Chapter VII: Part 7

Listening, every nerve on edge, he heard footsteps falling cautiously upon the stone stairway; a white radiance spread and grew brighter at the far end of the vaulted place; and in a moment more the blinding star of an electric torch dazzled his eyes, where he stood looking out between the cracks of the piled-up boxes which made of the alley in which he had halted a rampart and an impasse.

Two men were advancing, shining the way before them, turning their heads from side to side with curiosity, but without apparently any suspicion.

They seemed to know the place and to be entirely familiar with every alley, for, just before they passed the runway where he crouched behind the boxes, they turned aside, played their light over the dusty banks of bottles, chose one, coolly knocked off its neck, and leisurely drained it between them.

Then, exchanging a few comments in voices too low to be understood, they resumed their course, passed the entrance to the alley where Warner lay hidden, and continued on a few paces.

He could see them as black shapes against the flare of light; saw them halt a few paces from where he stood, saw them reach up and take hold of a huge tun which blocked their progress.

Their torch was shining full upon it; he could follow minutely everything they were doing.

One of the men stretched his arms out horizontally and grasped the edges of the immense cask. Then he threw his full weight to the right; the cask swung easily outward, leaving a passageway wide enough for a man. And there, full in the blaze of brilliant light, was a door, scarcely ten feet away from where he was standing.

The man who had turned the cask went to the door, slid aside a panel, reached in and unbolted it, and had already opened the door when a big bulk loomed up in front of him; a gross, vibrant voice set the hollow echoes growling under the arches of stone and mortar; Wildresse barred their way.

He stood there, the torchlight falling full on his round, partly bald and smoothly shaven head; his wicked little ratty eyes were two points of black, his wicked mouth was twisted with profanity.

"Sacre tas de bougres!" he roared. "I told you to come at nine o'clock, didn't I? What are you doing here, then? You, Asticot, you are supposed to have more sense than Squelette, there! Why do you interrupt me before the hour I set?"

The man addressed as Asticot--a heavy, bench-legged young man with two _favoris_ pasted over his large wide ears--shuffled his shoes most uncomfortably.

Squelette, tall, frightfully thin, with his long, furrowed neck of an unclean bird swathed in a red handkerchief, stood sullen and motionless while the glare of his torch streamed over Wildresse.

"Nom de Dieu!" shouted the latter. "Aim at my belly and keep that light out of my face, you stupid ass!"

Squelette sulkily shifted his torch; Asticot said in the nasal, whining voice of the outer boulevards:

"_Voyons, mon vieux_, you have been at it for six hours, and the Skeleton here and I thought you might require our services----"

"Is that so!" snarled Wildresse. "Also, they may require your services in La Roquette!"

"They do," remarked Squelette naively.

"You don't have to tell me that!" retorted Wildresse. "You'll sneeze for them, too, some day!" He turned savagely on Asticot: "I _don't_ want you now! I'm busy! Do you understand?"

"I understand," replied the Maggot. "All the same, if I may be so bold--what's the use of chattering if there's a job to finish? If there's work to do, do it, and talk afterward. That's my idea."

Wildresse glared at him:

"Really! Very commendable. Such notions of industry ought to be encouraged in the young. But the trouble with you, Asticot, is that you haven't anything inside that sucked-out orange you think is a head.

"Whatever mental work is to be done, I shall do. Do you comprehend me, imbecile? And I don't trouble to consult your convenience, either. Is that clear? Now, take your friend, the Skeleton, and take your torch and yourself out of this cellar. Get out, or I'll bash your face in!--You dirty little bandy-legged, blood-lapping cockroach----"

His big, pock-pitted, hairless face became frightful in its concentrated ferocity; both men made simultaneous and involuntary movements to the rear.

"You'll come at nine o'clock, do you hear!" he roared. "And you'll bring a sack with you and enough weight to keep it sunk! You, Maggot; you, Skeleton, do you understand? Very well, clear out!"

The young ruffians made no response; Asticot turned and made his way through the narrow passage; the Skeleton shuffled on his heels, shining his torch ahead.

Halfway down the central corridor they helped themselves to two more bottles of Bordeaux, pocketing them in silence, and continued on their course.

Listening, Warner could hear them ascending the stone stairs, could hear the door click above as they left the cellar. But his eyes remained fixed on Wildresse, who still stood in the door, darkly outlined against the dull gaslight burning somewhere in the room behind him.

Once or twice he looked at the great cask which the two _voyous_ had not troubled to close into its place behind them. And Wildresse did not bother to go out and swing the cask back into place, but, as soon as he caught the sound of the closing cellar door, stepped back and shut his own door.

He must either have forgotten, or carelessly neglected, to close the open panel in it, for the lighted square remained visible, illuminating the narrow passage after Warner heard him bolt the door on the inside.

His retreating footsteps, also, were audible for some distance before the sound of them died away; and Warner knew then that the door belonged to the cabaret, and that behind its bolted shutters and its police seals Wildresse had been lurking since his return from Sais.

There was no need to use his torch as he crept out of his ambush and entered the narrow lane behind the big cask.

With infinite precautions, he thrust his arm through the open panel, felt around until he found the two bolts, slid them noiselessly back.

The door swung open, inward. He went in softly.

The place appeared to be a lumber room littered with odds and ends. Beyond was a passage in which a gas jet burned; at the end of it a stairway leading up.

The floor creaked in spite of him, but the stairs were carpeted. They led up to a large butler's pantry; and, through the sliding door, he peered out into the dim interior of the empty cabaret.

