Chapter XIV: Part 14

Through the open French windows cyclist messengers were constantly mounting and descending the terrace steps; every few moments motor cycles arrived and departed; now and then a cavalryman galloped up in an old-style storm of dust, or a trooper vaulted into his saddle and departed _ventre a terre_. The growling of the cannonade was perfectly audible in the room.

At first General Delisle did not see Warner, but the Russian Military Observer did, and he rose and came quietly over to shake hands and inquire concerning the health of the ladies.

Several times his big, fish-blue eyes wandered curiously all over Warner's face and figure, as though insolently appraising the American and trying to come to some conclusion concerning the nature of the man and of the packet of papers which he had stuffed into the pocket of his Norfolk jacket.

A moment later Delisle caught sight of him, rose with pleasant courtesy, and extended his hand, asking after the health of the ladies, and making a similar inquiry concerning himself.

"General, could I see you for one moment alone?" said Warner.

The General moved out from the seated circle of officers, joined Warner, and moved with unhurried step beside him through the house toward the billiard room.

When they had reached the billiard room, Warner had told him all he knew concerning Wildresse, concluding with the appearance of the man escorted by Uhlans on Vineyard Hill.

Then he drew the papers from his pocket and gave them to the silent officer, who stood quite motionless, looking him through and through.

It was evident that General Delisle had no hesitation about breaking the big, sprawling seals of grey wax; he ripped both packets open so that the documents fell all over the scarf covering the billiard table; then, rapidly, he picked up, opened, scanned, and cast aside paper after paper.

There was not the slightest change in the expression of his face when he came to the "Schnaeble-Incident"; he scanned it, laid it aside, and said quietly as he picked up the next paper:

"That document is sufficient to settle the affair of this man Wildresse. If we catch him, ceremony will be superfluous.... The nearest wall or tree, you understand--unless he cares to make a statement first.... I always have time to listen to statements. Only one out of a hundred proves to be of any value at all, Mr. Warner, but that one is worth all the time I waste on the others----"

And all the while he was opening, scanning, and casting aside document after document.

"Oh, almost any one of these is enough," remarked the General. "Here's a villainous center of ramifications, leading God knows where----"

He checked himself abruptly; a dull color mounted to his bronzed cheekbones. Warner glanced at the caption of the document. It read: "Dossier of Count Cassilis and the Battenberg Affair."

The General read it, very slowly, for a few minutes. He could not have gone much further than the first paragraph when he folded the paper abruptly, shot a lightning glance at Warner that dazzled him like a saber flash; and suddenly smiled.

"This seems to indicate a rather bad business, Mr. Warner," he said pleasantly. "I count on your discretion, of course."

"You may, General."

"I mean even among my entourage. _Do you understand_?"

"Perfectly."

"Who has any knowledge of these papers excepting yourself and myself?"

"Nobody but Wildresse, as far as I know."

The General motioned to the sentry who stood guard by the three sky-guns on the north terrace:

"Colonel Gerould; say to him I am waiting!"

A few moments later the big Colonel of Cuirassiers came clanking into the billiard room. General Delisle handed him the papers, said a few words in a low voice. As he spoke there was something quietly terrible in the stare he turned on Colonel Gerould; and the latter turned visibly white and glared blankly into space as the General laid his hand on his arm and spoke low and rapidly into his ear.

The next moment the Cuirassier was gone and General Delisle had taken Warner's arm with a quiet smile and was leisurely sauntering back toward the music room.

"It was very friendly of you, Mr. Warner--may I add, very sagacious? But that is like an American. We French feel very keenly the subtle sympathy of--" he laughed--"neutral America."

"Are these papers of real importance, General?--Is it proper of me to ask you such a question?"

"They are of--overwhelmingly vital importance, Mr. Warner."

"What!"

The General halted, looked him pleasantly in the eyes:

"The most vitally important information that I have ever received during my entire military career," he said quietly. "Judge, then, of my gratitude to you. I cannot express it. I can only offer you my hand--with a heart--very full."

They exchanged a firm clasp. As they went into the music room, Count Cassilis, who had seated himself at the piano, and who was running over a few minor scales, turned and looked at them, rising slowly to his feet with the other officers when the General entered. He had his monocle screwed into his right eye.

The cannonade had now become noisy and jarring enough to interrupt conversation, and it was plain to Warner that French batteries somewhere along the Recollette had opened.

Out on the terrace he could see aeroplanes in the northeastern sky, no doubt trying to find the range for the French batteries. They were very high, and the clots of white appeared and dissolved far below them.

But now the steady tattoo of machine guns had become audible in the direction of the Ausone Forest, and the racket swelled swiftly into a roar of rifle fire and artillery--so rapidly, indeed, that every head in the vicinity was turned to listen--hussars, cyclists, infantry, the cannoniers lying beside their sky-guns, the military chauffeurs, the sentries, all looked toward the northeast.

Two more French aeroplanes took the air over the plateau, rose rapidly, and headed toward the Ausone Forest.

Down on the Sais highway the slowly moving file of motor lorries drew out to the right-hand edge of the road, and past them galloped battery after battery, through a whirling curtain of dust--guns, caissons, mounted officers, flashing past in an interminable stream, burying the baggage vans out of sight under the billowing clouds. Columns of cavalry, also, appeared in the river meadows on both banks, trotting out across the stubble and splashing through the reeds, all moving toward the northeast.

The quarry road, too, was black with moving infantry; another column tramped across the uplands beyond; horsemen were riding over Vineyard Hill, horsemen crossed the Recollette by every ford, every pontoon--everywhere the French riders were to be seen swarming over the landscape, appearing, disappearing, in view again increased in numbers, until there seemed to be no end to their coming.

The uproar of the fusillade grew deafening; the sharper crack of the fieldpieces became dulled in the solid shocks from heavier calibers.

