"I don't care! It's the truth!" She rose, bent over the banister to

look down at him, discovered that he was not annoyed, smiled adorably.

"Good night! I shall sleep happily!" she whispered, gathering her

boudoir robe around her.

At the top of the stairs she turned, leaned over, kissed the palm of one

slim hand to him, and disappeared with a subdued and faintly mischievous

laugh, leaving in his eyes of an artist a piquant, fleeting, and

charming picture.

But upon his mind the impression she left began to develop more

slowly--the impression of a young girl--"clean as a flame," as he had

once said of her--a lovely and delicate personality absolutely in

keeping with the silken boudoir gown she wore--in keeping with the

carven and stately beauty of her environment in this ancient house.

Philippa not only fitted into the very atmosphere of such a place; it

seemed as though she must have been born in it, so perfectly was she a

harmonious part of it, so naturally and without emphasis.

Centuries had cooerdinated, reconciled, and made a mellow ensemble of

everything within this house--the walls, the wainscot, mantels, lusters,

pictures and frames, furniture and dimmed upholstery.

In the golden demi-light of these halls Philippa moved as though she had

known no other--and in the sunlight of music room or terrace she

belonged as unquestioned as the sunlight itself; and in lamplit spaces

where soft shadows framed her, there also she belonged as certainly as

the high, dim portraits of great ladies and brave gentlemen peering down

at her through their delicate veils of dust.

Thinking of these things beside the open window of his bedroom, he

looked out into the south and east and saw in the sky the silvery

pencilings of searchlights on the Barrier Forts, shifting, sweeping in

wide arcs, or tremblingly concentrated upon the clouds.

There was no sound in the fragrant darkness, not a breath of air, not a

leaf stirring.

His inclination was not to sleep, but to think about Philippa; and he

sat there, a burned-out cigarette between his fingers, his eyes fixed so

persistently on the darkness that after a while he became conscious of

what his concentration was delicately evoking there--her face, and the

grey eyes of her, shadowy, tender, clear as a child's.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

Warner awoke with a start; somebody was knocking on his door. As he sat

up in bed, the solid thudding of the cannonade filled the room--still

very far away, but deeper and with a heavier undertone which set the

windows slightly vibrating.

The knocking on his door sounded again insistently.

"All right!" he called, throwing on a bathrobe and finding his slippers.

The rising sun had not yet freed itself from the mist that lay over hill

and plain; wide, rosy beams spread to the zenith and a faint glow tinged

the morning fog, but the foreground of woods and fields was still dusky

and vague, and his room full of shadows.

He tied the belt of his robe and opened the door. In the semi-obscurity

of the corridor stood Philippa, hair disordered, wrapped in her chamber

robe.

"Jim," she said, "the telephone in the lower hall has been ringing like

mad. It awoke me. I lay and listened to it, but nobody seemed to hear

it, so I went down. It's a Sister of Charity--Sister Eila--who desires

to speak to you."

"I'll go at once--thank you, Philippa----"

"And, Jim?" She was trotting along beside him in her bare feet and

bedroom slippers as he started for the stairs. "When you have talked to

her, I think you ought to see what is happening on the Ausone road."

"_What_ is happening?" he demanded, descending the stairs.

She kept pace with him, one hand following the stair rail:

"There are so many people and carts and sheep and cattle, all going

south. And just now two batteries of artillery went the other way

toward Ausone. They were going at a very fast trot--with gendarmes

galloping ahead to warn the people to make room----"

"When did you see this?"

"Now, out of that window as I stood knocking at your door."

"All right," he said briefly, picking up the telephone. "Are you there,

Sister Eila? Yes; it is Warner speaking."

"Mr. Warner, where can I communicate with Captain Halkett?"

"I don't know, Sister."

"Could you find out?"

"I haven't any idea. He has not written me since he left."

"He left no address with you?"

"None. I don't imagine he knew where he could be found. Is it anything

important?"

"Yes. I don't know what to do. There is an Englishman--a soldier--who

has been hurt and who says he must send word to Captain Halkett. Could

you come to the school?"

"Of course. When?"

"Just as soon as you can. I am so sorry to awaken you at such an

hour----"

"It's quite all right, Sister. I'll dress and go at once.... And tell

me, are there a lot of people passing southward by the school?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Warner, ever since dawn. Everyone is leaving Ausone and

the villages along the Recollette.... I must not use the telephone any

longer. I had permission to use it only because the business was of a

military nature. Come as soon as you can----"

The connection was abruptly broken--probably by some officer in control.

Warner rose; Philippa had vanished. He walked out to the music room,

opened the long windows, and stepped through them to the south terrace.

The muffled roll of the cannonade filled his ears. Except for that

dominating and unbroken monotone, the sunrise world was very still, and

mist still veiled the glitter in the east.

But below in the valley of the Recollette, the road lay perfectly

distinct in the clear, untinted and transparent light of early dawn.

Along it people and vehicles swarmed, moving south--an unending stream

of humanity in pairs, in family groups, their arms filled with packages,

parcels, bundles tied up in sheets, and bedquilts.

Peasant carts piled with dingy household effects bumped and jolted

along; farm wagons full of bedding, on which huddled entire families

clasping in their arms cheap wooden clocks, earthen bowls, birdcages,

flowerpots, perhaps a kitten or a puppy; and there was every type of

vehicle to be seen--the _charrette a bras_, the _tombereau_ dragged by

hand, dilapidated cabriolets, wheelbarrows, even baby carriages full of

pots and pans.

Here and there some horse, useless for military purposes, strained under

a swaying load, led by the head; sometimes a bullock was harnessed with

a donkey.

Companies of sheep dotted the highway here and there, piloted by boys

and wise-looking, shaggy dogs; there were dusty herds of cattle, too,

inclined to leisurely straying but goaded continually into an unwilling

trot by the young girls who conducted them. On the river, too, boats

were passing south, piled with bedding and with children, the mother or

father of the brood doing the rowing or poling.

The quarry road on the other side of the river was too dusty and too far

away to permit a distinct view of what was passing there. Without the

help of his field glasses, Warner merely conjectured that cavalry were

moving northward through the dust that hung along the river bank.

But the spectacle on the Ausone road below was ominous enough. The

northern countryside was in flight; towns and villages were emptying

themselves southward; and the exodus had merely begun.

He went back to his room, shaved, bathed, dressed in knickerbockers and

Norfolk, and, scribbling a note for Madame de Moidrey, pinned it to his

door as he closed it behind him.

On his way through the lower hall, somebody called him softly, and he

saw Philippa in the music room, carrying a tray.

"Did you think I was going to let you go out without your breakfast?"

she asked, smiling. "I have prepared coffee for us both, you see."

He thanked her, took the tray, and carried it out to the terrace.

There, as the sun rose above the bank of mist and flashed out over miles

of dewy country, they had their breakfast together--a new-laid egg, a

bowl of cafe-au-lait, new butter and fresh rolls.

"May I go with you?" asked the girl.

"Why--yes, if you care to----"

She said seriously:

"I don't quite like to have you go alone on that road, with so much

confusion and the air heavy with the cannonade----"

His quick laughter checked her.

"You funny, absurd, sweet little thing!" he said, still laughing. "Do

you expect to spend the remainder of your life in seeing that I don't

get into mischief?"

"If you'll let me," she said with a faint smile.

"Very well, Philippa; come along!" He held out his hand, laughing; the

girl clasped it, a half humorous, half reproachful expression in her

grey eyes.

"I don't mind your laughing, as long as you let me be with you," she

said.

"Why, Philippa!" he said gayly. "What possesses you to be afraid that

anything is likely to happen to me?"

"I don't know what it is," she replied seriously. "I seem to be afraid

of losing you. Let me be with you--if it does not annoy you."

"You dear child, of course it doesn't annoy me. Only I don't want you to

become morbid over the very nicest and frankest of friendships."

They were passing the garage now; he dropped her hand, asked her to wait

for him a moment, turned into the service drive, went toward the stable.

A sleepy groom responded to the bell, unlocked the doors, and fetched

the key to the harness room.

Warner said to the groom:

"Give that fellow in there his breakfast and turn him loose. Tell him

I'll kill him if I ever again catch him hanging around here."

The groom grinned and touched his cap, and Warner turned on his heel and

rejoined Philippa.

They had to awaken the old lodge keeper, who pulled the chain from where

he lay in bed.

Through the wicket and across the road they went, over a stile, and out

across country where the fields flashed with dew and the last shreds of

mist drifted high among the trees of the woods which they skirted.

Philippa wore her peasant dress--scarlet waist and skirt with the full,

fine chemisette; and on her chestnut hair the close little bonnet of

black velvet--called _bonnet a quartiers_ or _bonnet de beguin_--an

enchanting little headdress which became her so wonderfully that Warner

found himself glancing at her again and again, wondering whether the

girl's beauty was growing day by day, or whether he had never been

properly awake to it.

Her own unconsciousness of herself was the bewitching part of

her--nothing of that sort spoiled the free carriage of her slender,

flexible body, of the lovely head carried daintily, of the grey eyes so

clear, so intelligent, so candid, so sweet under the black lashes that

fringed them.

"Very wonderful," he said aloud, unthinking.

"What?" asked Philippa.

He reddened and laughed:

"You--for purposes of a painter," he said. "I think, if you don't mind,

I shall start a portrait of you when we return. I promised Madame de

Moidrey, you know."

Philippa smiled:

"Do you really suppose she will hang it in that beautiful house of

hers--there among all those wonderful and stately portraits? Wouldn't

that be too much honor--to be placed with such great ladies----"

"The dead De Moidreys in their frames need not worry, Philippa. If I

paint you as you are, the honor of your presence will be entirely

theirs."

"Are you laughing at me?"

He looked up sharply; the girl's face was serious and rather pale.

They were traversing a corner of a woodland where young birches

clustered, slim and silvery under their canopy of green which as yet had

not changed to royal gold.

He picked up her hand as they emerged into the sunlight of a field,

raised it, and touched his lips to the delicate fingers.

It was his answer; and the girl realized instantly what the

old-fashioned salute of respect conveyed; and her fingers clung to his

hand.

"Jim," she said unsteadily, "if you knew--if you only could realize what

you have done for me--what you are doing for me every moment I am with

you--by your kindness, your gentleness, your generous belief in me--what

miracles you accomplish by the very tones of your voice when you speak

to me--by your good, kind smile of encouragement--by your quiet patience

with me----"

Her voice broke childishly, and she bent her head and took possession of

his arm, holding to it tightly and in silence.

Surprised and moved by her emotion, he found nothing to say for a

moment--did not seem to know quite how to respond to the impulsive

gratitude so sincerely exaggerated, so prettily expressed.

Finally he said:

"Philippa, I have nothing to teach you--much to learn from you. Whoever

you are, you need no patronage from anybody, no allowances, no

concessions, no excuses. For I never knew a cleaner, braver, sweeter

character than is yours, Philippa--nor a soul more modest, more simple

and sincere. What does it matter how you come by it--whether God gave

it, or whether what you are has been evolved by race--by generations of

gentle breeding?