Through cracks in the closed shutters rays from the setting sun pierced the gloom, making objects vaguely distinct--tables and chairs piled one upon the other around the dancing floor, the gaudy decorations pendent from the ceiling, the shrouded music stands, the cashier's desk where he had first set eyes on the girl Philippa----

With the memory his heart almost ceased, then leaped with the resurgence of his fear for her; he looked around him until he discovered a leather swinging door, and when he opened it a wide hallway lay before him and a stairway rose beyond.

Over the thick carpet he hastened, then up the stairs, cautiously, listening at every step.

Somewhere above, coming apparently from behind a closed door, he heard the heavy vibration of a voice, and knew whose it was.

Guided by it along the upper passageway, he passed the open doors of several bedrooms, card rooms, private dining-rooms, all empty and the furniture covered with sheets, until he came to a closed door.

Behind it, the heavy voice of Wildresse sounded menacingly; he waited until it rose to a roar, then tried the door under cover of the noise within. It was locked, and he stood close to it, listening, striving to think out the best way.

Behind the locked door Wildresse was shouting now, and Warner heard every word:

"By God!" he roared in English. "You had better not try to lie to me! Do you want your neck twisted?"

There was no reply.

"I ask you again, what did you do with that paper I gave you by mistake?" he repeated.

Suddenly Warner's heart stood still, as Philippa's voice came to him, low but distinct:

"I burned it!"

"You burned it? You lie!"

"I never lie," came the subdued voice. "I burned it."

"You slut! How dared you touch it at all?"

"You handed it to me," she said wearily.

"And you knew it was a mistake, you treacherous cat! My God! Have I nourished you for this, you little snake, that you turn your poisonous teeth on me?"

"Perhaps.... But not on my country."

"Your country! You miserable foundling, did you suppose yourself French?"

"France is the only country I have known. I refuse to betray her."

"France!" he shouted. "France! A hell of a country to snivel about! You can't tell me anything about France--the dirty kennel full of mongrels that it is! France? To hell with France!

"What has she done for me? What has she done to me? Chased me out of Paris; forced my only son into her filthy army; hunted us both without mercy--finally hunted my son into the Battalions of Biribi--me into this damned pigpen of Ausone! That's what France has done to me and mine!--Blackmailed me into playing the _mouchard_ for her--forcing me to play spy for her by threatening to hunt me into La Nouvelle!

"By God! I break even, though! I sell her every chance I get; and what I sell to her she has to pay for, too--believe me, she pays for it a hundred times over!"

There came a silence, then Wildresse's voice again, rumbling, threatening:

"Who was that _type_ you went to visit in Sais at the Golden Peach?"

No answer.

"Do you hear, you little fool?"

"I hear you," she said in a tired voice.

"You won't tell?"

"No."

"Why? Is he your lover?"

"No."

"Oh, you merely got your wages, eh?"

No answer.

"In other words, you're launched, eh? You aspire to turn _cocotte_, eh?"

"I am employed by him quite honestly----"

"Very touching. Such a nice young man, isn't he? And how much did you tell him about me, eh?"

No reply.

"Did you inform him that I was a very bad character?" he sneered. "Did you tell him what a hard time you had? Did you explain to him that a pious Christian really could not live any longer with such a man as I am? _Did_ you? And that is the way you feel, isn't it?--That you are too good for the business in which I have taken the trouble to educate you?"

"To be compelled to seek information for my Government has made me very unhappy," she said. "But to betray that Government--that is not in me to do. I had rather die.... I think, anyway, that I had rather not--live--any longer."

"Is that so? Is that all the spirit you have? What are you, anyway--a worm? Have you no anger in you against the country which has kicked you and me out of Paris into this filthy kennel called Ausone? Have you no resentment toward the Government that has attempted to beggar us both--the Government which bullies us, threatens us, blackmails us, forbids us entry into the capital, keeps us tied up here like dogs to watch and bark at strangers and whine away our lives on starvation wages, when we could make our fortunes in Paris?"

"I don't know what you did."

"What of it? Suppose I broke a few of their damned laws! Is that a reason to kick me from place to place and finally tie me up here?"

"I--don't know."

"Oh, 'don't know'!" he mimicked her. "You ungrateful slut, if you had any gratitude in your treacherous little body, you'd stick to me now! You'd rejoice at my vengeance! You'd laugh to know that I am paying back in her own coin the country which insulted me! That's what you'd do, instead of sniveling around about 'treachery' and 'betraying France.'

"And, by God!--now that war has come, you'll see your beloved France torn into pieces by the Bosches! That's what you'll see--France ripped into tatters!

"Yes, and that sight will repay me for all that has been done to me--that revenge I shall have--soon!--just as soon as they sweep up that stable litter of Belgians over there!

"_Then_ we'll see! Then perhaps I'll get my recognition from the Bosches!

"What do I care for France or for them, either? I'm of no nation; I'm nothing; I'm for _myself_! The Bosches were the kinder to me, and they get what I don't need, _voila tout_!"

There came a long pause, and then Wildresse's heavy tones once more:

"I'll give you your chance. Yes, in spite of your treachery and your ingratitude, I'll give you your chance!

"You have a brain--such as it is. It's a woman's brain, of course, but it can figure out on which side the bread is buttered.

