THE LATE SIR W. BLINT
That two spies, a man and a woman, had penetrated the forest of Les
Errues was known in Berlin on the 13th. Within an hour the entire
machinery of the German Empire had been set in motion to entrap and
annihilate these two people.
The formula distributed to all operators in the Intelligence
Department throughout Hundom, and wherever Boche spies had filtered
into civilised lands, was this:
"Two enemy secret agents have succeeded in penetrating the forest of
Les Errues. One is a man, the other a woman.
"Both are Americans. The man is that civilian prisoner, Kay McKay,
who escaped from Holzminden, and of whom an exact description is
available.
"The woman is Evelyn Erith. Exact information concerning her is also
available.
"The situation is one of extremest delicacy and peril. Exposure of
the secret understanding with a certain neutral Power which permits
us certain temporary rights within an integral portion of its
territory would be disastrous, and would undoubtedly result in an
immediate invasion of this neutral (sic) country by the enemy as
well as by our own forces.
"This must not happen. Yet it is vitally imperative that these two
enemy agents should be discovered, seized, and destroyed.
"Their presence in the forest of Les Errues is the most serious
menace to the Fatherland that has yet confronted it.
"Upon the apprehension and destruction of these two spies depends
the safety of Germany and her allies.
"The war can not be won, a victorious German peace can not be
imposed upon our enemies, unless these two enemy agents are found
and their bodies absolutely destroyed upon the spot along with every
particle of personal property discovered upon their persons.
"More than that: the war will be lost, and with it the Fatherland,
unless these two spies are seized and destroyed.
"The Great Secret of Germany is in danger.
"To possess themselves of it--for already they suspect its
nature--and to expose it not only to the United States Government
but to the entire world, is the mission of these two enemy agents.
"If they succeed it would mean the end of the German Empire.
"If our understanding with a certain neutral Power be made public,
that also would spell disaster for Germany.
"The situation hangs by a hair, the fate of the world is suspended
above the forest of Les Errues."
On the 14th the process of infiltration began. But the Hun invasion
of Les Errues was not to be conducted in force, there must be no
commotion there, no stirring, no sound, only a silent, stealthy,
death-hunt in that shadowy forest--a methodical, patient, thorough
preparation to do murder; a swift, noiseless execution.
Also, on the 14th, the northern sky beyond the Swiss wire swarmed
with Hun airplanes patrolling the border.
Not that the Great Secret could be discovered from the air; that
danger had been foreseen fifty years ago, and half a century's
camouflage screened the results of steady, calculating relentless
diligence.
But French or British planes might learn of the presence of these
enemy agents in the dark forest of Les Errues, and might hang like
hawks above it exchanging signals with them.
Therefore the northern sky swarmed with Boche aircraft--cautiously
patrolling beyond the Swiss border, and only prepared to risk its
violation if Allied planes first set them an example.
But for a week nothing moved in the heavens above Les Errues except
an eagle. And that appeared every day, sheering the blue void above
the forest, hovering majestically in circles hour after hour and
then, at last, toward sundown, setting its sublime course westward,
straight into the blinding disk of the declining sun.
The Hun airmen patrolling the border noticed the eagle. After a
while, as no Allied plane appeared, time lagged with the Boche, and
he came to look for this lone eagle which arrived always at the same
hour in the sky above Les Errues, soared there hour after hour, then
departed, flapping slowly westward until lost in the flames of
sunset.
"As though," remarked one Boche pilot, "the bird were a phoenix
which at the close of every day renews its life from its own ashes
in the flames."
Another airman said: "It is not a Lammergeier, is it?"
"It is a Stein-Adler," said a third.
But after a silence a fourth airman spoke, seated before the hangar
and studying a wild flower, the petals of which he had been
examining with the peculiar interest of a nature-student:
"For ten days I have had nothing more important to watch than that
eagle which appears regularly every day above the forest of Les
Errues. And I have concluded that the bird is neither a Lammergeier
nor a Stein-Adler."
"Surely," said one young Hun, "it is a German eagle."
"It must be," laughed another, "because it is so methodical and
exact. Those are German traits."
The nature-student contemplated the wild blossom which he was now
idly twirling between his fingers by its stem.
"It perplexes me," he mused aloud.
The others looked at him; one said: "What perplexes you, Von
Dresslin?"
"That bird."
"The eagle?"
"The eagle which comes every day to circle above Les Errues. I, an
amateur of ornithology am, perhaps, with all modesty, permitted to
call myself?"
"Certainly," said several airmen at once.
