While Philippa poured their tea, the cups began to rattle in the saucers, and the windows shivered and trembled in the increasing thunder. Twice his cup slopped over; and he was just lifting it to his lips when suddenly the very floor seemed to jump under them and a tremendous shock rocked the room.
"A big gun in the fort," said Warner, coolly forcing a smile. "I think, Philippa, as soon as you have finished----"
A terrific salvo cut him short. Somewhere he could hear a crashing avalanche of broken glass, prolonged into a tinkling cascade; then came a second's silence, then another splitting roar from the end of the street.
The waiter came in hurriedly, very pale.
"An aeroplane, Monsieur! They are firing at it from the boulevard----"
His words were obliterated in the rush and clatter of horses outside.
Dragoons were galloping up the stony rue d'Auros, squadron on squadron, and behind them rattled three high-angle guns harnessed to teams driven by dragoons.
"Attention there!" shouted an officer, reining in and halting a peloton of horsemen. "Fire at will from your saddles!"
Warner sprang to the window; the street and the market square was full of halted cavalry firing skyward. They had several high-angle guns there too; the ear-splitting detonations became continuous; and all the time the solid earth was shaking under terrible detonations from the fort's cupolas, where the big cannon were concealed.
From everywhere came the treble clink and tinkle of broken glass; people in the hotel were running to the windows and running away from them; the building itself seemed to sway slightly; dust hung in the air, greying everything.
Warner drew Philippa to him and said calmly, but close to her ear:
"The thing to do is to get out of this at the first opportunity. I had no idea that anything would happen as near----"
His voice was blotted out in a loud report, shouts, a woman screaming, the rumble and tumbling roar of bricks. Another shattering report almost deafened him; the air was filled with whizzing, whining noises; the entire front of a shop diagonally across the street caved in with a crystalline crash of glass, and the cornice above it lurched outward, swayed, crumpled, and descended in a pouring avalanche of bricks and mortar.
Somebody in the hotel lobby shouted:
"An aeroplane is directly over us. They are dropping bombs!"
"Go to the cellar!" cried another.
An officer of gendarmerie came in, followed by a trooper.
"Stay where you are!" he said. "It's safer."
Another explosion sounded, but farther away this time.
"Their Taube is steering toward the fort," continued the same quiet-voiced officer who had spoken. "Don't go out into the streets!"
The uproar in the square had become terrific; high-angle guns poured streams of fire into the sky; dragoons sitting their restless horses fired upward from their saddles; an engine escorted by brass-helmeted pompiers arrived and a stream of water was turned on the debris of the shop across the street, where already pale flames flickered and played over the dusty ruins.
"Somebody has been killed," whispered Philippa in Warner's ear.
He nodded, watching the Red Cross bearers as they hastened up with their stretchers, where the firemen were uncovering something from beneath the heap of smoking debris.
A staff officer, attended by a hussar lancer, and followed by two mounted gendarmes, rode into the street just as the dragoons, forming to whistle signal in column of fours, rode out of the street at a gallop.
There came another clatter of hoofs; an open carriage escorted by six gendarmes-a-cheval rolled through the rue d'Auros. In it was a white-haired gentleman wearing a top hat and a tri-colored sash.
"The mayor," nodded Warner, as carriage and escort passed rapidly in the direction of the Hotel de Ville.
The sky-guns had ceased firing, now; three of them were limbered up and dragged away toward the Boulevard d'Athos by dragoons. More Red Cross brassards appeared in the street, more stretchers. Two double-decked motor ambulances drew up; others, following, continued on toward the Place and the railroad station. Then three grey military automobiles full of officers came whizzing through the rue d'Auros with terrific blasts of warning; and sped on, succeeded by others filled with infantry soldiers, until a steady stream of motor cars of every description was rushing past the windows, omnibus motors, trucks, hotel busses, furniture vans, private cars, of every make and varying capacities, all loaded with red-capped fantassins and bristling with rifles.
Warner opened the window and leaned far out, one arm around Philippa.
Eastward, on the Plaza Sainte Cassilda, masses of lancer cavalry were defiling at a trot, dragoons, hussars, and chasseurs-a-cheval, and the rue d'Auros was filled with onrushing motor cars as far as he could see. Westward, parallel with the stream of automobiles, field artillery was crossing the Place d'Ausone, battery after battery, the drivers whipping and spurring in their saddles, the horses breaking from trot to gallop.
"Something unexpectedly serious is happening," said Warner, trying to make his voice audible in the din from the fort. "Look into those alleys and lanes and cross streets! Do you see the people hurrying out of their houses? I must have been crazy to bring you here!"
"I can't hear you, Jim----" Her lips formed the words; he pointed across the street into the alleyways and mews; she nodded comprehension.
"Until these automobiles pass we can't cross--can't get across!" He found himself almost shouting; and he emphasized his meaning with pantomime and gesticulation.
She nodded, undisturbed. Now and then, when soldiers in automobiles looked up at them, she tossed white flowers from her bouquet into the tonneau and nodded a gay response to the quick salutes. One lily remained; she drew it through the laces that held her scarlet and black bodice, then, resting her hand on Warner's shoulder, looked gravely down at the rushing column underneath.
The tremendous concussions from the fort had loosened plaster and broken window glass everywhere in the hotel; a smarting mist drifted through the open window; the room behind them was obscured as by a fog, and every shock from the guns added to the thickening dust veil.
The gerant, Francois, ghastly pale but polite, came presently to inform Warner by signs that a chimney had fallen in on the lumber room and that at present it was not possible for the porter to enter and find the canvases stored there.
Warner understood, catching a word or two here and there, and shrugged his indifference to what might become of his sketches.
"All I want," he shouted into the gerant's ear, "is to get this young lady out of Ausone!"
Francois nodded, pointed toward the cross streets which were now swarming with people preparing for flight. There came a sudden lull in the cannonade, and almost at the same time the last motor filled with soldiers sped through the street below.
Instantly the street, now occupied only by firemen and Red Cross soldiers, was filled with citizens. Groups formed, surged hither and thither, mingled with other groups and became a swaying crowd. Already hand-carts and wheelbarrows appeared, piled with bedding and household furniture; the open carriage of the mayor repassed, was halted, and the aged magistrate stood up and addressed the people; but Warner could not make out what he was saying, and in a moment or two the carriage continued toward the Boulevard d'Athos, escorted by gendarmes.
