Outside in the streets could be heard the sound of rifle-fire, while the
air was filled with the pungent odour of powder, and of burning wood.
The whole town had, by that time, become a veritable hell. Not far
along the street, indeed in sight of the Hotel of the Sword, forty or so
innocent men--honest workers at a neighbouring factory--had been drawn
up against a wall. The front row was ordered to kneel, with their hands
up, the others remaining standing behind them. A platoon of soldiers
suddenly drew up in face of these unhappy men, with their rifles ready.
In vain did the frantic women beg for mercy for their sons, husbands,
and brothers. But the officer, grinning, ordered his men to fire. Some
fell forward, dead, others were only slightly wounded. But the
soldiers, to make sure, fired three volleys into that heap of men in
their death throes. Such fell, hellish work had been ordered "as
examples" by the glittering War Lord--the man who declared that God was
his guide in his arrogant desire to rule the world. Those poor fellows
were, even while their bodies were still warm, thrown into a pit dug in
a neighbouring garden.
Further up the same street, a poor old paralytic was shot in his
invalid-chair, together with a bright little boy of twelve, and their
bodies were kicked aside into a doorway, while, at the same time, a man
of sixty-five, his wife, his son and his daughter, were set up against
the wall of their burning house and shot. And none of them had
committed any crime!
Here and there were loud explosions. The soldiers, who had pillaged the
cafes and drunk indiscriminately all they could find, were blowing open
the safes of merchants and shopkeepers with dynamite, and stealing all
they could discover. They were mere brigands.
The Faubourg de Leffe, near the broken viaduct of the railway, was
already in flames. Soldiers were using their inflammable confetti
provided them by the Fatherland, which they were sprinkling everywhere,
for the monster in command had given the order that Dinant, after being
sacked, and its people massacred, should be burnt.
As the slim, pale-faced girl stood facing her father's false friend, she
could hear the wild shrieks of the defenceless women outside--those poor
creatures dragged forth to witness the heartless murder of those dearest
to them.
"Well," Rigaux asked again, with an evil grin upon his face. "So you
are quite decided--eh?"
"I am quite decided, m'sieur, that you are my bitterest enemy," was her
hard, defiant answer. "I have been caught here, helpless. But I have
no hope, therefore I have no fear. To whatever fate you, as spy of the
accursed Kaiser of Germany, may condemn me, I am quite prepared."
For a few seconds he remained silent. Her coolness and bold defiance,
in face of that awful scene, absolutely staggered him. He never
credited her with such nerve.
"But will you not accept my offer, and escape with me?"
"No. I will not accept the assistance of one who has openly confessed
himself to be a traitor," she responded.
"But you cannot remain here--you will be killed--perhaps even meet with
a worse fate. You do not know what awful scenes are in progress in
Dinant at this moment," he said. "The soldiers are collecting up the
people, men, women, and children, and mowing them down with their
machine-guns. You cannot remain here while this awful work of
destruction, theft, and incendiarism is in progress!"
"And whose work, pray, is this? It is men such as you who are
responsible--men who have sold Belgium into her enemy's hands," she
cried bitterly, her big eyes glaring at him in her woman's undisguised
hatred.
"Merely the fortunes of war, Mademoiselle," he replied with a smile, as
he shrugged his shoulders, quite unperturbed by her violent
denunciation.
"Then go, and leave me to face this terrible fate to which I have been
consigned. Shoot me with that revolver I see you have in your belt,"
she cried wildly. "Shoot me, if you will. I am quite ready."
But he grinned horribly in her face--the grin of a man who intended a
demoniacal revenge.
She knew herself to be defenceless--utterly helpless in his hands. Men
and women of Dinant, known to her from childhood, lay stiffening in
death in that narrow street wherein hell had been let loose by the
orders of the arrogant War Lord--that pinchbeck Napoleon who dangled his
tin crosses before his troops to incite them to deeds of barbarism,
which were afterwards magnified and distorted into those of valour.
"No," the man laughed. "If you, as daughter of the Baron de Neuville,
still disregard my well-meant efforts to rescue you from this awful
abyss of dishonour and death, then I have no more to say. I can only
leave you to the same fate as that of the women of the town."
"No!" shrieked the girl. "Shoot me." And she stood before him ready to
fall beneath the bullet of his revolver. "Shoot me--have mercy upon me
and _shoot me_!"
She felt his hot, foetid breath once again upon her cheek; she heard the
report of the rifles outside, the loud, piercing shrieks of defenceless
women, the exultant shouts and laughter of the Germans, and the rapid
crackling of a machine-gun in the immediate vicinity.
She struggled violently to free herself, but he was the stronger. His
sensuous lips were upon hers, his big eyes looked fiercely into hers,
while her slim figure was held within his strong, desperate grasp. She
saw the evil, wicked look in his eyes.
"Let me go, you brute--you spy of Germany!" she shrieked in French.
"_Let me go, I say_!"
"No, no," he laughed in triumph. "You are mine--_mine_! I have brought
ruin upon your miserable little country, upon your father, upon your
fine chateau, and now, because you still defy me--I bring it upon you!"
"_Bien_! And what do you intend?" she asked.