"Listen: I ought to twist your neck. You've tried to put mine into the _lunette_. You could have sent me up against a dead wall if you had given that paper you burned to the _flics_. No, you didn't. You enjoyed a crisis of nerves and you burned it. I _know_ you burned it, because I admit that you tell the truth.

"Bon! Now, therefore, I do not instantly twist your neck. No! On the contrary, I reason with you. I do not turn you over to the _sergots_. I _could_! Why? Voyons, let us be reasonable! I was not hatched yesterday. No! Do you suppose I have trusted you all these years without having taken any little precautions? _Tiens_, you are beginning to look at me, eh?

"Well, then, listen: if in future you have any curiosity concerning _lunettes_ and dead walls, let me inform you that you are qualified to embellish either.

"_Tiens_! You seem startled. It never occurred to you to ask why I have had certain papers written out by you, or why I have had you affix your pretty signature to so many little documents which you could not read because the ink was invisible.

"No. You have never thought about such matters, have you? But, all the same, I have all I require to make you sneeze into the basket, or to play blindman's buff between a dead wall and a squad of execution.

"And _now_!--Now that you know enough to hold your tongue, will you hold it in future and be honest and loyal to the hand that picked you out of the gutter and that has fed you ever since?"

There was a silence.

"_Will_ you?" he repeated.

"_No!_"

A bull-like roar burst from Wildresse:

"I'll twist your neck for you, and I'll do it now!" he bellowed. "I'll snap that white neck of yours----"

*CHAPTER XVIII*

The next instant Warner struck the door such a blow with his doubled fist that the jarring sound silenced the roar of rage that had burst from Wildresse at Philippa's answer, and checked the heavy scuffle of his great feet, too.

Already Warner had drawn back, pistol lifted, gathered together to throw his full weight against the door and hold it the moment it was opened from inside.

The sudden stillness which followed his blow lasted but a few seconds; heavy steps approached the door, halted; approached irresolutely, stopped short. Then ensued another period of quiet; and Warner, listening, could hear the breathing of Wildresse on the other side of the door.

Minute after minute passed; Wildresse, still as a tiger, never stirred, and even his suppressed breathing became inaudible after a while.

Warner, pistol in hand, ready to throw himself against the door the instant it moved on the crack, bent over and placed his ear close against the paneling. After a while he detected the sound of footsteps cautiously retreating, and realized that Wildresse did not intend to open the door.

He knocked again loudly: the steps continued to recede; somewhere another door was unbolted and opened; and the stealthy, retreating footsteps continued on beyond earshot.

Again he knocked heavily with the butt of his pistol; waited, listened, then drew back and fairly hurled himself against the door. It scarcely even creaked; he might as well have attempted to push over the retaining wall of the corridor itself.

"Philippa!" he called. "Philippa!"

A low cry answered him; he heard her stir suddenly.

But as he grasped the door knob and shook it in his excitement and impatience, over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of a gross, hairless face slyly peering around the further corner of the corridor. It disappeared immediately.

"Open the door, Philippa!" he cried. "Open quick!"

"Warner, _mon ami_, I can't! He took the key----" she called through to him. "Oh, Warner! What am I to do?"

"All right! Wait there!" He turned and ran for the further end of the corridor, sprang around the corner without hesitating, sped forward, now fiercely intent on the destruction of Wildresse. But the Patron had fled. He ran forward, turned another corner in the dim light of locked shutters, but found no trace of the bulky quarry he hunted, heard nothing, halted, breathing fast and hard, trying to establish his bearings.

A stair well plunged downward into shadowy depths just ahead; he stole forward and looked over; carpeted steps vanished into the darkness below.

Doors, all locked, faced him everywhere; he ran along them, trying each as he passed; came to an angle of solid wall, stepped around it, pistol extended; and it was a miracle he was not startled into pulling trigger when a door was torn open in his very face, and a figure, dark against the fiery sunset framed by a window, sprang forward.

"Warner, _mon ami_! _Me voici_!" she cried joyously, flinging both arms around his neck; but he stood white and trembling with the nearness of her destruction at his hands, holding the shaking pistol wide from her body and unable to utter a word.

And as he stood there, one arm around her thin body, somewhere below and behind him a door burst open and there came a muffled rush of feet up the stairway from the darkness below.

He pushed her violently away from him, but before he could turn and spring to the stairhead, three men leaped into the passage, their weapons spitting red flashes through the dusky corridor; and he jumped backward dragging Philippa with him into the room behind them, slammed the door, and bolted, chained, and locked it.

Outside, Asticot, Squelette, and Hoffman stood close to the door and poured bullets through it at close range. The stream of lead tore the papered plaster wall, opposite to tatters; but the door was as massive as the one he had tried to force with his shoulder; two great bars of metal bolted it, a heavy chain further secured it, and the key remained in the lock.

But steel-jacketed bullets still pierced the wood, stripping splinters from the inside and mangling the opposite wall until the gay wall paper hung in strips, and the whole room swam in a haze of drifting white dust.

Edging along, his body flattened against the north wall of the empty room, and drawing Philippa after him, he cautiously approached the door which he had tried to force; and heard Wildresse whispering to somebody outside. No wonder he had not been able to force it; the bolts and chains that held it were exactly like those which secured the other door.

He placed his lips close to Philippa's ear:

"Where are we?" he breathed; and bent his head to the child's bruised mouth, which was still swollen and cut from the blow dealt her by Wildresse that morning in the car.

"We are in the Patron's private office, where he used to lock himself in," she whispered. "They've taken out the desk and chairs. His bedroom is next; mine is the next beyond that."