"It's plain enough that the Germans are pretty close," said Warner carelessly. "If you're ready, Philippa, I think we'd better get back to Sais."
"And your beautiful pictures! Oh, Jim, I can't bear to have them left here----"
"Which do you imagine I consider the more valuable, Philippa, you or those daubs of mine? Come, dear; let's clear out if we can before that fort begins to converse again with Germans."
He paid his reckoning at the desk, where patron, gerant, caissiere, and staff had gathered in calm consultation concerning eventualities. Nobody seemed excited; everybody was polite, even smiling; servants were already busy with dusters, brooms, and pans; the porter carried down luggage for departing guests.
"Monsieur Warner, are you leaving us?" inquired Francois smilingly. "Perhaps it is better; they say that the Germans are now in range of the fort. Sais is likely to be more peaceful than Ausone tonight. If the Bosches don't bombard us, I think your pictures will be quite safe with us."
He bowed them to the door; Philippa, clinging to Warner's arm, went out into the stony street, which was now crowded with hurrying people, all preparing for flight.
As they set foot on the pavement, a frightful detonation shook the town, another, another; and on the heels of the thunderous shock the first German shell fell in Ausone, plunged through the roof and exploded in the transept of the Church of Sainte Cassilda, blowing the altar and choir stalls to dust and splinters.
Before Philippa and Warner could make their way to the river, three more shells came plunging into the town, one exploding with a deafening din in the empty market, another stripping a shop open from roof to basement and literally disemboweling it, and a third blowing up the eastern end of the rue d'Auros, where its whistling fragments tore right and left through a huddled group of women and children.
Then, as they ran toward the quay, the soldiers on guard there came hastening toward them, warning them back. For a few moments the Place d'Ausone streamed with terrified people in confused and purposeless flight, forced back from the river by line soldiers who kept shouting something which Warner could not understand.
But in another moment he understood, for the old stone bridge across the Recollette split in two, vomiting great masses of stone into the air, and the earth rocked with the roar of dynamite.
Half stunned, balked, hesitating, Warner stood in the market place with his arm around Philippa, looking about him for a chance; while shell after shell fell into the town, and the racket of their detonations resounded from the railroad station to the boulevard.
"The river," he said; "it's the best way out of this, I think!"
She nodded, clasped his arm, and they started once more toward the quay.
Below the parapet their punt, still tied fast, lay tossing and rocking on the agitated river. Down the stone stairs they ran; Philippa sprang on board, and the next moment Warner cast off and drove the punt swiftly out into the current of midstream.
Then, directly ahead of them, parallel to the Impasse d'Alcyon, a shell fell with the whistling screech of a steamer's siren; there came a deadened roar; a geyser of water and gravel rose in mid-river, hurling rocks, planks from the landing, and splintered rowboats in every direction.
Great limbs from the willow trees hurtled earthward, a muddy maelstrom of foam whirled their punt, caught it on a comb of seething water, flung it from wave to wave.
Warner, beaten from his balance, had fallen to his knees. As the plunging punt swept downstream, he continued to use his pole mechanically. Around them debris still rained into the discolored river, branches, fragments of sod; the surface of the water was covered with floating boards, sticks, green leaves, uprooted reeds and rushes; a mangled and bloody swan floated near, its snowy neck and head under water.
Philippa crouched on the bottom of the punt, deadly pale, her hands over her ears, her grey eyes riveted on Warner.
When his voice was under control, he said:
"Are you all right, dear?"
She read his lips, nodded, tried to smile, fell to trembling with both hands still convulsively crushed over her ears.
Current and pole had already swept the punt out past the banlieu, past the suburban cottages, past the farms and the cattle and the clotheslines where the wash hung drying.
Behind them lay the town, amid a hell of exploding shells; the hills and woods reechoed the infernal crash; and, high overhead, above the dreadful diapason of the guns, rose the crazy treble hooting of incoming projectiles, dominating the awful roar on earth with a yelling bedlam in the sky.
Again and again he looked aloft, fearfully attempting to trace and trail and forestall some whistling screech growing louder and louder and nearer and nearer, until the shattering crash of the explosion in the town behind them relaxed the nerve-breaking tension.
Farther out in the green countryside he no longer looked up and back. Philippa still lay huddled at his feet, looking up out of grey eyes that quivered and winced sometimes, but always opened again, steady and clear with faith.
On the Ausone road fugitives from every farm and hamlet were afoot again, but he could not see them very distinctly through the dust that hung there. Also clouds now obscured the declining sun; the world had turned grey around them; and the Recollette flowed away ahead with scarcely a glimmer on its tarnished flood, save where a dull and leaden sparkle came and went along the water weeds inshore.
It was as though the subtle poison of war itself had polluted material things, killing out brightness and health and life, staining sky and water and earth with its hell-distilled essence.
Then a more concretely sinister omen took shape, floating under the trees in a deep, still cove--a dead cavalry horse, saddled and bridled, stranded there, barely awash; and a hooded crow already walking busily about over the level gravel of the shoal.
As they neared Sais, the quarry road across the river became visible. Dust eddied and drifted there, and he could distinguish the slanted lances of cavalry in rapid motion and catch the muffled roar of hoofs.
They were galloping north, a dusty, interminable column enveloped in an endless grey cloud of their own making in the thickening evening mist already hanging palely over land and water.
There was scarcely a tint of color left in the east, and that vague hue died out under clotted clouds as he looked.
And after a while he was aware of a vague rumor in the air, which seemed to come from the east--a vibration, low, indefinite, almost inaudible, yet always there to challenge his attention.
The Vosges lay beyond; and the Barrier Forts.
Duller and duller grew the twilight. He drove the punt forward into dusky reaches shrouded in mist, where not a ripple glimmered, and the trees and river reeds stood motionless in the fog.
There were no stars, no lights ashore. On his left he could hear the unbroken trample of cavalry riding north; far beyond, the air was heavily unsteady with the dull rumor beyond the hills; behind him the shriller tumult had died away and the deadened booming of the guns sounded like the heavy thunder of surf on sand.
Philippa had risen to a sitting position, and now she was lying back comfortably extended among the cushions.
