“March!” he said gruffly. “Theoberleutnantdoesn’t want us here.”
“Le brave Belgeknows when to clear out,” grinned one of the younger men, giving Dalroy an odiously suggestive wink.
Somehow, the fact that Dalroy took command abated the women’s terror; even the intractable Joos yielded. Soon the two were in the yard with the dispossessed Bavarians, these latter being in the worst of temper, as they had now to search for both bed and supper. They strode away without giving the least heed to their presumed prisoners.
Joos, like most men of choleric disposition, was useless in a crisis of this sort. He gibbered with rage. He wanted to attack the intruders at once with a pitchfork.
Dalroy shook him to quieten his tongue. “You must listen to me,” he said sternly.
The old man’s eyes gleamed up into his. In the half-light of the gloaming they had the sheen of polished gold. “Monsieur,” he whimpered, “save my little girl! Save her, I implore you. You English are lions in battle. You are big and strong. I’ll help. Between us we can stick the four of them.”
Dalroy shook him again. “Stop talking, and listen,” he growled wrathfully. “Not anotherword here! Come this way!” He drew the miller into an empty stable, whence the kitchen door and the window were in view. “Now,” he muttered, “gather your wits, and answer my questions. Have you any hidden weapons? A pitchfork is too awkward for a fight in a room.”
“I had nothing but a muzzle-loading gun, monsieur. I gave it up on the advice of the burgomaster. They’ve killed him.”
“Very well. Remain here on guard. I’ll go and fetch a rifle and bayonet. Nothing will happen to the women till these brutes have eaten, and have more wine in them. Don’t you understand? The younger men have made a hellish compact with their senior. You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, yes, monsieur. Who could fail to know what they meant? Surely the good God sent you to Visé to-day!”
“Promise, now! No interference till I return, even though the women are frightened. You’ll only lose your life to no purpose. I’ll not be long away.”
“I promise. But, monsieur,pour l’amour de Dieu, let me stick that fat Busch!”
Dalroy was in such a fume to secure a reliable arm that he rather neglected the precautions of a soldier moving through the enemy’s country. It was still possible to see clearly for some distance ahead. Although the right bank of the Meuse that night was overrun with the Kaiser’s troops along a front of nearly twentymiles, the ravine, with its gurgling rivulet, was one of those peaceful oases which will occur in the centre of the most congested battlefield. Now that the crash of the guns had passed sullenly to a distance, white-tailed rabbits scurried across the path; some stray sheep, driven from the uplands by the day’s tumult, gathered in a group and looked inquiringly at the intruder; a weasel, stalking a selected rabbit as is his piratical way, elected to abandon the chase and leap for a tree.
These very signs showed that none other had breasted the slope recently, so Dalroy strode out somewhat carelessly. Nevertheless, he was endowed with no small measure of that sixth sense which everyshikarimust possess who would hunt either his fellowmen or the beasts of the jungle. He was passing a dense clump of brambles and briars when a man sprang at him. He had trained himself to act promptly in such circumstances, and had decided long ago that to remain on the same ground, or even try to retreat, was courting disaster. His plan was to jump sideways, and, if practicable, a little nearer an assailant. The sabots rendered him less nimble than usual, but the dodge quite disconcerted an awkward opponent. The vicious downward sweep of a heavy cudgel just missed his left shoulder, and he got home with the right in a half-arm jab which sent the recipient sprawling and nearly into the stream.
Dalroy made after him, seized the fallenstick, and recognised—Jan Maertz! “How now,” he said wrathfully, “are you, too, a Prussian?”
Jan raised a hand to ward off the expected blow. “Caput!” he cried. “I’m done! You must be the devil! But may the Lord help my poor master and mistress, and the little Léontine!”
“That is my wish also, sheep’s-head! What evil have I done you, then, that you should want to brain me at sight?”
“They’re after you—the Germans. They mean to catch you, dead or alive. A lieutenant of the Guard pulled me away from in front of a firing-party, and gave me my life on condition that I ran you down.”
Here was an extraordinary development. It was vitally important that Dalroy should get to know the exact meaning of the Walloon’s disjointed utterances, yet how could he wait and question the man while the Prussian sultans were feasting in the mill?
Dalroy stooped over Maertz, who had risen to his knees, and caught him by the shoulder. “Jan Maertz,” he said, “do you hope to marry Léontine Joos? If so, Heaven has just prevented you from committing a great crime. She, and her mother, and the lady who came with me from Aix, are in the mill with four German officers—a set of foul, drunken brutes who will stop at no excess. I’m going now to get a rifle. You make quietly for the stableopposite the kitchen door. You will find Joos there. He will explain. Tell me, are you for Belgium or Germany in this war?”
The Walloon might be slow-witted, but Dalroy’s words seemed to have pierced his skin.
“For Belgium, monsieur, to the death,” he answered.
“So am I. I’m an Englishman. As you go, think what that means.”