General Delisle came out on the terrace and stood looking across the valley just as the British biplane soared up over the trees--the Bristol machine, pointed high, racing toward the northeast.

Warner, looking up, realized that Halkett was up there. The roaring racket of the aeroplane swept the echoes along forest and hillside; higher, higher it pointed; smoke signals began to drop from it and unroll against the sky.

Looking upward, Warner felt a light touch on his elbow; Sister Eila had slipped her arm through his.

Gazing into the sky under her white coiffe, the Sister of Charity stood silent, intent, her gaze concentrated on the receding aeroplane.

When the first snowy puff ball appeared below it, her arm closed convulsively on Warner's, and remained so, rigid, while ball after ball of fleece spotted the sky, spread a little, hung, and slowly dissolved against the blue.

Down on the Sais road four Red Cross motor ambulances were speeding in the wake of the artillery. A fifth ambulance came up the drive. Sister Felicite, seated beside the chauffeur, signaled to Sister Eila.

Warner said:

"Are you called for field duty?"

"On the telephone a few minutes ago. They need us this side of Ausone."

He went with her to the ambulance and she swung on board. As the chauffeur started to back and make a demi-tour, Warner jumped on the vehicle and shook hands with Dr. Senlis.

"Do you want a bearer?" he asked.

"Yes, if you don't mind."

Sister Eila picked up a brassard bearing the conventional emblem, and tied it around his left arm above the elbow.

He had not yet noticed the other figure in the ambulance; now he looked around, stared, and suddenly a violent desire to laugh seized him.

"Asticot!" he exclaimed.

"Oui, c'est moi, M'sieu'," replied that smirking gentleman, with a demureness that struck Warner as horrible.

"But _why_?" he asked, in frank amazement.

"Ah," rejoined Asticot complacently, "that is the question, M'sieu'. I myself do not know exactly why I am here."

But he knew well enough. First of all, he had gotten all over any terror of bullets in Africa. Five years and fifty skirmishes had blunted that sort of fear in him.

What he wanted to do was to see what was going on. More than that, the encounter with One Eye in Ausone had strangely moved this rat of the Faubourgs. He desired to find that Disciplinary Battalion again--the Battalion which had been for him a hell on earth--but he wanted to look at it, pushed by a morbid curiosity. If One Eye were there, perhaps other old friends might still decorate those fierce and sullen ranks.

There was a certain lieutenant, too--gladly he would shoot him in the back if opportunity offered. He had dreamed for months of doing this.

But there was still another reason that incited Asticot to offer his services to Sister Felicite as a bearer. The ambulance had been called to the Ausone Forest. Somewhere within those leafy shades lurked Wildresse.

Never before had such a hatred blazed in the crippled intellect of Asticot as the red rage that flared within him when he learned that he had been employed by a spy who had sold out France.

Anything else he could have understood, any other crime. He was not squeamish; nothing appalled him in the category of villainy except only this one thing. Scoundrel as he was, he could not have found it in his heart to sell his country. And to remember that he had been employed by a man who _did_ sell France aroused within him a passion for revenge so fierce that only a grip on the throat of Wildresse could ever satisfy the craving that made his vision red as blood.

He wore a brassard, this _voyou_ of the Paris gutters, set with the Geneva cross. And in his pocket was an automatic pistol.

From the rear seat Sister Eila could still see the Bristol biplane in the sky, circling now high over Ausone Forest and the cultivated hills beyond. She never removed her eyes from it as the ambulance rolled on through the dust beside the slower moving line of lorries.

Later the motor lorries turned east; a column of infantry replaced them, trudging silently along in the sun, their rifles shouldered. Then they passed a battalion of _chasseurs-a-pied_ in green and blue, swinging along at a cheerful, lively pace toward the crash of rifles and machine guns.

Across the river they saw the first German shells explode in the fields, and dark columns of smoke rise and spread out over the bushes and standing grain.

For some time, now, Warner had recognized the high whimper of bullets, but he said nothing until Sister Eila mentioned the noises, guessing correctly what were the causes.

Asticot shrugged and cuddled a cigarette which Warner had given him, enjoying it with leering deliberation.

He was inclined to become loquacious, too, whenever a shell exploded across the river.

"Baoum--baoum!" he sneered. "Tiens! Another overripe egg! The Bosches will starve themselves with their generosity! Pan! Pouf! V'lan! Zoum--zo----um! That is shrapnel, M'sieu', as you know. As for me, I do not care for it. Anything else on the _carte du jour_, but not shrapnel for Bibi! No! For the big shells, yes; for the machine guns, yes; for the Demoiselles Lebel, all right! But no shrapnel, _if_ you please----"

Sister Eila looked at him in smiling surprise.

"You would do well in the wards, with your cheerfulness," she said. "I always was certain that I should find in you some quality to admire."

Asticot looked at her, mouth open, as though thunderstruck. Then, to Sister Eila's amazement, a blush turned his expressive features scarlet.

To be spoken to like that by a _Sainte_ of Saint Vincent de Paul! To be admired by a Sister of Charity! He, Asticot, was commended, approved of, encouraged!

It was too much for Asticot. He turned redder and redder; he started to relieve his terrible embarrassment by cursing, caught himself in time, choked, passed his red bandanna over his battered visage, tried to whistle, failed, and turned his ratty and distressed eyes upon Warner for relief.

"Cheerfulness _is_ a virtue," said Warner gravely. "You seem to possess others, also; you have physical courage, you have exhibited gratitude toward me which I scarcely expected. It is a wonderful thing for a man, Asticot, to be commended at all by Sister Eila."

Sister Eila smiled and flushed; then her face became serious and she leaned forward and looked up at the Bristol biplane. Under it the white fleece of the shrapnel was still floating.

