Chapter XXII: A Door Is Locked 239 (6)

Jack, sitting after dinner with Lorraine in the bay-window above, looked down upon the vast camp that covered the whole land, from the hills to the Lisse, from the forest to the pastures above Saint-Lys. There were no tents--the German army carried none. Here and there a canvas-covered wagon glistened white in the moonlight; the pale radiance fell on acres of stacked rifles, on the brass rims of drums, and the spikes of the sentries' helmets. Videttes, vaguely silhouetted on distant knolls, stood almost motionless, save for the tossing of their horses' heads. Along the river Lisse the infantry pickets lay, the sentinels, patrolling their beats with brisk, firm steps, only pausing to bring their heavy heels together, wheel squarely, and retrace their steps, always alert and sturdy. The wind shifted to the west and the faint chimes of Saint-Lys came quavering on the breeze.

"The bells!" said Jack; "can you hear them?"

"Yes," said Lorraine, listlessly.

She had been very silent during their dinner. He wondered that she had not shown any emotion at the sight of the invading soldiers. She had not--she had scarcely even shown curiosity. He thought that perhaps she did not realize what it meant, this swarm of Prussians pouring into France between the Moselle and the Rhine. He, American that he was, felt heartsick, humiliated, at the sight of the spiked casques and armoured horsemen, trampling the meadows of the province that he loved--the province of Lorraine. For those strangers to France who know France know two mothers; and though the native land is first and dearest, the new mother, France, generous, tender, lies next in the hearts of those whom she has sheltered.

So Jack felt the shame and humiliation as though a blow had been struck at his own home and kin, and he suffered the more thinking what his uncle must suffer. And Lorraine! His heart had bled for her when the harsh treble of the little, flat Prussian drums first broke out among the hills. He looked for the deep sorrow, the patience, the proud endurance, the prouder faith that he expected in her; he met with silence, even a distrait indifference.

Surely she could comprehend what this crushing disaster prophesied for France? Surely she of all women, sensitive, tender, and loyal, must know what love of kin and country meant?

Far away in the southwest the great heart of Paris throbbed in silence, for the beautiful, sinful city, confused by the din of the riffraff within her walls, blinded by lies and selfish counsels, crouched in mute agony, listening for the first ominous rumbling of a rotten, tottering Empire.

God alone knows why he gave to France, in the supreme moment of her need, the beings who filled heaven with the wind of their lungs and brought her to her knees in shame--not for brave men dead in vain, not for a wasted land, scourged and flame-shrunken from the Rhine to the Loire, not for provinces lost nor cities gone forever--but for the strange creatures that her agony brought forth, shapes simian and weird, all mouth and convulsive movement, little pigmy abortions mouthing and playing antics before high Heaven while the land ran blood in every furrow and the world was a hell of flame.

Gambetta, that incubus of bombastic flabbiness, roaring prophecy and platitude through the dismayed city, kept his eye on the balcony of the particular edifice where, later, he should pose as an animated Jericho trumpet. So, biding his time, he bellowed, but it was the Comédie Française that was the loser, not the people, when he sailed away in his balloon, posed, squatting majestically as the god of war above the clouds of battle. And little Thiers, furtive, timid, delighting in senile efforts to stir the ferment of chaos till it boiled, he, too, was there, owl-like, squeaky-voiced, a true "Bombyx à Lunettes." There, too, was Hugo--often ridiculous in his terrible moods, egotistical, sloppy, roaring. The Empire pinched Hugo, and he roared; and let the rest of the world judge whether, under such circumstances, there was majesty in the roar. The spectacle of Hugo, prancing on the ramparts and hurling bad names at the German armies, recalls the persistent but painful manoeuvres of a lion with a flea. Both are terribly in earnest--neither is sublime.

Jack sat leaning on the window-ledge, his chin on both hands, watching the moonlight rippling across the sea of steel below. Lorraine, also silent, buried in an arm-chair, lay huddled somewhere in the shadows, looking up at the stars, scarcely visible in the radiance of the moon.

After a while she spoke in a low voice: "Do you remember in chapel a week ago--what--"

"Yes, I know what you mean. Can you say it--any of it?"

"Yes, all."

Presently he heard her voice in the darkness repeating the splendid lines:

"'In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and they that look out of the windows be darkened.

"'And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and they shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.

"'Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.

"'Because man goeth to his long home--'"

Her voice broke a little.

"'And the mourners go about the streets--'"

He leaned forward, his hand stretched out in the shadows. After a moment her fingers touched his, moved a little, and were clasped close. Then it was that, in her silence, he read a despair too deep, too sudden, too stupefying for expression--a despair scarcely yet understood. A sensitive young mind, stunned by realities never dreamed of, recovers slowly; and the first outward evidence of returning comprehension is an out-stretched hand, a groping in the shadows for the hand of the best beloved. Her hand was there, out-stretched, their fingers had met and interlaced. A great lassitude weighed her down, mind and body. Yesterday was so far away, and to-morrow so close at hand, but not yet close enough to arouse her from an apathy unpierced as yet by the keen shaft of grief.

He felt the lethargy in her yielding fingers; perhaps he began to understand the sensitive girl lying in the arm-chair beside him, perhaps he even saw ahead into the future that promised everything or nothing, for France, for her, for him.

Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, "Wait!"--so he waited, there alone in the darkness.