He looked anxiously toward the window and saw tree tops and glimpses of rolling country sparkling in the lilac-tinted haze of approaching twilight.

"Where does that window face?" he whispered, softly.

"On the garden and river."

"How far a drop is it?"

"Too far, _mon ami_. The stone terrace is below."

"Is it thirty feet?"

"I don't know. The roof and chimneys are above us. We are in the top story of the house."

"There are only two stories above the cellar, as I remember."

"Two, yes."

Still holding himself and her flat against the wall, he turned his head cautiously from side to side, searching the empty room. There was absolutely nothing there except bare floor and walls, and, in the fireplace, a huge iron grate weighted with cannel coal.

Outside, from the two corridors the firing had ceased; but he could distinguish the low vibration of heavy voices, carefully subdued, catch the sound of stealthy movements on the carpeted floor close to both doors. Lifting his pistol he fired through one door, wheeled, and fired through the other. When the deafening racket in the room had ceased, he bent toward her and whispered:

"Philippa, will you obey me?"

"Yes, mon ami."

"Flatten yourself closer against the wall and don't stir."

The girl spread out both arms, palms against the wall, and shrank closer against it with her slim body.

Warner dropped cautiously to the floor, crept across it, dragging himself by his hands, grasped the sill of the window, drew his head up with infinite precaution, and looked out and finally down.

Below lay the flagstones and potted flowers of the garden terrace, not more than twenty-five feet, he thought. Beyond these, the grass sloped down to the Recollette, where rowboats still floated under the trees.

Reconnoitering, he could not discover a soul in sight, and, satisfied, he crept back to where Philippa stood.

As he looked up at her, a faint smile touched the girl's bruised lips, and her steady grey eyes seemed to say: "_Me voici, mon ami, toujours a vos ordres!_"

"We must try to leave by the window," he whispered. "Both doors are guarded. And this man means murder--for you, anyway----"

"Yes.... It does not matter much now.... Since I have seen you again."

"You dear child--you dear, brave little thing!"

"Oh, _mon ami_--if you truly are content with me----"

"Little comrade, you have been very wonderful and very true! Halkett has recovered his papers.... Can you imagine how I felt when that murderous brute struck you!"

"It was nothing--I don't care, now----" She looked at his face, extended one finger along the wall, and touched his arm, trying to smile with her disfigured lips.

He looked at her very intently for a moment, unsmiling. Then:

"Little comrade! Listen attentively."

"Yes, Warner."

"It's too far for us to drop. It is twenty feet, anyway, and probably more. You would break your legs on the stones.... How many of your clothes can you spare to make a rope?"

"My--_clothing_?"

"Yes. You see there is not a thing in this room, not even a shred of carpet. I can spare my coat, waistcoat, shirt, tie, two handkerchiefs, collar, belt--and both shoe laces. I have a heavy, sharp pocketknife with a four-inch blade, which will cut cloth into strips. Help me all you can, Philippa. We shall need every inch of cloth and linen we can spare.... And I think we had better hurry about it, because I don't know what they are planning to do outside those two doors."

She hesitated an instant, then:

"If you wish it.... Will you please turn your head?"

"Of course, you dear child! What can you spare?"

"I can spare my chemisette and underskirt and petticoat, and my velvet hairband and my shoe laces.... And a handkerchief and my stockings.... It leaves me my red velvet bodice, which I can lace tightly, my red velvet skirt, and my shoes.... Will it be enough to give you?"

"I hope so; we must try." He turned, stripped to his undershirt and trousers, opened the long-bladed knife, and began to cut out strips from the materials.

Presently she was ready to contribute to the projected rope, and together they ventured to seat themselves noiselessly at the base of the wall and begin serious work on the business before them.

The sound of linen or of cotton being ripped would certainly have set on the alert the men outside and directed a murderously inclined gentleman or two to the garden.

So they parted the stuffs with every precaution to avoid any noise, using the knife constantly, and easing the various fabrics apart little by little.

Warner was confident that Wildresse, knowing the utter nakedness of the room in which they were locked, and knowing that death or broken bones must result from a drop into the terrace flowerpots, was not concerning himself to guard that quarter. Working steadily, easing, parting, picking out or cutting threads, ripping and tearing with greatest caution, the growing dusk in the room began to impede their operations. But he dared not use his electric torch, lest they be seen from outside.

Already the girl's slender fingers were flying as she picked up strip after strip of fabric and twisted them into the quadruple braid, bending closer over her task as the light became dimmer and dimmer.

Her bare feet in her laceless shoes were extended and crossed in front of her; the slender neck and shoulders and arms were exquisite in the delicate loveliness of immaturity; she worked swiftly, intensely absorbed, unconscious, unembarrassed in her preoccupation.

Now and then she lifted the braided cord and, stretching it, tested it with all her youthful strength. Once she handed it to him and he threw his full strength into the test, nodded, passed it back to her, and went on with his cutting and ripping.

Before the cord was finished, a tremendous crash shook the door on the left; and Warner, seated flat on the floor, fired two shots through the panels.

Then they both went on with their cutting, ripping, knotting, and braiding. The fumes from the cartridges set them coughing, but the smoke filtered out of the open window very soon.

It was dark when the cord was ready--some eighteen feet of it, as far as Warner could judge by measuring it across his outstretched arms.

Everything was in it except his leather belt, and this he buckled around Philippa's body.