The ambulance stopped; hussars came riding on either side of it; an officer gave an order to the driver, who turned out among some trees.

The road ahead was crowded with infantry deploying at a double--a strange, gaunt, haggard regiment, white with dust, swinging out to whistle signal into the patches of woodland and across the willow-set meadows to the right.

Sullen sweating faces looked up everywhere among the bayonets; hard eyes, thin lips, bullet heads, appeared through the drifting dust.

Here and there an officer spoke, and there seemed to be a ringing undertone of iron in the blunt commands.

They came running in out of the stifling cloud of dust like a herd of sulky vicious bulls goaded right and left by the penetrating whistle calls and the menacing orders of their officers.

"One Eye!" yelled Asticot, waving his cap vigorously. "He! Mon vieux! How are you, old camp kettle?"

A soldier looked up with a frightful leer, waved his arm, and ran forward.

"C'est un vieux copain a moi!" remarked Asticot proudly. "M'sieu', voila le Battalion d'Afrique! Voila Biribi qui passe! Tonnerre de Dieu! There is Jacques! He! Look yonder, M'sieu'! That young one with the head of a Lyceum lad! Over there! That is the _gosse_ of Wildresse!"

"_What!_"

"Certainly! That is Jacques Wildresse of Biribi! He! If he knew! Eh? Poor devil! If he knew what we know! And his scoundrel of a father out there now in those woods! C'est epatant! Quoi! _B'en_, such things are true, it seems! And when he looses his rifle, that lad, what if the lead finds a billet in his own flesh and blood! Eh? Are such things done by God in these days?"

An officer rode up and said to the chauffeur:

"Pull out of there. Back out to the road!"

But, once on the road again, they were ordered into a pasture, then ordered forward again and told to take station under a high bank crowned with bushes.

No shells came over, but bullets did in whining streams. The air overhead was full of them, and the earth kept sliding from the bank where the lead hit it with a slapping and sometimes a snapping sound, like the incessant crack of a coach whip.

Firing had already begun in the woods whither the Battalion of Africa had hurried with their flapping equipments and baggy uniforms white with dust. In the increasing roar of rifle fire the monotonous woodpecker tapping of the machine guns was perfectly recognizable.

Branches, twigs, bits of bark, green leaves, came winnowing earthward in a continual shower. There was nothing to be seen anywhere except a few mounted hussars walking their horses up and down the road, and the motor cyclists who passed like skimming comets toward Ausone.

Sister Eila and Sister Felicite had descended to the road and seated themselves on the grassy bank, where they conversed in low tones and looked calmly into the woods.

Asticot, possessed of a whole pack of cigarettes, promenaded his good fortune and swaggered up and down the road, ostentatiously coming to salute when an automobile full of officers came screaming by.

The military chauffeur dozed over his steering wheel. Two white butterflies fluttered persistently around his head, alighting sometimes on the sleeves of his jacket, only to flit away again and continue their whirling aerial dance around him.

For an hour the roar of the fusillade continued, not steadily, but redoubling in intensity at times, then slackening again, but continuing always.

Hussars came riding out from among the trees. One of them said to Warner that the ambulances across the Recollette were very busy.

Another, an officer, remarked that the Forest was swarming with Uhlans who were fighting on foot. Asked by Asticot whether the Battalion d'Afrique had gone in, the officer answered rather coolly that it was going in then with the bayonet, and that the world would lose nothing if it were annihilated.

After he had ridden on up the road, Asticot spat elaborately, and employed the word "coquin"--a mild explosion in deference to Sister Eila.

More cavalry emerged from the woods, coming out in increasing numbers, and all taking the direction of Ausone.

An officer halted and called out to Sister Eila.

"It goes very well for us. The Bat. d'Af. got into them across the river! The Uhlans are running their horses!--Everywhere they're swarming out of the woods like driven hares! We turn them by Ausone! A bientot! God bless the Grey Sisters!"

Everywhere cavalry came trampling and crowding out of the woods and cantering away toward the north, hussars mostly, at first, then _chasseurs-a-cheval_, an entire brigade of these splendid lancers, pouring out into the road and taking the Ausone route at a gallop.

More motor cycles flashed past; then half a dozen automobiles, in which officers were seated examining maps; then up the road galloped dragoon lancers, wearing grey helmet slips and escorting three light field guns, the drivers of which were also dragoons--a sight Warner had never before seen.

An officer, wearing a plum-colored band of velvet around his red cap, and escorted by a lancer, came from the direction of Ausone, leaned from his saddle, and shook the ambulance chauffeur awake.

"Drive back toward Sais," he said. "They are taking care of our people across the river, and you may be needed below!" He saluted the Sisters of Charity: "A biplane has fallen by the third pontoon. You may be needed there," he explained.

Sister Eila rose; her face was ashen.

"What biplane, Major?" she asked unsteadily.

"I don't know. British, I think. It came down under their shrapnel like a bird with a broken wing."

He rode on. Warner aided the Sisters of Charity to their seats. Then he and Asticot jumped aboard.

As they turned slowly, two wheels describing a circle through the dusty grass of the ditch, half a dozen mounted gendarmes trotted out of the woods with sabers drawn.

Behind them came four mounted hussars. A man walked in the midst of them. There was a rope around his neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle of one of the troopers.

At the same moment a sort of howl came from Asticot; he half rose, his fingers curling up like claws; his expression had become diabolical. Then he sank back on his seat.

The ambulance rolled forward faster, faster toward Sais, where a biplane had come down into the river.

But Asticot had forgotten; and ever his blazing eyes were turned backward where, among four troopers, Wildresse walked with a rope around his neck and his clenched fists tied behind him.

*CHAPTER XXXVII*

The hussars conducted him toward headquarters. His huge hands were tied behind him; there was a rope around his neck, the other end of which was fastened to a hussar's saddlebow.

