ACROSS BURNING SANDS
When one has long expected a certain disaster, even though it be one
that can be averted by no act of the victim, a reprieve can scarcely
be a greater relief than the shock of another, and utterly unexpected,
catastrophe.
Belinda, day after day, had looked forward to the fatal moment when
Doctor Herschall should stalk into her ward and discover with his
piercing black eyes that "Nurse Genau" was Belinda Melnotte, who he
must certainly know had left New York to be a Red Cross nurse in France.
At the alarm from the watchful Jacob that the Herr Doktor approached,
the girl discovered that the long-expected peril was dwarfed by danger
that threatened from another point.
The unconscious man on the cot, the wounded aviator just brought into
the ward, was Frank Sanderson.
Belinda's thoughts fastened to this amazing discovery, and much that it
might portend of peril to them both flashed through her mind.
She was not stunned, but was keenly alert in every sense. It impressed
her instantly that she alone could shield Sanderson from discovery.
For recognition by Doctor Herschall would bring disaster to the young
American aviator. He had been found within the enemy's lines and in
German uniform. The ignoble death of a spy could scarcely fail to be
his portion if his identity was revealed to the Germans.
The thought of Sanderson's plight dwarfed the sense of her own danger.
Here approached--even now he was entering the door--the surgeon who
had treated the aviator in the New York hospital eight months before.
Belinda hoped that Doctor Herschall would not recognize the unconscious
airman.
"Is this hope based upon a foundation of sand?" she asked herself.
Sanderson had been clean-shaven when Doctor Herschall had treated him.
With this ragged growth of beard he scarcely looked the same, save to
such eyes as Belinda possessed. For hers was the gaze inspired by love.
She had to admit this now. The shock of seeing him lying so wan and
ill forced the acknowledgment of her love to the surface of the girl's
mind. Whether he was deserving or not, Frank Sanderson had conquered
her affection to the very last barrier.
He was in peril--dire peril. She was inspired to fight for his
salvation with all the wisdom and all the art at her disposal.
She brushed a lock of his long hair over the old scar on his brow and
turned swiftly to meet the black-browed surgeon.
The latter looked much the same as he had the day he arrived at the
hospital station and had so brutally ordered the burial of the kindly
_médecin chef_, its former head.
The military carriage of the Herr Doktor had always been marked. Now,
with the helmet and long cloak he wore, and his stern air, he might
have been an army corps commander instead of merely a medical officer.
Belinda could not show fear of him at this crisis. All her loathing
of the man and of his gallantries for her rose in her mind, but she
trampled these thoughts down. She hoped to save Frank Sanderson. She
must save him!
She met the Herr Doktor at the head of the ward, and not even Jacob
suspected that the pulse of fear beat in her throat. Belinda looked
straight into the black, beady eyes of the great surgeon, and raising
her pink-tipped finger placed it on her lips to enjoin silence.
As though a man like Franz Herschall ever could be startled!
He bowed formally before her, his eyes glittering, and asked in his
peculiarly harsh voice:
"Are you, Nurse Genau, in charge of this ward, Fräulein?"
"Yes, Doctor," she managed to say calmly.
"I have a report on Case Seventeen. That case should go back to the
operating table."
"Yes, Doctor."
"Well!" ejaculated Doctor Herschall. "Lead on. Let me see him."
Not a word or look betrayed his recognition of her. Belinda's fears
were a veritable whirlpool in her mind. What was his determination? How
would he treat her in the future? Her brain revolved these questions
until she was dizzy; but she turned and led the way down the ward.
The Herr Doktor glanced keenly at the patients as he passed. One took
the opportunity of begging for something for which he had already asked
the visiting physicians and had been refused.
"Who am I to tell you offhand what you may eat?" barked Doctor
Herschall. "For all I know of your case you may eat _Schwarzsauer und
Kartoffel klösz_. It is the visiting physician who knows your case. Be
still."
The man sank back cringing like a whipped dog. Belinda's limbs
trembled. She had often heard him speak in the same harsh tone in the
New York hospital, but it shocked her now as though she heard it for
the first time.
"He is a beast!" she thought.
And seeing the still form of Frank Sanderson at the bottom of the ward
she renewed her secret determination to save the American aviator from
"the beast."
The surgeon halted beside Number Seventeen and examined him with his
quick, sure touch. The wonderfully supple fingers seemed to have
retained all their skill. The man tried to tell the doctor something.
"Be still!" commanded the Prussian. "Do you suppose you can tell me
anything about your case that I do not already know? _Dummkopf!_"
His diametrically opposed statements regarding these two cases merely
displayed the bullying, dogmatic mind of the man. Belinda had often
observed it before, and scorned Doctor Herschall for it. The Prussian
_ego_ was as hateful in her eyes now as ever.
"Soh!" he said to her suddenly, in English and speaking so that nobody
but the girl herself could hear. "I find you here, Miss Belinda? What
does it mean--this masquerade? Surely you are not fool enough to be a
secret agent for the French?"
Fortunately his tone and words angered her, and in her wrath she found
strength to face him. She ceased to tremble, and in brief, brusque
sentences explained how she came to be in her present equivocal
situation.
"Hum! I see," he muttered. "I recognized your handwriting on the chart
of this case, which the doctor brought me," Doctor Herschall said with
a careless gesture toward Number Seventeen. He neglected to state that
the inquiry from the French corps commander for news of Mademoiselle
Melnotte, referred to his attention, had already aroused his curiosity
and suspicion.
"I had seen your writing too many times before," pursued the surgeon,
eying Belinda with narrowing gaze, "to be mistaken, despite the
difference in the writing of English and German. Oh, yes, I should know
your chirography under any circumstances, Miss Belinda. The vision
of--hum!--admiration is never blinded. Hum! So you were left behind
when the crazy French retreated? And you have two young cousins to
defend you--no?"
