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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



XVIII

THE STRETCHING OF NECKS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"By sundown?"

"Yes."

"Truly?"

"Yes."

"Tiens ta Foy."

"Always, Lorraine."

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

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

"But I shall."

"Yes, I believe it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Now," he said.

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

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

"'Tiens ta Foy,'" she repeated.

"Always, Lorraine."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

It was the writhing body of a man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Stand up!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crash of the rifle drowned his voice.

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

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

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

Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.

"Where is your prisoner?" he cried.

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

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

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

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



XIX

RICKERL'S SABRE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Dismount!"

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

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

The two men were Rickerl and Von Steyr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Jack!" he cried.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Artillery!" blurted out Rickerl, in amazement.

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

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

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

"Then we'll both stay."

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

"No."

The franc-tireurs were running towards them.

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

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

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



XX

SIR THORALD IS SILENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack was silent.

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

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

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

Rickerl watched his face.

"You are sorry?"

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

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

Jack glanced at him angrily.

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

"Yes," said Rickerl, sadly.

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

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

"And you called off your bloody pack of hangmen for me," said Jack; "I'm devilish grateful, Ricky—indeed I am—and you know I'd be glad to have you in the family if—if it wasn't for this cursed war. Never mind, Dorothy generally has what she wants, even if it's—"

"Even if it's an Uhlan?" suggested Rickerl, gravely.

Jack smiled and laid his hand on Rickerl's arm.

"She ought to see you now, bareheaded, dusty, in your shirt-sleeves! You're not much like the attache at the Diplomatic ball—eh, Ricky? If you marry Dorothy I'll punch your head. Come on, we've got to find out where we are."

"That's my road," observed Rickerl, quietly, pointing across the fields.

"Where? Why?"

"Don't you see?"

Jack searched the distant landscape in vain.

"No, are the Germans there? Oh, now I see. Why, it's a squadron of your cursed Uhlans!"

"Yes," said Rickerl, mildly.

"Then they've been chased out of the Chateau de Nesville!"

"Probably. They may come back. Jack, can't you get out of this country?"

"Perhaps," replied Jack, soberly. He thought of Lorraine, of the marquis lying mangled and dead in the forest beside the fragments of his balloon.

"Your Lieutenant von Steyr is a dirty butcher," he said. "I hope you'll finish him when you find him."

"He fired explosive bullets, which your franc-tireurs use on us," retorted Rickerl, growing red.

"Oh," cried Jack in disgust, "the whole business makes me sick! Ricky, give me your hand—there! Don't let this war end our friendship. Go to your Uhlans now. As for me, I must get back to Morteyn. What Lorraine will do, where she can go, how she will stand this ghastly news, I don't know; and I wish there was somebody else to tell her. My uncle and aunt have already gone to Paris, they said they would not wait for me. Lorraine is at Morteyn, alone except for her maid, and she is probably frightened at my not returning as I promised. Do you think you can get to your Uhlans safely? They passed into the grove beyond the hills. What the mischief are those cannon shelling, anyway? Well, good-by! Better not come up the hill with me, or you'll have to part with your sabre for good. We did lose our franc-tireur friends beautifully. I'll write Dorothy; I'll tell her that I captured you, sabre and all. Good-by! Good-by, old fellow! If you'll promise not to get a bullet in your blond hide I'll promise to be a brother-in-law to you!"

Rickerl looked very manly as he stood there, booted, bareheaded, his thin shirt, soaked with sweat, outlining his muscular figure.

They lingered a moment, hands closely clasped, looking gravely into each other's faces. Then, with a gesture, half sad, half friendly, Rickerl started across the stubble towards the distant grove where his Uhlans had taken cover.

Jack watched him until his white shirt became a speck, a dot, and finally vanished among the trees on the blue hill. When he was gone, Jack turned sharply away and climbed the furze-covered slope from whence he hoped to see the cannon, now firing only at five-minute intervals. As he toiled up the incline he carefully kept himself under cover, for he had no desire to meet any lurking franc-tireurs. It is true that, even when the franc-tireurs had been closest, there in the swamp among the rank marsh grasses, the distance was too great for them to have identified him with certainty. But he thought it best to keep out of their way until within hail of the regular troops, so he took advantage of bushes and inequalities of the slope to reconnoitre the landscape before he reached the summit of the ridge. There was a tufted thicket of yellow broom in flower on the crest of the ridge; behind this he lay and looked out across the plain.

A little valley separated this hill from the vineyard, terraced up to the north, ridge upon ridge. The cannon smoke shot up from the thickets of vines, rose, and drifted to the west, blotting out the greater portion of the vineyard. The cannon themselves were invisible. At times Jack fancied he saw a human silhouette when the white smoke rushed outward, but the spectral vines loomed up everywhere through the dense cannon-fog and he could not be sure.

However, there were plenty of troops below the hill now—infantry of the line trudging along the dusty road in fairly good order, and below the vineyard, among the uncut fields of flax, more infantry crouched, probably supporting the three-gun battery on the hill.

At that distance he could not tell a franc-tireur from any regular foot-soldier except line-infantry; their red caps and trousers were never to be mistaken. As he looked, he wondered at a nation that clothed its troops in a colour that furnished such a fearfully distinct mark to the enemy. A French army, moving, cannot conceal itself; the red of trousers and caps, the mirror-like reflections of cuirass and casque and lance-tip, advertise the presence of French troops so persistently that an enemy need never fear any open landscape by daylight.

