THE ESCAPE
There was an explosion. Sanderson urged Belinda on up the dusty road.
"Do not weep for them," he urged, knowing her tender heart was torn by
this parting from the cousins. "Believe all will come right in the end.
And they are brave boys."
"How do we know we shall ever see them or hear of them again?" she
sobbed. "Oh, Frank! this war--this war! And we are in it, too--we
Americans! The whole world seems mad!"
"We are in it the sooner to end it, let us hope," he muttered. Then:
"The wood yonder is the safest place for us. Let us hurry, dear heart.
Renaud will have arranged with the French airmen to drop no bombs
there."
They pressed forward, saying little for some time, for their peril was
great and fear drove them on. Along the battlefront the great guns
volleyed and thundered. It was growing dusk, but the glare from the
lines, the flare of bombs and exploding shells, flouted the falling
night.
Suddenly, in their rear, a great light burst skyward. The explosion
crashed in the ears of the fugitives and Belinda would have fallen had
her companion not held her up.
As they looked back the château from which they had so recently
escaped, seemed to rise heavenward. The vibration of the disintegrating
mass rocked the earth itself.
"The Germans had mined it. They are destroying everything as they
retreat," Sanderson said. "Ah, but this Northern France will be a
barren waste for years to come!"
Belinda clung to him in horror and alarm. "That unfortunate man--the
Herr Doktor?" she questioned. "Do you suppose they found him--that he
was removed? Even Carl did not seem to see him lying there."
"There were still soldiers searching the château as we escaped with
your cousin's aid," Frank declared. "A man of Doctor Herschall's
attainments and importance could not be overlooked. But, poor chap,
I wonder if he would not rather be blown up with that castle than be
brought back to life, blind and lacking that clever hand of his."
"One of his own 'surgical triumphs,'" shuddered the nurse. "Ah, Frank!
it is more than fate. There is the hand of God in it. Doctor Herschall
never used his wonderful eyes and hands to the glory of the Giver, but
for his own sole aggrandizement. But I would not have had him die that
way."
"Nor anybody else," added the aviator solemnly. "It touches us nearly,
dear girl. See! We might have gone skyward with that wreck," he went on
more lightly.
"Whereas," said Belinda, with a tremulous smile, "you intend taking me
skyward in an aeroplane. I--I----Suppose we should fall, Frank?"
He put his arm about her tenderly to help her over a rough place in the
road.
"At least we shall fall together," he responded. "Do not fear."
"Yes, let us go on," Belinda breathed. "We have each other--and nothing
else matters."
"You are right. I have you and you have me. Nobody can part us----"
"Frank! Frank!" she burst forth suddenly. "That is not true! Oh! I had
forgotten. I--I wish we had died back there in the château!"
"Belinda!" he cried, in horror.
"I am not yours! You cannot be mine! Between us is that other
woman--your children!" gasped the overwrought girl, and fell to weeping
wildly.
Amazed, he halted her, holding her firmly by both shoulders.
"Hush, dear girl!" he begged. "Belinda! Have you gone mad? What are you
saying?"
"Stella! Your 'kiddies'! I heard you and your brother speak of them."
"Jerry's widow!" uttered Frank as if stunned.
"Jerry's'?"
"Jerry Cameron. My best chum. He married a silly little fool of a woman
in his sophomore year. His father turned him adrift for it and Jerry
went to work. Sold autos. Plucky fellow after all. And the babies came
in plenty. Why is it, can you tell me, that women who shouldn't have
children always have a raft of 'em?"
"Go on!" commanded Belinda, in no mind for abstruse problems.
"The poor chap died. He left the little family something. I have
conserved it so it brings Stella in an income; and I'm the kiddies'
guardian. There'll be something for them from the grandfather some day.
Cute little beggars they are.
"Of course, I left the whole business in the hands of a capable lawyer
when I came away. But I had to run from Stella. Jove! she'd talk one
to death. And, to tell the truth, because Jerry left the kiddies in my
care she's inclined to think I ought to absorb her into the contract,
too. She even started a report that I was going to marry her, and some
of my old college chums thought we were married. But not much! Stella's
got no chance with me."