The bells of Saint-Lys sounded again, scarcely vibrating in the still air; a bank of sombre cloud buried the moon, and put out the little stars one by one until the blackness of the night crept in, blotting out river and tree and hill, hiding the silent camp in fathomless shadow. He slept.

When he awoke, slowly, confused and uncertain, he found her close to him, kneeling on the floor, her face on his knees. He touched her arm, fearfully, scarcely daring; he touched her hair, falling heavily over her face and shoulders and across his knees. Ah! but she was tired--her very soul was weary and sick; and she was too young to bear her trouble. Therefore she came back to him who had reached out his hand to her. She could not cry--she could only lie there and try to live through the bitterness of her solitude. For now she knew at last that she was alone on earth. The knowledge had come in a moment, it had come with the first trample of the Prussian horsemen; she knew that her love, given so wholly, so passionately, was nothing, had been nothing, to her father. He whom she lived for--was it possible that he could abandon her in such an hour? She had waited all day, all night; she said in her heart that he would come from his machines and his turret to be with her. Together they could have lived through the shame of the day--of the bitter days to come; together they could have suffered, knowing that they had each other to live for.

But she could not face the Prussian scourge alone--she could not. These two truths had been revealed to her with the first tap of the Prussian drums: that every inch of soil, every grass-blade, every pebble of her land was dearer to her than life; and that her life was nothing to her father. He who alone in all the world could have stood between her and the shameful pageant of invasion, who could have taught her to face it, to front it nobly, who could have bidden her hope and pray and wait--he sat in his turret turning little wheels while the whole land shook with the throes of invasion--their native land, Lorraine.

The death-throes of a nation are felt by all the world. Bismarck placed a steel-clad hand upon the pulse of France, and knew Lorraine lay dying. Amputation would end all--Moltke had the apparatus ready; Bismarck, the great surgeon and greater executioner, sat with mailed hand on the pulse of France and waited.

The girl, Lorraine, too, knew the crisis had come--sensitive prophetess in all that she held sacred! She had never prayed for the Emperor, but she always prayed for France when she asked forgiveness night and morning. At confession she had accused herself sometimes because she could not understand the deeper meaning of this daily prayer, but now she understood it; the fierce love for native soil that blazes up when that soil is stamped upon and spurned.

All the devotion, all the tender adoration, that she had given her father turned now to bitter grief for this dear land of hers. It, at least, had been her mother, her comforter, her consolation; and there it lay before her--it called to her; she responded passionately, and gave it all her love. So she lay there in the dark, her hot face buried in her hands, close to one whom she needed and who needed her.

He was too wise to speak or move; he loved her too much to touch again the hair, flung heavily across her face--to touch her flushed brow, her clasped hands, her slender body, delicate and warm, firm yet yielding. He waited for the tears to come. And when they fell, one by one, great, hot drops, they brought no relief until she told him all--all--her last and inmost hope and fear.

Then when her white soul lay naked in all its innocence before him, and when the last word had been said, he raised her head and searched in her pure eyes for one message of love for himself.

It was not there; and the last word had been said.

And, even as he looked, holding her there almost in his arms, the Prussian trumpets clanged from the dim meadows and the drums thundered on the hills, and the invading army roused itself at the dawn of another day.

XVIII

THE STRETCHING OF NECKS

For two days and nights the German army passed through Morteyn and Saint-Lys, on the march towards Metz. All day long the hills struck back the echoes of their flat brass drums, and shook with the shock of armed squadrons, tramping on into the west. Interminable trains of wagons creaked along the sandy Saint-Avold road; the whistle of the locomotive was heard again at Saint-Lys, where the Bavarians had established a base of supplies and were sending their endless, multicoloured trains puffing away towards Saarbrück for provisions and munitions of war that had arrived there from Cologne. Generals with their staffs, serious, civil fellows, with anxious, near-sighted eyes, stopped at the Château and were courteously endured, only to be replaced by others equally polite and serious. And regularly, after each batch left with their marching regiments, there came back to the Château by courier, the same evening, a packet of visiting-cards and a polite letter signed by all the officers entertained, thanking the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn for their hospitality.

At last, on the 10th of August, about five o'clock in the afternoon, the last squadron of the rear-guard cantered over the hills west of Morteyn, and the last straggling Uhlan followed after, twirling his long lance.

Every day Lorraine had watched and waited for one word from her father; every day Jack had ridden over to the Château de Nesville, but the marquis refused to see him or to listen to any message, nor did he send any to Lorraine.

Old Pierre told Jack that no Germans had visited the Château; that the marquis was busy all day with his machinery, and never left his turret except to eat at daylight in the grand salon below. He also intimated that his master was about ready to make another ascension in the new balloon, which, old Pierre affirmed, had a revolving screw at either side of the wicker car, like a ship; and, like a ship, it could be steered with perfect ease. He even took Jack to a little stone structure that stood in a meadow, surrounded by trees. In there, according to Pierre, stood this marvellous balloon, not yet inflated, of course. That was only a matter of five seconds; a handful of the silver dust placed at the aperture of the silken bag, a drop of pure water touched to it, and, puff! the silver dust turns to vapour and the balloon swells out tight and full.

Jack had peeped into the barred window and had seen the wicker car of the balloon standing on the cement floor, filled with the folded silken covering for the globe of the balloon. He could just make out, on either side of the car, two twisted twin screws, wrought out of some dull oxidized metal. On returning to Morteyn that evening he had told Lorraine.