Leaving Maertz to regain his feet and the stick, Dalroy rushed on up the hill. The unexpected struggle had cost him but little delay; yet it was dark, and the miller was nearly frantic with anxiety, when he returned.
“Is Maertz with you?” was his first question.
“Yes, monsieur,” came a gruff voice out of the gloom of the stable.
“Do you know now how nearly you blundered?”
“Monsieur, I would have tackled St. Peter to save Léontine.”
“Quick!” hissed Joos, “let us kill these hogs! We have no time to spare. The others will be here soon.”
“What others?”
“Jan will tell you later. Come, now. Leave Busch to me!”
“Keep quiet!” ordered Dalroy sternly. “We cannot murder four men in cold blood. I’ll listen over there by the window. You two remain here till I call you.”
But there was no need for eavesdropping. Léontine’s voice was raised shrilly above the loud-clanging talk and laughter of the uninvited guests. “No, no, my mother must stay!” she was shrieking. “Monsieur, for God’s sake, leave my mother alone! Ah, you are hurting her.—Father! father!—Oh, what shall we do? Is there no one to help us?”
As Dalroy burst open the door, which was locked, the heartrending screams of the three women mingled with the vile oaths of their assailants. He had foreseen that the door would probably be fastened, and put his whole strength into the determination to force the bolt without warning. The scene which met his eyes as he rushed into the room was etched in Rembrandt lights and shadows by a lamp placed in the centre of the table.
Near a staircase—not that which led to the lofts, but the main stairway of the domestic part of the dwelling—Madame Joos was struggling in the grip of the orderly and one of the lieutenants. Another of these heroes—they all belonged to a Westphalian detachment of the commissariat—was endeavouring to overpower Irene. His left arm pinned her left arm to her waist; his right arm had probably missed a similar hold, because the girl’s right arm was free. She had seized his wrist, and was striving to ward off a brutal effort to prevent her from shrieking. Busch, that stout satyr, was seated. Dalroy learnt subsequently that the sudden hubbub arose because Irene resisted his attempt to pull her on to his knee. The last ofthe younger men was clasping Léontine to his breast with rascally intent to squeeze the breath out of her until she was unable to struggle further.
Now Dalroy had to decide in the fifth part of a second whence danger would first come, and begin the attack there. The four officers had laid aside their swords, but the lieutenants had retained belts and revolvers. Busch, as might be expected, was only too pleased to get rid of his equipment. His tunic was unbuttoned, so that he might gorge at ease. Somehow, Dalroy knew that Irene would not free the hand which was now closing on her mouth. The two Walloons carried short forks with four prongs—Joos had taken to heart the Englishman’s comment on the disadvantage of a pitchfork for close fighting—and Jan Maertz might be trusted to deal with the ruffian who was nearly strangling Léontine. There remained the gallant lieutenant whose sense of humour permitted the belief that the best way to force onward a terrified elderly woman was to plant a knee against the small of her back. He had looked around at once when the door flew open, and his right hand was already on the butt of an automatic pistol. Him, therefore, Dalroy bayoneted so effectually that a startled oath changed into a dreadful howl ere the words left his lips. The orderly happened to be nearer than the officer, so, as the bayonet did its work, Dalroy kicked the lout’s feet from under him,and thrust him through the body while on the floor. A man who had once won the Dholepur Cup, which is competed for by the most famous pig-stickers in India, knew how to put every ounce of weight behind the keen point of a lance, because an enraged boar is the quickest and most courageous fighter among all the fierce creatures of the jungle. But he was slightly too near his quarry; the bayonet reached the stone floor through the man’s body, and snapped at the forte.
Then he wheeled, and made for Irene’s assailant.
The instant Dalroy appeared at the door the girl had caught the Prussian’s thumb in her strong teeth, and not only bit him to the bone but held on. With a loud bellow of “Help! Come quickly!” he released her, and struck fiercely with his left hand. Yet this gentle girl, who had never taken part in any more violent struggle than a school romp, had the presence of mind to throw herself backward, and thus discount the blow, while upsetting her adversary’s balance. But her clenched teeth did not let go. It came out long afterwards that she was a first-rate gymnast. One day, moved by curiosity on seeing some performance in a circus, she had essayed the stage trick of hanging head downward from a cross-bar, and twirling around another girl’s body girdled by a strap working on a swivel attached to a strong pad which she bit resolutely. Then she discovereda scientific fact which very few people are aware of. The jaw is, perhaps, the strongest part of the human frame, and can exercise a power relatively far greater than that of the hands. Of course, she could not have held out for long, but she did thwart and delay the maddened Prussian during two precious seconds. Even when he essayed to choke her she still contrived to save herself by seizing his free hand.
By that time Dalroy had leaped to the rescue. Shortening the rifle in the way familiar to all who have practised the bayonet exercise, he drove it against the Prussian’s neck. The jagged stump inflicted a wound which looked worse than it was; but the mere shock of the blow robbed the man of his senses, and he fell like a log.