Another added: "We all know you to be a naturalist."
"Pardon--a student only, gentlemen. Which is why, perhaps, I am both
interested and perplexed by this eagle we see every day."
"It is a rare species?"
"It is not a familiar one to the Alps."
"This bird, then, is not a German eagle in your opinion, Von
Dresslin?"
"What is it? Asiatic? African? Chinese?" asked another.
Von Dresslin's eyebrows became knitted.
"That eagle which we all see every day in the sky above Les Errues,"
he said slowly, "has a snow-white crest and tail."
Several airmen nodded; one said: "I have noticed that, too, watching
the bird through my binoculars."
"I know," continued Von Dresslin slowly, "of only one species of
eagle which resembles the bird we all see every day... It inhabits
North America," he added thoughtfully.
There was a silence, then a very young airman inquired whether Von
Dresslin knew of any authentic reports of an American eagle being
seen in Europe.
"Authentic? That is somewhat difficult to answer," replied Von
Dresslin, with the true caution of a real naturalist. "But I venture
to tell you that, once before--nearly a year ago now--I saw an eagle
in this same region which had a white crest and tail and was
otherwise a shining bronze in colour."
"Where did you see such a bird?"
"High in the air over Mount Terrible." A deep and significant
silence fell over the little company. If Count von Dresslin had seen
such an eagle over the Swiss peak called Mount Terrible, and had
been near enough to notice the bird's colour, every man there knew
what had been the occasion.
For only once had that particular region of Switzerland been
violated by their aircraft during the war. It had happened a year
ago when Von Dresslin, patrolling the north Swiss border, had
discovered a British flyer planing low over Swiss territory in the
air-region between Mount Terrible and the forest of Les Errues.
Instantly the Hun, too, crossed the line: and the air-battle was
joined above the forest.
Higher, higher, ever higher mounted the two fighting planes until
the earth had fallen away two miles below them.
Then, out of the icy void of the upper air-space, now roaring with
their engines' clamour, the British plane shot earthward, down,
down, rushing to destruction like a shooting-star, and crashed in
the forest of Les Errues.
And where it had been, there in mid-air, hung an eagle with a crest
as white as the snow on the shining peaks below.
"He seemed suddenly to be there instead of the British plane," said
Von Dresslin. "I saw him distinctly--might have shot him with my
pistol as he sheered by me, his yellow eyes aflame, balanced on
broad wings. So near he swept that his bright fierce eyes flashed
level with mine, and for an instant I thought he meant to attack me.
"But he swept past in a single magnificent curve, screaming, then
banked swiftly and plunged straight downward in the very path of the
British plane."
Nobody spoke. Von Dresslin twirled his flower and looked at it in an
absent-minded way.
"From that glimpse, a year ago, I believe I had seen a species of
eagle the proper habitat of which is North America," he said.
An airman remarked grimly: "The Yankees are migrating to Europe.
Perhaps their eagles are coming too."
"To pick our bones," added another.
And another man said laughingly to Von Dresslin:
"Fritz, did you see in that downfall of the British enemy, and the
dramatic appearance of a Yankee eagle in his place, anything
significant?"
"By gad," cried another airman, "we had John Bull by his fat throat,
and were choking him to death. And now--the Americans!"
"If I dared cross the border and shoot that Yankee eagle to-morrow,"
began another airman; but they all knew it wouldn't do.
One said: "Do you suppose, Von Dresslin, that the bird we see is the
one you saw a year ago?"
"It is possible."
"An American white-headed eagle?"
"I feel quite sure of it."
"Their national bird," said the same airman who had expressed a
desire to shoot it.
"How could an American eagle get here?" inquired another man.
"By way of Asia, probably."
"By gad! A long flight!"
Dresslin nodded: "An omen, perhaps, that we may also have to face
the Yankee on our Eastern front."
"The swine!" growled several.
Von Dresslin assented absently to the epithet. But his thoughts were
busy elsewhere, his mind preoccupied by a theory which, Hunlike, he,
for the last ten days, had been slowly, doggedly, methodically
developing.
It was this: Assuming that the bird really was an American eagle,
the problem presented itself very clearly--from where had it come?
This answered itself; it came from America, its habitat.
Which answer, of course, suggested a second problem; HOW did it
arrive?
Several theories presented themselves:
1st. The eagle might have reached Asia from Alaska and so made its
way westward as far as the Alps of Switzerland.
2nd. It may have escaped from some public European zoological
collection.
3rd. It may have been owned privately and, on account of the
scarcity of food in Europe, liberated by its owner.
