The few moments that followed were indeed full of grim horror.
An old peasant woman, standing by Aimee, in her frenzy, spat at one of
the German soldiers, whereupon he struck her in the breast with his
bayonet, and, with a piercing shriek, the poor thing fell, her thin,
bony hands clutching at the stones in her death agony.
"Come! no loitering!" shouted the young officer brutally, in French.
"We must have you cellar-rats out above ground." Then, catching sight
of Aimee, he approached her, and spoke some words in German. She knew
the language well, but did not reply, pretending that she did not
understand.
At that moment there was a struggle on the stone stairway, which was
narrow and winding, and his attention became diverted from her,
whereupon the big, grey-coated infantryman, who had shot poor Uncle
Francois, strode up to her and leered in her face.
She turned her head.
He placed his heavy hand upon her shoulder, saying, in his bad French:
"My girl, you are young and very pretty--to be sure?"
And then she saw, by his flushed face and bright eyes, that he had been
drinking. The Germans drank up whatever they could loot--spirits, wine,
beer, liqueurs, aperitifs--all the contents of the cafes.
The girl, though defenceless, drew herself up quickly, and replied in
German, with the words:
"I see no reason why you should insult me?"
"Insult!" he laughed roughly. "Ah, you will see. We shall teach you
rats, who live down here in holes, a lesson. Get along--and quickly."
And he prodded her with his bayonet towards where the others, driven
like sheep, were stumbling up the dark, slippery steps of the ancient
vault.
She went forward without a murmur. The fate of the others was to be
hers also.
Where was Edmond? If he were there he would certainly teach those
brutes a severe lesson. But alas! he was not there. The Belgians had
been driven out, and they, weak and defenceless, were held by a fierce
relentless set of savages. The whole world was now learning the vanity
of attempting to distinguish between the Germany of "culture" and the
panoplied brutality of Prussian arrogance.
With the others, Aimee had ascended the steps and had gained the big
ancient kitchen of the inn.
A number of the elder women had been pushed forward out into the street,
where some screamed in sudden madness at seeing the bodies of men lying
in the roadway. But Aimee, with half a dozen or so of the younger
women, were detained by the officer, who had just given a sharp order to
his men.
Suddenly the young elegant in command went outside, leaving the women to
suffer the indignities of a dozen or so soldiers left to guard them.
The big infantryman again approached Aimee, but the would speak no
further word.
Suddenly, in the doorway, there appeared the figure of a major, at whose
word the men quickly drew up to attention.
Aimee looked at him, scarce believing her own eyes.
Was she dreaming?
She stood staring at him. Though his uniform was strange, his face was
only too familiar.
It was Arnaud Rigaux.
"M'sieur Rigaux! You!" she gasped. "_You--a German_!"
"Yes, Mademoiselle," he laughed. "I have been searching everywhere for
you. It is indeed fortunate that I am here in time. This, surely, is
no place for you."
"Searching for me?" she echoed. "How did you know I was here--in
Dinant? And, tell me--why are you, a Belgian--wearing the Prussian
uniform?"
Truly the meeting was a dramatic one.
He laughed lightly, replying hastily:
"My dear Aimee, I will explain all that later. Come. Get away with me,
while there is yet time." Then, whispering in her ear, he added: "These
men are mostly drunk. Quick! Come with me, and I will place you in
safety."
"But I cannot understand," the girl cried, still in hesitation. "Why
are you here--with the enemy, and in the enemy's uniform?"
"This is surely no time for questions or explanations," he urged. And,
turning to the soldiers, he gave an order to march the remaining women
out of the house. "Let me save you, Aimee," he added in French, turning
to her.
"How? How can you save me?" she inquired, instinctively mistrusting
him. The very fact that he was dressed as a German officer had aroused
grave suspicion in her mind.
"I have my car in waiting, away beyond the German lines. Come with me.
Don't hesitate. Trust yourself in my care, I beg of you, Mademoiselle."
"I want to get to my father," she said, still hesitating.
"He is in Brussels. I will take you to him--on one condition," and he
placed his hand upon her arm and looked earnestly into her pale,
agitated countenance.
"What condition?" she inquired, starting quickly at his touch. He made
conditions, even in that hour of direst peril! Dinant was aflame, and
hundreds of innocent people were now being murdered by the Kaiser's
Huns.
"The condition, Aimee," he said, looking straight into her eyes very
seriously, "is that you will become my wife."
"Your wife, M'sieur Rigaux--_never_!"