The troopers rode slowly, carbines poised forward with butt on thigh.

_Fantassins_ along the road looked on, somber-eyed; the murmured word "spy" passed from lip to lip; the wounded turned their big, hollow eyes on him; drivers, cyclists, cannoniers, looked upon him; but nobody reviled him. Their silence was more terrible.

He spoke only once, looking up at the horseman beside him, his deep, harsh voice breaking the rigid silence:

"He! Vous la-haut! Supposition that I confess? ... That I make a statement involving others.... That Cossack there at headquarters! Do I benefit?"

The cavalryman did not even glance at him.

"Tas de casse-geules!" rumbled Wildresse, and spat into the dust.

They crossed the pontoon, the troopers dismounting and leading their horses, then into the saddle again, across the river meadows, and so around to the lodge gates.

Across the road they were opening trenches for dead horses, and on the plateau hundreds of soldiers' graves were being dug.

Wildresse glanced at them askance, and his bull neck roughened with shivers as he thought of the quick-lime.

It was then that the first convulsive twitch jerked his face and left the right eye turned slightly outward in a sort of cast. After that something seemed to loosen in his cheek, and his jaw was inclined to sag unless controlled with conscious effort.

_Fantassins_ on guard passed forward prisoner and escort with monotonous formulae; the sentry on the terrace summoned assistance; a staff officer came; two line soldiers arrived later, halted, fixed bayonets, and loaded their pieces.

Half a dozen staff officers in the music room rose and stepped aside, opening a lane to the table where General of Division Raoul Delisle sat at the telephone. A cool-eyed major of dragoons relieved him of the apparatus; the General turned and looked up at Wildresse.

"You are Constantine Wildresse?"

"Yes, General."

"Otherwise Constantine Volmark?"

"Well--yes! My name is Volmark."

"Which name do you claim?" asked Delisle dryly.

"Volmark. It is useless to deny it--no good to deceive anybody."

"You are Austrian?"

"And Greek, on my mother's side."

"Greek?"

"That is--she was Eurasian."

"From--Tenedos?"

But Wildresse had suddenly caught sight of Count Cassilis.

"You!" he cried. "Now, then, will you do anything for me?"

Cassilis stared.

"_Will_ you?" demanded Wildresse loudly.

Cassilis glanced at Delisle and tapped his forehead with a bored air.

"Oh!" shouted Wildresse. "So that's it, eh? I am crazy, am I?"

He passed a thick, dry tongue over his lips, made an effort; looked hard at Delisle:

"Yes, _mon General_; I am Constantine Volmark, born in Tenedos. What then, if you please?"

"You are known. No court is necessary. You will be shot immediately."

"Circumstances--in extenuation----"

"None!"

"And if I confess----"

"It is useless."

"A statement involving others, unsuspected----"

"What?"

"It is important. Nations are involved," muttered Wildresse. "An officer in your entourage--eh? Is there any immunity in such things, General?"

"No."

"No--immunity?"

"No."

"I am not permitted to make a statement?"

"I am here to listen. I always have time to listen."

"Then I may speak freely?"

"Yes, you may make a statement if you choose."

"Accusations?"

"If you choose."

"It will not help my case if I prove to you of what filth chancelleries are made? If I expose to you what the faith of governments amounts to?--If I show you a man who has betrayed everybody since his boyhood--an officer here--your comrade and friend? All this will not help my case?"

"No."

"And yet I may make my statement if I choose? Is that the situation, General?"

"Yes."

"And I may denounce whom I please? I am free to accuse, am I? Free to confess and involve others?"

"Yes."

"He! Nom d'un nom! Comme vous est un bon bougre!!" broke out Wildresse in his harsh and dreadful voice. "I am to die, am I? So that's it, is it? Then I'll pull down everybody and everything I can while I have the chance. Men? Does it matter so much about a man or two if one can set the treacherous nations flying at one another's throats? There's a real revenge! I'll poison the belief in nations in you all!--You with your alliances and leagues and ententes!--That's where you'll not forget me! That's where your half crazy Kings and diseased Emperors will turn cross-eyed with suspicion! That's where there'll be a ratty scuttling to cover in your dirty chancelleries! I'll strip the orders and epaulettes off one or two idols before I finish. And I want witnesses! I demand witnesses to confront me----"

"Be quiet, Wildresse. Whom do you desire to confront?"

"You--for one! Then, the educated Kurd, yonder! That Cossack there--that man over there in a green uniform, who pretends to be a Christian!--That bashi-bazouk of Abdul--Major-General Count Cassilis, Russian Military Observer at division headquarters!"

"Very well."

"And I demand to be confronted with others, too. That Yankee painter, Warner. Let him carry the poison I spill back among his own people. They won't forget. And I want the British officer here, Captain Gray! Let him report to his Government what I say, and see if it can swallow it! ... That's a sufficiency of men.... And for my supplement I want the Countess de Moidrey--so that the noble faubourg shall feel the poison in its veins.... And, as proof documentary of the statement I shall make, I demand to be confronted with the girl Philippa!"

"Is that all?"

"No.... The mercy, the extenuation denied me by the military autocracy of France, I shall seek from another. I require two things only before I die: understanding and absolution from--my son."

"Who?"

"My only son, Jacques Wildresse, 6th Company, Battalion of Africa!--Jacques--of Biribi! That's all I want--so that he understands and pardons. As for you others--_je m'en_----"

The staff officer at the telephone suddenly bent over and whispered to the General. He listened, nodded, looked calmly at Wildresse.

"The soldier Wildresse, 6th Company, Battalion d'Afrique, was unable to bear your disgrace. He is this moment reported dead by his own hand."

A terrible spasm shot like lightning across the prisoner's visage, drawing his whole face to one side. Slowly the flaccid muscles resumed their natural places; the screwed up features loosened.