"We don't know; and _I_, for one, don't care--except for any

satisfaction or consolation it might afford you to know who you really

are.

"But, for me, I have learned enough to satisfy myself. And I have never

known a lovelier character than is yours, Philippa; nor a nobler one."

She continued walking beside him, clinging very tightly to one of his

arms, her head lowered under its velvet bonnet.

When she looked up at last, her eyes were wet with tears; she smiled

and, loosening her clasp, stretched out her hand for his handkerchief.

"The second time I have borrowed from you," she managed to say. "Do you

remember--in the boat?"

He laughed, greatly relieved that the tense constraint was broken--that

the tension of his own emotion was relaxed. For he had become intensely

serious with the girl--how serious and how deeply in earnest he now

began to realize. And whether his own ardent tribute to her had

awakened him, while offering it, to all that he was praising, or whether

he had already discovered by cooler research all that he now found

admirable in her, he did not know.

They came to a hedge; she returned his handkerchief, placed her hand in

his, mounted the stile with lithe grace, and he climbed up beside her.

Below them ran the Ausone road, grey with hanging dust; and through the

floating cloud tramped the fugitives from the north--old men, old women,

girls, little children, struggling onward under their burdens, trudging

doggedly, silently southward.

Philippa uttered an exclamation of pity as a man passed wheeling a

crippled child in a wheelbarrow, guiding it carefully along beside a

herd of cattle which seemed very difficult to manage.

For a few minutes they stood there, watching the sad procession defiling

at their feet, then Warner jumped down to the high, grassy bank, lifted

Philippa to the ground--which was not necessary, although he seemed to

think so, and the girl thanked him very sweetly--and then they went

forward along the hedge of _aubepine_ until, around the curve of the

road just ahead, he caught sight of the school.

"We can enter by the rear and keep out of that crowd," he said to

Philippa. "You don't know Sister Eila, do you?"

"No."

"Nor Sister Felicite?"

"No, Jim. Are they nuns?"

"Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul. Here is the garden gate. We can go

through the kitchen."

But before they had traversed the little vegetable garden, Sister Eila

came to the kitchen door.

Warner said:

"Sister Eila, I am so glad that you are to know my friend, Mademoiselle

Philippa Wildresse, who, as I am, is a guest of Madame de Moidrey at the

Chateau."

Sister Eila came forward, her clear eyes on Philippa, took the girl's

offered hand in both of hers, stood silent for a moment, then turned to

Warner.

"It was most kind of you to bring her, Mr. Warner. I hope that we shall

become friends--" turning to Philippa--"if you also wish it."

Philippa's grey eyes looked steadily at Sister Eila.

"Yes, I do," she said in a low voice.

Sister Felicite appeared from the schoolroom, greeting and presentation

were made, and then the elder Sister took Philippa away to the

schoolroom where recitations were in progress; and Sister Eila led

Warner through the kitchen, up the uncarpeted stairs, and into a room

where, on an iron bed, a man lay.

He was young, fair-haired, and very pallid under his bandage, and the

eyes he turned on Warner as he entered were the eyes of a sick man.

Sister Eila seated herself on a stool which stood beside the bed; Warner

drew up the only other chair and sat down.

The young man turned his hollow eyes from Warner and looked

questioningly at Sister Eila.

"Yes," she said, "this is Mr. Warner, an American, who is Mr. Halkett's

friend. You may trust him; Mr. Halkett trusted him."

Warner said with a smile, and leaning toward the sick man:

"Is there anything I can do for you? Halkett and I became the very best

of friends. I should be very glad of the opportunity to do anything for

his friends--" he hesitated, smiled again--"or for any British officer."

"I'm Gray," said the man on the bed, in a weak voice.

"I think Halkett was expecting somebody named Gray the first night he

spent at the Sais inn. Was it you?"

"Yes."

"I think he telephoned you."

"Yes. You are Mr. Warner?"

"I am."

"Halkett spoke of you--your kindness."

"Oh, it was nothing----"

"I know what it was," said Gray quietly. "How much did Halkett tell

you?"

"About what?"

"About me."

"Very little, Mr. Gray. I understood that you were to come to Sais on a

motor cycle, carrying with you a very important paper. Halkett waited

day after day. He seemed to be under a very great strain. All he said

to me was that something serious must have happened to you, because the

paper you carried was necessary to supplement the one he carried."

"And Halkett has gone!"

"Yes. But somehow or other he got possession of the paper you had in

your charge--or a copy of it."

Gray's youthful face quivered with excitement.

"How did he get it?" he asked.

"A messenger came. Halkett was alone. The messenger pretended to come

from you, and he gained Halkett's confidence by giving him the paper you

carried, or a copy of it.

"The moment Halkett was off his guard, the fellow knocked him

insensible, and would have robbed him of both papers if a young girl--a

Miss Wildresse--had not tackled the fellow, and held him off with

magnificent pluck until I came in and found what was going on. Then the

fellow cleared out--got clean away, I regret to say. That is how the

thing happened. I'm very glad to be able to reassure you, Mr. Gray."

"Thanks, awfully. It's been hell not to know. You see, I was hurt; the

beggars got me. I've been lying in a cottage down the road a bit--I

don't know where. I was badly knocked out--knocked silly, you

know--fever and all that.... I woke up the other day. Couldn't get the

people to stir--tried to make 'em hunt up Halkett. They were just

stupid--kind, but stupid. Finally one of their kiddies, who comes to

school here, told Sister Eila that there was a sick _Anglais_ in his

daddy's cottage--" He looked up at her as he spoke and she smiled.

"--And Sister Eila, being all kinds of an angel of mercy, came all the

way there to investigate.... And she wheeled me back here in a

_charette_! What do you think of that, Mr. Warner?"

"He was in _such_ a state, poor boy!" said Sister Eila. "Just think, Mr.

Warner! They had not even washed him when they put on their dreadful

poultices--good, kind, ignorant folk that they are! So of course I

insisted on bringing him here where Sister Felicite and I could give him

proper attention."

Gray smiled tremulously:

"I've been bathed, cleansed, patched, mended, beautifully bandaged, fed,

and spoiled! I don't know what you think of the Grey Sisters, but I

know what I think."

"There's no difference of opinion in the world concerning them," said

Warner, and Sister Eila smiled and blushed and held up an admonitory

finger:

"It is I who am being spoiled, gentlemen." Then, very seriously to

Warner: "Have you seen the pitiable procession which has been passing

along the Ausone road since before dawn? Is it not heartbreaking, Mr.

Warner? What is happening in the north, that all these poor people come

hurrying southward? I thought the cannonade was from our own forts."

Gray looked up at him curiously.

"I don't yet know what is happening north of Ausone," said Warner

quietly. "There were three fires burning last night. I think they were

villages in flames. But it was far to the north. The Ausone Fort was

not engaged--except when an aeroplane came within range. Then they used

their high-angle guns."

There was a silence. Listening, Warner could hear the cannonade

distinctly above the shuffle of feet and the childish singsong of

recitation in the schoolroom underneath.

Presently, glancing up, he caught Sister Eila's eye, rose, and followed

her to the window.

"I don't know what to do," she said. "Sister Felicite is going to try

to keep the children here, but a gendarme came day before yesterday,

saying that the school might be required for a military hospital, and

that the children were to remain at home. I have telephoned to Ausone;

I have telegraphed to the rue de Bac; I have done all I could do. But I

am directed, from the rue de Bac, to prepare for field service, at the

front. And from Ausone they telephone Sister Felicite that she may keep

the children until the last moment, but that, when needed, she must turn

over our school to the military authorities. And so, Mr. Warner, what

am I to do with that poor boy over there? Because, if I go away, Sister

Felicite cannot properly attend to him and care for the children, too."

Warner stood thinking for a moment. Then:

"Could you get me permission to use your telephone?" he asked.

"Only for military purposes. It is the rule now."

Warner walked over to Gray:

"You are a British officer, I take it."

"Yes."

"Captain?"

"Yes."

Sister Eila, listening, understood and took Warner to the telephone.

For a few moments he heard her soft voice in conversation with the

military operator, then she beckoned him and he gave the number he

desired and waited.

Presently he got the Chateau des Oiseaux, and after a few moments Madame

de Moidrey came to the telephone.

"Ethra," he said, "would you care to be hospitable to a British officer

who has been injured?"

"Certainly! Where is he?"

"At Sister Eila's school. Is there anything left to harness up and send

for him?"

"Yes; there is a donkey and a basket wagon. I'll have a groom take it

over at once. Is the officer badly hurt?"

"I don't know. I think he merely needs bandaging and feeding. He's the

comrade of my friend, Captain Halkett. Gray is his name, and he's a

captain or something or other. May I tell him that you will receive

him?"

"Of course, Jim. You need not have asked; you could have brought him

here immediately."

The military operator cut in:

"A thousand thanks to Madame la Comtesse for her kindness to our allies,

the English! Madame, I regret, very much that I must switch off----"

click!

Warner smiled and turned to Sister Eila:

"Madame de Moidrey takes him!"

"I am so thankful! I will go up and make him ready."

"What is the matter with him?"

"Think of it! He was coming on his motor cycle full speed toward Sais

through the night, when right ahead he saw a car drawn up beside the

road, and four men standing in it with pistols aimed at him. Only one

bullet hit him, making a deep furrow over his temple. He remembers

losing control of the motor cycle, of being hurled through the air.

Then, evidently some time afterward, he found himself struggling under a

thin covering of dirt and sticks and lumps of sod--fighting for air,

pushing, creeping, crawling out of the hasty and shallow grave where

they had flung him beside his ruined motor cycle. He thinks that the

frame of the motor cycle kept him from being suffocated by the sod and

earth piled over him.

"It was early morning; a peasant was breaking ground in another field

not far away, and Mr. Gray managed to crawl near enough to make the man

hear. That is all he remembers until he regained consciousness once more

in the man's cottage."

"Good heavens, what a ghastly experience!" muttered Warner.

"It is dreadful. If they knew that his heart still beat, it was inhuman

of them to do such a thing as that. But perhaps they considered him

dead. He may have appeared so. I have had to bandage both arms and

both knees where he was hurled over the ground when he fell. He has a

fracture of the left wrist which is doing nicely, and two broken ribs

are mending without trouble. As for the scar on his temple, it is

nearly closed now. I think all will be well with him. Now, I shall go

and prepare him for his little journey."

At the foot of the stairs she paused, turned slowly to Warner, and he

thought her lovely face had become somewhat pale.

"I think you said over the telephone that you have had no word from Mr.

Halkett?"

"Not a word, Sister Eila."

"Thank you."

*CHAPTER XXVII*

The journey back along the Ausone road was a slow and stifling one.