4th. It MIGHT have been owned by the Englishman whose plane Von
Dresslin had destroyed.
And now Von Dresslin was patiently, diligently developing this
theory:
If it had been owned by the unknown Englishman whose plane had
crashed a year ago in Les Errues forest, then the bird was
undoubtedly his mascot, carried with him in his flights, doubtless a
tame eagle.
Probably when the plane fell the bird took wing, which accounted for
its sudden appearance in mid-air.
Probably, also, it had been taught to follow its master; and,
indeed, had followed in one superb plunge earthward in the wake of a
dead man in a stricken plane.
But--WAS this the same bird?
For argument, suppose it was. Then why did it still hang over Les
Errues? Affection for a dead master? Only a dog could possibly show
such devotion, such constancy. And besides, birds are incapable of
affection. They only know where to go for kind treatment and
security. And tamed birds, even those species domesticated for
centuries, know only one impulse that draws them toward any human
protector--the desire for food.
Could this eagle remember for a whole year that the man who lay dead
somewhere in the dusky wilderness of Les Errues had once been kind
to him and had fed him? And was that why the great bird still
haunted the air-heights above the forest? Possibly.
Or was it not more logical to believe that here, suddenly cast upon
its own resources, and compelled to employ instincts hitherto
uncultivated or forgotten, to satisfy its hunger, this solitary
American eagle had found the hunting good? Probably. And, knowing no
other region, had remained there, and for the first time, or at
least after a long interval of captivity and dependence on man, it
had discovered what liberty was and with liberty the necessity to
struggle for existence.
An airman, watching Dresslin's thoughtful features, said:
"You never found out who that Englishman was, did you?
"No."
"Did our agents search Les Errues?"
"I suppose so. But I have never heard anything further about that
affair," he shrugged; "and I don't believe we ever will until after
the war, and until--"
"Until Switzerland belongs to us," said an airman with a light
laugh.
Others, listening, looked at one another significantly, smiling the
patient, confident and brooding smile of the Hun.
Knaus unwittingly wrote his character and his epitaph:
"Ich kann warten."
The forest of Les Errues was deathly still. Hunters and hunted both
were as silent as the wild things that belonged there in those dim
woods--as cautious, as stealthy.
A dim greenish twilight veiled their movements, the damp carpet of
moss dulled sounds.
Yet the hunted knew that they were hunted, realised that pursuit and
search were inevitable; and the hunters, no doubt, guessed that
their quarry was alert.
Now on the tenth day since their entrance into Les Errues those two
Americans who were being hunted came to a little wooded valley
through which a swift stream dashed amid rock and fern, flinging
spray over every green leaf that bordered it, filling its clear
pools with necklaces of floating bubbles.
McKay slipped his pack from his shoulders and set it against a tree.
One of the two carrier pigeons in their cage woke up and ruffled.
Looking closely at the other he discovered it was dead. His heart
sank, but he laid the stiff, dead bird behind a tree and said
nothing to his companion.
Evelyn Erith now let go of her own pack and, flinging herself on the
moss, set her lips to the surface of a brimming pool.
"Careful of this Alpine water!" McKay warned her. But the girl
satisfied her thirst before she rose to her knees and looked around
at him.
"Are you tired, Yellow-hair?" he asked.
"Yes.... Are you, Kay?"
He shook his head and cast a glance around him.
It was beautiful, this little woodland vale with its stream dashing
through and its slopes forested with beech and birch--splendid great
trees with foliage golden green in the sun.
But it was not the beauty of the scene that preoccupied these two.
Always, when ready to halt, their choice of any resting-place
depended upon several things more important than beauty.
For one matter the place must afford concealment, and also a water
supply. Moreover it must be situated so as to be capable of defence.
Also there must be an egress offering a secure line of retreat.
So McKay began to roam about the place, prowling along the slopes
and following the stream. Apparently the topography satisfied him;
for after a little while he came back to where Miss Erith was lying
on the moss, one arm resting across her eyes.
"You ARE tired," he said.
She removed her arm and looked up at him out of those wonderful
golden eyes.
"Is it all right for us to remain here, Kay?"
"Yes. You can see for yourself. Anybody coming into this valley must
be visible on that ridge to the south. And there's an exit. This
brook dashes through it--two vast granite gates that will let us
through into the outer forest, where they might as well hunt for two
pins as for us."
The girl smiled; her eyes closed. "I'm glad we can rest," she
murmured. So McKay went about his duties.