They exchanged a few words; her voice was calm, cheerful, untroubled. She offered to take the punt pole; said that at first she had felt more bewildered and dazed than frightened; explained that real fear had first possessed her when the dead and bloody swan floated past, and that then she had been horribly afraid of the sky noises--the shrieking, hooting, whistling approach of the unseen.
He had been under fire in the Balkans; Lule Bourgas had blunted for him the keener edge of terror. And now, still thoroughly stirred, only the excitement of the past hour remained and stimulated him.
"It's war all around us now," he said, driving his punting pole steadily and straining his keen eyes into the shadows beyond. "There are stirring days ahead for France in this region, I fear; the Barrier Forts are far away and there is nothing in the north to hold the deluge breaking over Luxembourg into Belgium.
"A great war is beginning, Philippa; the greatest that the earth has ever faced.... I never supposed that I should live to see such a war--the greatest of all wars--the last great war, I think.
"If I were anything except a useless painter, I'd go into it.... I don't know what good I'd be to anybody. But if anybody wants me----"
"We both can offer ourselves," said Philippa.
"Dear child! I'd like to catch you wandering into this sort of----"
"I shall volunteer if you do!"
"You shall not! You'll go to Paris with Madame de Moidrey--that's what you'll do!"
"Jim, that is absurd. If I'm wanted I shall volunteer for hospital service, anyway. And if you offer yourself I shall wait until I find out where you are to be sent, and then I shall beg them to take me at the nearest field ambulance."
"No good, Philippa. They do that sort of thing in romances, but in real life a course of hospital training is required of volunteers."
"I can scrub floors and sew and cook," she said serenely. "Do they not need such people?"
"There's no use discussing it," he said. "Only trained women will be wanted--tolerated; and I suppose only trained men. The amateur nurse and warrior were utterly and definitely discredited in South Africa. There'll be no more of that. There's no room for us, Philippa; the firing line would reject me with derision, and the base hospital would politely bow you out." He laughed rather mirthlessly. "There remains for us," he said, "the admirable, but somewhat monotonous thinking-roles of respectable citizens--items in the world-wide chorus which marches harmlessly hither and thither during the impending drama, and forms pleasing backgrounds for the principals when they take their curtain calls."
She felt the undertone of slight bitterness in his voice; understood it, perhaps, for, when the punt was turned and driven gently ashore among the foggy rushes, she retained the supporting arm he offered, clung to it almost caressingly.
"I know you," she murmured, as they mounted the grassy bank together; "you have no need to tell me what you are--dearest, noblest, best among men."
He answered almost impatiently:
"I don't want you to think that of me! You must not believe it, Philippa. Keep your head clear, and your judgment independent of that warm, sweet heart of yours. I'm a most ordinary sort of man, little distinguished, not in any way remarkable----"
"Don't!" she said. "You only hurt me, not yourself. Of what use is it saying such things to a girl when the whole world would be a solitary place if you were not in it--if your living mind did not make the earth a real and living place to me!
"I tell you that, to me, life itself--the reality of the living world--depends on you. If you die, all dies. Without you there is nothing--absolutely nothing!--Not even myself!"
Calm, passionless, clear, her voice serenely pronounced and emphasized her childish creed. And, impatient, restless, disturbed at first, yet in this young girl's exaggerated and obstinate devotion he found no reason for mirth, no occasion for the suppressed amusement of experience.
He said:
"I can try to be what you think me, Philippa. Yours is a very tender heart, and noble. Perhaps your heart may gradually lend me a little of its own quality, so that the glamour with which you invest me shall not be all unreal."
There was a short silence, then Philippa laughed. It was a sweet, happy, confused little laugh. She made an effort to explain it.
"The greatest thing in the world," she said--"the only thing!"
"What, Philippa?"
"Our friendship."
It was still early evening as they entered the house together and traversed the hall to the north terrace.
The Countess de Moidrey, a book on her lap, was seated by a lighted lamp in the billiard room, gazing out of the open windows, through which the thunder of the cannonade, wave after wave, came rolling in from the north.
"Madame--" began the girl timidly.
"Philippa!" she exclaimed, rising.
The girl came forward shyly, the unuttered words of explanation still parting her lips; and the Countess de Moidrey drew her into her arms.
"My darling," she whispered unsteadily, "my darling child!"
Suddenly Philippa's eyes filled and her lips quivered; she turned her face away, stood silent for a moment, then slowly she laid her cheek on the elder woman's breast, and a faint sigh escaped her.
Madame de Moidrey looked at Warner over the chestnut head in its velvet bonnet, which lay close and warm against her breast.
"Jim," she said, "they told me where you had taken this child. Can you imagine what my state of mind has been since that horrible uproar began over there in Ausone?"
"I must have been a lunatic to take her," he admitted; but Philippa's protesting voice interrupted, unruffled, childishly sweet.
"The fault was mine, Madame. I was very willful; I made him take me. I'll try not to be willful any more----"
"Darling! He ought to have known better. Do you understand how far you have crept into all our hearts? It was as though a child of my own were out there among the cannon----" She bent and kissed the girl's flushed cheek. "I'm not inclined to forgive Mr. Warner, but I shall if you want me to. Now, run up stairs, darling, and speak to Peggy. She's still sitting at her bedroom window, I fancy, watching those dreadful flashes out there, and perfectly miserable over you----"
"Oh!" cried Philippa, lifting her head. "You all are so sweet to me--so dear! I shall hasten immediately----" She stooped swiftly and touched her lips to the hands that held and caressed her, then turned and mounted the stairs with flying feet.
Warner gazed rather blankly at Madame de Moidrey.
"I must have been crazy to risk taking her. But, Ethra, I hadn't any reason to suppose there was any danger."
"Were you in Ausone when the fort began firing? Didn't you know enough to come home?"
"Yes; I didn't realize it was the Fort d'Ausone. We were at tea in the Boule d'Argent when the Taube appeared. Then everything was in a mess, Ethra. I know a number of people have been killed. We saw a shop blown up across the street. After that the cupola guns on the fort opened and the town shook; and before we could cross the rue d'Auros to find our punt, where we had left it tied under the river wall, the big German shells began to fall all over the town. It was certainly a rotten deal----"
"Jim, I am furious at you for taking that child into such a place. I wish you to understand now, from this moment, that I love her dearly. She is adorable; and she's mine. You can't take her about with you without ceremony, anywhere and everywhere. Anyway, it's sheer madness to go roaming around the country in such times as these. Hereafter, you will please ask my permission and obtain my sanction when you are contemplating any further harebrained performances."