In order to come within striking distance, Dalroy had to jump over Busch. Old Joos, piping in a weird falsetto, had sprung at the fat major and spitted him in the stomach with all four prongs of the fork. Busch toppled over backward with a fearsome howl, the chair breaking under his weight combined with a frantic effort to escape. The miller went with him, and dug the terrible weapon into his soft body as though driving it into a truss of straw. Maertz, a lusty fellow, had made shorter work of his man, because one prong had reached the German’s heart, and he was stilled at once. But Joos thrust and thrust again,even using a foot to bury the fork to its shoulder.
This was the most ghastly part of a thrilling episode. Busch writhed on the floor, screaming shrilly for mercy, and striving vainly to stay with his hands the deadly implement from eating into his vitals.
That despairing effort gave the miller a ghoulish satisfaction. “Aha!” he chortled, “you laughed at Lafarge! Laugh now, you swine!That’sfor the doctor, andthat’sfor my wife, andthat’sfor my daughter, andthat’sfor me!”
Dalroy did not attempt to stop him. These men must die. They had come to the mill to destroy; it was just retribution that they themselves should be destroyed. His coolness in this crisis was not the least important factor in a situation rife with peril. His method of attack had converted a fight against heavy odds into a speedy and most effectual slaughter. But that was only the beginning. Even while the frenzied yelling of the squirming Busch was subsiding into a frothy gurgle he went to the door and listened. A battery of artillery was passing at a trot, and creating din enough to drown the cries of a hundred Busches.
He looked back over his shoulder. Madame Joos was on her knees, praying. The poor woman had no thought but that her last hour had come. Happily, she was spared the sight of her husband’s vengeance. Happily, too,none of the women fainted. Léontine was panting and sobbing in Maertz’s arms. Irene, leaning against the wall near the fireplace, was gazing now at Joos, now at the fallen man at her feet, now at Dalroy. But her very soul was on fire. She, too, had yielded to the madness of a life-and-death struggle. Her eyes were dilated. Her bosom rose and fell with laboured breathing. Her teeth were still clenched, her lips parted as though she dreaded to find some loathsome taste on them.
Maertz seemed to have retained his senses, so Dalroy appealed to him. “Jan,” he said quietly, “we must go at once. Get your master and the others outside. Then extinguish the lamp. Hurry! We haven’t a second to spare.”
Joos heard. Satisfied now that the fork had been effective, he straightened his small body and said shrilly, “You go, if you like. I’ll not leave my money to be burnt with my house.—Now, wife, stir yourself. Where’s that key?”
The familiar voice roused Madame Joos from a stupor of fear. She fumbled in her bodice, and produced a key attached to a chain of fine silver. Her husband mounted nimbly on a chair, ran a finger along one of the heavy beams which roofed the kitchen, found a cunningly hidden keyhole, and unlocked a long, narrow receptacle which had been scooped out of the wood. A more ingenious, accessible, yet unlikely hiding-place for treasure could not readilybe imagined. He took out a considerable sum of money in notes, gold, and silver. Though a man of wealth, with a substantial account in the state bank, he still retained the peasant’s love of a personal hoard.
Stowing away the money in various pockets, Joos got down off the chair. Busch was dying, but he was not unconscious. He had even watched the miller’s actions with a certain detached curiosity, and the old fellow seemed to become aware of the fact. “So,” he cackled, “you saw, did you? That should annoy you in your last hour, you fat thief.—Yes, yes, monsieur, I’ll come now.—Léontine, stop blubbing, and tie up that piece of beef and some bread in a napkin. We fighting men must eat.—Jan, put the bottles of champagne and the pork-pie in a basket.—Léontine, run and get your own and your mother’s best shoes. You can change them in the wood.”
“What wood?” put in Maertz.
“We can’t walk to Maestricht by the main road, you fool.”
“That’s all right for you and madame here, and for Léontine, perhaps. But I remain in Belgium. My friends are fighting yonder at Liège, and I’m going to join them. And these others mustn’t try it. The frontier is closed for them. I was offered my life only two hours ago if I arrested them.”
“Jan!” cried Léontine indignantly.
“It’s true. Why should I tell a lie? I didn’tunderstand then the sort of game the Prussians are playing. Now that Iknow——”
“Miss Beresford,” broke in Dalroy emphatically, “if these good people will not escape when they may we must leave them to their fate.”
“Do come, Monsieur Joos,” said Irene, speaking for the first time since the tragedy. “By remaining here you risk your life to no purpose.”
“We are coming now, ma’m’selle.”
Suddenly the miller’s alert eye was caught by a spasmodic movement in the limbs of the last man whom Dalroy struck down. “Tiens!” he cried, “that fellow isn’t finished with yet.”
He was making for the prostrate form with that terrible fork when Dalroy ran swiftly, and collared him. “Stop that!” came the angry command. “A fair fight must not degenerate into murder. Out you get now, or I’ll throw you out!”
