"No. When we approach the enemy I'll let you lead," she replied,
refusing the offer. "I'll be only too glad then; but these stairs are
very tricky if you don't know them. Keep watch!" she warned him as she
started to descend, picking her way slowly.
Once in the tunnel she held the lantern a little back of her in her
right hand, which threw a shadow to the left on the side of the panel
door. She was walking very fast, too fast to please Bouchard. In the
swinging rays he could not fly-speck the surroundings with the care that
he desired. Yet how could he ask her to slacken her pace? This she did
of her own accord before they had gone far.
"Isn't it damp and deathlike? Think of it!" she exclaimed. "No ray of
sunlight has been in here since the tunnel was dug--no, not even then;
for probably it was dug after the castle was built. Think of the stories
these walls could tell after the silence of centuries! Think of the
prisoners driven along at the point of the halberd to slow death in the
dungeons! You feel their spirits in the cold, clammy air." Her elocution
was excellent, as her voice sank to an awed whisper, impressing even
Bouchard with a certain uncanniness. Her steps became slow, as with
effort, while he was not missing a square inch of the top, bottom, or
sides of the tunnel. "But I'll not--I'll not this time, when I have a
soldier with me. For once I'll go to the end!" she cried with forced
courage, suddenly starting forward at a half run that sent the lantern's
rays lurching and dancing in a way that confused the hawk eyes. Then her
burst of strength seemed to give out in collapse and she dropped against
the wall for support, her back covering the panel door.
"I can't! I'm just foolishly, weakly feminine!" she whispered brokenly.
"According to reason there aren't any ghosts, I know. But it gets on my
nerves too much-my imaginings!" She held out the lantern with a
trembling hand. "I will wait here. You go on in!" she begged. "Please do
and show me what a fool I am! Show that it is all a woman's
hysteria--for we are all hysterical, aren't we? Go into every dungeon,
please!"
She did seem on the verge of hysteria, quivering as die was from head to
foot. But Bouchard, holding the lantern and staring at her, his eyes
unearthly lustrous in the yellow rays, hesitated to agree to the request
because it was hers. Marta was not so near hysteria that she did not
divine his thought.
"Has it got on your nerves, too?" she inquired. "Are you, too, afraid?"
"No, I'm not afraid!" replied Bouchard irritably. "But aren't you afraid
to be left alone in the dark? I'll take you back to the sitting-room and
you can wait there," he added with a show of gallantry, which she
improved on with a flattering if scared smile.
"I'm not afraid with you between me and the dungeons," she said. "I'll
hold my ground. Don't think me altogether a craven."
"Very well," was all that he could say. "I came to see the dungeons, and
I'll see them!"
After the lantern flame grew fainter and finally disappeared around a
bend, Marta emitted a peculiar, squeaky little laugh. It sounded to her
as if her own ghost--the ghost of her former self--were laughing in
satire. There was a devilish, mischievous joy in battling to outwit
Bouchard more than in her deceit of Westerling. Satire,
yes--needle-pointed, acid-tipped! Melodrama done in burlesque, too. In
the name of the noble art of war, a bit of fooling about ghosts in a
tunnel might influence the fate of armies that were the last word in
modern equipment. And men played at killing with a grand front of
martial dignity, when such a little thing could turn the balance of
slaughter! The ghosts in the dungeons seemed about as real as anything,
except the childishness of adult humanity in organized mass. She laughed
again, this time very softly, as she moved away from the panel door a
few steps farther along the wall toward the entrance and again leaned
back for support.
She had to wait a half-hour before she saw a yellow flame reappear and
heard the dully echoing steps of Bouchard approaching. That tiny
push-button on the panel, of the color of stone, was in the shadow of
her figure against the lantern's rays, which gave a glazed and haunted
effect to Bouchard's eyes, rolling as he studied the walls and ceiling
and floor of the tunnel in final baffled and desperate inquiry.
"Did you see anything? Did you go into all the dungeons?" Marta called
to him.
Bouchard did not answer. Perhaps he was too full of disgust for words.
Marta, however, had plenty of words in her impatience for knowledge.