Warner took his rebuke very humbly, kissed the pretty hand that, figuratively, had chastised him, and went away to dress, considerably subdued.
"By the way," he asked, when halfway up the stairs, "how is that man, Reginald Gray?"
"I think he is better, Jim. Sister Eila is with him. Poor child, she has been superintending the placing of the cot beds which have arrived, and she is really very tired. If you are going to stop in and speak to Mr. Gray, please say to Sister Eila that I shall relieve her in a few moments."
He met Peggy with Philippa in the upper hall.
"You brute!" remarked Peggy, turning up her nose; and Philippa laughed and closed the girl's lips with her soft hand.
"You may chase me about and kick me, too," said Warner, contritely. "Anyway, I'm not to go anywhere with Philippa any more, it seems----"
"What!" exclaimed Philippa, then smiled and flushed as Peggy said scornfully:
"You couldn't keep away from her if you tried. But hereafter you'll include me on your charming excursions in quest of annihilation!" And she tightened her arm around Philippa's waist and swung her with her toward the further end of the hall.
Very conscious of his temporary unpopularity, he went in to see how Gray was feeling, and found him sitting up in bed and Sister Eila preparing his dose for him.
So Warner gave the Sister of Charity the message from Madame de Moidrey, and offered to sit beside Gray until the Countess arrived.
When Sister Eila had retired, Gray said, rather wistfully:
"I shan't know how to thank these people for taking me in. It's really a beastly imposition----"
"Nonsense, my dear fellow. They like it. All women adore a hero. How do you feel, anyway?"
"Much fitter, thanks. I don't know what medicine they're giving me, but it is evidently what I needed.... And do you know that the Countess de Moidrey has been kind enough to visit me and read to me, and even write a letter to Halkett for me? I sent it to London. They'll get into touch with him there." His sunken eyes rested on the window through which, far away over Ausone Fort, the flicker and flare of the guns lighted up the misty darkness, throwing a wavering red glare over the clouds.
Boom--boom--rumble--rumble--boom! came the dull thundering out of the north. Every window was shaking and humming.
"A devil of a row," remarked Gray, restlessly.
"You've heard that the German shells are already falling on Ausone, haven't you?"
"No. Are they?"
Warner drew a brief picture of what he had seen that afternoon in Ausone, and the Englishman listened, intensely interested.
"And I don't know," he ended, "what is to prevent the Germans from battering the Ausone Fort to pieces if they have silenced those big Belgian fortresses around Namur. In that case, we'll have their charming Uhlans here in another forty-eight hours----"
He checked himself as Madame de Moidrey knocked and entered, followed by a maid with Gray's dinner on a tray.
"Thank you, Jim; you may go and dress now. Mr. Gray, you are to dine a little earlier, if you don't mind--Suzanne, place the tray on this tabouret. Now, shall I help you, Mr. Gray?"
"Thanks, so much; but I am detaining you from dinner----"
"No, indeed. Let me help you a little----" arranging a napkin for him and uncovering his cup of fragrant broth.
Warner and the maid, Suzanne, lingered, looking on, thinking they might be needed.
But realizing presently that neither the Countess nor her patient was paying the slightest attention to them, they looked at each other very gravely and quietly walked out.
That night at dinner Sister Eila was absent.
Certain prescribed devotions made Sister Eila's attendance at any meal an uncertainty. The private chapel in the east wing had now become a retreat for her at intervals during the day; the kitchen knew her when Gray's broth was to be prepared; she gently directed the servants who had been setting up the hospital cots in the east wing, and she showed them how to equip the beds, how to place the tables, how to garnish the basins of running water with necessaries, where to pile towels, where to assemble the hospital stores which had arrived with the cots in cases and kegs and boxes.
Besides this she had not forgotten to give Gray his medicine and to change his bandages.
It had been a busy day for Sister Eila.
And now, in the little chapel whither she had crept on tired feet to her devotions, she had fallen asleep on her knees, the rosary still clinging to her fingers, her white-bonneted head resting against the pillar beside which she had knelt.
Warner, wandering at hazard after dinner, discovered her there and thought it best to awaken her.
As he touched her sleeve, she murmured drowsily:
"I have need of prayer, Mr. Halkett.... Let me pray--for us--both----"
For a long while Warner stood motionless, not daring to stir. Then, moving cautiously, he left her there asleep on her knees, her white cheek against the pillar, the wooden prayer beads hanging from her half-closed hand.
*CHAPTER XXIX*
The first streak of tarnished silver in the east aroused the sleeping batteries beyond Ausone. Warner, already dressed and out of doors, felt the dim world around him begin to shake again, as one by one the distant guns awoke and spoke to the ruined fort of doom. There was not a soul astir in the Chateau or about the grounds. Over shrubbery and woods thin films of night mist drooped, sagging like dew-laden spiders' webs; in the demi-light the great house loomed spectral and huge amid its phantom trees, and the wet lawns spread away and vanished under the pallid pall that bathed them.
Warner had slept badly. What might be transpiring in the north had haunted his troubled slumber, had broken it continually, and finally had driven him from his hot and tumbled pillows to dress and go out into the dark obscurity.
To see for himself, to try to form some conclusion concerning the approaching situation of the people in the Chateau des Oiseaux, was his object.
The first grey tint in the east woke up the guns; from the northern terrace he could see the fog all rosy over Ausone; pale flashes leaped and sparkled far beyond as the deep waves of sound came rolling and tumbling toward him, breaking in thunderous waves across the misty darkness.
Now and then a heavier concussion set the ground shaking, and a redder glare lighted the north and played shakily over the clouds. Ausone was still replying.
On the other side of the Recollette there was a hill terraced to the summit with vineyards. From its western slope he knew that part of Ausone town was visible, and from there he believed that with his field glasses he could see for himself how much of the town was really on fire; how near to it and to the fort were those paler flashes reflected on the clouds which ringed the northern sky.
Nobody was astir in the house as he left it; nobody in the roadway.