Jack watched the cannonade, lying on his stomach, chin supported by both hands. He was perfectly cool now; he neither feared the Uhlans nor the franc-tireurs. For a while he vainly tried to comprehend the reason of the cannonade; the shells shot out across the valley in tall curves, dropping into a distant bit of hazy blue woodland, or exploded above the trees; the column of infantry below plodded doggedly southward; the infantry in the flax-field lay supine. Clearly something was interfering with the retreat of the troops—something that threatened them from those distant woods. And now he could see cavalry moving about the crest of the nearer hills, but, without his glass, it was not possible to tell what they were. Often he looked at the nearer forest that hid the Chateau de Nesville. Somewhere within those sombre woods lay the dead marquis.

With a sigh he rose to his knees, shivered in the sunshine, passed one hand over his forehead, and finally stood up. Hunger had made him faint; his head grew dizzy.

"It must be noon, at least," he muttered, and started down the hill and across the fields towards the woods of Morteyn. As he walked he pulled the bearded wheat from ripening stems and chewed it to dull his hunger. The raw place on his neck, where the rope had chafed, stung when the perspiration started. He moved quickly but warily, keeping a sharp lookout on every side. Once he passed a miniature vineyard, heavy with white-wine grapes; and, as he threaded a silent path among the vines, he ate his fill and slaked his thirst with the cool amber fruit. He had reached the edge of the little vineyard, and was about to cross a tangle of briers and stubble, when something caught his eye in the thicket; it was a man's face—and he stopped.

For a minute they stared at each other, making no movement, no sound.

"Sir Thorald!"—faltered Jack.

But Sir Thorald Hesketh could not speak, for he had a bullet through his lungs.

As Jack sprang into the brier tangle towards him, a slim figure in the black garments of the Sisters of Mercy rose from Sir Thorald's side. He saw the white cross on her breast, he saw the white face above it and the whiter lips.

It was Alixe von Elster.

At the same instant the road in front was filled with French infantry, running.

Alixe caught his arm, her head turned towards the road where the infantry were crowding past at double-quick, enveloped in a whirling torrent of red dust.

"There is a cart there," she said. "Oh, Jack, find it quickly! The driver is on the seat—and I can't leave Sir Thorald."

In his amazement he stood hesitating, looking from the girl to Sir Thorald; but she drew him to the edge of the thicket and pointed to the road, crying, "Go! go!" and he stumbled down the pasture slope to the edge of the road.

Past him plodded the red-legged infantry; he saw, through the whirlwind of dust, the vague outlines of a tumbril and horse standing below in the ditch, and he ran along the grassy depression towards the vehicle. And now he saw the driver, kneeling in the cart, his blue blouse a mass of blood, his discoloured face staring out at the passing troops.

As he seized the horse's head and started up the slope again, firing broke out among the thickets close at hand; the infantry swung out to the west in a long sagging line; the chassepots began banging right and left. For an instant he caught a glimpse of cavalry riding hard across a bit of stubble—Uhlans he saw at a glance—then the smoke hid them. But in that brief instant he had seen, among the galloping cavalrymen, a mounted figure, bareheaded, wearing a white shirt, and he knew that Rickerl was riding for his life.

Sick at heart he peered into the straight, low rampart of smoke; he watched the spirts of rifle-flame piercing it; he saw it turn blacker when a cannon bellowed in the increasing din. The infantry were lying down out there in the meadow; shadowy gray forms passed, repassed, reeled, ran, dropped, and rose again. Close at hand a long line of men lay flat on their bellies in the wheat stubble. When each rifle spoke the smoke rippled through the short wheat stalks or eddied and curled over the ground like the gray foam of an outrushing surf.

He backed the horse and heavy cart, turned both, half blinded by the rifle-smoke, and started up the incline. Two bullets, speeding over the clover like singing bees, rang loudly on the iron-bound cartwheels; the horse plunged and swerved, dragging Jack with him, and the dead figure, kneeling in the cart, tumbled over the tail-board with a grotesque wave of its stiffening limbs. There it lay, sprawling in an impossible posture in the ditch. A startled grasshopper alighted on its face, turned around, crawled to the ear, and sat there.

And now the volley firing grew to a sustained crackle, through which the single cannon boomed and boomed, hidden in the surging smoke that rolled in waves, sinking, rising, like the waves of a wind-whipped sea.

"Where are you, Alixe?" he shouted.

"Here! Hurry!"

She stood on the edge of the brier tangle as he laboured up the slope with the horse and cart. Sir Thorald's breathing was horrible to hear when they stooped and lifted him; Alixe was crying. They laid him on the blood-soaked straw; Alixe crept in beside him and took his head on her knees.

"To Morteyn?" whispered Jack. "Perhaps we can find a surgeon nearer—"

"Oh, hurry!" she sobbed; and he climbed heavily to the seat and started back towards the road.

The road was empty where he turned in out of the fields, but, just above, he heard cannon thundering in the mist. As he drew in the reins, undecided, the cannonade suddenly redoubled in fury; the infantry fire blazed out with a new violence; above the terrific blast he heard trumpets sounding, and beneath it he felt the vibration of the earth; horses were neighing out beyond the smoke; a thousand voices rose in a far, hoarse shout:

"Hurrah! Preussen!"

The Prussian cavalry were charging the cannon.

