Yes; the houses danced indeed, and the mad music of the guns waxed more
terrible as Sadi approached the ramparts and could see the cannon for
himself. It was just like a display of fireworks in the gardens of the
Tuileries, he said. From minute to minute the dark background of the sky
would be cleaved by a line of fire, which marked the path of an
incendiary shell as it soared above the quivering city and fell in a
shower of flame upon house, or church, or citadel. The hither ground was
a mighty waste of rubble, a desert of rubbish, where a few weeks ago
houses had stood up proudly, and churches had invited worshippers, and
children had found their homes. And all this misery, this untold and
savage destruction, was the work of the hated Prussians over yonder,
where the night was red and the darkness behind it shielded the
assassins. Sadi, in the presence of those who were doing something for
France, asked himself what he had done. The answer was, "Nothing." He
reflected upon it a little bitterly and turned away toward the west,
walking from the ramparts of that unhappy quarter of the city which the
Prussians had destroyed ten days ago and now forgotten.
The path was desolate--none trod it but Sadi the fiddler, and he
stumbled often as he went. So completely had the Prussians demolished
the quarter that the very contour of the streets was lost and a dismal
plain presented itself--an open field of rubbish, broken here and there
by great abysses which once had been the cellars of the houses. Sadi did
not know why he walked in such a place or what hope of bread it could
give him; but when he stumbled upon an open cellar he reflected that,
after all, the house had been quitted in haste, and that some provision
might have been left in its larders. The bare possibility appealing to
his ravenous hunger sent him climbing down into the cellar like a
schoolboy upon a forbidden venture. Impatiently, and with a strength he
did not know that he possessed, he delved among the rubble, thrust at
the great beams, and wormed his way toward the vault. None would
interfere with him, he argued; there was no law, military or civil,
which forbade a man to share a bone with the dogs. Sadi was like a miser
seeking for his gold; and when at length he stood upright in that which
undoubtedly had been the larder of a house, he felt all the joy of an
explorer who has discovered an unknown city. Unhappily, such a transport
endured for the briefest of moments. Sadi was just telling himself that
he was a very lucky fellow when a great hand, thrust out of the
darkness, clutched at his throat, and the rays of a lantern shining full
in his face blinded him to any other sights.
"Well, my body-snatcher," cried a voice in guttural French, "and what
may you be doing here?"
A German spoke; there was no doubt of it at all. Moreover, he was a huge
fellow, probably a Prussian from the North; and although he wore the
uniform of a French regiment of chasseurs, it was ridiculously small for
him and showed its deficiencies when his cloak fell aside. Quick-witted
and mentally alert, Sadi guessed the fellow's business there at the
first hazard. He could be no one else than one of the many Prussian
spies who then found their way in and out of Strasburg so readily. This
desert waste of the city would harbour him surely--perchance he waited
an opportunity to recross the lines, and was hiding meanwhile in this
labyrinth like a fox that has gone to earth. All this passed through
Sadi's mind in a moment, but it was accompanied by a cold shiver as
though icy water were running down his back. For he perceived at once
that the Prussian carried a revolver in his right hand and that the
finger itched upon the trigger. A word, a step, might cost him his life.
Sadi stood rigid as a statue, while the sweat gathered in heavy drops
upon his brow.
"Come, no nonsense!" the Prussian repeated, menacingly. "You had better
be honest with me. What is your business here? I will give you the half
of a minute to tell me."
Sadi breathed heavily, but he spoke apparently without emotion.
"I have had nothing to eat for twenty hours," he said; "naturally I came
here for food."
The Prussian interrupted him with a brutal laugh.
"Then you certainly live on vermin, my bag of bones," he retorted, with
a jeer. "Come, your time is nearly up, and my fingers are impatient. You
will really be very foolish if you are not candid with me."
He raised the pistol slowly, and deliberately touched Sadi's forehead
with the cold barrel. The lantern's light showed a hard face and small
eyes set above puffy cheeks. He wore a moustache in the French fashion
and an uncouth imperial, which added to his grotesque appearance. Sadi
knew that such a man would think it no greater crime to shoot a
Frenchman than to drown a dog. Heroically as he had philosophized about
death ten minutes ago, the nearer presence of it was very dreadful to
him. He could imagine the sting of the bullet as it crashed through his
forehead, the sudden giddiness, the voice which said, "Never again shall
you speak, or breathe, or look up to the sun." A desperate desire of
life came to him. He trembled violently, pressed his hand to his heart,
but could not utter a single word. The Prussian watched him without
compassion. He began to count ironically, "One, two, three," he said; "I
will count ten, _canaille_," and he started off from the beginning
again. He was at the number "five" when a second voice in the cellar
caused him to turn sharply upon his heel and then to salute in the rigid
German fashion.
"Ah, Herr Lieutenant, here is a job for you," he exclaimed, as though
glad to be quit of the responsibility. "I found this rat in the hole
here. Look at him for yourself and see what kind of a rogue he is."
The new-comer was quite a youth, a fair, freckled German lad, in little
more than his twentieth year. He, too, wore a French uniform, but it was
that of the artillery, and Sadi observed that it was a better fit than
the loose clothes of the rough customer who had just been threatening
him. Such trifling facts occupied the fiddler's mind to the exclusion of
all else. He believed that he was about to die, and yet could count the
buttons on the lieutenant's tunic, guess at the State he came from, and
hazard the colour of his eyes. The lad was a Bavarian, he said, a merry,
laughing youngster. Impossible to believe that he would sanction a
brutal murder. Sadi breathed quickly--he appealed to the lad's sympathy
in an earnest, manly voice.
[Illustration: "HE RAISED THE PISTOL SLOWLY."]
"Herr Lieutenant, it is nothing of the kind," he protested; "I am a poor
wretch of a fiddler, whose garret your people have just burned."
It was not a wise thing to have said, and the young soldier's
interruption told Sadi as much.
"My people, sir!" he cried, sharply, and with feigned astonishment.
"What people do you mean, then?"
"It is as I say," interrupted the trooper; "he is a spy who has tracked
us to our hole, Herr Lieutenant. Better make an end of him while there
is time."
"But not with a pistol, trooper," retorted the boy, with a little laugh.
"At least, let us sup first."
Sadi breathed again, while the two Prussians discussed the pros and cons
in a low voice. "If these men would but quarrel!" was his idea. They,
however, had no intention of doing anything of the kind, for presently
they ceased to wrangle, and the young soldier exclaimed, with some
severity:--
"You say that you are a fiddler. What proofs of that can you give us?"
"My fiddle," answered Sadi, almost joyously; "you will find it on the
stones upstairs, sir."
The answer surprised the men very much.
"Go and look for it, trooper," said the officer, quietly; "there is
plenty of time before daylight to settle this fellow's affair. Besides,
the captain is fond of a little music."
The trooper clambered up out of the cellar at the word of command, while
the lieutenant calmly lighted a cigar and surveyed Sadi with an ironical
glance.
"Poor business, yours, just now, is it not?" he asked.
"So poor that I am starving," said Sadi, with dignified simplicity.
"Ah! And you look for your supper on the dust-heaps. Just like a
fiddler."
"I have walked to the ramparts and back every evening for three years,"
rejoined Sadi, whose self-possession remained to him. "The habit clings
to me; besides, what is the harm?" he asked.
"The captain will teach you that; don't let me deceive you at all; he
will certainly shoot you, old fellow. For myself, I am sensitive; it is
my weakness to prefer live bodies to dead ones. I could not--no, I could
not harm a fly, my Stradivarius. That is why you are now allowed to say
your prayers."