"Yes," she said doubtfully.
He flashed another of his penetrating sidewise glances at her
half-averted face. She saw his hands working in that spasmodic way of
his--the long, sinister fingers which she had watched perform such
surgical marvels. But she would not shudder, not even when he added:
"Well, let us see if these cousins can save you when trouble arises,
Fräulein. You have laid your intentions open to serious question by
giving the military authorities but part of your name. Unwise--unwise.
But fear not because of me, my dear Fräulein," he added in German. "I
am your friend."
"Now let us look at the rest of these wounded," he pursued roughly,
passing on to Number Nineteen.
He was approaching the aviator. Belinda, now a step behind the surgeon,
watched Sanderson's face with anxious eyes.
Was there a change coming into the pallid, bearded countenance? Could
it be possible that Doctor Herschall would recognize the aviator in his
present guise?
Sanderson's lips trembled. Color was rising in his cheeks. The anxious
girl knew what the change meant.
Suppose, in the moment of coming back to consciousness, the aviator
should cry out--should speak in English--should utter something in the
surgeon's hearing that would betray his identity?
The girl hurried forward. As Sanderson's eyes opened with that look of
perplexity in them that is usually their expression when the patient
comes out of syncope, Belinda was saying in German:
"Doctor, here is one who has just been brought in--an aviator. He fell
last night in a duel, in which he destroyed a French flying-man and his
machine."
"Hum! Indeed? I heard of that," the Herr Doktor said, showing some
interest. "One of my assistants set his shoulder. Hum! As long as he
goes on all right he'll not need my attention."
He moved on carelessly. Sanderson, recovering his senses slowly, began
to realize where he was.
Inside the enemy's lines! In a German field hospital! He, flying and
fighting for France, was in the power of the Germans! Then over his
awakening mind came the remembrance of what had brought him here.
His fight in the air with the aviator. When found he had been garbed in
the dead German's uniform. They had picked him up for a wounded hero of
their own race and brought him here. And--startling him into complete
appreciation of his situation--Belinda Melnotte was in attendance!
He half raised on his good elbow and watched her with the Herr
Doktor returning slowly up the ward. Belinda! Doctor Herschall, the
black-browed surgeon from the hospital in New York! Both in this field
station of the German hospital corps.
Sanderson could not understand it. The mystery was too much for his
weakened mind and he fell back with a groan.
"Brother, are you in pain? Can I help you?"
The bearded, ugly face of Jacob bent above him. Frank suddenly shook
with weak laughter.
"The man who kept the delicatessen store on the East Side," he
murmured.
"_Ach Himmel!_" gasped Jacob. "How did you know, _mein Herr_? Who told
you?"
Fortunately Sanderson had spoken in German. His wits came to his rescue.
"It is common property, old man," he said. "They told me I should be
nursed in this ward by a man who owned a delicatessen business in New
York. Is it not so?"
Jacob wagged his head. "_Ach_; it is a wonder how gossip gets around
this hospital," he grumbled.
Sanderson lay silent but wakeful. Indeed, now that he had come
completely to himself and the ether fumes were out of his brain he
suffered too much pain in his broken shoulder to sleep. And his mind
was very active.
What troubled him the most was the association of Belinda and the
Prussian surgeon in this field hospital. It was a mystery that fed his
old jealousy of the Herr Doktor.
Just now his peril, as an enemy found in disguise within the German
lines, did not greatly oppress him. There was something in connection
with his situation, however, that keenly stabbed his mind and was
uppermost in it when Belinda returned.
He saw her coming down the ward. The light in her eyes could be for
nobody but him--the trembling smile upon her sweet lips drove all
jealous thoughts away. She could not have turned from the surgeon to
him with this look on her face if her affection was given to the
black-browed Prussian.
"Frank!" she breathed, kneeling quickly beside him that her lips might
be close to his ear. She took his good hand in her own. The aviator's
heart was for the moment too full for him to utter an intelligible
word, but his eyes spoke his thoughts.
"Frank," she went on, "I must not be caught speaking to you--especially
in English. You can only be one of my _Verwundete_, my poor boy! Oh, if
you had been killed! And I watched you fall without knowing!" She tried
to turn her eyes away, but his gaze held her.
"Belinda!"
"Hush! I must appear German. So must you. My cousins, Carl and Paul,
are here. They have saved me from any questioning thus far. But now
that Doctor Herschall knows----"
"Is his presence here a surprise to you likewise?" Sanderson managed to
ask.
"Yes. Although I knew he had left the hospital in New York. But his
appearance here amazed me----"
She was about to add "frightened me"; then she felt that Sanderson
should not be needlessly alarmed. And the Herr Doktor had promised to
say nothing. Sanderson's thought had leaped to another topic, and one
that had before smote upon his mind. Belinda suddenly whispered:
"Oh, Frank, you are in such great danger here! How shall I get you
away from these Germans?"
"Listen! Never mind me at present, Belinda. I am safe for a while at
least. But there is another who is not--who is in deadly and hourly
peril because of my accident."
"Who?" she asked in surprise.
"I left him--when was it? Yesterday afternoon? I was to meet him at a
certain place at daybreak to-morrow morning. The spot is all of twenty
kilometres from here. He must be warned. He will have to make his way
as best he can through the German lines and to the French forces. But
if he waits for me he is sure to be caught."
"A spy?" she gasped.
"Yes. Renaud. A really wonderful man, for years a detective of the
metropolitan police--one of the shrewdest they say in Paris. He would
be a distinct and an irreparable loss to the French cause. He must be
warned, Belinda! He must be warned!"