Warner, walking on the left, led the donkey by the head; Philippa moved

beside the basket cart on the right. In the cart sat the wounded

Englishman, his bandaged head lying on Sister Eila's shoulder.

Through the heavy, suffocating cloud of dust, group after group of

fugitives loomed up ahead, coming toward them, parting right and left to

let the basket cart and the little, plodding donkey pass through. Sheep

were driven aside for them; cattle swung out into the roadside ditches

on either hand, halting there with stupid heads turned toward them while

the basket cart took right of way.

Once, from the toiling procession behind them, distant shouts arose, and

the ground began to quiver and shake; and Warner called out a sharp

warning to Philippa and drew the donkey cart out among the dusty weeds

of the ditch, while everywhere ahead of them people, cattle, vehicles,

were being hurriedly turned out and crowded aside along the grassy

roadside gullies.

Louder grew the clamour behind; heavier the jarring of the ground; a

mounted gendarme--a _marechal de logis_--appeared, alternately cantering

and galloping his superb horse, and sweeping the crowds aside with

vigorous gestures of his white-gloved hand.

Behind him trotted six more gendarmes, sabers sheathed, their single

rank stretching the entire width of the road from ditch to ditch. And

behind these, in a writhing storm of dust and flying gravel, came the

field artillery on a swift, swinging trot, drivers erect in their

saddles, kepis strapped tight, sun-scorched faces sweating under masks

of dust.

Tan-colored limbers, guns, caissons drawn by powerful, dust-whitened

teams, rushed past thudding and clanking, escorted by galloping pelotons

of artillerymen armed with saber and carbine, flanked by smart officers

flashing all over cherry red and gold.

Battery after battery, with forges and wagons, passed; a fanion with

trumpeters sped by; a squadron of remount cavalry in clearer blue

jackets followed, then came two squadrons of galloping dragoon lancers,

their steel helmets covered with brown holland slips, and the pennons

streaming wildly from their lance heads. A gendarme or two galloped in

the rear, mere ghosts in the driving dust. And the flying column had

passed.

Sister Eila, covering Gray's mouth and nose with her grey-blue sleeve,

bowed her head and closed her eyes while the storm of dust and pebbles

lasted; then Warner nodded to Philippa, and between them they led out

the donkey cart once more and pushed slowly ahead into the oncoming

torrent of vehicles--cattle, men, women, and children.

It was nearly noon when they arrived at the Chateau des Oiseaux. A

footman aided him to carry Gray upstairs to the room prepared for him.

"Are you all right?" asked Warner doubtfully.

Gray opened his haggard eyes.

"All right, thanks.... May I have a little water, if it's not too much

trouble----"

Sister Eila entered the room with a carafe and some lemons; and Warner

withdrew.

In the hallway below he encountered Madame de Moidrey and Peggy Brooks

in earnest consultation with the village physician--an old man crippled

from 1870, and wearing the Legion and an empty sleeve.

Warner shook hands with Dr. Senlis and told him what he knew of Gray's

condition. Sister Eila came down presently and everybody greeted her

with a warmth which unmistakably revealed her status in Sais.

Presently she went upstairs again with Dr. Senlis. Later the Countess

went up. Peggy and Philippa had gone out to the south terrace where the

reverberation of the cannonade was now continually shaking the windows,

and where, beyond, Ausone, a dark band of smoke stretched like a rampart

across the northern sky.

As Warner stood thinking, listening to the dull shock of the concussions

rolling in toward them on the wind from the north, the footman, Vilmar,

approached him.

"Pardon, Monsieur Warner, but there is a frightful _type_ hanging about

whom it seems impossible to drive away----"

"What!" said Warner angrily.

"Monsieur, I have hustled him from the terrace several times; I have

summoned aid from my fellow domestics; the chauffeur, Vignier, chases

him with frequency into the shrubbery; Maurice and the lad, Henri,

pursue him with horsewhips----"

"Is it that _voyou_ who is all over bandages?" demanded Warner

incredulously.

"It is, Monsieur----"

Out of sheer contempt for the creature and for all his species, Warner

had ordered him to be fed and turned loose. And here he was, back

again, hanging around!

"Where is he?"

"He dodged into the shrubbery across the lawn."

The effontery of Asticot amazed Warner. With an impatient gesture he

turned on his heel to traverse the lawn. And at the same moment Asticot

emerged from the bushes bordering it.

His bruised and ratty eyes blinked nervously; his battered _casquette de

marlou_ was in his hand; his knees, and his teeth also, seemed inclined

to smite together. Plainly, he was terrified; and when Warner walked

swiftly toward him across the lawn, the creature uttered a sort of

stifled squeak.

"Asticot," said Warner, in pleasant, even tones, "I told the servants to

feed you and turn you loose. Also, I left word that I'd kill you the

next time I caught you hanging around here. Did they give you that

message?"

"M-m'sieu'----"

"Did they?"

"Alas!"

"Then why are you still prowling in this vicinity? Do you _want_ to be

killed?"

A suppressed howl escaped the bandaged ruffian.

"I do not desire to go away from M'sieu'! No! I desire to remain under

his powerful protection----"

"What!"

"I desire to serve M'sieu'--to dedicate my life to the service of

M'sieu', my patron, powerful and terrible. I have need to render him

homage--I, Asticot, grateful and affectionate----" He blubbered

sentimentally, squirming like a kicked and abject dog.

Warner, astonished, stared at the writhing ruffian for a few moments,

then he burst into a laugh.

"Why, you Parisian sewer rat," he said, "do you imagine that I could

have any use for _you_?"

"M'sieu'! I ask as wages only a crust, a pallet of straw in some

corner, and a few pennies which will enable me to 'fry a cigarette' when

I am lonely----"

"I don't want you!" repeated Warner, disgusted, but much amused. "Why

do you imagine that I have any employment to offer a cutthroat?"

"There is le Pere Wildresse," replied Asticot, naively.

"Do you imagine I expect to hire somebody to murder him?"

"M'sieu'--it is but natural."

Warner's laughter died out and his expression altered.

"Come, Asticot, cut away," he said quietly, "or I shall become angry!"

"M'sieu'! Don't drive me away!" he whined. "I know how to wash brushes

in black soap----"

"What!"

"Also, I have learned how to stretch _toiles_ and make _chassis_. I

have served in Biribi. My lieutenant amused himself by painting

pictures of camels and palms and the setting sun, very red and as full

of rays as a porcupine----"

"I don't _want_ you, Asticot! It is noon, now. I shall tell them at

the stables to give you a crust and a bowl of soup. After you have

sufficiently stuffed yourself, go quietly away wherever you belong, and

don't come back----"

"M'sieu'! I entertain a deep affection for M'sieu'----"

"Go to the devil!" said Warner wearily, and walked back to the house.

Here he gave the footman culinary instructions to transmit to the

kitchen-maid, who, in turn, should see that something to eat was sent to

the stables for Asticot.

Then he walked through the house to the northern terrace, where Philippa

and Peggy sat sewing and looking out across the valley toward the smoky

panorama in the north. His field glasses lay on the parapet, and he

picked them up and adjusted them to his vision.

"Isly is burning, and Rosales, and the great farm of Le Pigeonnier,"

remarked Peggy.

"Who says so?"

"Mathilde. The postman told her. He heard it in Ausone from the

soldiers. That is where the fighting is, at Isly. The trains leaving

Ausone are loaded with soldiers going north. It appears that matters

are progressing very well for us."

Warner said nothing. With two French towns burning on the horizon, the

great farm of Le Pigeonnier on fire, and the cannonade steadily becoming

more distinct, he was not at all certain that everything promised well

for Ausone and Sais and the valley of the Recollette.

Through his glasses he could see the beautiful spire of Sainte Cassilda

in Ausone. Beyond, where the wooded, conical hill rose from the rolling

plain as though it were an enormous artificial mound, nothing of the

fort was visible.

But farther away, beyond the river, he could see trains crawling across

the landscape--see smoke trailing from locomotives; farther still only

the green and gold of woods and grain fields stretched away, growing

vaguer and dimmer until the wall of smoke obscured them and blotted the

earth from view.

Madame de Moidrey appeared at the doorway behind them.

"They have just telephoned from Ausone to ask whether we can take in

wounded, if necessary," she said calmly. "They are to send material for

fifty beds this evening. Sister Eila and Dr. Senlis have offered to

remain for the present. I think everybody will have to help."

Philippa, who had risen, came toward her.

"I don't mind where I sleep," she said, "if I can only be of any

use----"

"You are not going to be disturbed, dear--not at present, anyway." And

to Peggy: "I have told them to open the east wing and air the gallery

and the rooms on both the upper floors. There is room for two hundred

beds in the east wing. Vignier has gone to turn on the water, and I

shall have the parquet and windows thoroughly cleaned and the stair

carpets taken out of storage and laid down."

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Warner.

"Nothing for any of us to do so far. When the beds arrive, I shall have

them set up and ready, that's all. Peggy, if the servants require any

further instructions, tell them what to do. Sister Eila is inspecting

the east wing and I must return to Mr. Gray."

"How is Gray?" asked Warner.

"Very much afraid that he is making us extra trouble. He is so patient,

so considerate--really a most charming man.

"I have an idea that the cannonade is making him very restless. He

tries not to show it. He lies there very quietly, asking for nothing,

most grateful for the slightest attention. I have been giving him the

medicine Dr. Senlis prescribed and reading the paper to him between

doses."

"Couldn't I do that?" began Peggy, but Madame de Moidrey shook her

pretty head hastily and went away to inspect her Englishman, for whom

luncheon was being prepared on a tray.

Luncheon was served on the terrace for the others. It was a rather

silent affair: they ate with the distant rumble of cannon in their ears

and their eyes turning ever toward the north where that impenetrable

wall of smoke masked the horizon from east to west.

"I think I shall go over to Ausone," remarked Warner.

Philippa looked up in silence.

"Why?" inquired Peggy.

"Because," he replied, "I have a couple of dozen pictures and sketches

in storage at the Boule d'Argent, and I think I might as well get them

and ship them to my Paris studio."

"Do you really suppose there is any danger that----"

"No," he interrupted, smilingly, "but you know how finicky and panicky a

painter is. I think I'll take a stroll after luncheon and bring back my

canvases--" he turned to Philippa--"if I may take your punt for the

purpose?"

"Certainly. I'll pole you up to Ausone----"

"You will do nothing of the sort, thank you!" he retorted, laughing.

"Is there any danger?" asked Peggy.

"Not the slightest. But I had rather that Philippa remained here."

Peggy passed her arm around Philippa's shoulders.

"He doesn't want you, darling, but I do! Remain where you're

appreciated and I'll take you up presently to see that exceedingly

nice-looking Englishman."

Philippa's smile was a little forced; she looked up at Warner every now

and then, curiously, questioningly, even reproachfully.

When he had pretended long enough not to be aware of it, he turned and

looked at her and laughed. And after Peggy had risen and entered the

house, he said:

"Philippa, I don't care to have you any nearer that wall of smoke out

yonder than you are at present. That's the only reason I don't want you

to go to Ausone in the punt with me."