First he removed his pack and hers a hundred yards down stream,
through the granite gateway, and placed them just beyond.
Then he came back for Miss Erith. Scarcely awakened as he lifted
her, she placed one arm around his neck with the sleepy
unconsciousness of a tired child. They had long been on such terms;
there was no escaping them in the intimacy of their common isolation
and common danger.
He laid her on the moss, well screened by the granite barrier, and
beyond range of the brook's rainbow spray. She was already asleep
again.
He took off both her shoes, unwound the spiral puttees and gave her
bruised little feet a chance to breathe.
He made camp, tested the wind and found it safe to build a fire, set
water to simmer, and unpacked the tinned rations. Then he made the
two beds side by side, laying down blankets and smoothing away the
twigs underneath.
The surviving carrier pigeon was hungry. He fed it, lifted it still
banded from its place, cleaned the cage and set it to dry in a patch
of sunshine.
The four automatic pistols he loaded and laid on a shelf in the
granite barricade; set ammunition and flashlight beside them.
Then he went to his pack and got his papers and material, and
unrolled the map upon which he had been at work since he and Evelyn
Erith had entered the enemy's zone of operations.
From time to time as he worked, drawing or making notes, he glanced
at the sleeping girl beside him.
Never but once had the word "love" been mentioned between these two.
For a long while, now--almost from the very beginning--he had known
that he was in love with this girl; but, after that one day in the
garden, he also knew that there was scarcely the remotest chance
that he should live to tell her so again, or that she could survive
to hear him.
For when they had entered the enemy's zone below Mount Terrible they
both realised that there was almost no chance of their returning.
He had lighted his pipe; and now he sat working away at his
drawings, making a map of his route as best he could without
instruments, and noting with rapid pencil all matters of interest
for those upon whose orders he and this girl beside him had
penetrated the forbidden forest of Les Errues. This for the slim
chance of getting back alive. But he had long believed that, if his
pigeons failed him at the crisis, no report would ever be delivered
to those who sent him here, either concerning his discoveries or his
fate and the fate of the girl who lay asleep beside him.
An hour later she awoke. He was still bent over his map, and she
presently extended one arm and let her hand rest on his knee.
"Do you feel better, Yellow-hair?"
"Yes. Thank you for removing my shoes."
"I suppose you are hungry," he remarked.
"Yes. Are you?"
He smiled: "As usual. I wish to heaven I could run across a
roebuck." They both craved something to satisfy the hunger made keen
by the Alpine air, and which no concentrated rations could satisfy.
McKay seldom ventured to kill any game--merely an auerhahn, a hare
or two, a red squirrel--and sometimes he had caught trout in the
mountain brooks with his bare hands--the method called "tickling"
and only too familiar to Old-World poachers.
"Roebuck," she repeated trying not to speak wistfully.
He nodded: "One crossed the stream below. I saw the tracks in the
moss, which was still stirring where the foot had pressed."
"Dare you risk a shot in Les Errues, Kay?"
"I don't think I'd hesitate."
After a silence: "Why don't you rest? You must be dead tired," she
said. And he felt a slight pressure of her fingers drawing him.
So he laid aside his work, dropped upon his blanket, and turned on
his left side, looking at her.
"You have not yet seen any sign of the place from which you once
looked out across the frontier and saw thousands and thousands of
people as busy as a swarm of ants--have you, Kay?"
"I remember this stream and these woods. I can't seem to recollect
how far or in which direction I turned after passing this granite
gorge."
"Did you go far?"
"I can't recollect," he said. "I'd give my right arm if I could."
His worn and anxious visage touched her.
"Don't fret, Kay, dear," she said soothingly. "We'll find it. We'll
find out what the Hun is doing. We'll discover what this Great
Secret really is. And our pigeons shall tell it to the world."
And, as always, she smiled cheerfully, confidently. He had never
heard her whine, had never seen her falter save from sheer physical
weariness.
"We'll win through, Yellow-hair," he said, looking steadily into her
clear brown-gold eyes.
"Of course. You are so wonderful, Kay."
"That is the most wonderful thing in the world, Evelyn--to hear you
tell me such a thing!"
"Don't you know I think so?"
"I can't believe it--after what you know of me--"
"Kay!"
"I'm sorry--but a scar is a scar--"
"There is no scar! Do you hear me! No scar, no stain! Don't you
suppose a woman can judge? And I have my own opinion of you,
Kay--and it is a perfectly good opinion and suits me."
She smiled, closed her eyes as though closing the discussion, opened
them and smiled again at him.