At the lodge he rapped on the dark window until the old man peered out at him through the diamond panes, yawning and blinking under his Yvetot nightcap, a candle trembling in his hand.
Outside the wall he crossed the road, climbed the hedge stile and struck across a field of stubble.
Over the darker eastern hills a wet sky lowered; the Recollette ran black under its ghostly cerements of vapor; lapwings were calling somewhere from the foggy sky, and their mournful and faint complaint seemed to harmonize sadly with the vague grey world around him.
A trodden path twisted through the grass down to the reedy shore where the punt lay. Peering about for it, his foot struck the pole, where it lay partly buried in the weeds; he picked it up and went down among the rushes. But until he laid his hand on the boat he did not notice the man asleep there. And not until the man sat up with a frightful yawn, rubbing his sleep-swollen lids, did he recognize Asticot.
"What the devil----" he began, but Asticot stumbled to his large, flat feet with a suppressed yelp of apprehension, as Warner's dreaded grasp fell on his collar.
"Mon Dieu," moaned the young ruffian, "may I not even sleep without offending M'sieu'----"
Warner shook him, not roughly.
"Now answer me once and for all! Why are you hanging around Sais?"
The tiny, mousy eyes of Asticot became fixed; a grin of terror stiffened the pasty features.
"Why do I still find you in Sais?" repeated Warner. "Tell me the truth!"
"I--I am too f-frightened to tell you----"
"Get over your fright. Listen, Asticot, I'm not going to hurt you. But you've got to answer me. Come, compose yourself----" He relaxed his grasp on the coat collar and stepped aside. "Come, Asticot; tell me why I find you here in Sais?"
"M'sieu'----"
"Yes, go on. Just tell me the truth. I'm not going to beat you."
"M'sieu' will not believe me--God knows I do not know how to explain it to myself--but since that frightful beating bestowed upon me I do not know how to get along without the protection of M'sieu'----"
"What do you mean?"
"I am afraid! I do not know why. I desire to be taken under the patronage of him I fear. C'est plus fort que moi. Tenez, M'sieu', like a dog owned by nobody I once ran about at random, and not afraid, until caught and nearly killed by M'sieu'. And now I desire to be his. It is natural for me to follow him--even though I remain afraid of him, even risking his anger and another beating----"
"Asticot!"
"M'sieu'?"
"Do you nourish any agreeable dreams that you may one day live to insert your knife in my back?"
The sheer astonishment in the young ruffian's visage was sufficient answer for Warner. He realized then that this yellow mongrel would never again try to bite--that he might collapse and succumb under violence, but never again would he twist and try to mangle the hand of punishment which once had broken him so mercilessly.
"Get into the punt, anyway," said Warner, much perplexed.
Asticot turned and crept into the stern.
"Sit down!"
The young man squatted obediently. Warner shoved off, sprang aboard, and sent the punt shooting out across the misty water.
"So you don't want to murder me any more?" he asked humorously.
"No," said Asticot, with sullen but profound conviction.
"What's become of your delightful friend, Squelette?"
Asticot looked up, bared every tooth.
"Figurez-vous, M'sieu', a dragoon patrol caught him yesterday stealing a goose from a farm. Me, I hid in a willow tree. It's the Battalion of Biribi for Squelette--his class having been called a year ago--and he over the Belgian line with his fingers to his nose! He--he!" laughed Asticot, writhing in the enjoyment of the prospect before his recent comrade. "Me, I have done my time in Biribi!--And the scars of it--God!--hot irons on the brain!--And the heart a cinder! Biribi! Is there a priest's hell like it?" He spat fiercely into the river.
"And Squelette, who always mocked me for the time I did in Biribi! Tenez, M'sieu', now they've caught him and he'll do a tour for himself in that dear Biribi! He--he! C'est bien fait! Chacun a son tour! As for me----" His voice suddenly relapsed into a whine. "I shall now be well protected by M'sieu' and I shall be diligent and grateful in his service, ready always with brush and black soap or with knife and noose----"
"Thanks," said Warner dryly. "You may stick to the bowl of black soap until your class is summoned."
Asticot looked at him earnestly.
"If I have to go with my class, will M'sieu' speak a word for me that it shall be the line and not Biribi again?"
"Yes, if you behave yourself."
"A--a certificate of honest employment?--A few kind words that I have diligently labored in the service of M'sieu'?"
"Yes, I'll do that."
Asticot squirmed with delight. And Warner, poling steadily up stream, saw him making his toilet in the grey light, dipping his fists into the water, scrubbing his battered features, carefully combing out favoris and rouflaquette and greasing both from the contents of a knotted bandana handkerchief which he drew from the capacious pocket of the coat which the charity of Warner had bestowed upon him.
He was as merry as a washer-raccoon over his ablutions; all care for the future had fled, and an animal-like confidence in this terrible young patron of his reigned undisturbed in the primitive brain of Asticot.
There was now only one impelling force in life for him--the instinctive necessity of running rather close to Warner's heels, wherever that might lead him. Anxiety for personal comfort and well-being he dismissed; he would eat when his master thought best; he would find shelter and warmth and clothing when and where it pleased the man after whom he tagged. He was safe, he was comfortable. That dominating physical strength which had nearly destroyed him, coupled with that awesome intellectual power which now held him in dumb subjection, would in future look out for him and his needs. Tant mieux! Let his master do the worrying.
Carefully combing out his favoris with a broken comb and greasing them with perfumed pomade flat over his sunken cheekbones, he fairly wriggled with his new sense of security and bodily comfort.
Now and then he scratched his large, outstanding ears, trying to realize his good fortune; now and then, combing his rouflaquette with tenderness and pride, he lifted his mean, nasal voice in song:
"Depuis que j'suis dans c'tte p--n d'Afrique
A faire l'chameau avec une bosse su' l'dos,
Mon vieux frangin, j'suis sec comme un coup d'trique,
J'ai b'entot p'us que d'la peau su'les os!
Et v'la l'Bat. d'Af. qui passe,
Ohe! ceux d'la classe!--"
Combing away and plastering his lovelocks by the help of a fragment of mirror, Asticot whined out his dreadful ballads of Africa, throwing all the soul he possessed into the tragic recital and sniffling sentimentally through his nose:
A Biribi c'est la qu'on marche,
Faut pas flancher;
Quand l'chaouch crie: 'En avant! Marche!'