She explained that the screws were made of a metal called aluminum, rare then, because so difficult to extract from its combining substances, and almost useless on account of its being impossible to weld. Her father, however, had found a way to utilize it--how, she did not know. If this ascension proved a success the French government would receive the balloon and the secret of the steering and propelling gear, along with the formula for the silvery dust used to inflate it. Even she understood what a terrible engine of war such an aërial ship might be, from which two men could blow up fortress after fortress and city after city when and where they chose. Armies could be annihilated, granite and steel would be as tinder before a bomb or torpedo of picric acid dropped from the clouds.

On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the marquis--for Lorraine's sake.

He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.

"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working for France."

He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long as she lived. He said, too, that the marquis was labouring for France. So he was; but France would never see the terrible war engine, nor know the secrets of its management, as long as Napoleon III. was struggling to keep his family in the high places of France.

"Good-by," he said again. "I shall be back by sundown."

Lorraine leaned over the terrace, looking down at him with blue, fathomless eyes.

"By sundown?"

"Yes."

"Truly?"

"Yes."

"Tiens ta Foy."

"Always, Lorraine."

She did not chide him; she longed to call him Jack, but it stuck in her white throat when she tried.

"If you do not come back by sundown, then I shall know you cannot," she said.

"But I shall."

"Yes, I believe it."

"Come after me if I don't return," he laughed, as he descended the steps.

"I shall, if you break your faith," she smiled.

She watched him out of sight--he was going on foot this time--then the trees hid him, and she turned back into the house, where Madame de Morteyn was preparing to close the Château for the winter and return to Paris.

It was the old vicomte who had decided; he had stayed and faced the music as long as there was any to face--Prussian music, too. But now the Prussians had passed on towards Metz--towards Paris, also, perhaps, and he wished to be there; it was too sad in the autumn of Lorraine.

He had aged fearfully in the last four days; he was in truth an old man now. Even he knew it--he who had never before acknowledged age; but he felt it at night; for it is when day is ended that the old comprehend how old they are.

This was to be Lorraine's last night at Morteyn; in the morning Jack was to drive her back to her father and then return to Morteyn to accompany his uncle and aunt to Paris. The old people once settled in Paris with Dorothy and Betty Castlemaine, and surrounded by friends again, Jack would take leave of them and return to Morteyn with one servant. This he had promised Lorraine, and she had not said no. His aunt also wished it, but she did not think it time yet to tell the vicomte.

The servants, with the exception of one maid and the coachman, had gone in the morning, by way of Vigny, with the luggage. The vicomte and his wife were to travel by carriage to Passy-le-Sel, and from there, via Belfort, if the line were open, to Paris by rail. Jack, it had been arranged, was to ride to Belfort on horseback, and join the old people there for the journey to Paris.

So Lorraine turned back into the silent house, where the furniture stood in its stiff, white dust-coverings, where cloths covered candelabra and mirror, and the piano was bare of embroidered scarfs.

She passed through darkened rooms, one after another, through the long hall, where no servants remained, through the ballroom and dining-room, and out into the conservatory, emptied of every palm. She passed on across the interior court, through the servants' wicket, and out to the stables. All the stalls save one were empty. Faust stood in that one stall switching his tail and peering around at her with wise, dark eyes. Then she kissed his soft nose, and went sadly back to the house, only to roam over it again from terrace to roof, never meeting a living soul, never hearing a sound except when she passed the vicomte's suite, where Madame de Morteyn and the maid were arranging last details and the old vicomte lay asleep in his worn arm-chair.

There was one room she had not visited, one room in which she had never set foot, never even peeped into. That was Jack's room. And now, by an impulse she could not understand, her little feet led her up the stairway, across the broad landing, through the gun-room, and there to the door--his door. It was open. She glided in.

There was a faint odour of tobacco in the room, a smell of leather, too. That came from the curb-bit and bridle hanging on the wall, or perhaps from the plastron, foils, and gauntlets over the mantle. Pipes lay about in profusion, mixed with silver-backed brushes, cigar-boxes, neckties, riding-crops, and gloves.

She stole on tiptoe to the bed, looked at her wide, bright eyes in the mirror opposite, flushed, hesitated, bent swiftly, and touched the white pillow with her lips.

For a second she knelt there where he might have knelt, morning and evening, then slipped to her feet, turned, and was gone.

At sundown Jack returned, animated, face faintly touched with red from his three-mile walk. He had seen the marquis; more, too, he had seen the balloon--he had examined it, stood in the wicker car, tested the aluminum screws. He brought back a message for Lorraine, affectionate and kindly, asking for her return home early the next morning.

"If we do not find you at Belfort to-morrow," said Madame de Morteyn, seriously, "we shall not wait. We shall go straight on to Paris. The house is ready to be locked, everything is in perfect order, and really, Jack, there is no necessity for your coming. Perhaps Lorraine's father may ask you to stay there for a few days."

"He has," said Jack, growing a trifle pink.

"Then you need not come to Belfort at all," insisted his aunt. Jack protested that he could not let them go to Paris alone.

"But I've sent Faust on already," said Madame de Morteyn, smiling.

"Then the Marquis de Nesville will lend me a horse; you can't keep me away like that," said Jack; "I will drive Mademoiselle de Nesville to her home and then come on horseback and meet you at Belfort, as I said I would."