"That's a lie," mumbled Wildresse; and his big, hairless head doddered for a moment.

At a nod from Delisle a soldier picked up the wrist rope, coiled it, and gave it a slight pull.

"March!" he said briefly to his prisoner.

Count Cassilis came over, faintly amused at the scene, to judge by his expression.

"There's a good place under the north terrace," he said languidly. "You don't intend to listen, I fancy, to this statement he wants to make.... Do you?"

"Oh, yes," said the General. "It's my business to listen always."

He sent an aid to find Warner and Gray, and to beg the honor of Madame de Moidrey's presence and of Philippa's. Then he smiled pleasantly at Count Cassilis.

"Yes," he said, "statements always should be listened to. It's the man who doesn't care to hear who makes the most terrible mistakes in life. I can't afford to make mistakes. I'd rather risk being bored. So, if you don't mind, my dear General----"

"Not in the least," said General Count Cassilis languidly.

They had conducted Wildresse into the small, semi-circular library in the northeast tower, the entrance to which gave on the terrace and billiard room.

Gray and Warner appeared presently with the Countess and Philippa; General Delisle went to them immediately, and remained in close consultation with them.

"It may prove of some military importance to us; it may prove of no value whatever--this statement he desires to make," concluded the General. "Of course it is not possible for me to guess.... And yet, Madame, if there is a chance that the statement might be of value, may I not venture to hope that you and Mademoiselle are willing to submit to this disagreeable proceeding in the interests of France?"

"Certainly," said the Countess, and linked her arm in Philippa's.

The girl was a little pale, a trifle nervous, too. She glanced at Warner, tried to smile, then stood with lips slightly compressed and head high, looking steadily at the soldier who stood before the closed door of the little library.

"If you are ready," said the General quietly.

So they went in, one by one, very noiselessly, as though somebody had just died in there. But their entrance did not arouse Wildresse from his abstraction.

Two red-legged _fantassins_, with fixed bayonets and loaded rifles, stood behind him.

The man himself sat huddled on a chair in a corner, his great, blunt, murderous-looking hands hanging crossed between his knees, his big, hairless head of a butcher wagging slightly as though palsied.

There was not an atom of color left in his face, except for the pockmarks which were picked out in sickly greenish grey all over his flabby features.

He did not look up when they entered, his little, wicked black eyes, which had become dull and covered with a bluish glaze, remained fixed as though he were listening, and his heavy lower lip sagged.

"Wildresse," said General Delisle.

There was no response; a soldier stirred the prisoner to attention with the butt of his piece.

"Stand up," he said.

Wildresse, aroused, got to his great feet stupidly, looked around, caught sight of Philippa, and silently snarled--merely opened his mouth a little way till his upper lip curled back, emitting no sound whatever--then he caught sight of the green uniform of General Count Cassilis, and instantly the old glare blazed up in his eyes.

"By God, the Cossack!" he growled; and the heavy voice vibrated ominously through the room.

Warner led Philippa to a chair as General Delisle seated the Countess. Wildresse, his heavy arms hanging inert, stood looking from one man to another, as they found scats in turn, on sofas or on chairs--Delisle, Warner, Cassilis, Gray.

"Make your statement," said General Delisle dryly. And he added: "If it is a long one, you may seat yourself."

Wildresse shot a terrible look at the Russian Military Observer.

"For the last time," he said hoarsely, "will you do something for me? ... For the last time?"

Cassilis lifted his expressive eyebrows and glanced rather wearily at Delisle.

"You know!" bellowed Wildresse in a sudden fury. "You know what I can say! If I say it, Russia and her allies will have an enemy instead of another ally! If I speak, your country will earn the contempt of France and of England too; and their implacable enmity after this war is ended. If I speak! Will you do something for me?"

Cassilis, polishing his monocle with a heavily scented handkerchief, shrugged.

"Very well!" roared Wildresse. "It is death, then, is it? You filthy, treacherous Cossack, I'll do what I can to ruin you and your lying Government before I pass out!--You Moslem at heart--you bashi-bazouk----"

"Moderate your voice and your manner!" said General Delisle very quietly.

Wildresse turned his great, hairless head; his face had become suddenly chalky again; he seated himself heavily; his big hands, doubled into fists, fell on either knee.

For a moment the slight, palsy-like movement of the head began again, the black eyes lost their luster, the heavy lip became pendulous. But he made an effort, and a change came over him; the muscles tightened visibly; he lifted the bulk of his great shoulders and sat erect, looking questioningly from one to another.

Then he began to speak without preamble, reciting his statement in an accentless, pedantic way which seemed to lend to what he said a somber sort of truth--the corroborative accuracy of unimaginative stupidity, which carries with it conviction to the minds of listeners.

He said:

"Count Cassilis knows. Like every Cossack he is at heart a Mussulman and a bashi-bazouk. Ask Enver Bey. He knows more than any white man, this Cassilis. He knows who sent the bashi-bazouks into the province of Philippopolis in '76, where half a hundred villages were burnt and twelve thousand Bulgarian men, women, and children were murdered. It was this man's father who did that!"

"A lie," remarked Cassilis, politely concealing a yawn. "General, if this rambling statement interests you----"

"Pardon, Count----" interposed Delisle, with cool courtesy. And to Wildresse: "Go on!"

Without even lifting his eyes, and as though he had been unconscious of the interruption, Wildresse went on reciting:

"It was the Sultan's business--that affair in Bulgaria. Your father played double traitor; the Sultan never knew; the war provoked by Count Serge Cassilis followed; Russia beat Turkey into the mud and slush. Count Serge got double pay. Your Czar wanted Bulgaria to become a free state full of gratitude to Russia; and he tried to carry things with a high hand at San Stefano. You were not there! It was Count Serge. Where I first laid eyes on you, and you on me, was at Slivnitza. And after that I did your dirty jobs for you..... Very well; it warms up; Bulgaria becomes free--except she must tip her hat to the Sultan. Eh! You Russians didn't like that! All the same, Bulgaria becomes free to choose and elect her own Prince. Only--she doesn't want the Russian candidate--_you_!