I'faut marcher,
Et quand on veut fair' des epates,
C'est peau d'zebi:
On vous fiche les fers au quat' pattes
A Biribi!
A Biribi c'est la qu'on creve
De soif et d' faim,
C'est la qu'i' faut marner sans treve
Jusqu' a la fin! ...
Le soir on pense a la famille
Sous le gourbi....
On pleure encor' quand on roupille
A Biribi!"
He was still chanting when the punt glided in among the rushes of the eastern bank. He followed Warner to the land, aided him to beach the punt, then trotted docilely at heel as the American struck out across the quarry road and mounted the retaining wall of the vineyard-clad hill.
Up they climbed among the vines; and Asticot with a leer, but keeping his mousy eyes on Warner, ventured to detach a ripe bunch here and there and breakfast as he trotted along.
The thunder of the cannon had become very distinct; daylight came slowly under the heavy blanket of grey clouds; the foggy sky was still stained with rose over Ausone; red flashes leaped from the fort; the paler glare of the German guns played constantly across the north.
And now, coming out on the hill's crest among the vines, Warner caught sight of Ausone town far below, beyond the Chateau forest. Here and there houses kindled red as coals in a grate; the sluice and wheel of a mill by the Recollette seemed to be on fire; beyond it haystacks were burning and smothering all the east in smoke.
"Mazette," remarked Asticot, with his mouth full of stolen grapes. "It appears to Bibi that their church of Sainte Cassilda is frying the stone saints inside!"
And then, adjusting his field glasses, Warner discovered what the mouse-eyes of Asticot had detected: Sainte Cassilda the beautiful was merely a hollow shell within which raged a sea of fire crimsoning the gaping doors and windows, glowing scarlet through cracks and fissures in the exquisitely carved facade, mounting through the ruined roof in a whirl of rosy vapors that curled and twisted and glittered with swarming golden sparks.
Another fire burned in the ruins of what had been the Chalons railway station; the Cafe and Cabaret de Biribi were level wastes of stones and steaming bricks, over which fire played and smoke whirled upward; the market was a long heap of live coals; even trees were afire by the river, and Warner could see flames here and there among the bushes and whole thickets burning fiercely along the river and beyond, where the Bois d'Ausone touches it with a fringe of splendid oaks.
As day broke, a watery light illuminated the still landscape. Smoke hung heavy over Ausone Fort; the great cupola guns flashed redly through it; a wide, high bank of vapor towered above Ausone, stretching away to the west and north. Whole rows of burning houses in Ausone glowed and glimmered, marking the courses of streets; the Hotel de Ville seemed to be intact, but the Boulevard d'Athos was plainly on fire; and, over the rue d'Auros, an infernal light flickered as flame and smoke alternately lighted the street or blotted it from view.
"The town is done for," said Warner calmly. "The fort is still replying, but very slowly. It looks rather bad to me. It looks like the end."
Asticot scratched one large ear and furtively helped himself to another bunch of grapes. Warner seated himself on the ground and raised his field glasses. Asticot squatted on his haunches, his little, mousy eyes fixed wistfully on the burning town. Looting ought to be good in Ausone--dangerous, of course, but profitable. A heaven-sent opportunity for honest pillage was passing. Asticot sighed and licked his lips.
After a while, and imbued now with the impudent confidence of a tolerated mongrel, he ventured to rise and nose around a bit, keeping, however, his new master carefully in sight.
The sour little wine grapes had allayed his thirst and hunger; he prowled at random around the summit of the hill, surveying the river valley and the hills beyond. By chance he presently kicked up a big hare, which cleared out at full speed, doubling and twisting before the shower of stones hurled after it by Asticot. He ran after it a little way among the vines, hoping that a chance missile might have bowled over the toothsome game. Craning his neck, he peeped discreetly down the hillside, reconnoitering; then suddenly ducked; squatted for a moment as though frozen to a statue, and, dropping on his belly, he crawled back to Warner, who still sat there with his field glasses bracketed on Ausone.
"M'sieu'!"
Warner turned at the weird whisper, lowering his glasses.
"Las Bosches!" whispered Asticot.
"Where?" demanded Warner incredulously.
"Riding up this very hill where we are sitting! I saw them--six of them on their horses!"
"They must be French!"
"No, Bosches! Uhlans!"
"Did they see you?"
"No."
Along the upper retaining wall of the vineyard a line of low bushes grew in patches, left there, no doubt, so that the roots might make firmer the steep bank of earth and dry-laid stone.
Warner rose, and, stooping low, ran toward this thatch of cover, followed by Asticot.
Under the bushes they crept, stretched themselves flat, and lay listening.
They had not long to wait; straight through the rows of vines toward the crest of the hill rode an Uhlan, walking his big, hard-breathing horse to the very verge of the northern slope.
His lance, with pennon furled, slanted low from the arm loop; he sat his high saddle like a statue, and looked out across the valley toward the burning town beyond.
He was so near that Warner could see the grey uniform in detail--the ulanka piped with dark crimson, shoulder straps bearing the number 2, collar with the eagle-button insignia of the Guard. A grey helmet-slip covered the mortar board and leather body of the schapska; boots and belt were of russet leather.
Another Uhlan rode up, showing the star of an oberleutnant on the pattes-d'epaules.
Four others followed, picking their way among the vines, cautiously yet leisurely. At the stirrups of the oberleutnant strode a man on foot--a big, shambling, bald-headed man wearing a smock and carrying a felt hat in his huge hand. And when he turned to wipe his hairless face on his sleeve, Asticot clutched Warner's arm convulsively.
The man was Wildresse.
The officer of Uhlans sat very straight in his saddle, his field glasses sometimes focussed on the burning town, sometimes sweeping the landscape to the north and west, sometimes deliberately studying the valley below.
Presently he lowered his glasses and turned partly around to look down at Wildresse, who was standing among the vines by his stirrup.
"Wohin fuehrt diese Weg?" he demanded with a nod toward the quarry road below.
"Nach Drieux, Excellenz!"
"Zeigen Sie mir die Richtung nach Dreslin mit der Hand!"
Wildresse raised his arm and pointed, tracing the quarry road north and west.
"Also! Wie tief ist dieser Fluss? Ist eine Bruecke?"