Joos laughed. “You’re making a mistake, monsieur,” he said. “These Prussians don’t fight that way. They’d kill you just for the fun of the thing if you were tied hand and foot. But let the rascal live if it pleases you. As for this one,” and he spurned Busch’s body with his foot, “he’s done. Did you hear him? He squealed like a pig.”
Dalroy was profoundly relieved when the automatic pistols and ammunition were collected, the lamp extinguished, the door closed,and the whole party had passed through a garden and orchard to the gloom of the ravine. The hour was about half-past eight o’clock. Twenty-four hours earlier he and Irene were about to leave Cologne by train, believing with some degree of confidence that they might be allowed to cross the frontier without let or hindrance! Life was then conventional, with a spice of danger. Now it had descended in the social scale until they ranked on a par with the dog that had gone mad and must be slain at sight. The German code of war is a legal paraphrase of the trickster’s formula, “Heads I win, tails you lose.” The armies of the Fatherland are ordered to practise “frightfulness,” and so terrorise the civil population that the inhabitants of the stricken country will compel their rulers to sue for peace on any terms. But woe to that same civil population if some small section of its members resists or avenges any act of “frightfulness.” Soldiers might murder the Widow Jaquinot and ravish her granddaughter, officers might plan a bestial orgy in the miller’s house; but Dalroy and Joos and Maertz, in punishing the one set of crimes and preventing another, had placed themselves outside the law. Neither Joos nor Maertz cared a farthing rushlight about the moral consequences of that deadly struggle in the kitchen, but Dalroy was in different case. He knew the certain outcome. Small wonder if his heart was heavy and his brow seamed.His own fate was of slight concern, since he had ceased to regard life as worth more than an hour’s purchase at any time from the moment he leaped down into the station yard at Aix-la-Chapelle. But it was hard luck that the accident of mere association should have bound up Irene Beresford’s fortunes so irrevocably with his. Was there no way out of the maze in which they were wandering? What, for instance, had Jan Maertz meant by his cryptic statements?
“We must halt here,” Dalroy said authoritatively, stopping short in the shadow of a small clump of trees on the edge of the ravine, a place whence there was a fair field of view, yet so close to dense brushwood that the best of cover was available instantly if needed.
“Why?” demanded Joos. “I know every inch of the way.”
“I want to question Maertz,” said Dalroy shortly. “But don’t let me delay you on that account. Indeed, I advise you to go ahead, and safeguard Madame Joos and your daughter. I would even persuade, if I can, Mademoiselle Beresford to go with you.”
“I don’t mind listening to Jan’s yarn myself,” grunted the miller. “And isn’t it time we had some supper? Killing Prussians is hungry work. Did you hear Busch? He squealed like a pig.—Léontine, cut some chunks of beef and bread, and open one of these bottles of wine.”
There was solid sense in the old man’s crude rejoinder. Criminals about to suffer the death penalty often enjoy a good meal. These six people, who had just escaped death, or—where the women were concerned—a degradation worse than death, and before whose feet the grave might yawn wide and deep at once and without warning, were nevertheless greatly in want of food.
So they ate as they talked.
Maertz’s story was coherent enough when set forth in detail. He was dazed and shaken by the fall from the wagon; but, helped by the sentry, who bore witness that the collision was no fault of his, being the outcome of obedience to the officer’s order, he contrived to calm the startled horses. The officer even offered to find a few men later who would help to pull the wagon out of the ditch, so Jan was told to “stand by” until the column had passed. Meaning no harm, he asked what had become of his passengers. This naturally evoked other questions, and a search was made, with the result that the lamp and Dalroy’s discarded sabots were found. The lamp, of course, was numbered, and carried the initials of a German state railway; but this “exhibit” only bore out Maertz’s statement that a man from Aix had come in the wagon to explain to Joos why the consignment of oats had been so long held up in the goods yard.
In fact, a squad of soldiers had put the wagonright, and were reloading it, when the bodies of Heinrich and his companion were discovered in the stable. Suspicion fell at once on the missing pair. Maertz would have been shot out of hand if an infuriated officer had not recollected that by killing the Walloon he would probably destroy all chance of tracing the man who had “murdered” two of his warriors. So Maertz was arrested, and dumped into a cellar until such time as a patrol could take him to Visé and investigate matters there.
Meanwhile the unforeseen resistance offered to the invaders along the line of the Meuse and neighbourhood of Liège was throwing the German military machine out of gear. In this initial stage of the campaign “the best organised army in the world” was like a powerful locomotive engine fitted with every mechanical device for rapid advance, but devoid of either brakes or reversing gear. As the 7th and 10th Divisions recoiled from the forts of Liège in something akin to disastrous defeat, congestion and confusion spread backward to the advanced base at Aix. Hospital trains from the front compelled other trains laden with reserves and munitions to remain in sidings. The roads became blocked. Brigades of infantry and cavalry, long lines of guns and wagons, were halted during many hours. Frantic staff-officers in powerful cars were alternately urging columns to advance and demanding a clear passage to the rear and the headquarters staff.No regimental commandant dared think and act for himself. He was merely a cog in the machine, and the machine had broken down. Actually, the defenders of Liège held up the Kaiser’s legions only a few days, but it is no figure of speech to say that when General Leman dropped stupefied by an explosion in Fort Loncin he had established a double claim to immortality. Not only had he shattered the proud German legend of invincibility in the field, but he had also struck a deadly blow at German strategy. With Liège and Leman out of the way, it would seem to the student of war that the invaders must have reached Paris early in September. They made tremendous strides later in the effort to maintain their “time-table,” but they could never overtake the days lost in the valley of the Meuse.