There seemed to be no way he could test the cord except, inch by inch, using main strength; and, looking at the slender girl beside him, he concluded that it was going to hold her anyway.

The only light left in the room came from the stars; by this he crept across to the fireplace, lifted the heavy, iron grate with difficulty, set it at the foot of the window, fastened one end of the cord to it, turned and beckoned to Philippa.

She came creeping through the dusk on hands and knees; he pushed the pistol into one hip pocket, the electric torch into the other, fastened the rope to his leather belt which she wore, motioned her to mount the sill.

"But--_you_?" she whispered.

"Listen! I shall follow. If _I_ fall, try to find Halkett in the square and tell him."

"Warner--I am afraid!"

"I won't let you fall----"

"For _you_, I mean!"

"Don't be afraid. I could almost drop it without any cord to help me. Now! Are you ready?"

"If you wish it."

"Then sit this way--there! Now, turn and take hold of the sill with both hands--_that_ way! ... Now, you may let go----"

Her full weight on the cord frightened him; he braced his knees and paid out the rope which crushed and threatened to cut his hands in two.

Down, down into the dusk below he lowered her; his arms and back and ribs seemed turned to steel, so terrible was the fear that he might let her drop.

There remained yet a coil or two of rope when the cord in his staggering hands suddenly slackened. A shaft of fright pierced him; he bent shakily over the sill and looked down. She had not fallen; she stood on the terrace, unknotting the rope from her leather belt.

A moment later he drew it up, the belt dangling at the end. With trembling and benumbed hands he tested the knot tied to the grate; then, twisting the cord around both hands, he let himself over the sill, clung there, and lowered the window, hesitated, let his full weight hang, heard the iron grate drag and catch, then, blindly, twisting the cord around his left leg, he let himself down foot by foot, believing every moment that the cord would part or that the iron grate would be dragged up and over the sill, carry away the sash, and crush him.

And the next instant his feet touched the stone flagging and he turned to find Philippa at his side.

"Be silent," she breathed close to his ear. "A boat has just landed."

"Where?"

"At the foot of the garden. Two men are getting out!"

He knew that the rope would be discovered; he seized it and tried to break it loose. It held as though it had been woven of wire.

"There is a way into the cellar," whispered Philippa. "Can you lift this grating? It is only a drop of a foot or two!"

He bent down beside her in the shadows, felt the bars of the narrow grating overgrown with herbage, pulled upward and lifted it easily from its grassy bed. Philippa placed her hand flat on the dewy turf, and vaulted down into darkness. He balanced himself on the edge of the hole, turned and pulled the grating toward him, and dropped. The grating fell with a soft thud on the damp and grassy rim of the manhole. Philippa caught his hand.

"I know my way! Come!" she breathed, and he followed into the pitchy darkness.

How far they had progressed he had no idea, when she halted and drew him close to her.

"I've lost my way; I thought I could find the main corridor. Have you a match?"

"I have a flashlight."

He pulled it from his pocket and drew his pistol also. Then he snapped on the light.

For a moment the girl stood dazzled and perplexed, evidently unfamiliar with what she was gazing at, bewildered.

But Warner knew. There, in front of him, stood the great tun, swung open like a gate, and between it and the next cask ran the secret alley blocked by the door from which Wildresse had driven Asticot and Squelette.

"I know the way now!" he said. "But we'll have to pass through the cafe----"

He sprang back with the words on his lips as the door opened violently and Wildresse lurched out, followed by Asticot and another man.

But the glare of the torch in their eyes checked them and they recoiled, stumbling over each other in the narrow doorway.

Step by step Warner backed away, keeping Philippa behind him and focussing the blinding light on the men huddled in the doorway.

"Who are you?" demanded Wildresse hoarsely. "What are you doing in my cellar?"

He made a motion toward his breast pocket; Asticot was quicker, and he fired full at the flashlight which Warner was holding wide of himself and Philippa.

The bullet struck the light; startling darkness buried them, instantly all a-flicker again with pistol flashes.

"The grating again! Can you find it, Philippa?" he whispered.

She turned her head as she retreated, caught a glimpse of the faint spot of starlight behind, took his hand and drew him around.

Evidently Wildresse dared not use any light; his friends were shooting wildly and at hazard for general results; the racket in the vaulted place was deafening; but the flashes from their own pistols must have obscured their vision, for if they could have distinguished the far, pale spot of light under the manhole, they evidently did not see the dim figures crouching there.

Warner reached up, grasped the iron bars, lifted them, swung them open. Then he dragged himself up and over, and, flat on the grass, held down his arms for Philippa.

Beside him, panting on the grass, she lay flat under the dim luster of the stars, while they searched the dusk for any sign of the two men who had landed from the rowboat.

And all at once the girl's eyes fell upon a ladder leaning against the house, and she silently touched Warner on the arm.

It became plain enough now; the rope was gone; the men had mounted to the room, found it empty, had unbolted both doors, and started Wildresse and his crew toward the cellar--the only egress to the street--where lay their only chance of successful pursuit.

Bending low above the grass, gliding close to the shrubs and bushes, Warner, with Philippa's hand clasped in his, stole down the slope and into the shadow of the shoreward trees.

A boat, with both oars in it, lay there, pulled up into the sedge; the girl stepped in; Warner pushed off and followed her, shipped the oars, swung the boat, and bent to his work.

"You are taking the wrong way!" whispered Philippa.

"Halkett is waiting on the quay."