The harsh, deep rumble of Wildresse's voice, the mincing, nasal tones of the Prussian, the snort of horses receded as the Uhlans rode slowly over toward the right--evidently a precaution to escape observation from the valley below.
For a while they sat their big horses there, looking out over the valley; then, at a signal from the ober-leutnant, they turned their mounts and rode slowly off down the eastern slope of the vineyard, taking with them the double traitor, Wildresse.
Asticot's eyes were like two minute black sparks; he was shivering now from head to foot as he lay there; and it became very evident to Warner that this young ruffian had had no knowledge of that sort of villainy on the part of Wildresse.
"Ah, le cochon!" hissed Asticot, grasping two fistfuls of earth in his astonishment and fury. "Is he selling France then to the Bosches?"
"Didn't you know it?" inquired Warner coldly.
"I? Nom de Dieu! For what do you take me then? Whatever I am, I am not that! Ah, le sale bougre de Wildresse! Ah! Les salauds de saligauds de Bosches! Ah, Wildresse!--Fumier, viande a corbeau, caserne a puces, gadou', morceau d'chausett's russes--que j'te dis que j't'engeule et que j't'abomine, vermine malade, canard boiteux----"
Ashy white, his mouth twisted with rage, Asticot lay shivering and cursing the treachery of his late employer, Wildresse. And Warner understood that, low as this creature was, ignorant, treacherous, fierce, ruthless, and cowardly, the treason of Wildresse had amazed and horrified and enraged him.
"It's the last depths of filth," stammered Asticot. "Ah, non, nom de Dieu! One does not do that!--Whatever else one does! I'll have his skin for this. It becomes necessary to me that I have his skin! Minc' de Marseillaise! Viv' la republique! En avant l'armee! Gare au coup d'scion, eh, vache d'apache! Les coutcaur sont faits pour les chiens, mince de puree! C'est vrai qu' Squelette c'est un copain a moi--but if he is in this--he and the pere Wildresse, et bon!--Faut leur-z-y casser la geule----"
"That's enough!" interrupted Warner, who for a moment had been struck dumb by the frightful fluency of an invective he never dreamed existed, even in the awful argot of voyous like Asticot.
He rose. Pale and still trembling, Asticot stumbled to his feet, his pasty face twisted with unuttered maledictions.
Moving cautiously to the eastern edge of the vineyard, they saw, far below them, six Uhlans riding slowly eastward toward the Bois de Sais, and a gross figure on foot shuffling ahead and evidently acting as pilot toward the wilder uplands of the rolling country beyond.
Warner watched them through his glasses until they disappeared in the woods, then he turned, looked at the burning town in the north for a few moments, closed his field glasses and slung them, and, nodding to Asticot, descended the western slope toward the river.
There were no people visible anywhere, either on the quarry road or across the river. The fugitives from Ausone must have gone west toward Dreslin.
Asticot crawled into the punt; Warner shoved off and poled for midstream, where he let the current carry him down toward Sais.
"Asticot?"
"M'sieu'?"
"That was only one small scouting party of Uhlans. Perhaps there are more of them along the river."
Asticot began to curse again, but Warner stopped him.
"Curb that charmingly fluent flow of classic eloquence," he said. "It may sound well on the outer boulevards, but I don't care for it."
The voyou gulped, swallowed a weird oath, and shivered.
"Asticot, that man Wildresse ought to be apprehended and shot. Have you any idea where his hiding place is?"
"In the Bois d'Ausone. It was there. Animals travel."
"Could you find the place?"
Asticot shrugged and rubbed his pock-marked nose. The forest of Ausone was too near the cannon to suit him, and he said so without hesitation.
"Very well," said Warner. "When we meet any of our soldiers or gendarmes you can explain where Wildresse has been hiding. He won't come out, I suppose, until the occupation of Ausone by the Germans reassures him. He ought to be caught and executed."
"If the cannon would only stop their ugly noises I'd go myself," muttered Asticot. "Tenez, M'sieu', it would be a pleasure for me to bleed that treacherous hog----"
"I don't doubt it," said Warner pleasantly, "but, odd as it may appear to you, Asticot, I have a personal prejudice against murder. It's weak-minded of me, I know. But if you have no objection, we'll let military law catch Wildresse and deal with him if it can."
Asticot looked at him curiously:
"Is it then distasteful to M'sieu' that I bleed this espece de pig for him?"
"I'm afraid it is."
"You do not desire me to settle the business of this limace?"
"No."
"For what purpose is an enemy?" inquired the voyou. "For revenge. And of what use is revenge if you do not use it on your enemy?"
"You can't understand me, can you, Asticot?"
"No," said Asticot naively, "I can't."
*CHAPTER XXX*
It was still very early as Warner walked up to the Golden Peach, but Magda and Linette were astir and a delicious aroma of coffee floated through the hallway.
Warner surveyed his most recent acquisition with a humorous and slightly disgusted air. As it appeared impossible to get rid of Asticot, there seemed nothing to do but to feed him.
So he called out Linette and asked her to give some breakfast to the young voyou; and Linette showed Asticot into the bar and served breakfast with a scorn and aloofness which fascinated Asticot and also awed him.
None of the leering impudence, none of the easy effrontery of the outer boulevards, aided Asticot to assert himself or helped him toward any attempt at playfulness toward this wholesome, capable, business-like young woman.
She served him with a detached and supercilious air, placed cover and food with all the nonchalance of serving a house cat with its morning milk. And Asticot dared not even look at her until her back was turned; then only did he venture to lift his mousy eyes to study the contemptuous girl who had provided him with what he spoke of as the "quoi d'boulotter."
As for Warner, he had sauntered into the kitchen, where Madame Arlon greeted him heartily, and was prettily confused and flattered when he seated himself and insisted on having breakfast with her.
Over their cafe-au-lait they discussed the menace of invasion very quietly, and the stout, cheery landlady told him that she had concluded to keep the inn open in any event.
"What else is there for me to do?" she asked. "To leave my house is to invite robbery; perhaps even destruction, if the Prussians arrive. I had rather remain and protect my property if I can. At any rate, it will not be for long, God willing!"
"I do not believe it will last very long, this headlong rush of the Germans into France," he said thoughtfully. "It seems to me as though they had the start of us, but nothing more serious. I'm very much afraid we are going to see them here in the Recollette Valley before they are driven back across the frontier."