"You know," she said, "that I might just as well be where you are all

the time."

"Why?"

"Is it necessary for me to tell you that if anything happens to you it

might as well happen to me at the same time?"

"Nonsense, Philippa----"

"You know it is so," she said quietly.

He looked at the smoke, glanced at her, rose and walked to the door,

and, turning abruptly, came back to where she was seated.

"That won't do," he said bluntly. "Nobody should be as vital to you as

that. Life and happiness are beginning for you. Both must be

independent of circumstances and individuals. Everything already lies

before you, Philippa--youth, attainment, the serenity and the happiness

of opportunity heretofore denied you. Fulfillment does not depend on

others; the interest in living and the reason for living depends on

personal faith, resolution, and endeavor, not on what accidents affect

other lives around you. Life should be lived thoroughly and completely

to the end, industriously, vigorously, and with a courage for enjoyment

never faltering. Your life is _yours_. Live it! Find in it the sheer

happiness of living. No matter what befalls others, no matter who these

others may be, it is your business in life to go on living, to go on

discovering reasons for living, to go on desiring to live, and to find

in living the highest happiness in the world--the satisfaction of a duty

thoroughly accomplished!"

He was smiling and rather flushed when he ended his emphatic sermon.

The girl beside him had listened with drooping head, but her grey eyes

were raised to his from time to time.

And now that he had finished expounding his strenuous and masculine

logic, she turned away and leaned on the parapet looking down at the

tops of the forest trees below.

He came over and rested on the stone balustrade beside her.

"Am I not right?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then you understand that, whatever may happen to anybody else, life

always presents the same noble challenge to you?"

"Yes.... A bird, shot through the breast, must go on fighting for

breath as long as its heart beats.... I should do the same--if anything

happened to you."

The hot color suddenly burnt his face. He made no comment--found none

to make. Her transparent candor had silenced him utterly; and he found

himself troubled, mute, and profoundly moved by her innocent avowal of

devotion.

She looked around at him after a while.

"That is what you meant, isn't it?"

He shook his head slightly. He could scarcely presume to criticize her

or instruct her concerning the mysteries of her own heart. Those

intimate, shadowy, and virginal depths were exempt from the rule of

reason. Neither logic nor motive was in control there; instinct alone

reigned.

No, he had nothing more to say to her; nothing definite to say to

himself. A haunting and troubled perplexity possessed his mind; and a

deeper, duller, and obscure wonder that the young heart in her, and the

youthful faith that filled it, had been so quietly, so fearlessly

surrendered to his keeping.

He had always supposed that his experience, his years, his clear

thinking and humorously incredulous mind rendered him safe from any

emotional sentiment not directly connected with his profession.

The fact that women were inclined to like him had made him unconsciously

wary, even amiably skeptical. Outside of a few friendships he had never

known more than a passing fancy for any woman--a sentiment always partly

humorous, an emotion always more or less amused. His preferences were

as light as the jests he made of them, his interest as ephemeral as it

was superficial--aside from his several friendships with women, or where

women were intimately concerned with his work.

The swiftness with which acquaintance had become friendship between

Philippa and himself had disturbed and puzzled him. That, like a

witch-flower, it had opened over night into full blossom, he seemed to

realize, even admitted to himself. But already it seemed to have become

as important, as established, as older friendships. And more than that,

day by day its responsibilities seemed to multiply and grow heavier and

more serious.

He thought of these things as he leaned on the stone balustrade there

beside Philippa. What she might be thinking of remained to him a

mystery impenetrable, for she had passed one arm through his and her

cheek rested lightly against his shoulder, and her grey eyes, brooding,

seemed lost in the depths of the distant smoke.

And all the while she was saying in her sweet, serene way:

"You will let me go with you, won't you? It would be very agreeable on

the river this afternoon. Such a pleasure you could not sensibly deny

me. Besides, the punt is mine, Jim. I don't let anybody charter it

unless captain and crew are included. I am, naturally, the captain.

Ariadne is the crew. If you desire to engage a passage to Ausone----"

"Philippa, you little tyrant, do you mean to refuse me the _Lys_?"

"Come down to the river and look her over," she said, drawing him away

from the balustrade. "And on the way you may get the pole from the

garage."

He was inclined to demur, but she had her way; and ten minutes later

they were walking across the fields, he with the pole across his

shoulder, she moving lightly and happily beside him, her hair in two

braids and the velvet strings of the bonnet fluttering under her rounded

chin.

The Ausone road lay white and deserted; the last fugitive from the north

had passed. Nor were there any more skiffs or laden boats on the river,

nor any signs of life on the quarry road. All was still and sunny and

silent; the Recollette slipped along, clear and silvery, between green

banks; to the east the calm blue hills stretched away vague with haze;

swallows soared and dipped, starring the glass of the stream as though

rising fish were breaking its serene surface. But the still air and

cobalt sky were heavy with the cannonade, making the stillness of the

sun-drenched world almost uncanny.

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

Philippa, curled up in the punt, had fashioned for herself a chaplet of

river lilies. The white blossoms wreathing the black velvet _bonnet a

quartiers_, and a huge bouquet of the lovely flowers which she carried

in her hand gave a bridal aspect to the affair, heightened presently

when she began to festoon the gunwales with lilies and scented rushes

from the sedge, as they slipped along inshore to avoid the stronger

current of midstream.

The air vibrated and hummed with the unbroken rolling of the

bombardment; there was not a cloud in the calm sky; no birds sang and

few, except the darting swallows of the Recollette, were on the wing at

all; but everywhere dragon flies glittered, level-winged, poised in

mid-air, or darted and hovered among the reeds with a faint, fairy-like

clash of gauzy wings.

The sound of the cannonade grew so much more distinct as they drew near

the environs of Ausone that, to Warner, the increase in volume and the

jar of concussion seemed scarcely due alone to their approach. Rather it

appeared as though the distant reverberations were very gradually

rolling toward them; and before they had poled within sight of the

outskirts of the town Warner said to Philippa:

"It sounds to me as though the whole business were miles nearer than the

mere distance we have come. And that is not an encouraging suggestion,

either."

"Could it be the wind which is carrying it toward us?"

"There is very little wind in those tree tops up there." He shrugged,

poled ahead, not apprehensive, yet conscious that Philippa had no

business in a town from the vicinity of which such ominous sounds could

be heard so distinctly.

Few people were moving on the Ausone road, merely a belated group or two

trudging southward. Except for a distant cavalry patrol riding slowly

along the quarry road across the river, the country appeared to be empty

of military movement. As they advanced upstream, one fact became

apparent; the fugitives who had passed through Sais that morning had not

come from the scattered hamlets and cottages along the Recollette. They

could see women washing linen along the river banks and hanging out the

wash on clotheslines. Old men and children fished tranquilly from the

sterns of skiffs pulled up among the rushes; cattle stood knee-deep in

the limpid stream under the fringe of trees; a farmer who had cut his

wheat and barley had already begun threshing. It was evident that the

exodus from the north was not, so far, affecting Ausone.

When their punt glided past the great willow tree where the Impasse

d'Alcyon terminated at the river bank, Warner, swinging his pole level,

pointed in silence and looked at Philippa. She smiled interrogatively

in response.

"That's where Halkett and I landed when we came to find you," he said.

Then she comprehended and the smile faded from her lips.

Around the bend lay the tree-shaded lawn of the Cafe Biribi. They gazed

at it fixedly and in silence, as they shot swiftly past. There was no

sign of life there; the beds of cannas and geraniums lay all ablaze in

the sun; the windows of the building were closed, the blinds lowered;

every gayly-painted rowboat had been pulled up on the landing and turned

keel upward. A solitary swan sailed along close inshore, probing the

shallows with his brilliant scarlet beak.

Then, as they left the deserted scene of their first meeting, and as the

pretty stone bridge of the Place d'Ausone came into sight beyond,

spanning the river in a single, silver-grey arch, Warner looked up along

the steep and mossy quay wall, and saw, above him, a line sentinel,

fully equipped, lounging on the parapet, watching them. Two others

paced the bridge.

"Halte la! Au large!" called out the sentinel. "The Pont d'Ausone is

mined."

Leaning on his pole and holding the punt against the current, Warner

called out:

"Is it permitted to land, soldier?"

"It is not forbidden," replied the soldier. "But you must not approach

the bridge any nearer. There are wires under water."

"I have business in Ausone at the Boule d'Argent!" explained Warner.

"Is it all right for us to go there?"

"If you remain there with Madame over night you must inscribe yourself

with the police and stay indoors after nine without lights," replied the

sentinel. It was evident that he took the chaplet of river lilies for a

bridal wreath, and that the young bride's beauty dazzled him. He was

very young, and he blushed when Philippa looked up laughingly and

thanked him as she put off her white chaplet.

Warner tied the skiff to a rusty ring; Philippa sprang ashore; and they

mounted the stone steps, arm in arm together. As they passed the

sentinel she drew a lily from her bouquet.

"_Bonne chance_, soldier of France!" she murmured, dropping the white

blossom into his sunburnt hand; and clasping Warner's arm she passed

lightly on into the square, hugging her bouquet to her breast.

The aspect of the town, from the quay wall above, seemed to have changed

very little. Except on fete days the Place d'Ausone, or market square,

was never animated. A few people moved about it now, as usual; a few

men sat sipping their bitters on the terrace of the Cafe Biribi;

children played under the trees by the river wall; old women knitted; a

few aged anglers, forbidden the bridge, dozed on the quay parapets,

while their brilliant scarlet quills trailed in the pools below.

True, there were no idle soldiers to be seen strolling in couples or

dawdling on benches. A patrol of _chasseurs a cheval_, in their pale

blue jackets and black "tresses," walked their wiry horses across the

square. Also, near the horse fountain, three anti-aircraft guns stood in

the sunshine, their lean muzzles tilted high, the cannoniers lying on

their blankets around them, and a single sentinel on guard, pacing the

Place with his piece shouldered. At the further end of the rue d'Auros,

where it enters the boulevard by the Church of Sainte Cassilda, cavalry

were moving; and more sky artillery was visible in front of the church

plaza. Otherwise the presence of troops was not noticeable in Ausone

town.

Nor were Philippa and Warner particularly noticed or remarked, the

girl's provincial costume being a familiar sight in the region from Sais

to Dreslin. In fact, Warner's knickers and Norfolk excited the only

attention, and every now and then some man passing, and taking him for

English, lifted his hat in cordial salutation to a comrade of an allied

nation.

But for all the absence of animation and excitement in the Ausone

streets, the deepening thunder of the cannonade began to preoccupy

Warner; and finally he inquired what it signified of a passing line

soldier, who stopped courteously and saluted.

"C'est le fort d'Ausone qui donne, Monsieur," he explained, bowing

slightly to Philippa as he spoke.