And now, as always, he wondered how this fair young girl could find
courage to smile in the very presence of the most dreadful death any
living woman could suffer--death from the Hun.
He lay looking at her and she at him, for a while.
In the silence, a dry stick snapped and McKay was on his feet as
though it had been the crack of a pistol.
Presently he stooped, and she lifted her pretty head and rested one
ear close to his lips:
"It's that roebuck, I think, down stream." Then something happened;
her ear touched his mouth--or his lips, forming some word, came into
contact with her--so that it was as though he had kissed her and she
had responded.
Both recoiled; her face was bright with mounting colour and he
seemed scared. Yet both knew it was not a caress; but she feared he
thought she had invited one, and he feared she believed he had
offered one.
He went about his affair with the theoretical roebuck in silence,
picking up one of his pistols, loosening his knife in its sheath;
then, without the usual smile or gesture for her, he started off
noiselessly over the moss.
And the girl, supporting herself on one arm, her fingers buried in
the moss, looked after him while her flushed face cooled.
McKay moved down stream with pistol lifted, scanning the hard-wood
ridges on either hand. For even the reddest of roe deer, in the
woods, seem to be amazingly invisible unless they move.
The stream dashed through shadow and sun-spot, splashing a sparkling
way straight into the wilderness of Les Errues; and along its
fern-fringed banks strode McKay with swift, light steps. His eyes,
now sharpened by the fight for life--which life had begun to be
revealed to him in all its protean aspects, searched the dappled,
demi-light ahead, fiercely seeking to pierce any disguise that
protective colouration might afford his quarry.
Silver, russet, green and gold, and with the myriad fulvous nuances
that the forest undertones lend to its ensembles, these were the
patterned tints that met his eye on every side in the subdued
gradations of woodland light.
But nothing out of key, nothing either in tone, colour, or shape,
betrayed the discreet and searched for discord in the vague and
lovely harmony;--no spiked head tossed in sudden fright; no
chestnut flank turned too redly in the dim ensemble, no delicate
feet in motion disturbed the solemn immobility of tree-trunk and
rock. Only the fern fronds quivered where spray rained across them;
and the only sounds that stirred were the crystalline clash of icy
rapids and the high whisper of the leaves in Les Errues.
And, as he stood motionless, every sense and instinct on edge, his
eyes encountered something out of key with this lovely, sombre
masterpiece of God. Instantly a still shock responded to the
mechanical signal sent to his eyes; the engine of the brain was
racing; he stood as immobile as a tree.
Yes, there on the left something was amiss,--something indistinct
in the dusk of heavy foliage--something, the shape of which was not
in harmony with the suave design about him woven of its Creator.
After a long while he walked slowly toward it.
There was much more of it than he had seen. Its consequences, too,
were visible above him where broken branches hung still tufted with
bronze leaves which no new buds would ever push from their dead
clasp of the sapless stems. And all around him yearling seedlings
had pushed up through the charred wreckage. Even where fire had
tried to obtain a foothold, and had been withstood by barriers of
green and living sap, in burnt spaces where bits of twisted metal
lay, tender shoots had pushed out in that eternal promise of
resurrection which becomes a fable only upon a printed page.
McKay's business was with the dead. The weather-faded husk lay there
amid dry leaves promising some day to harmonise with the scheme of
things.
Mice had cleaned the bony cage under the uniform of a British
aviator. Mice gnaw the shed antlers of deer. And other bones.
The pockets were full of papers. McKay read some of them. Afterward
he took from the bones of the hand two rings, a wrist-watch, a
whistle which still hung by a short chain and a round object
attached to a metal ring like a sleigh-bell.
There was a hollow just beyond, made once in time of flood by some
ancient mountain torrent long dry, and no longer to be feared.
The human wreckage barely held together, but it was light; and McKay
covered it with a foot of deep green moss, and made a cairn above it
out of glacial stones from the watercourse. And on the huge beech
that tented it he cut a cross with his trench-knife, making the
incision deep, so that it glimmered like ivory against the silvery
bark of the great tree. Under this sacred symbol he carved:
"SIR W. BLINT, BART."
Below this he cut a deep, white oblong in the bark, and with a coal
from the burned airplane he wrote:
"THIS IS THE BEGINNING, NOT THE END. THIS ENGLISHMAN STILL CARRIES
ON!"
He stood at salute for a full minute. Then turned, dropped to his
knees, and began another thorough search among the debris and dead
leaves.
"Hello, Yellow-hair!"