Linette's cheeks grew very red.
"I had even rather serve that frightful voyou in there than be forced to set food before a Prussian," she said in a low voice.
"Wait a bit longer," said Warner. "--A little patience, perhaps a little more humiliation, but, sooner or later, surely, surely the liberation of the Vosges--the return of her lost children to France, the driving out of German oppression, arrogance, and half-cooked civilization forever.... It's worth waiting for, worth endurance and patience and sacrifice."
"It is worth dying for," said Magda simply.
"If," added Linette, "one only knew how best to serve France by offering one's life."
"It is best to live if that can be accomplished honorably," said Madame Arlon. "France is in great need of all her children."
The three women spoke thoughtfully, naturally, with no idea of heroics, expressing themselves without any self-consciousness whatever.
After a silence Warner said to Linette with a smile:
"So you don't admire my new assistant, Monsieur Asticot?"
"Monsieur Warner! That dreadful voyou in your service!"
Warner laughed:
"It seems so. I didn't invite him. But I can't get rid of him. He sticks like a lost dog."
"Send him about his business--which doubtless is to pick pockets!" cried Linette. "Monsieur has merely to whisper 'Gendarmes!' to him, and he does not stop running until he sights the Eiffel Tower!"
Madame Arlon smiled:
"He really is a dreadful type," she said. "The perfume of Paris gutters clings to him. Monsieur Warner had better get rid of him before articles begin to be missed."
"Oh, well," remarked Warner, "he'll probably scuttle away like a scared rabbit when the Germans come through Sais. I'm not worrying. Meanwhile, he carries my field kit and washes brushes--if I ever can make up my mind to begin painting again.... That heavy, steady thunder from the north seems to take all ambition out of me."
"It affects me like real thunder," nodded Madame Arlon. "The air is lifeless and dead; one's feet drag and one's head grows heavy. It is like the languor which comes over one before a storm.
"Do the guns seem any louder to you since last night?"
"I was wondering.... Well, God's will be done.... But I do not believe it is in His heart to turn the glory of His face from France.... Magda, if we are to make the preserves today, it will be necessary for you to gather plums this morning. Linette, is that type still eating?"
"He stuffs himself without pause," replied the girl scornfully. "Only a guinea pig can eat like that!"
She went into the bar cafe and bent a pair of pretty but hostile eyes upon Asticot, who stared at her with his mouth full, then, still staring, buttered another slice of bread.
"Voyons," she said impatiently, "do you imagine yourself to be at dinner, young man? Permit me to remind you that this is breakfast--cafe-au-lait--not a banquet at the Hotel de Ville!"
"I am hungry," said Asticot simply.
"Really?" she retorted, exasperated. "One might almost guess as much, what with the tartines and tranches you swallow as though you had nothing else to do. Come, stand up on what I suppose you call your feet. Your master is out in the road already, and I don't suppose that even you have the effrontery to keep him waiting."
Asticot arose; a gorged sigh escaped him. He stretched himself with the satisfaction of repletion, shuffled his feet, peeped cunningly and sideways out of his mousy eyes at Linette.
"Allons," she said coldly, "it's paid for. Fichez-moi le camp!"
There was a vase of flowers on the bar. Asticot shuffled over, sniffed at them, extracted the largest and gaudiest blossom--a yellow dahlia--and, with a half bold, half scared smirk, laid it on the table as an offering to Linette.
The girl was too much astonished and incensed to utter a word, and Asticot left so hurriedly that when she had recovered her power of speech he was already slouching along down the road a few paces behind Warner.
The latter had hastened his steps because ahead of him walked Sister Eila; and he meant to overtake and escort her as far as the school, and then back to the Chateau, if she were returning.
As he joined her and they exchanged grave but friendly greetings, he suddenly remembered her as he had last seen her, kneeling asleep by the chapel pillar.
And then he recollected what she had murmured, still drowsy with dreams; and the memory of it perplexed him and left his face flushed and troubled.
"How is your patient, Sister?" he inquired, dropping into step beside her.
"Much better, Mr. Warner. A little care is all he needs. But I wish his mind were at rest." She glanced behind her at Asticot, plainly wondering who he might be.
"What worries Gray?" inquired Warner.
"The prospect of being taken prisoner, I suppose."
"Of course. If the Germans break through from the north they'll take him along. That would be pretty hard luck, wouldn't it?--To be taken before one has even a taste of battle!"
Sister Eila nodded:
"He says nothing, but I know that is what troubles him. When I came in this morning, I found him up and trying to walk. I sent him back to bed. But he tells me he does not need to use his legs in his branch of the British service, and that if he could only get to Chalons he would be fit for duty. I think, from things he has said, that both he and Mr. Halkett belong to the Flying Corps."
Warner was immensely interested. Sister Eila told him briefly why she suspected this to be true, then, casting another perplexed glance behind her, she asked in a low voice who might be the extremely unprepossessing individual shuffling along the road behind them. And Warner told her, humorously; but she did not smile.
Watching her downcast eyes and grave lips in the transparent shadow of her white coiffe, he thought he had never seen a human face so pure, so tender--with such infinite capacity for charity.
She said very gently:
"My duties have led me more than once into the Faubourgs. There is nothing sadder to me than Paris.... Always I have believed that sin and degradation among the poor should be treated as diseases of the mind.... Poor things--they have no doctor, no medicines, no hospital to aid them in their illness--the most terrible illness in the world, which they inherit at birth--poverty! Poverty sickens the body, and at last the mind; and from a diseased mind all evil in the world is born.... They are not to blame who daily crucify Christ; for they know not what they do."
He walked silently beside her. She spoke again of crippled minds, and of the responsibility of civilization, then looked up at his gloomy visage with a faint smile, excusing herself for any lack of cheerfulness and courage.
"Indeed," she said almost gayly, "God is best served with a light heart, I think. There is no palladin like good humor to subdue terror and slay despair; no ally of Christ so powerful as he who laughs when evil threatens. Sin is most easily slain with a smile, I think; its germs die under it as bacilli die in the sunlight. Tenez, Monsieur Warner, what do you think of my theories of medicine, moral, spiritual, and mundane? Is it likely that the Academy will award me palms?"