"Oh, Frank!" the Red Cross nurse breathed, with drooping head. "Oh! Oh!
Oh!"
His arm was around her again.
"What is it, sweet girl?" he asked anxiously. "Tell me, darling."
"I can't! I won't! I've been so wicked," gasped Belinda, sobbing again.
"I've thought such terrible things of you, Frank! Terrible things!"
"You couldn't!" he declared cheerfully. "At any rate, we understand
each other now."
"Yes. But--Frank----"
"What is it, Belinda?" drawing her still closer.
"Oh--nothing! Nothing! Only I--I----Oh, I'm so happy!" she replied with
a sigh of ecstasy.
The battle still raged as the wearied pair pursued their way to the
wood. Only once did they pass anybody to hold speech with, for this
road ran parallel with the battleline, rather than to it or away from
it.
A group of peasants huddled in a corner of a stone wall, over against
what might have been their ruined cottage--old men, women and children.
The latter cowered in their mothers' skirts and only jerked their tiny
limbs and moaned when the great shells burst. They would not speak.
"The continual explosions affect the children's nerves so that the
whole countryside suffers from an epidemic of St. Vitus' dance," the
nurse said. "Just think of the effect of this awful war upon unborn
generations!"
One of the silent men under the shelter of the wall rose when the
American passed and shuffled after them. Belinda glanced back at him as
they toiled on.
"What do you suppose he wants, Frank?" she whispered.
"We will see when we get to the wood," the aviator said.
In the shadow of the wood the peasant overtook them. "All from the air,
Monsieur," he said, and removed the ragged hat he wore, and which had
half concealed his features.
"Renaud!" ejaculated the aviator. "I was not sure of you until you
spoke."
"And I, Monsieur--I feared you had gone up in smoke with yonder château
till I descried you and Mademoiselle plodding along the road."
The safety of the Americans was assured with the appearance of Monsieur
Renaud. Yet Belinda could scarcely look at the man, she could _not_
touch his hand. She thought of Erard!
The French spy listened to the account of Erard's brave end with
reverence.
"Ah!" he said, "we French--even the dregs of us--are patriots. A fine
finish for Monsieur Rabbit-mouth. And a greater rascal in the old days
before the war never infested the skirts of Montmartre."
"Whatever he was," the aviator said warmly, "we know he passed out a
hero. I honor him."
"And I--and I!" murmured the nurse. "Oh, how much! Poor little Erard!
There was much to forgive in his life; but the germ of greatness lay
always hidden in his dwarfed nature."
"Mademoiselle is a philosopher," Renaud returned, with a kindly glow
upon his plain face.
He led them into the center of the wood where there was an open
lawn--not the clearing into which Sanderson had tumbled in his duel
with the German flying-man, August Gessler. Here the spy had hidden a
flash-signal which he recovered, and likewise some food and a bottle of
wine.
He advised, too, after they had refreshed themselves, that Belinda try
to sleep, and offered the peasant's smock which he had removed to cover
her. But the Red Cross nurse was too excited and anxious to close her
eyes. She sat leaning against a tree, listening to the talk of the
aviator and Renaud as the long hours of the night passed.
At dawn came the returning of a squadron of bomb-dropping machines
accompanied by several Nieuports. One of the latter descended swiftly
at Renaud's signal. As it volplaned and then was redressed with nicety,
Belinda seized Sanderson's arm in newborn excitement.
"Look! The flag!" she cried.
On the wings of the airplane, where before the tri-color of France
had been painted, the pilot of the Nieuport--himself in the khaki and
buttons of the United States Army--had repainted the wings of his
airplane with the Stars and Stripes. The first Yankee airman to carry
his country's flag over the German lines!
"The flag!" repeated Frank, his face aglow. Then he turned suddenly to
the girl and smilingly asked her:
"Have you learned yet that you are an American, Belinda--a real
American?"
The girl opened the bosom of her nurse's blouse with swift fingers.
From within she drew a folded silk American flag.
"Frank!" She kissed the bit of silk reverently. "Frank, I think I have
known that ever since Carl tore this from the wall of my ward."