She had been watching his approach from where she was seated
balanced on the stream's edge, with both legs in the water to the
knees.
He came up and dropped down beside her on the moss.
"A dead airman in Les Errues," he said quietly, "a Britisher. I put
away what remained of him. The Huns may dig him up: some animals do
such things."
"Where did you find him, Kay?" she asked quietly.
"A quarter of a mile down-stream. He lay on the west slope. He had
fallen clear, but there was not much left of his machine."
"How long has he lain there in this forest?"
"A year--to judge. Also the last entry in his diary bears this out.
They got him through the head, and his belt gave way or was not
fastened.--Anyway he came down stone dead and quite clear of his
machine. His name was Blint--Sir W. Blint, Bart.... Lie back on the
moss and let your bruised feet hang in the pool.... Here--this
way--rest that yellow head of yours against my knees. ... Are you
snug?"
"Yes."
"Hold out your hands. These were his trinkets."
The girl cupped her hands to receive the rings, watch, the gold
whistle in its little gem-set chains, and the sleigh-bell on its
bracelet.
She examined them one by one in silence while McKay ran through the
pages of the notebook--discoloured pages all warped and stained in
their leather binding but written in pencil with print-like
distinction.
"Sir W. Blint," murmured McKay, still busy with the notebook. "Can't
find what W. stood for."
"That's all there is--just his name and military rank as an aviator:
I left the disk where it hung."
The girl placed the trinkets on the moss beside her and looked up
into McKay's face.
Both knew they were thinking of the same thing. They wore no disks.
Would anybody do for them what McKay had done for the late Sir W.
Blint?
McKay bent a little closer over her and looked down into her face.
That any living creature should touch this woman in death seemed to
him almost more terrible than her dying. It was terror of that which
sometimes haunted him; no other form of fear.
What she read in his eyes is not clear--was not quite clear to her,
perhaps. She said under her breath:
"You must not fear for me, Kay.... Nothing can really touch me now."
He did not understand what she meant by this immunity--gathering
some vague idea that she had spoken in the spiritual sense. And he
was only partly right. For when a girl is beginning to give her soul
to a man, the process is not wholly spiritual.
As he looked down at her in silence he saw her gaze shift and her
eyes fix themselves on something above the tree-tops overhead.
"There's that eagle again," she said, "wheeling up there in the
blue."
He looked up; then he turned his sun-dazzled eyes on the pages of
the little notebook which he held open in both hands.
"It's amusing reading," he said. "The late Sir W. Blint seems to
have been something of a naturalist. Wherever he was stationed the
lives of the birds, animals, insects and plants interested him. ...
Everywhere one comes across his pencilled queries and comments
concerning such things; here he discovers a moth unfamiliar to him,
there a bird he does not recognise. He was a quaint chap--"
McKay's voice ceased but his eyes still followed the pencilled lines
of the late Sir W. Blint. And Evelyn Erith, resting her yellow head
against his knees, looked up at him.
"For example," resumed McKay, and read aloud from the diary:
"Five days' leave. Blighty. All top hole at home. Walked with
Constance in the park.
Pair of thrushes in the spinney. Rookery full. Usual butterflies in
unusual numbers. Toward twilight several sphinx moths visited the
privet. No net at hand so did not identify any. Pheasants in bad
shape. Nobody to keep them down. Must arrange drives while I'm away.
Late at night a barn owl in the chapel belfrey. Saw him and heard
him. Constance nervous; omens and that sort, I fancy; but no funk.
Rotten deal for her."
"Who was Constance?" asked Miss Erith.
"Evidently his wife.... I wish we could get those trinkets to her."
His glance shifted back to the pencilled page and presently he read
on, aloud:
France again. Headquarters. Same rumour that Fritz has something up
his sleeve. Conference. Letter from Constance. Wrote her also.
10th inst.:
Conference. Interesting theory even if slightly incredible. Wrote
Constance.
12th inst.:
Another conference. Sir D. Haig. Back to hangar. A nightingale
singing, clear and untroubled above the unceasing thunder of the
cannonade. Very pretty moth, incognito, came and sat on my sleeve.
One of the Noctuidae, I fancy, but don't know generic or specific
names. About eleven o'clock Sir D. Haig. Unexpected honour. Sir D.
serene and cheerful. Showed him about. He was much amused at my
eagle. Explained how I had found him as an eaglet some twenty years
ago in America and how he sticks to me like a tame jackdaw.
Told Sir D. that I had been taking him in my air flights everywhere
and that he adored it, sitting quite solemnly out of harm's way and,
if taking to the air for a bit of exercise, always keeping my plane
in view and following it to earth.