"We won't count on you," said his aunt; "if you're not there when the train comes, your uncle and I will abandon you to the mercy of Lorraine."

"I shall send him on by freight," said Lorraine, trying to smile.

"I'm going back to the Château de Nesville to-night for an hour or two," observed Jack, finishing his Moselle; "the marquis wanted me to help him on the last touches. He makes an ascent to-morrow noon."

"Take a lantern, then," said Madame de Morteyn; "don't you want Jules, too--if you're going on foot through the forest?"

"Don't want Jules, and the squirrels won't eat me," laughed Jack, looking across at Lorraine. He was thinking of that first dash in the night together, she riding with the fury of a storm-witch, her ball-gown in ribbons, her splendid hair flashing, he galloping at her stirrup, putting his horse at a dark figure that rose in their path; and then the collision, the trample, the shots in the dark, and her round white shoulder seared with the bullet mark.

She raised her beautiful eyes and asked him how soon he was going to start.

"Now," he said.

"You will perhaps wait until your old aunt rises," said Madame de Morteyn, and she kissed him on the cheek. He helped her from her chair and led her from the room, the vicomte following with Lorraine.

Ten minutes later he was ready to start, and again he promised Lorraine to return at eleven o'clock.

"'Tiens ta Foy,'" she repeated.

"Always, Lorraine."

The night was starless. As he stood there on the terrace swinging his lantern, he looked back at her, up into her eyes. And as he looked she bent down, impulsively stretching out both arms and whispering, "At eleven--you have promised, Jack."

At last his name had fallen from her lips--had slipped from them easily--sweet as the lips that breathed it.

He tried to answer; he could not, for his heart beat in his throat. But he took her two hands and crushed them together and kissed the soft, warm palms, passive under his lips. That was all--a touch, a glimpse of his face half lit by the lantern swinging; and again she called, softly, "Jack, 'Tiens ta Foy!'" And he was gone.

The distance to the Château de Nesville was three miles; it might have been three feet for all Jack knew, moving through the forest, swinging his lantern, his eyes on the dim trees towering into the blackness overhead, his mind on Lorraine. Where the lantern-light fell athwart rugged trunks, he saw her face; where the tall shadows wavered and shook, her eyes met his. Her voice was in the forest rumour, the low rustle of leafy undergrowth, the whisper of waters flowing under silent leaves.

Already the gray wall of the park loomed up in the east, already the gables and single turret of the Château grew from the shadows and took form between the meshed branches of the trees.

The grille swung wide open, but the porter was not there. He walked on, hastening a little, crossed the lawn by the summer arbour, and approached the house. There was a light in the turret, but the rest of the house was dark. As he reached the porch and looked into the black hallway, a slight noise in the dining-room fell upon his ear, and he opened the door and went in. The dining-room was dark; he set his extinguished lantern on the table and lighted a lamp by the window, saying: "Pierre, tell the marquis I am here--tell him I am to return to Morteyn by eleven--Pierre, do you hear me? Where are you, then?"

He raised his head instinctively, his hand on the lamp-globe. Pierre was not there, but something moved in the darkness outside the window, and he went to the door.

"Pierre!" he called again; and at the same instant an Uhlan struck him with his lance-butt across the temples.

* * * * *

How long it was before he opened his eyes he could not tell. He found himself lying on the ground in a meadow surrounded by trees. A camp-fire flickered near, lighting the gray side of the little stone house where the balloon was kept.

There were sounds--deep, guttural voices raised in dispute or threats; he saw a group of shadowy men, swaying, pushing, crowding under the trees. The firelight glimmered on a gilt button here and there, on a sabre-hilt, on polished schapskas and gold-scaled chin-guards. The knot of struggling figures suddenly widened out into a half-circle, then came a quick command, a cry in French--"Ah! God!"--and something shot up into the air and hung from a tree, dangling, full in the firelight.

It was the writhing body of a man.

Jack turned his head away, then covered his eyes with his hands. Beside him a tall Uhlan, swathed to the eyes in his great-coat, leaned on a lance and smoked in silence.

Suddenly a voice broke out in the night: "Links! vorwärts!" There came a regular tramp of feet--one, two! one, two!--across the grass, past the fire, and straight to where Jack sat, his face in his arms.

The bright glare of lanterns dazzled him as he looked up, but he saw a line of men with bared sabres standing to his right--tall Uhlans, buttoned to the chin in their sombre overcoats, helmet-cords oscillating in the lantern glow.

Another Uhlan, standing erect before him, had been speaking for a second or two before he even heard him.

"Prisoner, do you understand German?" repeated the Uhlan, harshly.

"Yes," muttered Jack. He began to shiver, perhaps from the chill of the wet earth.

"Stand up!"

Jack stumbled to his numbed feet. A drop of blood rolled into his eye and he mechanically wiped it away. He tried to look at the man before him; he could not, for his fascinated eyes returned to that thing that hung on a rope from the great sprawling oak-branch at the edge of the grove.

Like a vague voice in a dream he heard his own name pronounced; he heard a sonorous formula repeated in a heavy, dispassionate voice--"accused of having resisted a picquet of his Prussian Majesty's 11th Regiment of Uhlan cavalry, of having wilfully, maliciously, and with murderous design fired upon and wounded trooper Kohlmann of said picquet while in pursuit of his duty."