"Alexander of Battenberg--Cousin of the Hesse Grand Duke--he was the first. Your Czar didn't like him, eh? They made a god of him, didn't they, in Sofia? And you Russians began to hate him. So did that rickety old gambler of Servia, King Milan. Who started that Servian fool after Alexander of Battenberg? And what did he get for his foolery? He got his empty head broken at Slivnitza--he and his swineherd army--kicked headlong through the Dragoman Pass! And that settled the Roumanian question. Eh? Swine and swineherd kicked into the lap of Holy Russia.... And yours was double pay!

"Then _you_ came sneaking back into the scene, Count Cassilis. I did your filthy work for you. You taught me how double pay is earned!

"Prince Alexander of Battenberg was the idol of Bulgaria. I don't know who gave you your orders, but I got mine from you! Was it Abdul Hamid--Abdul the Damned--who gave you your orders?

"Russian roubles paid _me_ and the men I used. Maybe the Bank of Constantinople paid you.... And so we broke into his palace--the young prince Alexander's--and carried him across the frontier. You sat on your big horse among your Cossacks and saw us bring the Prince of Bulgaria into Russia. And your pockets full of Turkish sweetmeats!--Like a prostitute!

"That time you meant murder; but others were afraid. Alexander of Battenberg was allowed to abdicate.

"Then, for the world, history went on to the summer of '87, when that Saxe-Coburg Prince was elected--Ferdinand, who now talks to himself for want of an audience, and who calls himself the Czar of all the Bulgars--he of the long nose and beard, and the eye of a wild pig.

"Russia pretended to hate him. Does she? _You_ know!

"But history gives us only two Bulgarian princes from 1879 to 1915. How is that, Count Cassilis? Were there _only two?_--Alexander of Battenberg, whom you were afraid to murder, and this fat-jowled Ferdinand of today----"

"The man is crazy, I think," remarked Count Cassilis to the Countess.

Wildresse merely gazed at him out of lackluster eyes, and went on speaking with monotonous and terrible simplicity:

"History has lied to the world. There was another prince after Alexander. Every chancellery in Europe knows it, but never mentions it. A few others outside know it; you among others.... And I.

"England and France found him. The Templars of Tenedos were not all dead. The race of the hereditary Prince of Marmora was not extinct--the race of that man whose head Saladin cut off with his own hand--the race of Djani the Paladin, and of Raymond de Chatillon--the Princess of Marmora! England found him--Philip de Chatillon--and forced him on Russia and Germany and Austria in secret conference. The Porte promised assent; it _had_ to. Before he was presented for election to the Bulgarian people--a matter of routine merely--he was crowned and consecrated, and you know it! He was already as truly the ruler of Bulgaria as your Czar is today of all the Russias. And you know that, too! And _that_ time, whoever gave you your orders, and whatever they may have been, _my_ orders from you spelled murder!"

There was a moment's silence; Cassilis had turned his sneering, pallid face on Wildresse as though held by some subtle and horrible fascination, and he sat so, screwing up his golden mustache, his fishy blue eyes fixed, his lips as red as blood, and his wide, thin ears standing out translucent against the lighted lamp behind him.

Delisle, Warner, Gray, watched Wildresse with breathless attention; the Countess de Moidrey sat with Philippa's hand in hers, staring at this man who was about to die, and who continued to talk.

Only Philippa's face remained outwardly tranquil, yet she also was terribly intent upon what this man was now saying.

But Wildresse's head began to wag again with the palsy-like movement; he muttered, half to himself:

"That's how Philip de Chatillon died--Prince Philip of Bulgaria--that's how he died--there in the palace with his young wife--the way they did for Draga, the Queen--and Milan's son--the Servian swine who reigned before this old fighter, Peter!--_You_ know, Count Cassilis! So do I--and Vasilief knew. We both knew because we did it for you--tore the bedclothes off--God! How that young man fought! We stabbed his red-haired wife first--but when we stretched that powerful young neck of his, the blood spouted to the ceiling----"

The Countess made a gesture as though she were about to rise; Philippa's hand crushed hers, drew her back.

"That's how they died--those two young things in the bedroom of the Palace there.... I know what my orders were.... There was a child--a little girl six years old.... Vasilief went to the Ghetto and cut the throat of a six-year-old.... That's what we buried with Prince Philip of Bulgaria and his wife.... I took the little Princess out of her bed and kept her for myself.... In case of trouble. Also, I thought she might mean money some day. I waited too long; it seems she was not worth killing--no use for blackmail. And the French Government wouldn't listen, and the British were afraid to listen.... What's proclaimed dead remains dead to Governments, even if they have to kill it again.

"That is my statement. Vasilief and I killed Prince Philip of Bulgaria, and his red-haired Princess, too.... In their bedroom at the Palace it was done.... But I took their little girl with me.... I had to knife Vasilief to do it. He wanted too much. I strangled him and turned my knife inside him--several times. And took the little girl away with me--the little six-year-old Princess Philippa----" He lifted his heavy head and stared at Philippa: "_There she sits!_"

Philippa stood straight up, her grey eyes fixed on Wildresse in terrible concentration.

He wagged his head monotonously; a tic kept snatching at the upper lip, baring his yellow dog-teeth, so that he seemed to be laughing.