What a tiny pawn was Jan Maertz in this game of giants! How little could he realise that his very existence depended on the shock of opposing empires!
The communications officer at the cross-roads had not a moment to spare for many an hour after Jan’s execution was deferred. At last, about nightfall, when the 9th Division got into motion again, he snatched a slight breathing-space. Remembering the prisoner, he detailed a corporal and four men to march him to Visé and make the necessary inquiries at Joos’s mill.
For Maertz’s benefit he gave the corporal precise instructions. “If this fellow’s story isproved true, and you find the man and the woman he says he brought from Aachen, return here with the three of them, and full investigation will be made. If no such man and woman have arrived at the mill, and the prisoner is shown to be a liar, shoot him out of hand.”
A young staff-officer, a lieutenant of the Guards, stretching his legs while his chauffeur was refilling the petrol-tank, overheard the loud-voiced order, and took a sudden and keen interest in the proceedings.
“One moment,” he said imperatively, “what’s this about a man and a woman brought from Aachen? Who brought them? And when?”
The other explained, laying stress, of course, on the fractured skulls of two of his best men.
“Hi, you!” cried the Guardsman to Maertz, “describe these two.”
Maertz did his best. Dalroy, to him, was literally a railway employé; but his recollection of Irene’s appearance was fairly exact. Moreover, he was quite reasonably irritated and alarmed by the trouble they had caused. Then the lamp and sabots were produced, and the questioner swore mightily.
“Leave this matter entirely in my hands,” he advised his confrère. “It is most important that these people should be captured, and this is the very fellow to do it. I’ll promise him his life, and the safety of his friends, and pay him well into the bargain, if he helps me to gethold of that precious pair. You see, we shall have no difficulty in catching and identifying him again if need be. Personally, I believe he is telling the absolute truth, and is no more responsible for the killing of your men than you are.”
Lieutenant Karl von Halwig’s comparison erred only in its sheer inadequacy. The communications officer’s responsibility was great. He had failed to control his underlings. He was blind and deaf to their excesses. What matter how they treated the wretched Belgians if the road was kept clear? It was nothing to him that an old woman should be murdered and a girl outraged so long as he kept his squad intact.
“So now you know all about it, monsieur,” concluded Maertz. “When I met you in the ravine I thought you were escaping, and let out at you. God be praised, you got the better of me!”
“Was the staff officer’s name Von Halwig?” inquired Dalroy.
“Name of a pipe, that’s it, monsieur! I heard him tell it to the other pig, but couldn’t recall it.”
“And when were you to meet him?”
“He had to report to some general at Argenteau, but reckoned to reach the mill about nine o’clock.”
“Oh, father dear, let us all be going!” pleaded Léontine.
“One more word, and I have finished,” put in Dalroy. He turned again to Maertz. “What did you mean by saying a little while ago that the frontier is closed?”
“The lieutenant—Von Halwig, is it?—sent some Uhlans to the major of a regiment guarding the line opposite Holland. He wrote a message, but I know what was in it because he told the other officer. ‘They’re making for the frontier,’ he said, ‘and if they haven’t slipped through already we’ll catch them now without fail. They mustn’t get away this time if we have to arrest and examine every —— Belgian in this part of the country.’”
“Ho! ho!” piped Joos, who had listened intently to Jan’s recital, “why didn’t you tell us that sooner, animal? What chance, then, have I and madame and Léontine of dodging the rascals?”
“Caput!” cried Maertz, scratching his head, “that settles it! I never thought of that!”
“Oh, look!” whispered Léontine. “They’re searching the mill!”
So earnest and vital was the talk that none of the others had chanced to look down the ravine. They saw now that lights were moving in the upper rooms of the mill. Either Von Halwig had arrived before time, or some messenger had tried to find the commissariat officers, and had raised an alarm.
Joos took charge straight away, like the masterful old fellow that he was. “This localityisn’t good for our health,” he said. “The night is young yet, but we must leg it to a safer place before we begin planning. Leave nothing behind. We may need all that food.—Come, Lise,” and he grabbed his wife’s arm, “you and I will lead the way to the Argenteau wood. The devil himself can’t track me once I get there.—Trust me, monsieur, I’ll pull you through. That lout, Jan Maertz, is all muscle and no brain. What Léontine sees in him I can’t guess.”
For the time being, Dalroy believed that the miller might prove a resourceful guide. Before deciding the course he personally would pursue it was absolutely essential that he should learn the lay of the land and weigh the probabilities of success or failure attached to such alternatives as were suggested.