"What!" exclaimed Warner. "Is the Ausone fort firing?"

"Since two hours, Monsieur. It would appear that affairs are warming up

out there."

"What does that mean?"

"_Dame_--they must see something to fire at," replied the soldier,

laughing. "As for us here in the town, we know nothing. We others--we

never know anything that happens until it is happening to us."

"From the Chateau at Sais," said Warner, "one can see three towns on

fire in the north."

"It is more than we soldiers can see from here, Monsieur. Yet we know

it must be so, because people from Isly, from Rosales, from Dreslin,

have been passing through from the north. They must have passed through

Sais."

"Thousands," nodded Warner.

The soldier saluted; Warner lifted his cap, and he and Philippa entered

the Boule d'Argent, where, in a little, lace-curtained dining-room to

the left, they seated themselves by the street window and ordered tea

and sugar-buns.

The _gerant_, who knew Warner, came up and made a most serious and

elaborate bow to Philippa and to the American.

"Ah, Monsieur Warner!" he said. "_Voyez-vous_ the Bosches have begun at

last! But, God willing, it shall not be 1870 again!"

"It won't be; don't worry, Francois. The Republic knows how to confront

what is coming!"

"Yes. I hope we have learned something. All Frenchmen will do what is

possible. As for me, I expect that my class will be called. I shall do

my best, Monsieur Warner.... It is a great happiness to know that the

English are with us. We must stand by those poor Belgians. Have you

heard the news, Monsieur?"

"Nothing since noon."

"Ah! The Bosches are ruining everything with their artillery. Liege,

Namur, are crumbling; Louvain has been swept by shells. The great

cupola forts are in ruins; everything is on fire; they are shooting the

people in their houses, in the streets--the dead lie everywhere--women,

children, in the ditches, in the fields, on the highroads. Ah, Monsieur

Warner, c'est triste, allez!"

"Where did you hear such things, Francois?"

"It is already common talk. The noon bulletins of the _Petit Journal_

confirm it. They say that our fort is shelling the Uhlans of Guillaume

now. They say that the forest of Ausone crawls with them."

A waiter brought their tea; the _gerant_ bowed himself out and sent a

porter to the lumber room to collect and cord up Warner's canvases.

While Philippa poured their tea, the cups began to rattle in the

saucers, and the windows shivered and trembled in the increasing

thunder. Twice his cup slopped over; and he was just lifting it to his

lips when suddenly the very floor seemed to jump under them and a

tremendous shock rocked the room.

"A big gun in the fort," said Warner, coolly forcing a smile. "I think,

Philippa, as soon as you have finished----"

A terrific salvo cut him short. Somewhere he could hear a crashing

avalanche of broken glass, prolonged into a tinkling cascade; then came

a second's silence, then another splitting roar from the end of the

street.

The waiter came in hurriedly, very pale.

"An aeroplane, Monsieur! They are firing at it from the boulevard----"

His words were obliterated in the rush and clatter of horses outside.

Dragoons were galloping up the stony rue d'Auros, squadron on squadron,

and behind them rattled three high-angle guns harnessed to teams driven

by dragoons.

"Attention there!" shouted an officer, reining in and halting a peloton

of horsemen. "Fire at will from your saddles!"

Warner sprang to the window; the street and the market square was full

of halted cavalry firing skyward. They had several high-angle guns there

too; the ear-splitting detonations became continuous; and all the time

the solid earth was shaking under terrible detonations from the fort's

cupolas, where the big cannon were concealed.

From everywhere came the treble clink and tinkle of broken glass; people

in the hotel were running to the windows and running away from them; the

building itself seemed to sway slightly; dust hung in the air, greying

everything.

Warner drew Philippa to him and said calmly, but close to her ear:

"The thing to do is to get out of this at the first opportunity. I had

no idea that anything would happen as near----"

His voice was blotted out in a loud report, shouts, a woman screaming,

the rumble and tumbling roar of bricks. Another shattering report

almost deafened him; the air was filled with whizzing, whining noises;

the entire front of a shop diagonally across the street caved in with a

crystalline crash of glass, and the cornice above it lurched outward,

swayed, crumpled, and descended in a pouring avalanche of bricks and

mortar.

Somebody in the hotel lobby shouted:

"An aeroplane is directly over us. They are dropping bombs!"

"Go to the cellar!" cried another.

An officer of gendarmerie came in, followed by a trooper.

"Stay where you are!" he said. "It's safer."

Another explosion sounded, but farther away this time.

"Their Taube is steering toward the fort," continued the same

quiet-voiced officer who had spoken. "Don't go out into the streets!"

The uproar in the square had become terrific; high-angle guns poured

streams of fire into the sky; dragoons sitting their restless horses

fired upward from their saddles; an engine escorted by brass-helmeted

pompiers arrived and a stream of water was turned on the debris of the

shop across the street, where already pale flames flickered and played

over the dusty ruins.

"Somebody has been killed," whispered Philippa in Warner's ear.

He nodded, watching the Red Cross bearers as they hastened up with their

stretchers, where the firemen were uncovering something from beneath the

heap of smoking debris.

A staff officer, attended by a hussar lancer, and followed by two

mounted gendarmes, rode into the street just as the dragoons, forming to

whistle signal in column of fours, rode out of the street at a gallop.

There came another clatter of hoofs; an open carriage escorted by six

_gendarmes-a-cheval_ rolled through the rue d'Auros. In it was a

white-haired gentleman wearing a top hat and a tri-colored sash.

"The mayor," nodded Warner, as carriage and escort passed rapidly in the

direction of the Hotel de Ville.

The sky-guns had ceased firing, now; three of them were limbered up and

dragged away toward the Boulevard d'Athos by dragoons. More Red Cross

brassards appeared in the street, more stretchers. Two double-decked

motor ambulances drew up; others, following, continued on toward the

Place and the railroad station. Then three grey military automobiles

full of officers came whizzing through the rue d'Auros with terrific

blasts of warning; and sped on, succeeded by others filled with infantry

soldiers, until a steady stream of motor cars of every description was

rushing past the windows, omnibus motors, trucks, hotel busses,

furniture vans, private cars, of every make and varying capacities, all

loaded with red-capped _fantassins_ and bristling with rifles.

Warner opened the window and leaned far out, one arm around Philippa.

Eastward, on the Plaza Sainte Cassilda, masses of lancer cavalry were

defiling at a trot, dragoons, hussars, and _chasseurs-a-cheval_, and the

rue d'Auros was filled with onrushing motor cars as far as he could see.

Westward, parallel with the stream of automobiles, field artillery was

crossing the Place d'Ausone, battery after battery, the drivers whipping

and spurring in their saddles, the horses breaking from trot to gallop.

"Something unexpectedly serious is happening," said Warner, trying to

make his voice audible in the din from the fort. "Look into those

alleys and lanes and cross streets! Do you see the people hurrying out

of their houses? I must have been crazy to bring you here!"

"I can't hear you, Jim----" Her lips formed the words; he pointed

across the street into the alleyways and mews; she nodded comprehension.

"Until these automobiles pass we can't cross--can't get across!" He

found himself almost shouting; and he emphasized his meaning with

pantomime and gesticulation.

She nodded, undisturbed. Now and then, when soldiers in automobiles

looked up at them, she tossed white flowers from her bouquet into the

tonneau and nodded a gay response to the quick salutes. One lily

remained; she drew it through the laces that held her scarlet and black

bodice, then, resting her hand on Warner's shoulder, looked gravely down

at the rushing column underneath.

The tremendous concussions from the fort had loosened plaster and broken

window glass everywhere in the hotel; a smarting mist drifted through

the open window; the room behind them was obscured as by a fog, and

every shock from the guns added to the thickening dust veil.

The _gerant_, Francois, ghastly pale but polite, came presently to

inform Warner by signs that a chimney had fallen in on the lumber room

and that at present it was not possible for the porter to enter and find

the canvases stored there.

Warner understood, catching a word or two here and there, and shrugged

his indifference to what might become of his sketches.

"All I want," he shouted into the _gerant's_ ear, "is to get this young

lady out of Ausone!"

Francois nodded, pointed toward the cross streets which were now

swarming with people preparing for flight. There came a sudden lull in

the cannonade, and almost at the same time the last motor filled with

soldiers sped through the street below.

Instantly the street, now occupied only by firemen and Red Cross

soldiers, was filled with citizens. Groups formed, surged hither and

thither, mingled with other groups and became a swaying crowd. Already

hand-carts and wheelbarrows appeared, piled with bedding and household

furniture; the open carriage of the mayor repassed, was halted, and the

aged magistrate stood up and addressed the people; but Warner could not

make out what he was saying, and in a moment or two the carriage

continued toward the Boulevard d'Athos, escorted by gendarmes.

"It's plain enough that the Germans are pretty close," said Warner

carelessly. "If you're ready, Philippa, I think we'd better get back to

Sais."

"And your beautiful pictures! Oh, Jim, I can't bear to have them left

here----"

"Which do you imagine I consider the more valuable, Philippa, you or

those daubs of mine? Come, dear; let's clear out if we can before that

fort begins to converse again with Germans."

He paid his reckoning at the desk, where _patron_, _gerant_,

_caissiere_, and staff had gathered in calm consultation concerning

eventualities. Nobody seemed excited; everybody was polite, even

smiling; servants were already busy with dusters, brooms, and pans; the

porter carried down luggage for departing guests.

"Monsieur Warner, are you leaving us?" inquired Francois smilingly.

"Perhaps it is better; they say that the Germans are now in range of the

fort. Sais is likely to be more peaceful than Ausone tonight. If the

Bosches don't bombard us, I think your pictures will be quite safe with

us."

He bowed them to the door; Philippa, clinging to Warner's arm, went out

into the stony street, which was now crowded with hurrying people, all

preparing for flight.

As they set foot on the pavement, a frightful detonation shook the town,

another, another; and on the heels of the thunderous shock the first

German shell fell in Ausone, plunged through the roof and exploded in

the transept of the Church of Sainte Cassilda, blowing the altar and

choir stalls to dust and splinters.

Before Philippa and Warner could make their way to the river, three more

shells came plunging into the town, one exploding with a deafening din

in the empty market, another stripping a shop open from roof to basement

and literally disemboweling it, and a third blowing up the eastern end

of the rue d'Auros, where its whistling fragments tore right and left

through a huddled group of women and children.

Then, as they ran toward the quay, the soldiers on guard there came

hastening toward them, warning them back. For a few moments the Place

d'Ausone streamed with terrified people in confused and purposeless

flight, forced back from the river by line soldiers who kept shouting

something which Warner could not understand.

But in another moment he understood, for the old stone bridge across the

Recollette split in two, vomiting great masses of stone into the air,

and the earth rocked with the roar of dynamite.

Half stunned, balked, hesitating, Warner stood in the market place with

his arm around Philippa, looking about him for a chance; while shell

after shell fell into the town, and the racket of their detonations

resounded from the railroad station to the boulevard.