Again he heard the same voice: "The law of non-combatants operating in such cases leaves no doubt as to the just penalty due."

Jack straightened up and looked the officer in the eyes. Ah! now he knew him--the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who had scaled the park wall with the box--that was the face he had struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face, with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in pencil on the maps--Siurd von Steyr!

Von Steyr's eyes grew smaller and paler, and an ugly flush mounted to his scarred cheek-bone. But his voice was dispassionate and harsh as ever when he said: "The prisoner Marche is at liberty to confront witnesses. Trooper Kohlmann!"

There he stood, the same blond, bony Uhlan whom Jack had tumbled into the dust, the same colourless giant whom he had dragged with trailing spurs across the road to the tree.

From his pouch the soldier produced Jack's silver flask, with his name engraved on the bottom, his pipe, still half full of tobacco, just as he had dropped it when the field-glasses told him that Uhlans, not French lancers, were coming down the hill-side.

One by one three other Uhlans advanced from the motionless ranks, saluted, briefly identified the prisoner, and stepped back again.

"Have you any statement to make?" demanded Von Steyr.

Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was choking. Everything around him swam in darkness--a darkness lit by little flames; his veins seemed bursting. He was in their midst now, shouldered and shoved across the grass; their hot breath fell on his face, their hands crushed his arms, bent back his elbows, pushed him forward, faster, faster, towards the tree where that thing hung, turning slowly as a squid spins on a swivel.

It was the grating of the rope on his throat that crushed the first cry out of him: "Von Steyr, shoot me! For the love of God! Not--not this--"

He was struggling now--he set his teeth and struck furiously. The crowd seemed to increase about him; now there was a mounted man in their midst--more mounted men, shouting.

The rope suddenly tightened; the blood pounded in his cheeks, in his temples; his tongue seemed to split open. Then he got his fingers between the noose and his neck; now the thing loosened and he pitched forward, but kept his feet.

"Gott verdammt!" roared a voice above him; "Von Steyr!--here! get back there!--get back!"

"Rickerl!" gasped Jack--"tell--tell them--they must shoot--not hang--"

He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face bloody and distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand. Breathless, haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the noose, set one foot on it. All around him horsemen crowded up, lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive horses wheeled.

And now for the first time he saw the Marquis de Nesville, face like a death-mask, one hand on the edge of the wicker balloon-car, which stood in the midst of a circle of cavalry.

"This is not the place nor is this the time to judge your prisoners," said Rickerl, pushing his horse up to Von Steyr and scowling down into his face. "Who called this drum-head court? Is that your province? Oh, in my absence? Well, then, I am here! Do you see me?"

The insult fell like the sting of a lash across Von Steyr's face. He saluted, and, looking straight into Rickerl's eyes, said, "Zum Befehl, Herr Hauptmann! I am at your convenience also."

"When you please!" shouted Rickerl, crimson with fury. "Retire!"

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, scarcely had he backed his startled horse, when there came a sound of a crushing blow, a groan, and a soldier staggered back from the balloon-car, his hands to his head, where the shattered helmet hung by one torn gilt cord. In the same instant the marquis, dishevelled, white as a corpse, rose from the wicker car, shaking his steel box above his head. Then, through the ring of nervous, quivering horses the globe of the balloon appeared as by magic--an enormous, looming, yellow sphere, tense, glistening, gigantic.

The horses reared, snorting with fright, the Uhlans clung to their saddles, shouting and cursing, and the huge balloon, swaying from its single rope, pounded and bounced from side to side, knocking beast and man into a chaotic mass of frantic horses and panic-stricken riders.

With a report like a pistol the rope parted, the great globe bounded and shot up into the air; a tumult of harsh shouts arose; the crazed horses backed, plunged, and scattered, some falling, some bolting into the undergrowth, some rearing and swaying in an ecstasy of terror.

The troopers, helpless, gnashing their teeth, shook their long lances towards the sky, where the moon was breaking from the banked clouds, and the looming balloon hung black above the forest, drifting slowly westward.

And now Von Steyr had a weapon in his hands--not a carbine, but a long chassepot-rifle, a relic of the despoiled franc-tireur, dangling from the oak-tree.

Some one shouted, "It's loaded with explosive bullets!"

"Then drop it!" roared Rickerl. "For shame!"

The crash of the rifle drowned his voice.

The balloon's shadowy bulk above the forest was belted by a blue line of light; the globe contracted, a yellow glare broke out in the sky. Then far away a light report startled the sudden stillness; a dark spot, suspended in mid-air, began to fall, swiftly, more swiftly, dropping through the night between sky and earth.

"You damned coward!" stammered Rickerl, pointing a shaking hand at Von Steyr.

"God keep you when our sabres meet!" said Von Steyr, between his teeth.

Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.

"Where is your prisoner?" he cried.

Von Steyr stared around him, right and left--Jack was gone.

"Let others prefer charges," said Rickerl, contemptuously--"if you escape my sabre in the morning."

"Let them," said Von Steyr, quietly, but his face worked convulsively.

"Second platoon dismount to search for escaped prisoner!" he cried. "Open order! Forward!"

XIX

RICKERL'S SABRE

Jack, lying full length in the depths of the forest, listened fearfully for the sounds of the human pack on his heels. The blackness was stupefying; the thud of his own heart seemed to fill the shrouded forest like the roll of a muffled drum. Presently he crept on again, noiselessly, painfully, closing his eyes when the invisible twigs brushed his face.