"If there were you must have caught them with a quick strangle-hold. Or,
did you see one and not dare to go on? Tell me! tell me!" she insisted
when he stopped before her, his expression a strange mixture of defiance
and dissatisfaction while he was searching the wall around her figure.
Before his eye had any inclination to look as far away from her as the
button she stepped free of the wall and laid her hand on Bouchard's arm.
"I can't wait! I've nearly perished of suspense!" she cried. "I'm just
dying to know what you found. Please tell me!"
Meanwhile, she was looking into his eyes, which were eagerly devouring
the spot that her figure had hidden. He saw nothing but bare stone.
Marta slipped her hand behind her and began brushing her back.
"My gown must be a sight!" she exclaimed. "But I do believe you saw a
ghost and that he struck you speechless!"
"No!" exploded Bouchard. "No, I saw nothing!"
"Nothing!" she repeated. She half turned to go. He passed by her with
the lantern, while she kept to the side of the wall which held the
button, covering it with her shadow successfully. "Nothing! No bones, no
skulls--not even any anklets fastened by chains to the clammy, wet
stones?"
"Yes, just an ordinary set of Middle Age dungeons and some staples in
the walls!" he grumbled.
This was no news to her as, with Minna for company, she had explored all
the underground passages.
"Wonderful! I suppose a little courage will always lay ghosts!" She
even found it difficult to conceal a note of triumph in her tone, for
the button was now well behind them. "It's all right, Minna; there
aren't any ghosts!" she called as they entered the sitting-room. And
Minna, in the kitchen, covered her mouth lest she should scream for joy.
"Thank you!" said Bouchard grudgingly as Marta saw him to the door.
"On the contrary, thank you! It was such fun--if I hadn't been so
scared," replied Marta, and their gaze held each other fast in a
challenge, hers beaming good nature and his saturnine in its rebuff and
a hound-like tenacity of purpose, saying plainly that his suspicions
were not yet laid.
When Bouchard returned to his desk he guessed the contents of the note
awaiting him, but he took a long time to read its stereotyped
expressions in transferring him to perfunctory duty well to the rear of
the army. Then he pulled himself together and, leaden-hearted, settled
down to arrange routine details for his departure, while the rest of the
staff was immersed in the activity of the preparations for the attack on
Engadir. He knew that he could not sleep if he lay down. So he spent the
night at work. In the morning his successor, a young man whom he himself
had chosen and trained, Colonel Bellini, appeared, and the fallen man
received the rising man with forced official courtesy.
"In my own defence and for your aid," he said, "I show you a copy of
what I have just written to General Westerling."
A brief note it was, in farewell, beginning with conventional thanks for
Westerling's confidence in the past.
"I am punished for being right," it concluded. "It is my belief that
Miss Galland sends news to the enemy and that she draws it from you
without your consciousness of the fact. I tell you honestly. Do what you
will with me."
It took more courage than any act of his life for the loyal Bouchard to
dare such candor to a superior. Seeing the patchy, yellow, bloodless
face drawn in stiff lines and the abysmal stare of the deep-set eyes in
their bony recesses, Bellini was swept with a wave of sympathy.
"Thank you, Bouchard. You've been very fine!" said Bellini as he grasped
Bouchard's hand, which was icy cold.
"My duty--my duty, in the hope that we shall kill two Browns for every
Gray who has fallen--that we shall yet see them starved and besieged and
crying for mercy in their capital," replied Bouchard. He saluted with a
dismal, urgent formality and stalked out of the room with the tread of
the ghost of Hamlet's father.
The strange impression that this farewell left with Bellini still
lingered when, a few moments later, Westerling summoned him. Not alone
the diffidence of a new member of the staff going into the Presence
accounted for the stir in his temples, as he waited till some papers
were signed before he had Westerling's attention. Then Westerling picked
up Bouchard's note and shook his head sadly.
"Poor Bouchard! You can see for yourself," and he handed the note to
Bellini. "I should have realized earlier that it was a case for the
doctor and not for reprimand. Mad! Poor Bouchard! He hadn't the ability
or the resiliency of mind for his task, as I hope you have, colonel."
"I hope so, sir," replied Bellini.
"I've no doubt you have," said Westerling. "You are my choice!"