"The river," he said; "it's the best way out of this, I think!"

She nodded, clasped his arm, and they started once more toward the quay.

Below the parapet their punt, still tied fast, lay tossing and rocking

on the agitated river. Down the stone stairs they ran; Philippa sprang

on board, and the next moment Warner cast off and drove the punt swiftly

out into the current of midstream.

Then, directly ahead of them, parallel to the Impasse d'Alcyon, a shell

fell with the whistling screech of a steamer's siren; there came a

deadened roar; a geyser of water and gravel rose in mid-river, hurling

rocks, planks from the landing, and splintered rowboats in every

direction.

Great limbs from the willow trees hurtled earthward, a muddy maelstrom

of foam whirled their punt, caught it on a comb of seething water, flung

it from wave to wave.

Warner, beaten from his balance, had fallen to his knees. As the

plunging punt swept downstream, he continued to use his pole

mechanically. Around them debris still rained into the discolored

river, branches, fragments of sod; the surface of the water was covered

with floating boards, sticks, green leaves, uprooted reeds and rushes; a

mangled and bloody swan floated near, its snowy neck and head under

water.

Philippa crouched on the bottom of the punt, deadly pale, her hands over

her ears, her grey eyes riveted on Warner.

When his voice was under control, he said:

"Are you all right, dear?"

She read his lips, nodded, tried to smile, fell to trembling with both

hands still convulsively crushed over her ears.

Current and pole had already swept the punt out past the _banlieu_, past

the suburban cottages, past the farms and the cattle and the

clotheslines where the wash hung drying.

Behind them lay the town, amid a hell of exploding shells; the hills and

woods reechoed the infernal crash; and, high overhead, above the

dreadful diapason of the guns, rose the crazy treble hooting of incoming

projectiles, dominating the awful roar on earth with a yelling bedlam in

the sky.

Again and again he looked aloft, fearfully attempting to trace and trail

and forestall some whistling screech growing louder and louder and

nearer and nearer, until the shattering crash of the explosion in the

town behind them relaxed the nerve-breaking tension.

Farther out in the green countryside he no longer looked up and back.

Philippa still lay huddled at his feet, looking up out of grey eyes that

quivered and winced sometimes, but always opened again, steady and clear

with faith.

On the Ausone road fugitives from every farm and hamlet were afoot

again, but he could not see them very distinctly through the dust that

hung there. Also clouds now obscured the declining sun; the world had

turned grey around them; and the Recollette flowed away ahead with

scarcely a glimmer on its tarnished flood, save where a dull and leaden

sparkle came and went along the water weeds inshore.

It was as though the subtle poison of war itself had polluted material

things, killing out brightness and health and life, staining sky and

water and earth with its hell-distilled essence.

Then a more concretely sinister omen took shape, floating under the

trees in a deep, still cove--a dead cavalry horse, saddled and bridled,

stranded there, barely awash; and a hooded crow already walking busily

about over the level gravel of the shoal.

As they neared Sais, the quarry road across the river became visible.

Dust eddied and drifted there, and he could distinguish the slanted

lances of cavalry in rapid motion and catch the muffled roar of hoofs.

They were galloping north, a dusty, interminable column enveloped in an

endless grey cloud of their own making in the thickening evening mist

already hanging palely over land and water.

There was scarcely a tint of color left in the east, and that vague hue

died out under clotted clouds as he looked.

And after a while he was aware of a vague rumor in the air, which seemed

to come from the east--a vibration, low, indefinite, almost inaudible,

yet always there to challenge his attention.

The Vosges lay beyond; and the Barrier Forts.

Duller and duller grew the twilight. He drove the punt forward into

dusky reaches shrouded in mist, where not a ripple glimmered, and the

trees and river reeds stood motionless in the fog.

There were no stars, no lights ashore. On his left he could hear the

unbroken trample of cavalry riding north; far beyond, the air was

heavily unsteady with the dull rumor beyond the hills; behind him the

shriller tumult had died away and the deadened booming of the guns

sounded like the heavy thunder of surf on sand.

Philippa had risen to a sitting position, and now she was lying back

comfortably extended among the cushions.

They exchanged a few words; her voice was calm, cheerful, untroubled.

She offered to take the punt pole; said that at first she had felt more

bewildered and dazed than frightened; explained that real fear had first

possessed her when the dead and bloody swan floated past, and that then

she had been horribly afraid of the sky noises--the shrieking, hooting,

whistling approach of the unseen.

He had been under fire in the Balkans; Lule Bourgas had blunted for him

the keener edge of terror. And now, still thoroughly stirred, only the

excitement of the past hour remained and stimulated him.

"It's war all around us now," he said, driving his punting pole steadily

and straining his keen eyes into the shadows beyond. "There are

stirring days ahead for France in this region, I fear; the Barrier Forts

are far away and there is nothing in the north to hold the deluge

breaking over Luxembourg into Belgium.

"A great war is beginning, Philippa; the greatest that the earth has

ever faced.... I never supposed that I should live to see such a

war--the greatest of all wars--the last _great_ war, I think.

"If I were anything except a useless painter, I'd go into it.... I

don't know what good I'd be to anybody. But if anybody wants me----"

"We both can offer ourselves," said Philippa.

"Dear child! I'd like to catch _you_ wandering into this sort of----"

"I shall volunteer if you do!"

"You shall _not_! You'll go to Paris with Madame de Moidrey--that's

what you'll do!"

"Jim, that is absurd. If I'm wanted I shall volunteer for hospital

service, anyway. And if you offer yourself I shall wait until I find

out where you are to be sent, and then I shall beg them to take me at

the nearest field ambulance."

"No good, Philippa. They do that sort of thing in romances, but in real

life a course of hospital training is required of volunteers."

"I can scrub floors and sew and cook," she said serenely. "Do they not

need such people?"

"There's no use discussing it," he said. "Only trained women will be

wanted--tolerated; and I suppose only trained men. The amateur nurse

and warrior were utterly and definitely discredited in South Africa.

There'll be no more of that. There's no room for us, Philippa; the

firing line would reject me with derision, and the base hospital would

politely bow you out." He laughed rather mirthlessly. "There remains

for us," he said, "the admirable, but somewhat monotonous thinking-roles

of respectable citizens--items in the world-wide chorus which marches

harmlessly hither and thither during the impending drama, and forms

pleasing backgrounds for the principals when they take their curtain

calls."

She felt the undertone of slight bitterness in his voice; understood it,

perhaps, for, when the punt was turned and driven gently ashore among

the foggy rushes, she retained the supporting arm he offered, clung to

it almost caressingly.

"I know you," she murmured, as they mounted the grassy bank together;

"you have no need to tell me what you are--dearest, noblest, best among

men."

He answered almost impatiently:

"I don't want you to think that of me! You must not believe it,

Philippa. Keep your head clear, and your judgment independent of that

warm, sweet heart of yours. I'm a most ordinary sort of man, little

distinguished, not in any way remarkable----"

"Don't!" she said. "You only hurt me, not yourself. Of what use is it

saying such things to a girl when the whole world would be a solitary

place if you were not in it--if your living mind did not make the earth

a real and living place to me!

"I tell you that, to me, life itself--the reality of the living

world--depends on you. If you die, all dies. Without you there is

nothing--absolutely nothing!--Not even myself!"

Calm, passionless, clear, her voice serenely pronounced and emphasized

her childish creed. And, impatient, restless, disturbed at first, yet

in this young girl's exaggerated and obstinate devotion he found no

reason for mirth, no occasion for the suppressed amusement of

experience.

He said:

"I can try to be what you think me, Philippa. Yours is a very tender

heart, and noble. Perhaps your heart may gradually lend me a little of

its own quality, so that the glamour with which you invest me shall not

be all unreal."

There was a short silence, then Philippa laughed. It was a sweet, happy,

confused little laugh. She made an effort to explain it.

"The greatest thing in the world," she said--"the _only_ thing!"

"What, Philippa?"

"Our friendship."

It was still early evening as they entered the house together and

traversed the hall to the north terrace.

The Countess de Moidrey, a book on her lap, was seated by a lighted lamp

in the billiard room, gazing out of the open windows, through which the

thunder of the cannonade, wave after wave, came rolling in from the

north.

"Madame--" began the girl timidly.

"Philippa!" she exclaimed, rising.

The girl came forward shyly, the unuttered words of explanation still

parting her lips; and the Countess de Moidrey drew her into her arms.

"My darling," she whispered unsteadily, "my darling child!"

Suddenly Philippa's eyes filled and her lips quivered; she turned her

face away, stood silent for a moment, then slowly she laid her cheek on

the elder woman's breast, and a faint sigh escaped her.

Madame de Moidrey looked at Warner over the chestnut head in its velvet

bonnet, which lay close and warm against her breast.

"Jim," she said, "they told me where you had taken this child. Can you

imagine what my state of mind has been since that horrible uproar began

over there in Ausone?"

"I must have been a lunatic to take her," he admitted; but Philippa's

protesting voice interrupted, unruffled, childishly sweet.

"The fault was mine, Madame. I was very willful; I made him take me.

I'll try not to be willful any more----"

"Darling! He ought to have known better. Do you understand how far you

have crept into all our hearts? It was as though a child of my own were

out there among the cannon----" She bent and kissed the girl's flushed

cheek. "I'm not inclined to forgive Mr. Warner, but I shall if you want

me to. Now, run up stairs, darling, and speak to Peggy. She's still

sitting at her bedroom window, I fancy, watching those dreadful flashes

out there, and perfectly miserable over you----"

"Oh!" cried Philippa, lifting her head. "You all are so sweet to me--so

dear! I shall hasten immediately----" She stooped swiftly and touched

her lips to the hands that held and caressed her, then turned and

mounted the stairs with flying feet.

Warner gazed rather blankly at Madame de Moidrey.

"I must have been crazy to risk taking her. But, Ethra, I hadn't any

reason to suppose there was any danger."

"Were you in Ausone when the fort began firing? Didn't you know enough

to come home?"

"Yes; I didn't realize it was the Fort d'Ausone. We were at tea in the

Boule d'Argent when the Taube appeared. Then everything was in a mess,

Ethra. I know a number of people have been killed. We saw a shop blown

up across the street. After that the cupola guns on the fort opened and

the town shook; and before we could cross the rue d'Auros to find our

punt, where we had left it tied under the river wall, the big German

shells began to fall all over the town. It was certainly a rotten

deal----"

"Jim, I am furious at you for taking that child into such a place. I

wish you to understand now, from this moment, that I love her dearly.

She is adorable; and she's mine. You can't take her about with you

without ceremony, anywhere and everywhere. Anyway, it's sheer madness

to go roaming around the country in such times as these. Hereafter, you

will please ask my permission and obtain my sanction when you are

contemplating any further harebrained performances."

Warner took his rebuke very humbly, kissed the pretty hand that,

figuratively, had chastised him, and went away to dress, considerably

subdued.