Suddenly he heard them close at hand; they loomed everywhere in the smoke, they were among the infantry, among the cannoneers; a tall rider in silver helmet and armour plunged out into the road behind them, his horse staggered, trembled, then man and beast collapsed in a shower of bullets. Others were coming, too, galloping in through the grain stubble and thickets, shaking their long, straight sabres, but the infantry chased them, and fell upon them, clubbing, shooting, stabbing, pulling horses and men to earth. The cannon, which had ceased, began again; the infantry were cheering; trumpets blew persistently, faintly and more faintly. In the road a big, bearded man was crawling on his hands and knees away from a dead horse. His helmet fell off in the dust.

Jack gathered the reins and called to the horse. As the heavy cart moved off, the ground began to tremble again with the shock of on-coming horses, and again, through the swelling tumult, he caught the cry—

"Hurrah! Preussen!"

The Prussian cuirassiers were coming back.

"Is Sir Thorald dying?" he asked of Alixe; "can he live if I lash the horse?"

"Look at him, Jack," she muttered.

"I see; he cannot live. I shall drive slowly. You—you are wounded, are you? there—on the neck—"

"It is his blood on my breast."



XXI

THE WHITE CROSS

At ten o'clock that night Jack stepped from the ballroom to the terrace of the Chateau Morteyn and listened to the distant murmur of the river Lisse, below the meadow. The day of horror had ended with a dozen dropping shots from the outposts, now lining the banks of the Lisse from the Chateau de Nesville to Morteyn. The French infantry had been pouring into Morteyn since late afternoon; they had entered the park when he entered, driving his tumbril with its blood-stained burden; they had turned the river into a moat, the meadow into an earthwork, the Chateau itself into a fortress.

On the concrete terrace beside him a gatling-gun glimmered in the starlight; sentinels leaned on their elbows, sprawling across the parapets; shadowy ranks of sleeping men lay among the shrubbery below, white-faced, exhausted, motionless.

There were low voices from the darkened ballroom, the stir and tinkle of spurred boots, the ring of sabres. Out in the hard macadamized road, cannon were passing into the park by the iron gate; beyond the road masses of men moved in the starlight.

After a moment Jack turned away and entered the house. For the hundredth time he mounted the stairs to Lorraine's bedroom door and listened, holding his breath. He heard nothing—not a cry—not a sob. It had been so from the first, when he had told her that her father lay dead somewhere in the forest of Morteyn.

She had said nothing—she went to her room and sat down on the bed, white and still. Sir Thorald lay in the next room, breathing deeply. Alixe was kneeling beside him, crying silently.

Twice a surgeon from an infantry regiment had come and gone away after a glance at Sir Thorald. A captain came later and asked for a Sister of Mercy.

"She can't go," said Jack, in a low voice. But little Alixe rose, still crying, and followed the captain to the stables, where a dozen mangled soldiers lay in the straw and hay.

It was midnight when she returned to find Jack standing beside Sir Thorald in the dark. When he saw it was Alixe he led her gently into the hall.

"He is conscious now; I will call you when the time comes. Go into that room—Lorraine is there, alone. Ah, go, Alixe; it is charity!—and you wear the white cross—"

"It is dyed scarlet," she whispered through her tears.

He returned to Sir Thorald, who lay moving his restless hands over the sheets and turning his head constantly from side to side.

"Go on," said Jack; "finish what you were saying."

"Will she come?"

"Yes—in time."

Sir Thorald relapsed into a rambling, monotonous account of some military movement near Wissembourg until Jack spoke again:

"Yes—I know; tell me about Alixe."

"Yes—Alixe," muttered Sir Thorald—"is she here? I was wrong; I saw her at Cologne; that was all, Jack—nothing more."

"There is more," said Jack; "tell me."

"Yes, there is more. I saw that—that she loved me. There was a scene—I am not always a beast—I tried not to be. Then—then I found that there was nothing left but to go away—somewhere—and live—without her. It was too late. She knew it—"

"Go on," said Jack.

Suddenly Sir Thorald's voice grew clear.

"Can't you understand?" he asked; "I damned both our souls. She is buying hers back with tears and blood—with the white cross on her heart and death in her eyes! And I am dying here—and she's to drag out the years afterwards—"

He choked; Jack watched him quietly.

Sir Thorald turned his head to him when the coughing ceased.

"She went with a field ambulance; I went, too. I was shot below that vineyard. They told her; that is all. Am I dying?"

Jack did not answer.

"Will you write to Molly?" asked Sir Thorald, drowsily.

"Yes. God help you, Sir Thorald."

"Who cares?" muttered Sir Thorald. "I'm a beast—a dying beast. May I see Alixe?"

"Yes."

"Then tell her to come—now. Soon I'll wish to be alone; that's the way beasts die—alone."

He rambled on again about a battle somewhere in the south, and Jack went to the door and called, "Alixe!"

She came, pallid and weeping, carrying a lighted candle.

Jack took it from her hand and blew out the flame.

"They won't let us have a light; they fear bombardment. Go in now."

"Is he dying?"

"God knows."

"God?" repeated Alixe.

Jack bent and touched the child's forehead with his lips.

"Pray for him," he said; "I shall write his wife to-night."

Alixe went in to the bedside to kneel again and buy back two souls with the agony of her child's heart.

"Pray," she said to Sir Thorald.

"Pray," he repeated.

Jack closed the door.