"You refuse?" he cried, a brutal note in his hard voice. "You refuse,
Mademoiselle," he added threateningly--"and so you prefer to remain
here, in the hands of the soldiery. They will have but little respect
for the daughter of the Baron de Neuville, I assure you."
She turned upon him fiercely, like a tigress, retorting:
"Those men, assassins as they have proved themselves to be, will have
just as much respect for me as you yourself have--you, a traitor who,
though a Belgian, are now wearing a Prussian uniform?"
The man laughed in her face, and she saw in his countenance a fierce,
fiendish, even terrible expression such as she had never seen there
before. Gradually it was beginning to dawn upon her that this man who
could move backwards and forwards through the opposing lines, dressed as
a German officer, must be a spy.
"Very well," he said. "If you so desire, I will leave you to your
fate--the wretched fate of those women who have just been driven out
from here. The enemy has set his hand heavily upon you at last," he
laughed. "And you Belgians may expect neither pity nor respect."
"Ah, then I know you?" she cried. "You are not Belgian--but German--
you, who have posed so long as my father's intimate friend--you, who
thought to mislead us--who schemed to bring the enemy into our midst.
Though you have uttered words of love to me, I see you now, exposed as a
spy--as an enemy--as one who should be tried and shot as a traitor?"
She did not spare her words in the mad frenzy of the moment.
"You speak harshly," he growled. "If you do not have a care, you shall
pay for this?"
"I will. I would rather die here now, than become the wife of a low,
cunning spy, who has posed as one of ourselves while he has been in
secret relation with the enemy all the time. I hate you, Arnaud
Rigaux--_I hate you_!" shrieked the girl. "Do your worst to me! The
worst cannot be worse than death--and even that I prefer, to further
association with one who wears the Prussian uniform, and who is leading
the enemy into our country. Your cultured friends have burned and
sacked Severac. Let them sack the whole of Belgium if they will, but
our men have still the spirit to defend themselves, just as I have
to-day. I defy you, clever, cunning spy that you are. Hear me?" she
cried, her white teeth set, her head low upon her shoulders, and her
hands clenched as she stood before him, half crouched as a hunted animal
ready to spring. "You men who make war upon women may try and crush us,
but you will never crush me. Go, and escape in your car if you will.
Pass through the Belgian lines back to Brussels. But, though only a
defenceless girl, I am safer even in the hands of this barbarian enemy
than in the hands of a traitor like you?"
"Very well, girl--choose your own fate," laughed the man roughly. "You
refuse to go with me--eh?"
"Yes," she said. "I refuse. I hate the sight of your treacherous face.
Already I have told my father so."
"Your father is no longer a person to be regarded," the man declared.
"He is already ruined financially. I have seen to that, never fear.
You are no longer the daughter of Baron de Neuville, but the daughter of
a man whom this war has brought to ruin and to bankruptcy. It should be
an honour to you, daughter of a ruined man, that I should offer you
marriage."
"I am engaged to marry Edmond Valentin," she replied.
"Bah! a mere soldier. If he is not already dead he soon will be.
Germany flicks away the Belgian army like so many grains of sawdust
before the wind."
"No. Edmond is honest and just. He will live," she cried. "And you,
the spy and traitor, will die an ignoble death!"
"Well," he laughed defiantly. "We shall see all about that,
Mademoiselle. We have been long preparing for this _coup_--for the
destruction of your snug little kingdom, and now we are here we shall
follow Bismarck's plan, and not leave your country even their eyes to
weep with. It will be swept from end to end--and swept still again and
again, until it is Belgian no longer, but German--part of the
world-empire of our great Kaiser."
The fellow did not further disguise that he was a German agent--he who
had posed as a patriotic Belgian, was there in Dinant, dressed in
Prussian uniform.
The trembling girl stood amazed. The ghastly truth was, to her, one
horrible, awful nightmare.
"Your great Kaiser, as you call him, does not intimidate me," she
replied boldly. "Go, Arnaud Rigaux, and leave me to my fate, whatever
you decide it to be. I will never accept the friendly offices of a man
who is a traitor and a spy."
Rigaux bit his lip. Those were the hardest words that had ever been
spoken to him. He had been on a mission into the German lines, and only
by pure chance had he recognised her with Valentin, standing in the
Place on the previous night.
His cunning brain was already working out a swift yet subtle revenge.
Aimee had attracted him, and he had marked her down as his victim by
fair means or by foul. But her defiance had now upset all his
calculations. To his surprise she preferred death itself, to the
renunciation of her vow to Edmond Valentin.
He hesitated. He held her in his relentless hands. That she knew.
Death was to be her fate, and she stood, with pale face, bold and
defiant--prepared to meet it.