Showed Sir D. H. all Manitou's tricks. The old chap did me proud.
This was the programme:
I.--'Will you cheer for king and country, Manitou?'
Manitou (yelping)--'Houp--gloup--houp!'
I.--'Suppose you were a Hun eagle, Manitou--just a vulgar Boche
buzzard?'
Manitou (hanging his head)--'Houp--gloup--houp!'
I.-'But you're not! You're a Yankee eagle! Now give three cheers for
Uncle Sam!'
Manitou (head erect)--'Houp--gloup--houp!'
Sir D. convulsed. Ordered a trench-rat for Manitou as usual. While
he was discussing it I told Sir D. H. how I could always send
Manitou home merely by attaching to his ankle a big whistling-bell
of silver.
Explained that Manitou hated it and that I had taught him to fly
home when I attached it by arranging that nobody except my wife
should ever relieve him of the bell.
It took about two years to teach him where to go for relief.
Sir D, much amused--reluctant to leave. Wrote to Connie later. Bed.
13th inst.:
Summoned by Sir D. H. Conference. Most interesting. Packed up. Of at
5 P. M., taking my eagle, Manitou. Wrote Constance.
14th inst.:
Paris. Yankees everywhere. Very ft. Have noticed no brag so far.
Wrote Constance.
20th inst.:
Paris. Yanks, Yanks, Yanks. And 'thanks' rimes. I said so to one of
'em. 'No,' said he, 'Tanks' is the proper rime--British Tanks!' Neat
and modest. Wrote Connie.
21st inst.:
Manitou and I are off. Most interesting quest I ever engaged in.
Wrote to my wife.
Delle. Manitou and I both very fit. Machine in waiting. Took the air
for a look about. Manitou left me a mile up. Evidently likes the
Alps. Soared over Mount Terrible whither I dared not venture--yet!
Saw no Huns. Back by sundown. Manitou dropped in to dinner--like a
thunderbolt from the zenith. Astonishment of Blue Devils on guard.
Much curiosity. Manitou a hero. All see in him an omen of American
victory. Wrote Connie.
30th inst.:
Shall try 'it' very soon now.
If it's true--God help the Swiss! If not--profound apologies I
suppose. Anyway its got to be cleared up. Manitou enamoured of
mountains. Poor devil, it's in his blood I suppose. Takes the air,
now, quite independent of me, but I fancy he gets uneasy if I delay,
for he comes and circles over the hangar until my machine takes the
air. And if it doesn't he comes down to find out why, mad and
yelping at me like an irritated goblin.
I saw an Alpine butterfly to-day--one of those Parnassians all white
with wings veined a greenish black. Couldn't catch him. Wrote to
Connie. Bed.
31st inst.:
In an hour. All ready. It's hard to believe that the Hun has so
terrorised the Swiss Government as to force it into such an
outrageous concession. Nous verrons.
A perfect day. Everything arranged. Calm and confident. Think much
of Constance but no nerves. Early this morning Manitou, who had been
persistently hulking at my heels and squealing invitations to take
wing with him, became impatient and went up.
I saw him in time and whistled him down; and I told the old chap
very plainly that he could come up with me when I was ready or not
at all.
He understood and sat on the table sulking, and cocking his silver
head at me while I talked to him. That's one thing about Manitou.
Except for a wild Canada goose I never before saw a bird who seemed
to have the slightest trace of brain. I know, of course, it's not
affection that causes him to trail me, answer his whistle, and obey
when he doesn't wish to obey. It's training and habit. But I like to
pretend that the old chap is a little fond of me.
I'm of in a few minutes. Manitou is aboard. Glorious visibility. Now
for Fritz and his occult designs--if there are any.
A little note to Connie--I scarcely know why. Not a nerve. Most
happy. Noticed a small butterfly quite unfamiliar to me. No time now
to investigate.
Engines! Manitou yelling with excitement. Symptoms of taking wing,
but whistle checks insubordination.... All ready. Wish Connie were
here.
McKay closed the little book, strapped and buckled the cover.
"Exit Sir W. Blint," he said, not flippantly. "I think I should like
to have known that man."
The girl, lying there with the golden water swirling around her
knees and her golden head on the moss, looked up through the foliage
in silence.
The eagle was soaring lower over the forest now. After a little
while she reached out and let her fingers touch McKay's hand where
it rested on the moss:
"Kay?"
"Yes, Yellow-hair."