Up and down the dark hall he wandered, pausing at times to listen to some far rifle-shot and the answering fusillade along the picket-line. Once he stopped an officer on the stairway and asked for a priest, but, remembering that Sir Thorald was Protestant, turned away with a vague apology and resumed his objectless wandering.

At times he fancied he heard cannon, so far away that nothing of sound remained, only a faint jar on the night air. Twice he looked from the window over the vast black forest, thinking of the dead man lying there alone. And then he longed to go to Lorraine; he felt that he must touch her, that his hand on hers might help her somehow.

At last, deadly weary, he sat down on the stairs by her door to try to think out the problems that to-morrow would bring.

His aunt and uncle had gone on to Paris; Lorraine's father was dead and her home had been turned into a fort. Saint-Lys was heavily occupied by the Germans, and they held the railroad also in their possession. It seemed out of the question to stay in Morteyn with Lorraine, for an assault on the Chateau was imminent. How could he get her to Paris? That was the only place for her now.

He thought, too, of his own danger from the Uhlans. He had told Lorraine, partly because he wished her to understand their position, partly because the story of his capture, trial, and escape led up to the tragedy that he scarcely knew how to break to her. But he had done it, and she, pale as death, had gone silently to her room, motioning him away as he stood awkwardly at the door.

That last glimpse of the room remained in his mind, it obliterated everything else at moments—Lorraine sitting on her bedside, her blue eyes vacant, her face whiter than the pillows.

And so he sat there on the stairs, the dawn creeping into the hallway; and his eyes never left the panels of her door. There was not a sound from within. This for a while frightened him, and again and again he started impulsively towards the door, only to turn back again and watch there in the coming dawn. Presently he remembered that dawn might bring an attack on the Chateau, and he rose and hurried down-stairs to the terrace where a crowd of officers stood watching the woods through their night-glasses. The general impression among them was that there might be an attack. They yawned and smoked and studied the woods, but they were polite, and answered all his questions with a courteous light-heartedness that jarred on him. He glanced for a moment at the infantry, now moving across the meadow towards the river; he saw troops standing at ease along the park wall, troops sitting in long ranks in the vegetable garden, troops passing the stables, carrying pickaxes and wheeling wheelbarrows piled with empty canvas sacks.

Sleepy-eyed boyish soldiers of the artillery were harnessing the battery horses, rubbing them down, bathing wounded limbs or braiding the tails. The farrier was shoeing a great black horse, who turned its gentle eyes towards the hay-bales piled in front of the stable. One or two slim officers, in pale-blue fur-edged pelisses, strolled among the trampled flower-beds, smoking cigars and watching a line of men shovelling earth into canvas sacks. The odour of soup was in the air; the kitchen echoed with the din of pots and pans. Outside, too, the camp-kettles were steaming and the rattle of gammels came across the lawn.

"Who is in command here?" asked Jack, turning to a handsome dragoon officer who stood leaning on his sabre, the horse-hair criniere blowing about his helmet.

"Why, General Farron!" said the officer in surprise.

"Farron!" repeated Jack; "is he back from Africa, here in France—here at Morteyn?"

"He is at the Chateau de Nesville," said the officer, smiling. "You seem to know him, monsieur."

"Indeed I do," said Jack, warmly. "Do you think he will come here?"

"I suppose so. Shall I send you word when he arrives?"

Another officer came up, a general, white-haired and sombre.

"Is this the Vicomte de Morteyn?" he asked, looking at Jack.

"His nephew; the vicomte has gone to Paris. My name is Marche," said Jack.

The general saluted him; Jack bowed.

"I regret the military necessity of occupying the Chateau; the government will indemnify Monsieur le Vicomte—"

Jack held up his hand: "My uncle is an old soldier of France—the government is welcome; I bid you welcome in the name of the Vicomte de Morteyn."

The old general flushed and bowed deeply.

"I thank you in the name of the government. Blood will tell. It is easy, Monsieur Marche, to see that you are the nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn."

"Monsieur Marche," said the young dragoon officer, respectfully, "is a friend of General Farron."

"I had the honour to be attached as correspondent to his staff—in Oran," said Jack.

The old general held out his hand with a gesture entirely charming.

"I envy General Farron your friendship," he said. "I had a son—perhaps your age. He died—yesterday." After a silence, he said: "There are ladies in the Chateau?"

"Yes," replied Jack, soberly.

The general turned with a gesture towards the woods. "It is too late to move them; we are, it appears, fairly well walled in. The cellar, in case of bombardment, is the best you can do for them. How many are there?"

"Two, general. One is a Sister of Mercy."

Other officers began to gather on the terrace, glasses persistently focussed on the nearer woods. Somebody called to an officer below the terrace to hurry the cannon.

Jack made his way through the throng of officers to the stairs, mounted them, and knocked at Lorraine's door.

"Is it you—Jack?"

"Yes."

"Come."

He went in.

Lorraine lay on the bed, quiet and pale; it startled him to see her so calm. For an instant he hesitated on the threshold, then went slowly to the bedside. She held out one hand; he took it.

"I cannot cry," she said; "I cannot. Sit beside me, Jack. Listen: I am wicked—I have not a single tear for my father. I have been here—so—all night long. I prayed to weep; I cannot. I understand he is dead—that I shall never again wait for him, watch at his door in the turret, dream he is calling me; I understand that he will never call me again—never again—never. And I cannot weep. Do you hate me? I am tired—so tired, like a child—very young."