"There's a bag full of the child's clothing--your clothing--toys--photographs--God knows what. There's a safe in the cellar of the Cafe Biribi. The fire won't harm it. I kept the pieces of identification there--against a time of need. England wouldn't listen and wouldn't pay anything. France was afraid for her alliance. There was nothing in it for Germany. Russia shrugged and yawned--as _you_ do, Count Cassilis--and then tried to kill me.

"As for the long-nosed wild pig of Bulgaria--do you think I had a chance with him? Not with Ferdy. Non pas! I couldn't reach the people. That was the trouble. That is where I failed. Who would believe me without my pieces of identification? And I was afraid to take them into Sofia--afraid to cross the frontier with them--dared not even let France know I had them--or any other Power. They'd have had my throat cut for me inside of forty-eight hours! Eh, Cassilis? You know how it is done.... And that's all.... They've burned the Cafe Biribi. But the safe is in the cellar.... I've done what I could to revenge myself on every side. I've sold France, sold Germany, sold Russia when I was able. Tell them that in Petrograd! I had no chance to sell England.... At first I never meant to harm the girl Philippa.... Philippa de Chatillon! Only when she turned on me, then I meant to twist her neck.... I waited too long, talked too much. That man--the Yankee, yonder--saved her neck for her----"

His head was wagging by jerks; the tic stretched his loosened mouth, twitching it into awful and silent laughter, and the _rictus mortis_ distorted his sagging features as the soldiers took him by both arms, shaking him into comprehension.

He shambled to his feet, looking at everybody and seeing nothing.

"Philippa de Chatillon, Princess of the Bulgars!" he mumbled.... "The girl Philippa, gentlemen, _caissiere de cabaret_! ... Her father died by the Palace window, and her mother on the black marble floor!--Very young they were, gentlemen--very young.... And I think very much in love----"

They took him out, still mumbling, the spasm playing and jerking at his sagging jaw.

*CHAPTER XXXVIII*

The sun was a crimson disk through the dust; a haze possessed the world; forest and hill, meadow and river, faded to phantoms in the unreal light.

The Chateau des Oiseaux was very quiet. General and staff had departed; sentries, telegraphers, wires, switchboard--the sky-guns on the northern terrace, the great racing automobiles, cyclists, motor cyclists, _fantassins_, cavalry--all were gone into the magic glory of the east.

The park was empty and still; only traces remained where green leaves curled up and grew brittle, and drooping boughs withered on rustic scaffoldings; where lawn and drive showed the fresh scars of wheels and hoofs; and where trusses of hay and straw and glistening heaps of spilled oats marked the abandoned lines.

So far to the north and east had the sound of cannon receded that only at intervals, when the wind was right, was it distinguishable at all as a soft, almost inaudible thudding along the horizon.

No gun shots troubled the August quiet; the shrill chirring of insects from every stubble field accentuated it.

Very few soldiers were to be seen; _fantassins_ mounted guard by the pontoons; vedettes were visible along the river meadows and on the low hills beyond the Recollette. Patrols rode slowly on the Sais highway; wagons still rolled eastward through the sunset light, or went into park in sheltered places; few cyclists went south, fewer still whizzed by into the north and east.

Just at sunset a squadron of hussars passed the lodge gate, walking their horses. An officer turned his mount, spurred through the open gate, and galloped up the drive to the Chateau.

He dismounted at the foot of the terrace; his horse stood, turning a beautiful, gentle head around toward the distant gate where his comrades were slowly passing.

His rider, mounting the terrace steps two at a time, encountered Madame de Moidrey and Warner, paid his respects almost breathlessly, but with perfect restraint of an impatience impossible to conceal.

"And Captain Halkett?" he inquired. "I hear that he was not injured when his biplane came down into the river?"

"He was stunned, that's all," said Warner quietly. "His mechanic was badly bruised, but not seriously. The plane is a wreck."

The Vicomte d'Aures stood a moment, twisting one glove between his fingers, then, with winning dignity, but turning very red, he said to the Countess:

"I have come also to make my adieux to--Peggy--if I have your permission----"

The Countess nodded:

"She is in there.... You have my permission ... and approval."

He saluted her hand very simply, straightened up, took faultless leave of Warner, turned, and entered the house. Peggy rose from the music stool and came toward him in the dim rose light. They met as naturally and unconsciously as two children; he took both her hands; she released them and drew them around his neck and laid her face against his breast.

They had only a few moments.

Ethra de Moidrey and Warner saw his departure from where they were strolling along the parapet of the lily garden. He left the park at a fast gallop, never turning to look back. Twilight swallowed the gallant, gay young figure. For a few moments the double gallop of hoofs sounded through the evening air, then died away.

The Countess, seated on the parapet, laid her hand appealingly on Warner's sleeve:

"Jim, do you like him?"

"He's all right, Ethra. If I had a younger brother I should wish him to be like that boy."

"Yes.... He is nice.... He is going into battle.... That is hard.... Poor little Peggy. Womanhood comes swiftly when it comes, Jim. The reagent is sorrow. We all pass that way, we women. Sorrow is the philosopher's stone.... Else we remain only children until we die."

Warner gazed at the dusty glory still glowing above the western hills:

"What a day it has been!" he murmured.

"God guide those men who are riding into the east," said she. "What a strange day it has been, Jim! Did you understand that painful incident between General Delisle and General Count Cassilis?"

"Perfectly. The Russian Military Observer was given his conge. Did you not see what happened? The rattle of the volley that ended Wildresse meant also the end of the world for Count Cassilis.

"I saw General Delisle walk across the terrace and say something to Cassilis in a low voice. I saw the Russian's face. It was like death. The end was also in sight for him. He knew it. He knew what his dismissal from French division headquarters meant. He knew he must go home. He knew that his arrest would follow the instant he set foot across the frontier of his own Empire.

"But his good manners did not desert him. You saw him take his leave, stiff, correct, calm as though the ceremony meant nothing to him except familiar routine.