"It isn't possible, of course.... But are there any eagles in Europe
that have white heads and tails?"
"No."
"I know.... I wish you'd look up at that eagle. He is not very
high."
McKay lifted his head. After a moment he rose to his feet, still
looking intently skyward. The eagle was sailing very low now.
"THAT'S AN AMERICAN EAGLE!"
The words shot out of McKay's lips. The girl sat upright,
electrified.
And now the sun struck full across the great bird as he sheered the
tree-tops above. HEAD AND TAIL WERE A DAZZLING WHITE.
"Could--could it be that dead man's eagle?" said the girl. "Oh,
could it be Manitou? COULD it, Kay?"
McKay looked at her, and his eye fell on the gold whistle hanging
from her wrist on its jewelled chain.
"If it is," he said, "he might notice that whistle. Try it!"
She nodded excitedly, set the whistle to her lips and blew a clear,
silvery, penetrating blast upward.
"Kay! Look!" she gasped.
For the response had been instant. Down through the tree-tops
sheered the huge bird, the air shrilling through his pinions, and
struck the solid ground and set his yellow claws in it, grasping the
soil of the Old World with mighty talons. Then he turned his superb
head and looked fearlessly upon his two compatriots.
"Manitou! Manitou!" whispered the girl. And crept toward him on her
knees, nearer, nearer, until her slim outstretched hand rested on
his silver crest.
"Good God!" said McKay in the low tones of reverence.
McKay had drawn a duplicate of his route-map on thin glazed paper.
Evelyn Erith had finished a duplicate copy of his notes and reports.
Of these and the trinkets of the late Sir W. Blint they made two
flat packets, leaving one of them unsealed to receive the brief
letter which McKay had begun:
"Dear Lady Blint--
It is not necessary to ask the wife of Sir W. Blint to have courage.
He died as he had lived--a fine and fearless British sportsman.
His death was painless. He lies in the forest of Les Errues. I
enclose a map for you.
I and my comrade, Evelyn Erith, dare believe that his eagle,
Manitou, has not forgotten the air-path to England and to you. With
God's guidance he will carry this letter to you. And with it certain
objects belonging to your husband. And also certain papers which I
beg you will have safely delivered to the American Ambassador.
If, madam, we come out of this business alive, my comrade and I will
do ourselves the honour of waiting on you if, as we suppose, you
would care to hear from us how we discovered the body of the late
Sir W. Blint.
Madam, accept homage and deep respect from two Americans who are,
before long, rather likely to join your gallant husband in the great
adventure."
"Yellow-hair?"
She came, signed the letter. Then McKay signed it, and it was
enclosed in one of the packets.
Then McKay took the dead carrier pigeon from the cage and tossed it
on the moss. And Manitou planted his terrible talons on the inert
mass of feathers and tore it to shreds.
Evelyn attached the anklet and whistling bell; then she unwound a
yard of surgeon's plaster, and kneeling, spread the eagle's enormous
pinions, hold-ing them horizontal while McKay placed the two
packets and bound them in place under the out-stretched wings.
The big bird had bolted the pigeon. At first he submitted with sulky
grace, not liking what was happening, but offering no violence.
And even now, as they backed away from him, he stood in dignified
submission, patiently striving to adjust his closed wings to these
annoying though light burdens which seemed to have no place among
his bronze feathers.
Presently, irritated, the bird partially unclosed one wing as though
to probe with his beak for the seat of his discomfort. At the same
time he moved his foot, and the bell rattled on his anklet.
Instantly his aspect changed; stooping he inspected the bell, struck
it lightly with his beak as though in recognition.
WAS it the hated whistling bell? Again the curved beak touched it.
And recognition was complete.
Mad all through, disgust, indecision, gave rapid place to nervous
alarm. Every quill rose in wrath; the snowy crest stood upright; the
yellow eyes flashed fire.
Then, suddenly, the eagle sprang into the air, yelping fierce
protest against such treatment: the shrilling of the bell swept like
a thin gale through the forest, keener, louder, as the enraged bird
climbed the air, mounting, mounting into the dazzling blue above
until the motionless watchers in the woods below saw him wheel.
Which way would he turn? 'Round and round swept the eagle in wider
and more splendid circles; in tensest suspense the two below watched
motionless.
Then the tension broke; and a dry sob escaped the girl.
For the eagle had set his lofty course at last. Westward he bore
through pathless voids uncharted save by God alone--who has set His
signs to mark those high blue lanes, lest the birds--His lesser
children--should lose their way betwixt earth and moon.