She raised her other hand and laid it in his. "I need you," she said; "I am too tired, too young, to be so alone. It is myself I suffer for; think, Jack, myself, in such a moment. I am selfish, I know it. Oh, if I could weep now! Why can I not? I loved my father. And now I can only think of his little machines in the turret and his balloon, and—oh!—I only remember the long days of my life when I waited on the turret stairs hoping he would come out, dreaming he would come some day and take me in his arms and kiss me and hold me close, as I am to you. And now he never will. And I waited all my life!"

"Hush!" he whispered, touching her hair; "you are feverish."

Her head was pressed close to him; his arms held her tightly; she sighed like a restless child.

"Never again—never—for he is dead. And yet I could have lived forever, waiting for him on the turret stairs. Do you understand?"

Holding her strained to his breast he trembled at the fierce hopelessness in her voice. In a moment he recognized that a crisis was coming; that she was utterly irresponsible, utterly beyond reasoning. Like a spectre her loveless childhood had risen and confronted her; and now that there was no longer even hope, she had turned desperately upon herself with the blank despair of a wounded animal. End it all!—that was her one impulse. He felt it already taking shape; she shivered in his arms.

"But there is a God—" he began, fearfully.

She looked up at him with vacant eyes, hot and burning.

He tried again: "I love you, Lorraine—"

Her straight brows knitted and she struggled to free herself.

"Let me go!" she whispered. "I do not wish to live—I can't!—I can't!"

Then he played his last card, and, holding her close, looked straight into her eyes.

"France needs us all," he said.

She grew quiet. Suddenly the warm blood dyed her cheeks. Then, drop by drop, the tears came; her sweet face, wet and flushed, nestled quietly close to his own face.

"We will both live for that," he said; "we will do what we can."

For an hour she lay sobbing her heart out in his arms; and when she was quiet at last he told her how the land lay trembling under the invasion, how their armies had struggled and dwindled and lost ground, how France, humbled, drenched with blood and tears, still stood upright calling to her children. He spoke of the dead, the dying, the mutilated creatures gasping out their souls in the ditches.

"Life is worth living," he said. "If our place is not in the field with the wounded, not in the hospital, not in the prisons where these boys are herded like diseased cattle, then it is perhaps at the shrine's foot. Pray for France, Lorraine, pray and work, for there is work to do."

"There is work; we will go together," she whispered.

"Yes, together. Perhaps we can help a little. Your father, when he died, had the steel box with him. Lorraine, when he is found and is laid to rest, we will take that box to the French lines. The secret must belong to France!"

She was eager enough now; she sat up on the bed and listened with bright, wet eyes while he told her what they two might do for her land of France.

"Dear—dear Jack!" she cried, softly.

But he knew that it was not the love of a maid for a man that parted her lips; it was the love of the land, of her land of Lorraine, that fierce, passionate love of soil that had at last blazed up, purified in the long years of a loveless life. All that she had felt for her father turned to a burning thrill for her country. It is such moments that make children defenders of barricades, that make devils or saints of the innocent. The maid that rode in mail, crowned, holding aloft the banner of the fleur-de-lys, died at the stake; her ashes were the ashes of a saint. The maid who flung her bullets from the barricade, who carried a dagger to the Rue Haxo, who spat in the faces of the line when they shoved her to the wall in the Luxembourg, died too for France. Her soul is the soul of a martyr; but all martyrs are not saints.

For another hour they sat there, planning, devising, eager to begin their predestined work. They spoke of the dead, too, and Lorraine wept at last for her father.

"There was a Sister of Mercy here," she said; "I saw her. I could not speak to her. Later I knew it was Alixe. You called her?"

"Yes."

"Where is she?"

"Shall I speak to her?"

He went out into the hall and tapped at the door of the next room.

"Alixe?"

"Yes—Jack."

He entered.

Sir Thorald lay very still under the sheets, the crucifix on his breast. At first Jack thought he was dead, but the slight motion of the chest under the sheets reassured him. He turned to Alixe:

"Go for a minute and comfort Lorraine," he whispered. "Go, my child."

"I—I cannot—"

"Go," said Sir Thorald, in a distinct voice.

When she had gone, Jack bent over Sir Thorald. A great pity filled him, and he touched the half-opened hand with his own.

Sir Thorald looked up at him wistfully.

"I am not worth it," he said.

"Yes, we all are worth it."

"I am not," gasped Sir Thorald. "Jack, you are good. Do you believe, at least, that I loved her?"

"Yes, if you say so."

"I do—in the shadow of death."

Jack was silent.

"I never loved—before," said Sir Thorald.

In the stillness that followed Jack tried to comprehend the good or evil in this stricken man. He could not; he only knew that a great love that a man might bear a woman made necessary a great sacrifice if that love were unlawful. The greater the love the more certain the sacrifice—self-sacrifice on the altar of unselfish love, for there is no other kind of love that man may bear for woman.

It wearied Jack to try to think it out. He could not; he only knew that it was not his to judge or to condemn.

"Will you give me your hand?" asked Sir Thorald.

Jack laid his hand in the other's feverish one.

"Don't call her," he said, distinctly; "I am dying."

Presently he withdrew his hand and turned his face to the wall.

For a long time Jack sat there, waiting. At last he spoke: "Sir Thorald?"

But Sir Thorald had been dead for an hour.