"I intend to take you out yonder, into the street, and to hand you over
to the tender mercies of those most unpolite troops of Germany--the
Bavarians. There are three thousand in the town, and they are having a
really reckless time--I can assure you."
"You hell-scoundrel!" cried the poor girl in her frantic, almost insane
terror. "You--you who have sat at our table and eaten with us--you,
whom my father has trusted, and to whom my mother has sent presents at
Noel. Ah! I now see you unmasked, yet you--"
"Enough!" cried the fellow, springing upon her and putting his thick,
loose lips to hers. "A last kiss, and then you go to the late which
every Belgian woman goes to-day where our Kaiser and his troops are
victorious," and he kissed her though she still struggled fiercely to
evade his grasp.
Suddenly both started, for in the room sounded a loud deafening report.
Aimee started and drew back, breathless and shocked, for from that hated
face thrust into hers, before her, one eye disappeared. The hateful
face receded, the body reeled and suddenly falling backward, rolled over
the stone flags of the kitchen.
A bullet had entered the eye of Arnaud Rigaux, and, passing through his
brain, had taken away a portion of his skull, causing instant death.
That left eye, as he reeled and fell backwards, was blotted out, for it
was only a clot of blood.
"Aimee!" shouted a voice.
The girl, startled, turned to encounter a man in a grey uniform--a
German infantryman! He wore a small round grey cap, and in its front
the little circular cockade of blue and white--the mark of the Bavarian.
"_Aimee_!"
The girl stared into the face of her rescuer.
It was Edmond--Edmond--_her own dear Edmond_--and dressed as a Bavarian!
"The infernal spy!" he cried in a hard, rough voice. "I caught the
fellow just in time, my darling. For two years past I have known the
truth--that in addition to being our worst enemy--he has also been a
traitor to our King and country, and your father's false friend."
"But Edmond?" gasped the girl, staring at him like one in a dream. "Why
are you here--dressed as a German?"
"Hush!" he whispered. "If I am caught I shall be shot as a spy! I must
not talk, or I may betray myself. Come with me. We must get back at
once to the Belgian line."
"But--but how?" she gasped, for now the truth had dawned upon her--the
truth of the great risk her lover ran in penetrating to the invested
town.
"Come with me. Have no fear, my darling. If God wills that we die, we
will at least die together. Come," he whispered, "appear as though you
go with me unwillingly, or somebody may suspect us. Come along now," he
shouted, and taking her wrist roughly pretended to drag her forth into
the street, where dead men and women were lying about in the roadway,
and the houses only a few yards away were already ablaze.
He dragged her along that narrow street, so full of haunting horrors,
urging her beneath his breath to pretend a deadly hatred of him. They
passed crowds of drunken Germans. Some were smashing in windows with
the butt ends of their rifles, and pouring petrol into the rooms from
cans which others carried. Others were dragging along women and girls,
or forcing them to march before them at the points of bayonets, and
laughing immoderately at the terror such proceeding caused.
A swaggering young officer of the Seventieth Regiment of the Rhine
staggered past them with a champagne bottle in his hand. He addressed
some command to Edmond Valentin.
For a second Aimee's heart stood still. But Edmond, seeing that the
lieutenant was intoxicated, merely saluted and passed on, hurrying round
the corner into the square where, against the wall near the church, they
saw a line of bodies--the bodies of those innocent townspeople whom the
bloodthirsty horde had swept out of existence with their machine-guns.
On every side ugly stains of blood showed upon the stones. A dark red
stream trickled slowly into the gutters, so awful had been the massacre
an hour before.
As they crossed the square they witnessed a frightful scene. Some men
and women, who had hidden in a cellar, were driven out upon the pavement
ruthlessly, and shot down. The officer who gave the order, smoking a
cigarette and laughing the while.
Aimee stood for a second with closed eyes, not bearing to witness such a
fearful sight. Those shrill cries of despair from the terrified women
and children rang in her ears for a moment. Then the rifles crackled,
and there were no more cries--only a huddled heap of dead humanity.
Edmond dragged her forward. German soldiers whom they passed laughed
merrily at the conquest apparently made by one of their comrades.
And as they went by the ruined church, and out upon the road towards
Leffe, the scene of pillage and drunkenness that met their eyes, was
indeed revolting.
Though the Belgian Government has since issued an official report to the
Powers concerning the wild orgies of that awful day in Dinant, the
story, in all its true hideousness, will, perhaps, never be known.
Those seven hundred or so poor creatures who could testify to the
fiendish torture practised upon them: how some were mutilated, outraged,
bound, covered with straw and burned alive, and even buried alive, are
all in their graves, their lips, alas! sealed for ever.
Another officer, a major of the Seventeenth Uhlans, rode past, and
Edmond saluted. They were, indeed, treading dangerous ground.
If Edmond were discovered, both he and she would be shot as spies
against the nearest wall.
How she refrained from fainting she knew not. But she bore that
terrible ordeal bravely, her spirit sustained by her great, boundless
love for the man at her side.
The road they had taken led by the river-bank, and just as a body of
Uhlans had clattered past, raising a cloud of dust, they saw across the
hills at Bouvigne, a heliograph at work, signalling towards Namur.
Above them a Taube aeroplane was slowly circling.