"There was no exchange of handclasps, nothing of cordiality, merely the faultless observance of convention. Then he went away."

"He is a traitor?" she asked, in an awed voice.

"Undoubtedly. Think what it has meant--think what it would have meant to this army if his treachery had not been discovered!--A spy at headquarters! But his own Emperor will punish him. As surely as I stand here, Ethra, that man is doomed to die on the scaffold. He knows it.... Did you notice him light a cigarette when he got into his limousine? I could not keep my eyes off him--that man already practically dead--that traitor impassively saluting the hussars' fanion as his automobile rolled by! And even while I looked at him I seemed to see him suspended there in his shroud, a dead weight on the gibbet, turning gently in the morning breeze--God! The fellow got on my nerves!--Knowing the guilt that lay black within him--the murders in Sofia----"

"Horrible," said the Countess with a slight shiver. "And the man, Wildresse--did it--with those dreadful hands of his. I thought I should faint when he was telling of it--what he did in the bedroom--"

She shuddered, rose abruptly:

"Philippa is in her room, still poring over those papers. I can't bear to leave the child all alone, and yet it seems like intrusion to disturb her. Could you take her for a little walk, Jim, before dinner?--Take her out of her room--out of the house for a while? I'm afraid she's remembering that murderer's confession. She ought not to brood over such things."

"Yes, I'll try to take her mind off it. Suppose I walk down to the inn with her! Halkett's there. It might divert her; she's fond of him." He smiled slightly. "There's a cat there, too. It will seem like old times--she and Halkett and Ariadne and I together at the Golden Peach. I believe it will divert her."

"Why not remain and dine there with Mr. Halkett, as you used to, in your somewhat unconventional way?" suggested the Countess, smiling. "I am very sure that would appeal to Philippa."

"I'll ask her," nodded Warner.

They walked slowly into the house together. Gray lay in the corner of an upholstered lounge beside a lighted lamp, a book open on his knees, his cheek resting on his hand.

At the sound of their approach he looked up quickly, and his face brightened.

"I thought I wouldn't read any further," he said frankly. "We have enjoyed so much reading it together. Do you mind going on with it to the end?"

The Countess laughed and a pretty color rose in her cheeks.

"Do you think," she said, "that I expect to spend the remainder of my days reading romances with you?"

And, as Warner turned and mounted the stairs:

"Besides," she added, "there is really nothing more to read in that silly novel."

"Why not?" he inquired, his face expressing candid disappointment.

"Because they have already fallen in love," she explained carelessly. "And the end of such a proceeding is always obvious, Mr. Gray."

She glanced up at the stairs. Warner had disappeared.

After a moment, casually unconscious, she seated herself on the broad, upholstered end of the lounge, looking down over his shoulder at the open book on his knees.

"In fiction," she remarked, "there is only one end to such situations.... But, if you like, I don't mind beginning another book with you, Mr. Gray."

Her hand, which rested among the cushions, supporting her, happened to come within the range of his wandering vision. He looked at it for a little while. Presently he placed his own over it, very lightly.

Neither moved. But it was a long time before he ventured to turn his head and look up at the woman with whom he had read through his first long love story. She had read such stories before, understood something of their tricks, their technique, their reality, and their romance. And had supposed there was nothing further for her to learn about them and that her interest in them was dead.

"If you don't mind," he said, "reading on with me, for a while----"

"I might tire."

"Try not to."

Her flushed face became thoughtful. Already the prospect of reading another romance with him seemed interesting.

Warner and Philippa, silently descending the stairs together, glanced around at the two figures together there under the lighted lamp.

The Countess was saying calmly:

"We might as well finish the love story we have begun, if you really insist on following through to the conventional end."

"Yes," he said. "I do insist. Let us follow through together--to the end."

Philippa, slim and white, moved silently through the house beside Warner, out across the terrace and down to the drive.

The last hint of color had died out in the west. Below, in the valley, no searchlights flooded the river; only a moving lantern here and there glimmered through the misty dusk.

"It will be jolly," he was saying, "for us to dine again together before Halkett leaves. Don't you think so, Philippa?"

"Yes. When is he going?"

"Tomorrow, I believe. They are sending the wrecked machine to Verdun by rail. I suppose he'll follow in the morning. What a miracle that he was not killed! They say the big Bristol behaved exactly like a wing-tipped grouse when the shrapnel hit her--coming down beating and fluttering and fighting for equilibrium to the end. It was the skill of his pilot that brought her safely wabbling and planing into the river, where she waddled about like a scotched duck."

"Was the pilot badly hurt?"

"Not badly. Sister Eila is looking after him. They're going to bring him up to the Chateau hospital in the morning. He's at the inn now."

"Why didn't they bring any wounded to us, Jim?"

"The ambulances from Ausone and Dreslin took them. I believe we are to expect fifty wounded tomorrow. Sister Felicite was notified after our ambulance returned from the Bois d'Ausone."

Twice they were halted, and the permit from General Delisle which Warner carried was minutely inspected by flashlight. Then they moved on slowly through the fragrant night toward the unlighted windows of the Golden Peach.

There, as in the Chateau, all lights were masked by shutters and curtains, so that no night visitor soaring high under the stars might sight anything at which to loose the tiny red spark--that terrible, earth-shattering harbinger of death and annihilation.

At the front door they knocked; Linette welcomed them into a darkened hall, but as soon as the door was closed again she brought out a lamp.

Madame Arlon followed, delighted that they were to dine there with Halkett.

He was somewhere about the garden, she said, and Sister Eila was upstairs with the wounded pilot.

Moving along the familiar path in the garden, they presently discovered Halkett seated alone in the little arbor, with Ariadne dozing on his lap.

"We've come to dine with you, old fellow!" said Warner. "--Philippa and you and I and Ariadne again. Does the idea appeal to you?"