When Alixe entered Jack took her slim, childish hands and looked into her eyes. She understood and went to her dead, laying down her tired little head on the sheeted breast.



XXII

A DOOR IS LOCKED

Lorraine stood on the terrace beside the brass gatling-gun, both hands holding to Jack's arm, watching the soldiers stuffing the windows of the Chateau with mattresses, quilts, and bedding of all kinds.

A stream of engineers was issuing from the hallway, carrying tables, chairs, barrels, and chests to the garden below, where other soldiers picked them up and bore them across the lawn to the rear of the house.

"They are piling all the furniture they can get against the gate in the park wall," said Jack; "come out to the kitchen-garden."

She went with him, still holding to his arm. Across the vegetable garden a barricade of furniture—sofas, chairs, and wardrobes—lay piled against the wooden gate of the high stone wall. Engineers were piercing the wall with crowbars and pickaxes, loosening the cement, dragging out huge blocks of stone to make embrasures for three cannon that stood with their limbers among the broken bell-glasses and cucumber-frames in the garden.

A ladder lay against the wall, and on it was perched an officer, who rested his field-glasses across the tiled top and stood studying the woods. Below him a general and half a dozen officers watched the engineers hacking at the wall; a long, double line of infantry crouched behind them, the bugler kneeling, glancing anxiously at his captain, who stood talking to a fat sub-officer in capote and boots.

Artillerymen were gathered about the ammunition-chests, opening the lids and carrying shell and shrapnel to the wall; the balconies of the Chateau were piled up with breastworks of rugs, boxes, and sacks of earth. Here and there a rifleman stood, his chassepot resting on the iron railing, his face turned towards the woods.

"They are coming," said a soldier, calling back to a comrade, who only laughed and passed on towards the kitchen, loaded down with sacks of flour.

A restless movement passed through the kneeling battalion of infantry.

"Fiche moi la paix, hein!" muttered a lieutenant, looking resentfully at a gossiping farrier. Another lieutenant drew his sword, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.

"Are they coming?" asked Lorraine.

"I don't know. Watch that officer on the wall. He seems to see nothing yet. Don't you think you had better go to the rear of the house now?"

"No, not unless you do."

"I will, then."

"No, stay here. I am not afraid. Where is Alixe?"

"With the wounded men in the stable. They have hoisted the red cross over the barn; did you notice?"

Before she could answer, one of the soldiers on the balcony of the Chateau fired. Another rose from behind a mattress and fired also; then half a dozen shots rang out, and the smoke whirled up over the roof of the house. The officer on the ladder was motioning to the group of officers below; already the artillerymen were running the three cannon forward to the port-holes that had been pierced in the park wall.

"Come," said Jack.

"Not yet—I am not frightened."

A loud explosion enveloped the wall in sulphurous clouds, and a cannon jumped back in recoil. The cannoneers swarmed around it, there was a quick movement of a sponger, an order, a falling into place of rigid artillerymen, then bang! and another up-rush of smoke. And now the other cannon joined in—crash! bang!—and the garden swam in the swirling fog. Infantry, too, were firing all along the wall, and on the other side of the house the rippling crash of the gatling-gun rolled with the rolling volleys. Jack led Lorraine to the rear of the Chateau, but she refused to stay, and he reluctantly followed her into the house.

From every mattress-stuffed window the red-legged soldiers were firing out across the lawn towards the woods; the smoke drifted back into the house in thin shreds that soon filled the rooms with a blue haze.

Suddenly something struck the chandelier and shattered it to the gilt candle-sockets. Lorraine looked at it, startled, but another bullet whizzed into the room, starring the long mirror, and another knocked the plaster from the fireplace. Jack had her out of the room in a second, and presently they found themselves in the cellar, the very cement beneath their feet shaking under the tremendous shocks of the cannon.

"Wait for me. Do you promise, Lorraine?"

"Yes."

He hurried up to the terrace again, and out across the gravel drive to the stable.

"Alixe!" he called.

She came quietly to him, her arms full of linen bandages. There was nothing of fear or terror in her cheeks, nothing even of grief now, but her eyes transfigured her face, and he scarcely knew it.

"What can I do?" he asked.

"Nothing. The wounded are quiet. Is there water in the well?"

He brought her half a dozen buckets, one after another, and set them side by side in the harness-room, where three or four surgeons lounged around two kitchen-tables, on which sponges, basins, and cases of instruments lay. There was a sickly odour of ether in the air, mingled with the rank stench of carbolic acid.

"Lorraine is in the cellar. Do you need her? Surely not—when I am ready," he said.

"No; go and stay with her. If I need you I will send."

He could scarcely hear her in the tumult and din, but he understood and nodded, watching her busy with her lint and bandages. As he turned to go, the first of the wounded, a mere boy, was brought in on the shoulders of a comrade. Jack heard him scream as they laid him on the table; then he went soberly away to the cellar where Lorraine sat, her face in her hands.

"We are holding the Chateau," he said. "Will you stay quietly for a little while longer, if I go out again?"

"If you wish," she said.

He longed to take her in his arms. He did not; he merely said, "Wait for me," and went away again out into the smoke.

From the upper-story windows, where he had climbed, he could see to the edge of the forest. Already three columns of men had started out from the trees across the meadow towards the park wall. They advanced slowly and steadily, firing as they came on. Somewhere, in the smoke, a Prussian band was playing gayly, and Jack thought of the Bavarians at the Geisberg, and their bands playing as the men fell like leaves in the Chateau gardens.