He did not know where he was going, he only thought of getting away, anywhere--away from that hangman's rope.

Again he rested, suffocated by the tumult in his breast, burning with thirst. For a long while he lay listening; there was not a sound in the night. Little by little his coolness returned; he thought of Lorraine and his promise, and he knew that now he could not keep it. He thought, too, of the marquis, never doubting the terrible fate of the half-crazed man. He had seen him stun the soldier with a blow of the steel box, he had seen the balloon shoot up into the midnight sky, he had heard the shot and caught a glimpse of the glare of the burning balloon. Somewhere in the forest the battered body of the marquis lay in the wreck of the shattered car. The steel box, too, lay there--the box that was so precious to the Germans.

He rose to his knees, felt around among the underbrush, bent his head and crept on, parting leaves and branches with one hand, holding the other over his eyes. The thought that he might be moving in a circle filled him with fear. But that was exactly what he was doing, for now he found himself close to the park wall; and, listening, he heard the river murmuring among the alders. He halted, utterly at a loss. If he were caught again could Rickerl save him? What could a captain of Uhlans do? True, he had interfered with Von Steyr's hangman's work, but that was nothing but a reprieve at best.

The murmur of the river filled his ears; his hot throat was cracking. Drink he must, at any rate, and he started on in the darkness, moving stealthily over the moss. The water was closer than he had imagined; he bent above it, first touching it with groping hands, then noiselessly bathed his feverish face in the dark stream, drinking his fill.

He longed to follow the shallow stream, wading to Morteyn, but he dared not risk it; so he went along the bank as far as he could, trying to keep within sound of the waters, until again he found himself close to the park wall. The stream had vanished again.

Dawn began to gray the forest; little by little the nearest trees grew from the darkness, and bushes took vague shapes in the gloom. He strained his eyes, peering at every object near him, striving to recognize stones, saplings, but he could not. Even when dawn at last came up out of the east, and the thickets grew distinct, he did not know where he was. A line of vapour through the trees marked the course of the little river. Which way was it flowing? Even that he could not tell. He looked in vain for the park wall; that had vanished utterly with the dawn. Very cautiously he advanced over the deep forest mould to the willow-fringed bank of the stream. The current was flowing east. Where was he? He parted the willows and looked out, and at the same instant an Uhlan saw him and shouted.

Running swiftly through the trees, head lowered, hands clenched, he heard the sound of galloping on a soft road that seemed to run through the forest, parallel to his own course. Then, as he bore hastily to the right and plunged into the deeper undergrowth, he caught a glimpse of the Château close by through the trees. Horrified to find himself back at the place from which he had started, he doubled in his tracks, ran on, stooping low, splashed into the stream and across, and plunged up to the shoulders through the tall weeds and bushes until again he felt the forest leaves beneath his feet.

The sudden silence around him was disconcerting. Where had the Uhlan gone? He ran on, making straight for the depths of the woods, for he knew now where he was, and in which direction safety lay.

After a while his breath and legs gave out together, and he leaned against a beech-tree, his hands pressed to his mouth, where the breath struggled for expulsion. And, as he leaned there, two Uhlans, mounted, lances advanced, came picking their way among the trees, turning their heads cautiously from side to side. Behind these two rode six others, apparently unarmed, two abreast. He saw at once that nothing could save him, for they were making straight for his beech-tree. In that second of suspense he made up his mind to die fighting, for he knew what capture meant. He fixed his eyes on the foremost Uhlan, and waited. When the Uhlan should pass his tree he would fly at him; the rest could stab him to death with their lances--that was the only way to end it now.

He shrank back, teeth set, nerving himself for the spring--a hunted thing turned fierce, a desperate man knowing that death was close. How long they were in coming! Had they seen him? When would the horse's nose pass the great tree-trunk?

"Halt!" cried a voice very near. The soft trample of horses ceased.

"Dismount!"

It seemed an age; the sluggish seconds crawled on. There was the sound of feet among the dry forest leaves--the hum of deep voices. He waited, trembling, for now it would be a man on foot with naked sabre who should sink under his spring. Would he never come?

At last, unable to stand the suspense, he moved his eyes to the edge of the tree. There they were, a group of Uhlans standing near two men who stood facing each other, jackets off, shirts open to the throat.

The two men were Rickerl and Von Steyr.

Rickerl rolled up his white shirt-sleeve and tucked the cuff into the folds, his naked sabre under his arm. Von Steyr, in shirt, riding-breeches, and boots, stood with one leg crossed before the other, leaning on his bared sabre. The surgeon and the two seconds walked apart, speaking in undertones, with now and then a quick gesture from the surgeon. The three troopers held the horses of the party, and watched silently. When at last one of the Uhlans spoke, they were so near that every word was perfectly distinct to Jack:

"Gentlemen, an affair of honour in the face of the enemy is always deplorable."

Rickerl burst out violently. "There can be no compromise--no adjustment. Is it Lieutenant von Steyr who seeks it? Then I tell him he is a hangman and a coward! He hangs a franc-tireur who fires on us with explosive bullets, but he himself does not hesitate to disgrace his uniform and regiment by firing explosive bullets at an escaping wretch in a balloon!"

