Brooding Wild.* By Ridgwell Cullum.
+*Intrigues, The.* By Harold Bindloss.
+*Iron Trail, The.* By Rex Beach.
+*Iron Woman, The.* By Margaret Deland.
+*Ishmael.* (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.
+
+
+
+
+
+BARBARIANS
+
+BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+
+In this story Mr. Chambers deals with the early years of the Great War.
+Sickened by what seems to them at that time indifference on the part of
+the American Government, an odd group of men meet on the decks of a mule
+transport. They have been drawn to this common rendezvous by a desire to
+enter the war and purge their souls in the fight for the freedom of the
+world.
+
+There are twelve in the group, eight Americans, three Frenchmen, and a
+Belgian, and prominent among them is Jim Neeland, whose earlier
+experiences Mr. Chambers has related in the "Dark Star."
+
+Barbarians records the adventures of these men, not together, but singly
+or in groups, along the whole western battle front, from the Belgian coast
+to the mountains of Alsace. It is filled with unusual character sketches
+of the lives of the men in the Trenches, and of life in the little towns
+just inside the lines of Battle. Through it all there is great beauty and
+wonderful sense of justice and right that is indeed more precious than
+peace.
+
+Other Books by Robert W. Chambers:
+
+*Adventures of a Modest Man*
+*Alisa Paige*
+*Athalie*
+*Business of Life, The*
+*Cardigan*
+*Conspirators, The*
+*Fighting Chance, The*
+*Hidden Children, The*
+*Girl Phillippa, The*
+*Red Republic, The*
+*Dark Star, The*
+*Who Goes There?*
+*Younger Set, The*
+*Japonette*
+*Streets of Ascalon*
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+Publishers,--New York
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NEWEST BOOKS
+
+IN POPULAR REPRINT FICTION
+
+
+Only Books of Superior Merit and Popularity are Published in this List
+
+*TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR.* By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
+
+  The Tarzan books need no introduction. Thousands are waiting for this
+  volume, being further adventures of TARZAN OF THE APES, and volume five
+  of the series.
+
+*LONG LIVE THE KING.* By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+
+  This is a story of love, intrigue and adventure in a European court. In
+  this story Mrs. Rinehart combines mystery, heart interest, and
+  excitement of her past successes into a story that will be hailed as the
+  most interesting of all her stories.
+
+*WE CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING.* By Rupert Hughes.
+
+  A novel of metropolitan life, of a girl who had never had anything and
+  of a man who had always had everything, and of the manner in which his
+  richness and her poverty colored each other, and the lives of many other
+  persons as well.
+
+*BARBARIANS.* By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+  Brave, reckless, idealistic chaps--careless of peril, unafraid of
+  death--who deliberately sought danger and the venturesome life as found
+  during the war, over there. The adventures will hold the reader
+  breathless and the romance will delight.
+
+*THE FORFEIT.* By Ridgwell Cullum.
+
+  A ranch story of Montana which centers around the fact that the leader
+  of the "Lightfoot Rustlers" and the likeable but devil-may-care brother
+  of the hero are one and the same. Cullum is a "big" western story
+  writer.
+
+*UNDER HANDICAP.* By Jackson Gregory.
+
+  Here is a story which is a strong picture of the changing of a western
+  desert into a land of usefulness, by irrigation. The story has a
+  pleasing romance, yet exciting at times, with adventures of more than
+  one kind. Every reader of "The Outlaw" will want this book.
+
+*THE TRIUMPH.* By Will N. Harben.
+
+  Loyalty is the keynote of this story, loyalty of the hero to his
+  patriotic duty, loyalty of a daughter to her father, and loyalty of a
+  lover to his sweetheart. The followers, of Mr. Harben will enjoy another
+  of his southern stories.
+
+*PIP.* By Ian Hay (Capt. Ian Hay Beith), Author of "The First Hundred
+Thousand."
+
+  A story of English school boys, their pleasures and pains, their sports
+  and escapades, that might be called a modern "Tom Brown," but a Tom
+  Brown brimming with laughter and with the slang of the day.
+
+*MISS MILLION'S MAID.* By Berta Ruck.
+
+  Another ingenious Berta Ruck plot in which a high-spirited girl of
+  twenty-three, well-bred, but penniless, flies in the face of tradition,
+  becoming a maid of a newly-made heiress. So entangled grow the love
+  affairs of mistress and maid that the reader has a merry time with the
+  author in steering the girls on the road to happiness.
+
+*ENOCH CRANE.* By F. Hopkinson and F. Berkeley Smith.
+
+  A story of New York specially. The scene is Waverly Place, in one of the
+  characteristic old houses of that section. In this respect the story is
+  very similar to "Peter," Mr. Smith's most popular book.
+
+*PARTNERS OF THE NIGHT.* By Leroy Scott.
+
+  Although a detective story, it is one altogether different from those of
+  the ordinary detective story writer. It is a story of the plain-clothes
+  men and criminals of New York, with a splendid romance.
+
+For sale by all booksellers.
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd Street, New York
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARIANS***
+
+
+
+CREDITS
+
+
+May 27, 2008
+
+                Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1
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