He had his field-glasses with him, and he fixed them on the advancing columns. They were Bavarians, after all—there was no mistaking the light-blue uniforms and fur-crested helmets. And now he made out their band, plodding stolidly along, trombones and bass-drums wheezing and banging away in the rifle-smoke; he could even see the band-master swinging his halberd forward.

Suddenly the nearest column broke into a heavy run, cheering hoarsely. The other columns came on with a rush; the band halted, playing them in at the death with a rollicking quickstep; then all was blotted out in the pouring cannon-smoke. Flash on flash the explosions followed each other, lighting the gloom with a wavering yellow glare, and on the terrace the gatling whirred and spluttered its slender streams of flame, while the treble crash of the chassepots roared accompaniment.

Once or twice Jack thought he heard the rattle of their little harsh, flat drums, but he could see them no longer; they were in that smoke-pall somewhere, coming on towards the park wall.

Bugles began to sound—French bugles—clear and sonorous. Across the lawn by the river a battalion of French infantry were running, firing as they ran. He saw them settle at last like quail among the stubble, curling up and crouching in groups and bevies, alert heads raised. Then the firing rippled along the front, and the lawn became gray with smoke.

As he went down the stairs and into the garden he heard the soldiers saying that the charge had been checked. The wounded were being borne towards the barn, long lines of them, heads and limbs hanging limp. A horse in the garden was ending a death-struggle among the cucumber-frames, and the battery-men were cutting the traces to give him free play. Upon the roof a thin column of smoke and sparks rose, where a Prussian shell—the first as yet—had fallen and exploded in the garret. Some soldiers were knocking the sparks from the roof with the butts of their rifles.

When he went into the cellar again Lorraine was pacing restlessly along the wine-bins.

"I cannot stay here," she said. "Jack, get some bottles of brandy and come to the barn. The wounded will need them."

"You cannot go out. I will take them."

"No, I shall go."

"I ask you not to."

"Let me, Jack," she said, coming up to him—"with you."

He could not make her listen; she went with him, her slender arms loaded with bottles. The shells were falling in the garden now; one burst and flung a shower of earth and glass over them.

"Hurry!" he said. "Are you crazy, Lorraine, to come out into this?"

"Don't scold, Jack," she whispered.

When she entered the stable he breathed more freely. He watched her face narrowly, but she did not blanch at the sickening spectacle of the surgeons' tables.

They placed their bottles of brandy along the side of a box-stall, and stood together watching the file of wounded passing in at the door.

"They do not need us here, yet," he said. "I wonder where Alixe is?"

"There is a Sister of Mercy out on the skirmish-line across the lawn," said a soldier of the hospital corps, pointing with bloody hands towards the smoke-veiled river.

Jack looked at Lorraine in utter despair.

"I must go; she can't stay there," he muttered.

"Yes, you must go," repeated Lorraine. "She will be shot."

"Will you wait here?" he asked.

"Yes."

So he went away, thinking bitterly that she did not care whether he lived or died—that she let him leave her without a word of fear, of kindness. Then, for the first time, he realized that she had never, after all, been touched by his devotion; that she had never understood, nor cared to understand, his love for her. He walked out across the smoky lawn, the din of the rifles in his ears, the bitterness of death in his heart. He knew he was going into danger—that he was already in peril. Bullets whistled through the smoke as he advanced towards the firing-line, where, in the fog, dim figures were outlined here and there. He passed an officer, standing with bared sword, watching his men digging up the sod and piling it into low breastworks. He went on, passing others, sometimes two soldiers bearing a wounded man, now and then a maimed creature writhing on the grass or hobbling away to the rear. The battle-line lay close to him now—long open ranks of men, flat on their stomachs, firing into the smoke across the river-bank. Their officers loomed up in the gloom, some leaning quietly back on their sword-hilts, some pacing to and fro, smoking, or watchfully steadying the wearied men.

Almost at once he saw Alixe. She was standing beside a tall wounded officer, giving him something to drink from a tin cup.

"Alixe," said Jack, "this is not your place."

She looked at him tranquilly as the wounded man was led away by a soldier of the hospital corps.

"It is my place."

"No," he said, violently, "you are trying to find death here!"

"I seek nothing," she said, in a gentle, tired voice; "let me go."

"Come back. Alixe—your brother is alive."

She looked at him impassively.

"My brother?"

"Yes."

"I have no brother."

He understood and chafed inwardly.

"Come, Alixe," he urged; "for Heaven's sake, try to live and forget—"

"I have nothing to forget—everything to remember. Let me pass." She touched the blood-stained cross on her breast. "Do you not see? That was white once. So was my soul."

"It is now," he said, gently. "Come back."

A wounded man somewhere in the smoke called, "Water! water! In the name of God!—my sister—"

"I am coming!" called Alixe, clearly.

"To me first! Hasten, my sister!" groaned another.

"Patience, children—I come!" called Alixe.

With a gesture she passed Jack; a flurry of smoke hid her. The pungent powder-fog made his eyes dim; his ears seemed to split with the terrific volley firing.

He turned away and went back across the lawn, only to stop at the well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe, following her with his buckets where she passed among the wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a pail full of water, and he held his finger in the hole until the water was all used up. Twice he heard cheering and the splash of cavalry in the shallow river, but they seemed to be beaten off again, and he went about his business, listless, sombre, a dead weight at his heart.