"By the way," he asked, when halfway up the stairs, "how is that man,

Reginald Gray?"

"I think he is better, Jim. Sister Eila is with him. Poor child, she

has been superintending the placing of the cot beds which have arrived,

and she is really very tired. If you are going to stop in and speak to

Mr. Gray, please say to Sister Eila that I shall relieve her in a few

moments."

He met Peggy with Philippa in the upper hall.

"You brute!" remarked Peggy, turning up her nose; and Philippa laughed

and closed the girl's lips with her soft hand.

"You may chase me about and kick me, too," said Warner, contritely.

"Anyway, I'm not to go anywhere with Philippa any more, it seems----"

"What!" exclaimed Philippa, then smiled and flushed as Peggy said

scornfully:

"You couldn't keep away from her if you tried. But hereafter you'll

include me on your charming excursions in quest of annihilation!" And

she tightened her arm around Philippa's waist and swung her with her

toward the further end of the hall.

Very conscious of his temporary unpopularity, he went in to see how Gray

was feeling, and found him sitting up in bed and Sister Eila preparing

his dose for him.

So Warner gave the Sister of Charity the message from Madame de Moidrey,

and offered to sit beside Gray until the Countess arrived.

When Sister Eila had retired, Gray said, rather wistfully:

"I shan't know how to thank these people for taking me in. It's really

a beastly imposition----"

"Nonsense, my dear fellow. They like it. All women adore a hero. How

do you feel, anyway?"

"Much fitter, thanks. I don't know what medicine they're giving me, but

it is evidently what I needed.... And do you know that the Countess de

Moidrey has been kind enough to visit me and read to me, and even write

a letter to Halkett for me? I sent it to London. They'll get into

touch with him there." His sunken eyes rested on the window through

which, far away over Ausone Fort, the flicker and flare of the guns

lighted up the misty darkness, throwing a wavering red glare over the

clouds.

Boom--boom--rumble--rumble--boom! came the dull thundering out of the

north. Every window was shaking and humming.

"A devil of a row," remarked Gray, restlessly.

"You've heard that the German shells are already falling on Ausone,

haven't you?"

"No. Are they?"

Warner drew a brief picture of what he had seen that afternoon in

Ausone, and the Englishman listened, intensely interested.

"And I don't know," he ended, "what is to prevent the Germans from

battering the Ausone Fort to pieces if they have silenced those big

Belgian fortresses around Namur. In that case, we'll have their

charming Uhlans here in another forty-eight hours----"

He checked himself as Madame de Moidrey knocked and entered, followed by

a maid with Gray's dinner on a tray.

"Thank you, Jim; you may go and dress now. Mr. Gray, you are to dine a

little earlier, if you don't mind--Suzanne, place the tray on this

tabouret. Now, shall I help you, Mr. Gray?"

"Thanks, so much; but I am detaining you from dinner----"

"No, indeed. Let me help you a little----" arranging a napkin for him

and uncovering his cup of fragrant broth.

Warner and the maid, Suzanne, lingered, looking on, thinking they might

be needed.

But realizing presently that neither the Countess nor her patient was

paying the slightest attention to them, they looked at each other very

gravely and quietly walked out.

That night at dinner Sister Eila was absent.

Certain prescribed devotions made Sister Eila's attendance at any meal

an uncertainty. The private chapel in the east wing had now become a

retreat for her at intervals during the day; the kitchen knew her when

Gray's broth was to be prepared; she gently directed the servants who

had been setting up the hospital cots in the east wing, and she showed

them how to equip the beds, how to place the tables, how to garnish the

basins of running water with necessaries, where to pile towels, where to

assemble the hospital stores which had arrived with the cots in cases

and kegs and boxes.

Besides this she had not forgotten to give Gray his medicine and to

change his bandages.

It had been a busy day for Sister Eila.

And now, in the little chapel whither she had crept on tired feet to her

devotions, she had fallen asleep on her knees, the rosary still clinging

to her fingers, her white-bonneted head resting against the pillar

beside which she had knelt.

Warner, wandering at hazard after dinner, discovered her there and

thought it best to awaken her.

As he touched her sleeve, she murmured drowsily:

"I have need of prayer, Mr. Halkett.... Let me pray--for us--both----"

For a long while Warner stood motionless, not daring to stir. Then,

moving cautiously, he left her there asleep on her knees, her white

cheek against the pillar, the wooden prayer beads hanging from her

half-closed hand.

*CHAPTER XXIX*

The first streak of tarnished silver in the east aroused the sleeping

batteries beyond Ausone. Warner, already dressed and out of doors, felt

the dim world around him begin to shake again, as one by one the distant

guns awoke and spoke to the ruined fort of doom. There was not a soul

astir in the Chateau or about the grounds. Over shrubbery and woods

thin films of night mist drooped, sagging like dew-laden spiders' webs;

in the demi-light the great house loomed spectral and huge amid its

phantom trees, and the wet lawns spread away and vanished under the

pallid pall that bathed them.

Warner had slept badly. What might be transpiring in the north had

haunted his troubled slumber, had broken it continually, and finally had

driven him from his hot and tumbled pillows to dress and go out into the

dark obscurity.

To see for himself, to try to form some conclusion concerning the

approaching situation of the people in the Chateau des Oiseaux, was his

object.

The first grey tint in the east woke up the guns; from the northern

terrace he could see the fog all rosy over Ausone; pale flashes leaped

and sparkled far beyond as the deep waves of sound came rolling and

tumbling toward him, breaking in thunderous waves across the misty

darkness.

Now and then a heavier concussion set the ground shaking, and a redder

glare lighted the north and played shakily over the clouds. Ausone was

still replying.

On the other side of the Recollette there was a hill terraced to the

summit with vineyards. From its western slope he knew that part of

Ausone town was visible, and from there he believed that with his field

glasses he could see for himself how much of the town was really on

fire; how near to it and to the fort were those paler flashes reflected

on the clouds which ringed the northern sky.

Nobody was astir in the house as he left it; nobody in the roadway.

At the lodge he rapped on the dark window until the old man peered out

at him through the diamond panes, yawning and blinking under his Yvetot

nightcap, a candle trembling in his hand.

Outside the wall he crossed the road, climbed the hedge stile and struck

across a field of stubble.

Over the darker eastern hills a wet sky lowered; the Recollette ran

black under its ghostly cerements of vapor; lapwings were calling

somewhere from the foggy sky, and their mournful and faint complaint

seemed to harmonize sadly with the vague grey world around him.

A trodden path twisted through the grass down to the reedy shore where

the punt lay. Peering about for it, his foot struck the pole, where it

lay partly buried in the weeds; he picked it up and went down among the

rushes. But until he laid his hand on the boat he did not notice the

man asleep there. And not until the man sat up with a frightful yawn,

rubbing his sleep-swollen lids, did he recognize Asticot.

"What the devil----" he began, but Asticot stumbled to his large, flat

feet with a suppressed yelp of apprehension, as Warner's dreaded grasp

fell on his collar.

"_Mon Dieu_," moaned the young ruffian, "may I not even sleep without

offending M'sieu'----"

Warner shook him, not roughly.

"Now answer me once and for all! _Why_ are you hanging around Sais?"

The tiny, mousy eyes of Asticot became fixed; a grin of terror stiffened

the pasty features.

"Why do I still find you in Sais?" repeated Warner. "Tell me the truth!"

"I--I am too f-frightened to tell you----"

"Get over your fright. Listen, Asticot, I'm not going to hurt you. But

you've got to answer me. Come, compose yourself----" He relaxed his

grasp on the coat collar and stepped aside. "Come, Asticot; tell me why

I find you here in Sais?"

"M'sieu'----"

"Yes, go on. Just tell me the truth. I'm not going to beat you."

"M'sieu' will not believe me--God knows I do not know how to explain it

to myself--but since that frightful beating bestowed upon me I do not

know how to get along without the protection of M'sieu'----"

"What do you mean?"

"I am _afraid_! I do not know why. I desire to be taken under the

patronage of him I fear. C'est plus fort que moi. _Tenez_, M'sieu',

like a dog owned by nobody I once ran about at random, and not afraid,

until caught and nearly killed by M'sieu'. And now I desire to be his.

It is natural for me to follow him--even though I remain afraid of him,

even risking his anger and another beating----"

"Asticot!"

"M'sieu'?"

"Do you nourish any agreeable dreams that you may one day live to insert

your knife in my back?"

The sheer astonishment in the young ruffian's visage was sufficient

answer for Warner. He realized then that this yellow mongrel would

never again try to bite--that he might collapse and succumb under

violence, but never again would he twist and try to mangle the hand of

punishment which once had broken him so mercilessly.

"Get into the punt, anyway," said Warner, much perplexed.

Asticot turned and crept into the stern.

"Sit down!"

The young man squatted obediently. Warner shoved off, sprang aboard,

and sent the punt shooting out across the misty water.

"So you don't want to murder me any more?" he asked humorously.

"No," said Asticot, with sullen but profound conviction.

"What's become of your delightful friend, Squelette?"

Asticot looked up, bared every tooth.

"_Figurez-vous_, M'sieu', a dragoon patrol caught him yesterday stealing

a goose from a farm. Me, I hid in a willow tree. It's the Battalion of

Biribi for Squelette--his class having been called a year ago--and he

over the Belgian line with his fingers to his nose! He--he!" laughed

Asticot, writhing in the enjoyment of the prospect before his recent

comrade. "Me, I have done my time in Biribi!--And the scars of

it--God!--hot irons on the brain!--And the heart a cinder! Biribi! Is

there a priest's hell like it?" He spat fiercely into the river.

"And Squelette, who always mocked me for the time I did in Biribi!

_Tenez_, M'sieu', now they've caught him and he'll do a tour for himself

in that dear Biribi! He--he! C'est bien fait! Chacun a son tour! As

for me----" His voice suddenly relapsed into a whine. "I shall now be

well protected by M'sieu' and I shall be diligent and grateful in his

service, ready always with brush and black soap or with knife and

noose----"

"Thanks," said Warner dryly. "You may stick to the bowl of black soap

until your class is summoned."

Asticot looked at him earnestly.

"If I have to go with my class, will M'sieu' speak a word for me that it

shall be the line and not Biribi again?"

"Yes, if you behave yourself."

"A--a certificate of honest employment?--A few kind words that I have

diligently labored in the service of M'sieu'?"

"Yes, I'll do that."

Asticot squirmed with delight. And Warner, poling steadily up stream,

saw him making his toilet in the grey light, dipping his fists into the

water, scrubbing his battered features, carefully combing out _favoris_

and _rouflaquette_ and greasing both from the contents of a knotted

bandana handkerchief which he drew from the capacious pocket of the coat

which the charity of Warner had bestowed upon him.

He was as merry as a washer-raccoon over his ablutions; all care for the

future had fled, and an animal-like confidence in this terrible young

patron of his reigned undisturbed in the primitive brain of Asticot.