“We had better go with our friends,” he said to Irene. “They know the country, and I must have time for consideration before striking out a line of my own.”
“I think it would be fatal to separate,” she agreed. “When all is said and done, what can they hope to accomplish without your help?”
Joos’s voice came to them in eager if subdued accents. He was telling his wife how accounts were squared with Busch. “I stuck him with the fork,” he chortled, “and he squealed like a pig!”
The miller was cunning as a fox. He argued, subtly enough, that if a man just arrived from Argenteau was the first to discover the dead Prussians, the neighbourhood of Argenteau itself might be the last to undergo close search for the “criminals” who had dared punish these demi-gods. Following a cattle-path through a series of fields, he entered a country lane about a mile from Visé. It was a narrow, deep-rutted, winding way—a shallow trench cut into the soil by many generations of pack animals and heavy carts. The long interregnum between the solid pavement of Rome and the broken rubble of Macadam covered Europe with a network of such roads. An unchecked growth of briars, brambles, and every species of prolific weed made this particular track an ideal hiding-place.
Gathering the party under the two irregular lines of pollard oaks which marked the otherwise hardly discernible hedgerows, Joos explained that, at a point nearly half-a-mile distant, the lane joined the main road which winds along the right bank of the Meuse.
“That is our only real difficulty—the crossingof the road,” he said. “It is sure to be full of Germans; but if we watch our chance we should contrive to scurry from one side to the other without being seen.”
Such confidence was unquestionably cheering. Even Dalroy, though he put a somewhat sceptical question, did not really doubt that the old man was adopting what might, in the circumstances, prove the best plan.
“What happens when we do reach the other side, Monsieur Joos?” he inquired.
“Then we enter a disused quarry in the depths of a wood. The Meuse nearly surrounds the wood, and there is barely room for a tow-path between the river’s edge and a steep cliff. The quarry forms the landward face, as one may say, and among the trees is a woodman’s hut. I shall be surprised if we find any Germans there.”
“From your description it seems to be a suitable post for a strong picket watching the river.”
“No, monsieur. The slope falls away from the river, while the opposite bank is flat and open. I have been a soldier in my time, and I understand these things. It would be all right for observation purposes if these pigs hadn’t seized the bridge-heads at Visé and Argenteau; but I saw their cursed Uhlans on the left bank many hours ago.”
“Lead on, friend,” said Dalroy simply. “When we come within a hundred mètres of themain road let me do the scouting. I’ll tell you when and how to advance.”
“Is monsieur a soldier then?”
“Yes.”
“An officer perhaps?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, a thousand pardons if I presumed to lecture you. Yet I am certainly in the right about the wood.”
“I have never doubted you, Monsieur Joos. Do you know what time the moon rises?”
“Late. Eleven o’clock at the earliest.”
“All the better, if you are sure of the way.”
“I could find it blindfolded. So could Léontine. She goes there to pick bilberries.”
The homely phrase was unconsciously dramatic. From the highroad came the raucous singing of German soldiers, the falsetto of drunkards with an ear for music. In the distance heavy artillery was growling, and high explosive shells were bursting with a violence that seemed to rend the sky. Over an area of many miles to the west the sharp tapping of musketry and the staccato splutter of machine guns told of hundreds of thousands of men engaged in a fierce struggle for supremacy. On every hand the horizon was red with the glare of burning houses. The thought of a village girl picking bilberries in a land so scarred by war and rapine produced an effect at once striking and fantastic. It was as though a rayof pure white light had pierced the lurid depths of a volcano.
Dalroy advised the women to take off their linen aprons, and Madame Joos to remove as well a coif of the same material. He unfastened and threw away the stump of the bayonet. Then they moved on in Indian file, the miller leading.
A definite quality of blackness loomed above the low-lying shroud of mist which at night in still weather always marks the course of a great river.
“The wood!” whispered Joos. “We are near the road now.”
Dalroy went forward to spy out the conditions. A column of infantry was passing. These fellows were silent, and therefore sinister. They marched like tired men, and their shuffling feet raised a cloud of dust.
An officer lighted a cigarette. “Those guzzling Prussians would empty the Meuse if it ran with wine,” he growled, evidently in response to a remark from a companion.
“Our brigadier was very angry about the broken bottles in the streets of Argenteau,” said the other. “Two tires were ruined before the chauffeur realised that the place was littered with glass.”
These were Saxons, cleaner-minded, manlier fellows than the Prussians. Behind them Dalroy heard the rumble of commissariat wagons. He failed utterly to understand the why andwherefore of the direction the troops were taking. According to his reckoning, they should have been going the opposite way. But that was no concern of his at the moment. He knew the Saxon by repute, and hurried back to the two men and three women crouching under a hedge, having already noted a little mound on the left of the cross-roads where cover was available. He explained what they were to do—steal forward, one by one, hide behind the mound, and dart across when a longer space than usual separated one wagon from another, as the mounted escort would probably be grouped in front and in rear of the convoy.
