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diff --git a/25623.txt b/25623.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9f1668 --- /dev/null +++ b/25623.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8857 @@ +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. 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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. 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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 + Produced by Suzanne Shell, and the Online Distributed + Proofreading Team at <http://www.pgdp.net/c>. + + + +A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG + + +This file should be named 25623.txt or 25623.zip. + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + + + http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/6/2/25623/ + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one -- the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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