Already they had rounded the bank in sight of the ancient arch of the bridge; the quay wall rose above them in the starlight. At the foot of the narrow flight of steps he checked the boat; Philippa took the oars, and he sprang out and ran up the stone incline.

"Halkett!" he called sharply.

A figure seated on the wall turned its head, jumped to the pavement, and came striding swiftly.

"Have you discovered her whereabouts? Good heavens! Where are your clothes, Warner?"

"I've found Philippa. She's waiting below in a boat----"

They ran down the steps while they were speaking, and Philippa cried:

"Is it you, Halkett? I am happy again!" And stretched out her slender bare arm to him, excited, trembling a little from the nervous reaction which now suddenly filled her eyes and set her disfigured mouth quivering.

"Awf'lly glad," said Halkett heartily, clasping her offered hand in his firm cool grip; and if he was astonished at her negligee he did not betray it, but took the oars with decision and sent the boat shooting out into mid-current.

"Philippa," he said, pulling downstream with powerful strokes through the darkness, "I don't know what has happened; Warner got you out of the mess, whatever it was; but what I do know is that you behaved like a brick and I shall never forget it! A soldier's thanks, little comrade, for what you did!"

"I--I am--happy----" she faltered; and her voice failed her. She slid from the stern down against Warner's knees, and buried her face in her bare arms against them.

"Do you think you could spare her your coat, old fellow?" asked Warner in a low voice.

"Of course!" Halkett stripped off his coat and passed it over; then he gave his waistcoat to Warner.

"Lucky it's a warm night," he said cheerfully, while Warner spread the coat over Philippa, where she lay exhausted, tremulous, and close to tears. The girl who had never whimpered when fear, timidity, and indecision meant instant disaster, now lay huddled against his knees, shaking in every limb, crushing back the tears that burned her eyes and her throat, striving to master the nerves that clamored for relief.

Warner bent over her, close, touching her disheveled hair:

"It's all right now," he whispered. "I shall not let you go again until you want to.... It's all right now, Philippa. I'll stand your friend always--as long as you need me--as long as you--want me.... Don't worry about a home; I'll see to it. You are going to have your chance."

One of her crossed hands groped blindly for his, closed over it convulsively, and her breath grew hot with tears.

"It's a long way to Tipperary," remarked Halkett cheerily. "Tell me about it when you're ready, old chap."

*CHAPTER XIX*

About seven o'clock the next morning Halkett knocked at Warner's door, awakening him.

"The cavalry are passing, if you'd care to see them," he said.

Warner got out of bed, found his slippers and a bathrobe, and opened the door. Halkett, fully dressed in the field uniform of a British officer, came in.

"Hello!" exclaimed the American in surprise. "What does this mean?"

"It means that we've gone in, old chap."

"England!"

"Yes, we're in it! And I'm off." He made a gesture for silence. "Hark! Do you hear that?"

Warner listened: from the distance came a confused, metallic sound, growing more and more distinct, filling the room with a faint ringing, jarring harmony.

"Come to the window; it's worth seeing," said Halkett.

It was worth seeing. Through the still morning sunshine, from the southward came an immense sound wave; the rustle and clash of steel, the clink-clank of iron-shod hoofs.

Leaning from the window, Warner looked down the road. A high column of white dust stretched away into perspective as far as he could see. Under it, emerging from it, rode the French heavy cavalry, the morning sun a blinding sheet of fire on their armor.

On they came at a leisurely walk, helmets and breastplates blazing silvery fire under a perpendicular forest of lances canopied by the white dust.

They were terribly conspicuous; a cloudless sky exposed every detail of their uniforms--the gold epaulets of their officers, the crimson epaulets and breeches of the troopers, the orange-red whalebone plumes that flew like the manes of horses from the trumpeters' helmets.

On they came, riding at ease, accompanied by dust and by a vast and confused volume of assorted noises--the tintinnabulation of their armor, the subdued clash of sabers, the rattle and clash of equipments, the solidly melodious trample of thousands of horses.

But Warner looked down at them with anxious eyes and lips compressed.

"Good God!" he said under his breath to Halkett. "Are they going into battle dressed that way? I thought they had learned something since 1870!"

"War has caught France unprepared in that particular matter," said Halkett gravely.

"I didn't know it. I understood that Detaille had designed their campaign dress. It's a dreadful thing, Halkett, to send men into fire dressed in that way!"

"It is. But look, Warner. Is there anything more magnificent when in mass formation than a brigade of French cuirassiers?"

As they rode clanging under the windows of the inn, officers and troopers looked up curiously at the man in his bathrobe, in friendly surprise at the young man in the British field uniform; but when the upturned, sunburned faces caught sight of the next window beyond, a quick, gay smile flashed out, and dark blue sleeves shot up in laughing greeting and salute.

"It's Philippa," whispered Halkett. "Look!"

Warner turned: Philippa, wearing the scarlet and black peasant dress of a lost province, sat sideways on her window sill, knitting while she watched the passing cavalry below.

The velvet straps and silk laces of her bodice accented a full chemisette of finest lawn; a delicate little apron of the same was relieved by the scarlet skirt; the dainty, butterfly headdress of black silk crowned her hair, which hung in two heavy braids.

And, as the cavalry column passed, every big cuirassier, looking up from the shadow of his steel helmet, saw Alsace itself embodied in this slender girl who sat knitting and looking down upon France militant out of quiet, proud eyes.