“Ah, that is the cavalry,” said Joos. “It stands on a rock by the roadside.”
“It is hard to distinguish anything owing to mist and dust,” said Dalroy. “Of course, the darkness is all to the good.—If you ladies do not scream, whatever happens, and you run quickly when I give the word, I don’t think there will be any real danger.”
In the event, they were able to cross the road in a body, and without needless haste. A horse stumbled and fell, and had to be unharnessed before being got on to its feet again. The incident held up the column during some minutes, so Dalroy was not compelled to abandon the rifle, which it would have been foolish in the extreme to carry if there was the slightest chance of being seen.
Thenceforth progress was safe, though slowand difficult, because the gloom beneath the trees was that of a vault. Even the miller perforce yielded place to Léontine’s young eyes and sureness of foot. There were times, during the ascent of one side of the quarry, when whispered directions were necessary, while Madame Joos had to be hauled up a few awkward places bodily.
Still, they reached the hut, a mere logger’s shed, but a veritable haven for people so manifestly in peril. They were weary, too. No member of the Joos household had slept throughout the whole of Tuesday night, and the women especially were flagging under the strain.
The little cabin held an abundant store of shavings, because its normal tenant rough-hewed his logs into sabots. Here, then, was a soft, warm, and fragrant resting-place. Dalroy took command. He forbade talking, even in whispers. Maertz, who promised to keep awake, was put on guard outside till the moon rose.
The wisdom of preventing excited conversation was shown by the fact that the five people huddled together on the shavings were soon asleep. There was nothing strange in this. Humanity, when surfeited with emotion, becomes calm, almost phlegmatic. Were it otherwise, after a week of war soldiers would not be sane men, but maniacs.
Dalroy resolved to sleep for two hours.About eleven o’clock he got up, went quietly to the door, and found Maertz seated on the ground, his back propped against the wall, and his head sunk on his breast. As a consequence, he was snoring melodiously.
He woke quickly enough when the Englishman’s hand was clapped over his mouth and held there until his torpid wits were sufficiently clear that he should understand the stern words muttered in his ear.
“Pardon, monsieur,” he said shamefacedly. “I thought there was no harm in sitting down. I listened to the guns, and began counting them. I counted one hundred and ninety-nine shots, I think, andthen——”
“And then you risked six lives, Léontine’s among them!”
“Monsieur, I have no excuse.”
“Yet you have been a soldier, I suppose? And you gabble of serving your country?”
“It will not happen again, monsieur.”
Dalroy pretended an anger he did not really feel. He wanted this stolid Walloon to remain awake now, at any rate, so turned away with an ejaculation of contempt.
Maertz rose. He endured an eloquent silence for nearly a minute. Then he murmured, “Monsieur, I shall not offend a second time. Counting guns is worse than watching sheep jumping a fence.”
The moon had risen, revealing a cleared space in front of the hut. A dozen yards away a thinfringe of brushwood and small trees marked the edge of the quarry, while the woodcutter’s path was discernible on the left. A slight breeze had called into being the myriad tongues of the wood, and Dalroy realised that the unceasing cannonade, joined to the rustling of the leaves, would drown any sound of an approaching enemy until it was too late to retreat. He knew that Von Halwig, not to mention the military authorities at Visé, would spare no effort to hunt out and destroy the man who had dared to flout the might of Germany, so he was far from satisfied with the apparent safety of even this secluded refuge.
“Have you a piece of string in your pockets?” he demanded gruffly.
Trust a carter to carry string, strong stuff warranted to mend temporarily a broken strap. Maertz gave him a quantity.
“I am going to the cross-road,” he continued. “Keep a close watch till I return. When you hear any movement, or see any one, say clearly ‘Visé.’ If it is I, I shall answer ‘Liège.’ Do you understand?”
“Perfectly, monsieur. A challenge and a countersign.”
Dalroy believed the man might be trusted now. Taking the rifle, he made off along the path, treading as softly as the cumbrous sabots would permit. He was tempted to go bare-footed, but dreaded the lameness which might result from a thorn or a sharp rock. At asuitable place, half-way down the steep path by the side of the quarry, he tied a pistol to a stout sapling, and, having fastened a cord to the trigger, arranged it in such fashion that it must catch the feet of any one coming that way. The weapon was at full cock, and in all likelihood the unwary passer-by would get a bullet in his body.
It was dark under the trees, of course, but the moon was momentarily increasing its light, and the way was not hard to find. He memorised each awkward turn and twist in case he had to retreat in a hurry. Once the lower level was reached there was no difficulty, and, with due precautions, he gained the shelter of a hedge close to the main road.