"You lie!" said Von Steyr, his face convulsed. At the same moment the surgeon stepped forward with a gesture, the two seconds placed themselves; somebody muttered a formula in a gross bass voice and the swordsmen raised their heavy sabres and saluted. The next moment they were at it like tigers; their sabres flashed above their heads, the sabres of the seconds hovering around the outer edge of the circle of glimmering steel like snakes coiling to spring.

To and fro swayed the little group under the blinding flashes of light, stroke rang on stroke, steel shivered and tinkled and clanged on steel.

Fascinated by the spectacle, Jack crouched close to the tree, seeing all he dared to see, but keeping a sharp eye on the three Uhlans who were holding the horses, and who should have been doing sentry duty also. But they were human, and their eyes could not be dragged away from the terrible combat before them.

Suddenly, from the woods to the right, a rifle-shot rang out, clear and sharp, and one of the Uhlans dropped the three bridles, straightened out to his full height, trembled, and lurched sideways. The horses, freed, backed into the other horses; the two remaining Uhlans tried to seize them, but another shot rang out--another, and then another. In the confusion and turmoil a voice cried: "Mount, for God's sake!" but one of the horses was already free, and was galloping away riderless through the woods.

A terrible yell arose from the underbrush, where a belt of smoke hung above the bushes, and again the rifles cracked. Von Steyr turned and seized a horse, throwing himself heavily across the saddle; the surgeon and the two seconds scrambled into their saddles, and the remaining pair of Uhlans, already mounted, wheeled their horses and galloped headlong into the woods.

Jack saw Rickerl set his foot in the stirrup, but his horse was restive and started, dragging him.

"Hurry, Herr Hauptmann!" cried a Uhlan, passing him at a gallop. Rickerl cast a startled glance over his shoulder, where, from the thickets, a dozen franc-tireurs were springing towards him, shouting and shaking their chassepots. Something had given way--Jack saw that--for the horse started on at a trot, snorting with fright. He saw Rickerl run after him, seize the bridle, stumble, recover, and hang to the stirrup; but the horse tore away and left him running on behind, one hand grasping his naked sabre, one clutching a bit of the treacherous bridle.

"À mort les Uhlans!" shouted the franc-tireurs, their ferocious faces lighting up as Rickerl's horse eluded its rider and crashed away through the saplings.

Rickerl cast one swift glance at the savage faces, turned his head like a trapped wolf in a pit, hesitated, and started to run. A chorus of howls greeted him: "À mort!" "À mort le voleur!" "À la lanterne les Uhlans!"

Scarcely conscious of what he was doing, Jack sprang from his tree and ran parallel to Rickerl.

"Ricky!" he called in English--"follow me! Hurry! hurry!"

The franc-tireurs could not see Jack, but they heard his voice, and answered it with a roar. Rickerl, too, heard it, and he also heard the sound of Jack's feet crashing through the willows along the river-bottom.

"Jack!" he cried.

"Quick! Take to the river-bank!" shouted Jack in English again. In a moment they were running side by side up the river-bottom, hidden from the view of the franc-tireurs.

"Do as I do," panted Jack. "Throw your sabre away and follow me. It's our last chance." But Rickerl clung to his sabre and ran on. And now the park wall rose right in their path, seeming to block all progress.

"We can't get over--it's ended," gasped Rickerl.

"Yes, we can--follow," whispered Jack, and dashed straight into the river where it washed the base of the wall.

"Do exactly as I do. Follow close," urged Jack; and, wading to the edge of the wall, he felt along under the water for a moment, then knelt down, ducked his head, gave a wriggle, and disappeared. Rickerl followed him, kneeling and ducking his head. At the same moment he felt a powerful current pulling him forward, and, groping around under the shallow water, his hands encountered the rim of a large iron conduit. He stuck his head into it, gave himself a push, and shot through the short pipe into a deep pool on the other side of the wall, from which Jack dragged him dripping and exhausted.

"You are my prisoner!" said Jack, between his gasps. "Give me your sabre, Ricky--quick! Look yonder!" A loud explosion followed his words, and a column of smoke rose above the foliage of the vineyard before them.

"Artillery!" blurted out Rickerl, in amazement.

"French artillery--look out! Here come the franc-tireurs over the wall! Give me that sabre and run for the French lines--if you don't want to hang!" And, as Rickerl hesitated, with a scowl of hate at the franc-tireurs now swarming over the wall, Jack seized the sabre and jerked it violently from his hand.

"You're crazy!" he muttered. "Run for the batteries!--here, this way!"

A franc-tireur fired at them point-blank, and the bullet whistled between them. "Leave me. Give me my sabre," said Rickerl, in a low voice.

"Then we'll both stay."

"Leave me! I'll not hang, I tell you."

"No."

The franc-tireurs were running towards them.

"They'll kill us both. Here they come!"

"You stood by me--" said Jack, in a faint voice.

Rickerl looked him in the eyes, hesitated, and cried, "I surrender! Come on! Hurry, Jack--for your sister's sake!"

XX

SIR THORALD IS SILENT

It was a long run to the foot of the vineyard hill, where, on the crest, deep hidden among the vines, three cannon clanged at regular intervals, stroke following stroke, like the thundering summons of a gigantic tocsin.

Behind them they saw the franc-tireurs for a moment, thrashing waist-deep through the rank marsh weeds; then, as they plunged into a wheat-field, the landscape disappeared, and all around the yellow grain rustled, waving above their heads, dense, sun-heated, suffocating.