There was no fanfare, no shouting, no boasting, nothing theatrical. The troopers looked up from their saddles and rode by, still looking; the girl knitted quietly, her steady eyes gazing gravely over the needles. And it was as though Alsace herself were speaking a silent language from those clear, grey eyes:

"I am waiting; I have been waiting for you more than forty years. Take what time you need, but come. You will always find me waiting."

Every officer understood it; every giant rider comprehended, as the squadrons trampled past through a thickening veil of dust which grew denser, dulling the sparkle of metal and subduing the raw, fierce colors to pastel tints.

The brigade passed up the valley leisurely, without halting; dust hung along the road for many minutes after the last cuirassier had walked his big horse out of view.

Philippa, who had been seated on the window sill with her back toward Warner's window, left her perch; and Warner turned back into his room to bathe and dress.

"How long have you been up?" he asked Halkett, who had dropped on a chair by the window.

"Since sunrise. Madame Arlon is back. She behaved very nicely about the damage. She doesn't wish me to pay for it, but I shall. Did you know that your Harem left in a body for Paris yesterday afternoon?"

"Very sensible of 'em," said Warner with a sigh of relief. "How about you, Halkett?"

"I don't know yet. I'm expecting orders at any moment now."

"How do you know that your country has gone into this war?"

"I learned it last night at the Boule d'Argent. The news had just come over the wire.

"That precious pair, Meier and Hoffman, whom I had followed to the Boule d'Argent, were seated there in the cafe reading the newspapers when the telegram was posted up.

"They got up from their chairs with the other guests who had clustered around the bulletin to read what had been posted up. I watched their faces from behind my newspaper, and you should have seen their expressions--utter and blank astonishment, Warner! Certainly Germany never believed until the last moment that we had any real intention of going in."

"I didn't, either, to tell the truth."

Halkett smiled:

"It was inevitable from the very beginning. The hour that Austria flung her brutal ultimatum into the face of Servia, every British officer knew that we were going in. It took our politicians a little longer to realize it, that's all."

Warner finished dressing, and they went downstairs together and across the grass to the arbor in the garden, where Philippa sat knitting and talking under her breath to Ariadne, who gazed at her, brilliant-eyed, purring.

The girl had her back toward them and they made no sound as they advanced across the turf which bordered the flowers.

"She's talking to the cat; listen!" murmured Halkett.

"--And after many, many years," they heard Philippa saying, "the sad and patient mother of the two lost children sent out for her five million servants. 'Go,' she said, 'and search diligently for my little daughters who were stolen by the fierce old giant, Bosche. And when you come to where they are imprisoned, you shall know the place, because there is no place on earth so beautiful, no mountains so tender a blue, no fields so green and so full of flowers, no rivers so lovely and clear.

"'Also, you shall recognize my little children when you discover them, because they dress as I am dressed today, in red and black and wearing the black butterfly. So when you see them behind the bars of their prison, you shall call to them by name--you shall call out, Alsace! Lorraine! Be of good courage! Your mother has sent us here to find you and deliver you from the prison of the Giant Bosche!

"'Then you shall draw your broad, bright bayonets and fix them; and you who are mounted shall unsling your long, pointed lances; and you who feed the great steel monsters that roll along on wheels, shall make ready the monsters' food; and others of you who put on wings and who mount clattering to the clouds, shall wing yourselves and mount; and you others who look out over oceans from the tops of tall, steel masts shall signal for all the anchors to be lifted.

"'Thus you shall prepare to encounter the Giant Bosche, who will come thundering and trampling and flaming across the horizon, with his black banners like storm clouds, and advancing amid a roaring iron rain.

"'Thus you shall meet him and hold him, and turn him, and drive him, drive him, drive him, back, back, back, into the fierce, dark, shaggy places from whence he crept out into the sun and stole away my little children.

"'And when that is done, you shall bring me back my children who were lost, and you shall be their servants as well as mine, dwelling with us as one family forever, in happiness and honor, dedicating ourselves to generous and noble deeds as long as the world shall last!' ...

"That, _minette_, is the fairy story which I promised you if you would be a good cat and wait patiently for breakfast. And you have done so, and now I have kept my promise----"

She lifted her eyes from her knitting, turned her head over her shoulder, and saw Warner and Halkett gravely listening.

"Oh," she said, blushing. "Did you hear the story I have been telling to Ariadne?" She held out her hand to Warner and then to Halkett, inspecting the latter critically, much interested in his uniform.

"You saw our cuirassiers?" she asked, as they seated themselves at the table. "So did I. Also, they saw me. I wished them to see me because I was dressed in this dress. We understood each other, the 'grosse cavalerie' and I."

"We saw what was going on," said Halkett. "I should say that about two thousand suitors have been added to your list this morning, Philippa."

She turned shy and a little grave at that, but seeing Warner laughing, laughed too.

"If I were a great lady," she said, "you might be right. Only from the saddle could any man dare hope for a smile from me now."

Linette, with the bright color of excitement still brilliant in her cheeks, brought out the breakfast tray.

"On the quarry road, across the river," she said, "our _fantassins_ are marching north--thousands of them, messieurs!--and the dust is like a high white wall against the hills!"

So they hastened with their coffee and rolls; Warner fetched the garden ladder and set it against the east wall, and all three mounted and seated themselves on the coping.

What Linette had reported was true: across the Recollette a wall of white dust ran north and south as far as they could see. Under it an undulating column tramped, glimmering, sparkling, flowing northward--an endless streak of dusty crimson where the red trousers of the line were startlingly visible through the haze.