He had been kneeling beside a wounded man for some minutes when he became conscious that the firing had almost ceased. Bugles were sounding near the Chateau; long files of troops passed him in the lifting smoke; officers shouted along the river-bank.

He rose to his feet and looked around for Alixe. She was not in sight. He walked towards the river-bank, watching for her, but he could not find her.

"Did you see a Sister of Mercy pass this way?" he asked an officer who sat on the grass, smoking and bandaging his foot.

A soldier passing, using his rifle as a crutch, said: "I saw a Sister of Mercy. She went towards the Chateau. I think she was hurt."

"Hurt!"

"I heard somebody say so." Jack turned and hastened towards the stables. He crossed the lawn, threaded his way among the low sod breastworks, where the infantry lay grimy and exhausted, and entered the garden. She was not there. He hurried to the stables; Lorraine met him, holding a basin and a sponge.

"Where is Alixe?" he asked.

"She is not here," said Lorraine. "Has she been hurt?"

"I don't know."

He looked at her a moment, then turned away, coldly. On the terrace the artillerymen were sponging the blood from the breech of their gatling where some wretch's brains had been spattered by a shell-fragment. They told him that a Sister of Mercy had passed into the house ten minutes before; that she walked as though very tired, but did not appear to have been hurt.

"She is up-stairs," he thought. "She must not stay there alone with Sir Thorald." And he climbed the stairs and knocked softly at the door of the death-chamber.

"Alixe," he said, gently, opening the door, "you must not stay here."

She was kneeling at the bedside, her face buried on the breast of the dead man.

"Alixe," he said, but his voice broke in spite of him, and he went to her and touched her.

Very tenderly he raised her head, looked into her eyes, then quietly turned away.

Outside the door he met Lorraine.

"Don't go in," he murmured.

She looked fearfully up into his face.

"Yes," he said, "she was shot through the body."

Then he closed the door and turned the key on the outside, leaving the dead to the dead.



XXIII

LORRAINE SLEEPS

The next day the rain fell in torrents; long, yellow streams of water gushed from pipe and culvert, turning the roads to lakes of amber and the trodden lawns to sargasso seas.

Not a shot had been fired since twilight of the day before, although on the distant hills Uhlans were seen racing about, gathering in groups, or sitting on their horses in solitary observation of the Chateau.

Out on the meadows, between the park wall and the fringe of nearer forest, the Bavarian dead lay, dotting the green pelouse with blots of pale blue; the wounded had been removed to the cover of the woods.

Around the Chateau the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi, grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue overcoats.

The line of battle stretched from the Chateau Morteyn, parallel with the river and the park wall, to the Chateau de Nesville; and along this line the officers were riding all day, muffled to the chin in their great-coats, crimson caps soaked, rain-drops gathering in brilliant beads under the polished visors. That they expected a shelling was evident, for the engineers were at work excavating pits and burrows, and the infantry were filling sacks with earth, while in the Chateau itself preparations were in progress for the fighting of fire.

The white flag with the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the ground for a head-stone.

Early that morning, while the rain drove into the ground in one sheeted downpour, they buried Sir Thorald and little Alixe, side by side, on the summit of a mound overlooking the river Lisse. Jack drove the tumbril; four soldiers of the line followed. It was soon over; the mellow bugle sounded a brief "lights out," the linesmen presented arms. Then Jack mounted the cart and drove back, his head on his breast, the rain driving coldly in his face. Some officers came later with a rough wooden cross and a few field flowers. They hammered the cross deep into the mud between Sir Thorald and little Alixe. Later still Jack returned with a spade and worked for an hour, shaping the twin mounds. Before he finished he saw Lorraine climbing the hill. Two wreaths of yellow gorse hung from one arm, interlaced like thorn crowns; and when she came up, Jack, leaning silently on his spade, saw that her fair hands were cut and bleeding from plaiting the thorn-covered blossoms.

They spoke briefly, almost coldly. Lorraine hung the two wreaths over the head-piece of the cross and, kneeling, signed herself.

When she rose Jack replaced his cap, but said nothing. They stood side by side, looking out across the woods, where, behind a curtain of mist and rain, the single turret of the Chateau de Nesville was hidden.

She seemed restless and preoccupied, and he, answering aloud her unasked question, said, "I am going to search the forest to-day. I cannot bear to leave you, but it must be done, for your sake and for the sake of France."

She answered: "Yes, it must be done. I shall go with you."

"You cannot," he said; "there is danger in the forest."

"You are going?"

"Yes."

They said nothing more for a moment or two. He was thinking of Alixe and her love for Sir Thorald. Who would have thought it could have turned out so? He looked down at the river Lisse, where, under the trees of the bank, they had all sat that day—a day that already seemed legendary, so far, so far in the mist-hung landscape of the past. He seemed to hear Molly Hesketh's voice, soft, ironical, upbraiding Sir Thorald; he seemed to see them all there in the sunshine—Dorothy, Rickerl, Cecil, Betty Castlemaine—he even saw himself strolling up to them, gun under arm, while Sir Thorald waved his wine-cup and bantered him.

He looked at the river. The green row-boat lay on the bank, keel up, shattered by a shell; the trees were covered with yellow, seared foliage that dropped continually into the water; the river itself was a canal of mud. And, as he looked, a dead man, face under water, sped past, caught on something, drifted, spun giddily in an eddy, washed to and fro, then floated on under the trees.