Their shoes sank ankle-deep in the reddish-yellow soil; they panted, wet with perspiration as they ran. Jack still clutched Rickerl's sabre, and the tall corn, brushing the blade, fell under the edge, keen as a scythe.

"I can go no farther," breathed Jack, at last. "Wait a moment, Ricky."

The hot air in the depths of the wheat was stifling, and they stretched their heads above the sea of golden grain, gasping like fishes in a bowl.

"Perhaps I won't have to surrender you, after all," said Jack. "Do you see that old straw-stack on the slope? If we could reach the other slope--"

He held out his hand to gauge the exact direction, then bent again and plodded towards it, Rickerl jogging in his footprints.

As they pressed on under the rustling canopy, the sound of the cannon receded, for they were skirting the vineyard at the base of the hill, bearing always towards the south. And now they came to the edge of the long field, beyond which stretched another patch of stubble. The straw-stack stood half-way up the slope.

"Here's your sabre," motioned Jack. He was exhausted and reeled about in the stubble, but Rickerl passed one arm about him, and, sabre clutched in the other hand, aided him to the straw-stack.

The fresh wind strengthened them both; the sweat cooled and dried on their throbbing faces. They leaned against the stack, breathing heavily, the breeze blowing their wet hair, the solemn cannon-din thrilling their ears, stroke on stroke.

"The thing is plain to me," gasped Rickerl, pointing to the smoke-cloud eddying above the vineyard--"a brigade or two of Frossard's corps have been cut off and hurled back towards Nancy. Their rear-guard is making a stand--that's all. Jack, what on earth did you get into such a terrible scrape for?"

Jack, panting full length in the shadow of the straw-stack, told Rickerl the whole wretched story, from the time of his leaving Forbach, after having sent the despatches to the _Herald_, up to the moment he had called to Rickerl there in the meadow, surrounded by Uhlans, a rope already choking him senseless.

Rickerl listened impassively, playing with the sabre on his knees, glancing right and left across the country with his restless baby-blue eyes. When Jack finished he said nothing, but it was plain enough how seriously he viewed the matter.

"As for your damned Uhlans," ended Jack, "I have tried to keep out of their way. It's a relief to me to know that I didn't kill that trooper; but--confound him!--he shot at me so enthusiastically that I thought it time to join the party myself. Ricky, would they have hanged me if they had given me a fair court-martial?"

"As a favour they might have shot you," replied Rickerl, gloomily.

"Then," said Jack, "there are two things left for me to do--go to Paris, which I can't unless Mademoiselle de Nesville goes, or join some franc-tireur corps and give the German army as good as they send. If you Uhlans think," he continued, violently, "that you're coming into France to hang and shoot and raise hell without getting hell in return, you're a pack of idiots!"

"The war is none of your affair," said Rickerl, flushing. "You brought it on yourself--this hanging business. Good heavens! the whole thing makes me sick! I can't believe that two weeks ago we were all there together at Morteyn--"

"A pretty return you're making for Morteyn hospitality!" blurted out Jack. Then, shocked at what he had said, he begged Rickerl's pardon and bitterly took himself to task.

"I _am_ a fool, Ricky; I know you've got to follow your regiment, and I know it must cut you to the heart. Don't mind what I say; I'm so miserable and bewildered, and I haven't got the feeling of that rope off my neck yet."

Rickerl raised his hand gently, but his face was hard set.

"Jack, you don't begin to know what a hell I am living in, I who care so much for France and the French people, to know that all, all is ended forever, that I can never again--"

His voice choked; he cleared it and went on: "The very name of Uhlan is held in horror in France now; the word Prussian is a curse when it falls from French lips. God knows why we are fighting! We Germans obey, that is all. I am a captain in a Prussian cavalry regiment; the call comes, that is all that I know. And here I am, riding through the land I love; I sit on my horse and see the torch touched to field and barn; I see railroads torn out of the ground, I see wretched peasants hung to the rafters of their own cottages." He lowered his voice; his face grew paler. "I see the friend I care most for in all the world, a rope around his neck, my own troopers dragging him to the vilest death a man can die! That is war! Why? I am a Prussian, it is not necessary for me to know; but the regiment moves, and I move! it halts, I halt! it charges, retreats, burns, tramples, rends, devastates! I am always with it, unless some bullet settles me. For this war is nearly ended, Jack, nearly ended--a battle or two, a siege or two, nothing more. What can stand against us? Not this bewildered France."

Jack was silent.

Rickerl's blue eyes sought his; he rested his square chin on one hand and spoke again:

"Jack, do you know that--that I love your sister?"

"Her last letter said as much," replied Jack, coldly.

Rickerl watched his face.

"You are sorry?"

"I don't know; I had hoped she would marry an American. Have you spoken?"

"Yes." This was a chivalrous falsehood; it was Dorothy who had spoken first, there in the gravel drive as he rode away from Morteyn.

Jack glanced at him angrily.

"It was not honourable," he said; "my aunt's permission should have been asked, as you know; also, incidentally, my own. Does--does Dorothy care for you? Oh, you need not answer that; I think she does. Well, this war may change things."

"Yes," said Rickerl, sadly.

"I don't mean that," cried Jack; "Heaven knows I wouldn't have you hurt, Ricky; don't think I meant that--"

"I don't," said Rickerl, half smiling; "you risked your skin to save me half an hour ago."