Watching the stirring spectacle from a seat on the wall beside Philippa, Warner turned to her presently:

"Do you feel all right this morning?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Your lip is still a trifle swollen."

"I feel quite well." She looked up at him out of her honest grey eyes. "It is the happiest morning of my life," she said in a low voice.

"Why?"

"For two reasons: I am to remain with you, that is one reason; I have lived to see what I am looking at yonder, that is the other reason."

"You have lived to help what is going on yonder," remarked Halkett.

She turned, the question in her eyes; and he answered seriously:

"We British are your allies, now."

"Since when, Monsieur?"

"Since yesterday. So what you did for me when you saved my papers, you did for a friend to France."

Her sudden emotion left her silent; she bent her head and looked down at her knitting, and leisurely resumed it, sitting so, her legs hanging down from the wall, the sun striking her silver shoe buckles.

"Do you hear, Philippa?" asked Warner, smiling. "You have added reason to be proud of the wound on your lip."

She flashed a look at him, laughed shyly, and became very busy with her knitting and with watching the passing column across the river.

Halkett had unslung his field glasses to inspect them at closer range. The dusty _fantassins_ were swinging along at a smart route step, rifles slung, red kepis askew, their bulky luggage piled on their backs and flopping on their thighs--the same careless, untidy, slipshod infantry with the same active, tireless, reckless, rakish allure.

Their smartly mounted officers, smartly booted or gaitered, wearing the smart tunics and gold-laced caps of their arm of the service, seemed merely to accent the gayly dowdy, ill-fitting uniforms of the little _fantassins_.

No British officer could, on his soul and conscience, subscribe to such flapping, misfitting, fag-ends of military accouterments; and as Halkett watched them a singularly wooden expression came over his pleasant, youthful features; and Warner, glancing sideways at him, knew why.

"They're very picturesque if a painter handles them properly," he remarked, amused. "You know what De Neuville did for them."

Philippa, not comprehending, continued to knit and to gaze out of her lovely grey eyes upon her beloved _fantassins_.

Ariadne, seeing her three friends aloft, presently mounted to the top of the wall beside them, and sat gravely blinking into space through slitted eyes.

A glazier had come across the fields from some neighboring hamlet, bringing with him under his ragged arm some panes of glass and a bag of implements.

He was in a hurry, because he was expecting that his class would be called to the colors, but the spectacle of the passing infantry across the river so fascinated him that he made but a slow job of it.

Toward noon a mounted gendarme, who seemed to know him personally, shouted, as he rode by, that his class had been called. The little glazier nodded, smeared the last strip of putty under the last window pane to be replaced, climbed down from the sill, lifted his hat to the three people on the wall--possibly including Ariadne in his politeness--and trotted away across the fields to tie up a few possessions in a large red handkerchief, and then trot away toward Chalons, where France needed even the humblest and most obscure of the children she had nourished through many years for such an hour as was sounding now.

Philippa, looking after him, was unconsciously stirred to express her thoughts aloud:

"There must be _something_ I can do," she said.

"You have been among the very first to do something," rejoined Warner.

"Oh, _that_? That was nothing." She pursed up her lips and stared absently at the troops across the Recollette. "I can knit socks, of course.... I don't know what else to do.... If anybody wants me I am here."

"_I_ want you, Philippa," said Warner.

"_Mon ami_, Warner----" She gave him a swift, adorable smile and laid her hand lightly on his arm for an instant.

Such candid gratitude for friendship he had never read in any eyes before; the quick response of this friendless girl touched him sharply.

"Of course I want you," he repeated. "Never forget, Philippa, that where I am you are welcome--not tolerated--_wanted_!"

She continued to knit, looking down steadily. Halkett lowered his field glasses and glanced at her, then with an odd look at Warner leveled the glasses again and resumed his study of the distant column.

After a few minutes' silence the girl raised her eyes, and Warner caught the glint of unshed tears in them.

"It is only happiness," she said in a low voice. "I am not accustomed to it."

He did not know what to say, for the grey eyes were stirring him very deeply, and her attitude and their new relationship touched him and confused him, too.

The responsibility which he had assumed so impulsively, so lightly yet warmly, began to wear a more serious aspect to him.

Every few moments some new vein of purest metal was unconsciously revealed in her by her own transparent honesty. He began to understand that she had not only right instincts, but that her mind was right, in spite of what she had been since released from school--that her intelligence was of a healthy order, that she thought right, and that, untaught or taught otherwise, her conclusions were as direct and sane as a child's.

"I think, Philippa, we ought to have a business talk this morning," he said pleasantly.

"To discuss our affairs," she nodded contentedly. "I have my little account book in my trunk. Shall I get it for you?"

He smiled:

"I didn't intend to examine your financial situation----"

"Oh, but we had better be very clear about it! You see, I have just _so_ much saved--I shall show you exactly!--and then we can compute exactly what economies it will be necessary for me to make in order to maintain myself until we can find employment for me----"

"But, Philippa--" he tried to maintain his gravity--"you need not have any concern in that regard. First of all, you are on a salary as my model----"

"Please! I did not wish to be paid for aiding you----"

"But it is a matter of business!"

"I thought--I am happy in being permitted to return a little of your kindness to me--I do not want anything from you----"

"Kindness!"

"You have let me find a refuge with you----"

"Dear child, I offer you employment until something more suitable offers. Didn't you understand?"