There was now only one impelling force in life for him--the instinctive

necessity of running rather close to Warner's heels, wherever that might

lead him. Anxiety for personal comfort and well-being he dismissed; he

would eat when his master thought best; he would find shelter and warmth

and clothing when and where it pleased the man after whom he tagged. He

was safe, he was comfortable. That dominating physical strength which

had nearly destroyed him, coupled with that awesome intellectual power

which now held him in dumb subjection, would in future look out for him

and his needs. Tant mieux! Let his master do the worrying.

Carefully combing out his _favoris_ with a broken comb and greasing them

with perfumed pomade flat over his sunken cheekbones, he fairly wriggled

with his new sense of security and bodily comfort.

Now and then he scratched his large, outstanding ears, trying to realize

his good fortune; now and then, combing his _rouflaquette_ with

tenderness and pride, he lifted his mean, nasal voice in song:

"Depuis que j'suis dans c'tte p--n d'Afrique

A faire l'chameau avec une bosse su' l'dos,

Mon vieux frangin, j'suis sec comme un coup d'trique,

J'ai b'entot p'us que d'la peau su'les os!

Et v'la l'Bat. d'Af. qui passe,

Ohe! ceux d'la classe!--"

Combing away and plastering his lovelocks by the help of a fragment of

mirror, Asticot whined out his dreadful ballads of Africa, throwing all

the soul he possessed into the tragic recital and sniffling

sentimentally through his nose:

A Biribi c'est la qu'on marche,

Faut pas flancher;

Quand l'chaouch crie: 'En avant! Marche!'

I'faut marcher,

Et quand on veut fair' des epates,

C'est peau d'zebi:

On vous fiche les fers au quat' pattes

A Biribi!

A Biribi c'est la qu'on creve

De soif et d' faim,

C'est la qu'i' faut marner sans treve

Jusqu' a la fin! ...

Le soir on pense a la famille

Sous le gourbi....

On pleure encor' quand on roupille

A Biribi!"

He was still chanting when the punt glided in among the rushes of the

eastern bank. He followed Warner to the land, aided him to beach the

punt, then trotted docilely at heel as the American struck out across

the quarry road and mounted the retaining wall of the vineyard-clad

hill.

Up they climbed among the vines; and Asticot with a leer, but keeping

his mousy eyes on Warner, ventured to detach a ripe bunch here and there

and breakfast as he trotted along.

The thunder of the cannon had become very distinct; daylight came slowly

under the heavy blanket of grey clouds; the foggy sky was still stained

with rose over Ausone; red flashes leaped from the fort; the paler glare

of the German guns played constantly across the north.

And now, coming out on the hill's crest among the vines, Warner caught

sight of Ausone town far below, beyond the Chateau forest. Here and

there houses kindled red as coals in a grate; the sluice and wheel of a

mill by the Recollette seemed to be on fire; beyond it haystacks were

burning and smothering all the east in smoke.

"_Mazette_," remarked Asticot, with his mouth full of stolen grapes.

"It appears to Bibi that their church of Sainte Cassilda is frying the

stone saints inside!"

And then, adjusting his field glasses, Warner discovered what the

mouse-eyes of Asticot had detected: Sainte Cassilda the beautiful was

merely a hollow shell within which raged a sea of fire crimsoning the

gaping doors and windows, glowing scarlet through cracks and fissures in

the exquisitely carved facade, mounting through the ruined roof in a

whirl of rosy vapors that curled and twisted and glittered with swarming

golden sparks.

Another fire burned in the ruins of what had been the Chalons railway

station; the Cafe and Cabaret de Biribi were level wastes of stones and

steaming bricks, over which fire played and smoke whirled upward; the

market was a long heap of live coals; even trees were afire by the

river, and Warner could see flames here and there among the bushes and

whole thickets burning fiercely along the river and beyond, where the

Bois d'Ausone touches it with a fringe of splendid oaks.

As day broke, a watery light illuminated the still landscape. Smoke

hung heavy over Ausone Fort; the great cupola guns flashed redly through

it; a wide, high bank of vapor towered above Ausone, stretching away to

the west and north. Whole rows of burning houses in Ausone glowed and

glimmered, marking the courses of streets; the Hotel de Ville seemed to

be intact, but the Boulevard d'Athos was plainly on fire; and, over the

rue d'Auros, an infernal light flickered as flame and smoke alternately

lighted the street or blotted it from view.

"The town is done for," said Warner calmly. "The fort is still

replying, but very slowly. It looks rather bad to me. It looks like

the end."

Asticot scratched one large ear and furtively helped himself to another

bunch of grapes. Warner seated himself on the ground and raised his

field glasses. Asticot squatted on his haunches, his little, mousy eyes

fixed wistfully on the burning town. Looting ought to be good in

Ausone--dangerous, of course, but profitable. A heaven-sent opportunity

for honest pillage was passing. Asticot sighed and licked his lips.

After a while, and imbued now with the impudent confidence of a

tolerated mongrel, he ventured to rise and nose around a bit, keeping,

however, his new master carefully in sight.

The sour little wine grapes had allayed his thirst and hunger; he

prowled at random around the summit of the hill, surveying the river

valley and the hills beyond. By chance he presently kicked up a big

hare, which cleared out at full speed, doubling and twisting before the

shower of stones hurled after it by Asticot. He ran after it a little

way among the vines, hoping that a chance missile might have bowled over

the toothsome game. Craning his neck, he peeped discreetly down the

hillside, reconnoitering; then suddenly ducked; squatted for a moment as

though frozen to a statue, and, dropping on his belly, he crawled back

to Warner, who still sat there with his field glasses bracketed on

Ausone.

"M'sieu'!"

Warner turned at the weird whisper, lowering his glasses.

"Las Bosches!" whispered Asticot.

"Where?" demanded Warner incredulously.

"Riding up this very hill where we are sitting! I saw them--six of them

on their horses!"

"They must be French!"

"No, Bosches! Uhlans!"

"Did they see you?"

"No."

Along the upper retaining wall of the vineyard a line of low bushes grew

in patches, left there, no doubt, so that the roots might make firmer

the steep bank of earth and dry-laid stone.

Warner rose, and, stooping low, ran toward this thatch of cover,

followed by Asticot.

Under the bushes they crept, stretched themselves flat, and lay

listening.

They had not long to wait; straight through the rows of vines toward the

crest of the hill rode an Uhlan, walking his big, hard-breathing horse

to the very verge of the northern slope.

His lance, with pennon furled, slanted low from the arm loop; he sat his

high saddle like a statue, and looked out across the valley toward the

burning town beyond.

He was so near that Warner could see the grey uniform in detail--the

ulanka piped with dark crimson, shoulder straps bearing the number 2,

collar with the eagle-button insignia of the Guard. A grey helmet-slip

covered the mortar board and leather body of the schapska; boots and

belt were of russet leather.

Another Uhlan rode up, showing the star of an oberleutnant on the

_pattes-d'epaules_.

Four others followed, picking their way among the vines, cautiously yet

leisurely. At the stirrups of the oberleutnant strode a man on foot--a

big, shambling, bald-headed man wearing a smock and carrying a felt hat

in his huge hand. And when he turned to wipe his hairless face on his

sleeve, Asticot clutched Warner's arm convulsively.

The man was Wildresse.

The officer of Uhlans sat very straight in his saddle, his field glasses

sometimes focussed on the burning town, sometimes sweeping the landscape

to the north and west, sometimes deliberately studying the valley below.

Presently he lowered his glasses and turned partly around to look down

at Wildresse, who was standing among the vines by his stirrup.

"Wohin fuehrt diese Weg?" he demanded with a nod toward the quarry road

below.

"Nach Drieux, Excellenz!"

"Zeigen Sie mir die Richtung nach Dreslin mit der Hand!"

Wildresse raised his arm and pointed, tracing the quarry road north and

west.

"Also! Wie tief ist dieser Fluss? Ist eine Bruecke?"

The harsh, deep rumble of Wildresse's voice, the mincing, nasal tones of

the Prussian, the snort of horses receded as the Uhlans rode slowly over

toward the right--evidently a precaution to escape observation from the

valley below.

For a while they sat their big horses there, looking out over the

valley; then, at a signal from the ober-leutnant, they turned their

mounts and rode slowly off down the eastern slope of the vineyard,

taking with them the double traitor, Wildresse.

Asticot's eyes were like two minute black sparks; he was shivering now

from head to foot as he lay there; and it became very evident to Warner

that this young ruffian had had no knowledge of that sort of villainy on

the part of Wildresse.

"Ah, le cochon!" hissed Asticot, grasping two fistfuls of earth in his

astonishment and fury. "Is he selling France then to the Bosches?"

"Didn't you know it?" inquired Warner coldly.

"I? Nom de Dieu! For what do you take me then? Whatever I am, I am not

_that_! Ah, le sale bougre de Wildresse! Ah! Les salauds de saligauds

de Bosches! Ah, Wildresse!--Fumier, viande a corbeau, caserne a puces,

gadou', morceau d'chausett's russes--que j'te dis que j't'engeule et que

j't'abomine, vermine malade, canard boiteux----"

Ashy white, his mouth twisted with rage, Asticot lay shivering and

cursing the treachery of his late employer, Wildresse. And Warner

understood that, low as this creature was, ignorant, treacherous,

fierce, ruthless, and cowardly, the treason of Wildresse had amazed and

horrified and enraged him.

"It's the last depths of filth," stammered Asticot. "Ah, non, nom de

Dieu! One does not do _that_!--Whatever else one does! I'll have his

skin for this. It becomes necessary to me that I have his skin! Minc'

de Marseillaise! Viv' la republique! En avant l'armee! Gare au coup

d'scion, eh, vache d'apache! Les coutcaur sont faits pour les chiens,

mince de puree! C'est vrai qu' Squelette c'est un copain a moi--but if

he is in this--he and the pere Wildresse, et bon!--Faut leur-z-y casser

la geule----"

"That's enough!" interrupted Warner, who for a moment had been struck

dumb by the frightful fluency of an invective he never dreamed existed,

even in the awful argot of _voyous_ like Asticot.

He rose. Pale and still trembling, Asticot stumbled to his feet, his

pasty face twisted with unuttered maledictions.

Moving cautiously to the eastern edge of the vineyard, they saw, far

below them, six Uhlans riding slowly eastward toward the Bois de Sais,

and a gross figure on foot shuffling ahead and evidently acting as pilot

toward the wilder uplands of the rolling country beyond.

Warner watched them through his glasses until they disappeared in the

woods, then he turned, looked at the burning town in the north for a few

moments, closed his field glasses and slung them, and, nodding to

Asticot, descended the western slope toward the river.

There were no people visible anywhere, either on the quarry road or

across the river. The fugitives from Ausone must have gone west toward

Dreslin.

Asticot crawled into the punt; Warner shoved off and poled for

midstream, where he let the current carry him down toward Sais.