The stream of troops still continued. Few things could be more ominous than this unending torrent of armed men. By how many similar roads, he wondered, was Germany pouring her legions into tiny Belgium? Was she forcing the French frontier in the same remorseless way? And what of Russia? When he left Berlin the talk was only of marching against the two great allies. If Germany could spare such a host of horse, foot, and artillery for the overrunning of Belgium, while moving the enormous forces needed on both flanks, what millions of men she must have placed under arms long before the mobilisation order was announced publicly! And what was England doing and saying? England! the home of libertyand a free press, where demagogues spouted platitudes about the “curse of militarism,” and encouraged that very monster by leaving the richest country in the world open to just such a sudden and merciless attack as Belgium was undergoing before his eyes!
Lying there among the undergrowth, listening to the tramp of an army corps, and watching the flicker of countless rifle-barrels in the moonlight, he forgot his own plight, and thought only of the unpreparedness of Britain. He was a soldier by training and inclination. He harboured no delusions. Man for man, the alert, intelligent, and chivalrous British army was far superior to the cannon-fodder of the German machine. But of what avail was the hundred thousand Britain could put in the field in the west of Europe against the four millions of Germany? Here was no combat of a David and a Goliath, but of one man against forty. Naturally, France and Russia came into the picture, yet he feared that France would break at the outset of the campaign, while Austria might hold Russia in check long enough to enable Germany to work her murderous design. Be it remembered, he could not possibly estimate the fine and fierce valour of the resistance offered by Belgium. It seemed to him that the Teuton hordes must already be hacking their way to the coast, leaving sufficient men and guns to contain the Belgian fortresses, and haltingonly when the white cliffs of England were visible across the Channel.
If his anxious thoughts wandered, however, and a gnawing doubt ate into his soul lest the British fleet might, as the Germans in Visé claimed, have been taken at a disadvantage, he did not allow his eyes and ears to neglect the duties of the hour.
A fall in the temperature had condensed the river mist, and the air near the ground was much clearer now than at eight o’clock. The breeze, too, gathered the dust into wraiths and scurrying wisps through which glimpses of the sloping uplands toward Aix were obtainable. During one of these unhampered moments he caught sight of something so weird and uncanny that he was positively startled.
A sorrow-laden, waxen-hued face seemed to peer at him for an instant, and then vanish. But there could be no face so high in the air, twenty feet or more above the heads of a Prussian regiment bawling “Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles.” The land was level thereabouts. The apparition, consequently, must be a mere trick of the imagination. Yet he saw, or fancied he saw, that same spectral face twice again at intervals of a few seconds, and was vexed with himself for allowing his bemused senses to yield to some supernatural influence. Then the vision came a fourth time, and a thrill ran through every fibre in his body.
Because there could be no mistake now. Theface, so mournful, so benign, so pitying, bore on the forehead a crown of thorns! Even while the blood coursed in Dalroy’s veins with the awe of it, he knew that he was looking at the figure of Christ on the Cross. This, then, was the calvary spoken of by Joos, and invisible in the earlier murk. The beams of the risen moon etched the painted carving in most realistic lights and shadows. The pallid skin glistened as though in agony. The big, piercing eyes gazed down at the passing soldiers as the Man of Sorrows might have looked at the heedless legionaries of Rome.
The travelled Briton, to whom the wayside calvary is a familiar object in many a continental landscape, can seldom pass the twisted, tortured figure on the Cross without a feeling of awe, tempered by insular non-comprehension of the religious motive which thrusts into prominence the most solemn emblem of Christianity in unexpected and often incongruous places. Seen as Dalroy saw it, a hunted fugitive crouching in a ditch, while the Huns who would again destroy Europe were lurching past in thousands within a few feet of where he lay, the image of Christ crucified had a new and overwhelming significance. It induced a vague uneasiness of spirit, almost a doubt. That very day he had killed four men and gravely wounded a fifth, and there was no shred of compunction in his soul. Yet, in body and mind, he was worthy of his class, and thisgray old world has failed to evolve any finer human type than that which is summed up in the phrase, an officer and a gentleman. For the foulest of crimes, either committed or contemplated, he had been forced to use both the scales and the sword of justice; but there was something wholly disturbing and abhorrent in the knowledge that two thousand years after the Great Atonement men professedly Christian should so wantonly disregard every principle that Christ taught and practised and died for. He reflected bitterly that the German soldier, whether officer or private, is enjoined to keep a diary. What sort of record would “Heinrich,” or Busch, or the three Westphalian lieutenants have left of that day’s doings if they had lived and told the truth?
The answer to these vexed questionings came with the swift clarity of a lightning flash. Another rift in the dust-clouds revealed the upper part of the Cross, and the moonbeams shone on a gilded scroll. Dalroy knew his Bible. “And a superscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew: ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him, saying, ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us.’”
From that instant one God-fearing Briton, at least, never again allowed the shadow of a doubt to darken his faith in the divine if inscrutable purpose. He had passed alreadythrough dark and deadly hours, while others were then near at hand; but he was steadfast in doing what he conceived his duty without seeking to interpret the ways of Providence. “If Thou be Christ?” It was the last taunt of the unbeliever, though the veil of the temple would be rent in twain, and the earth would quake, and the graves be opened, and the bodies of the saints arise and be seen by many!
A harsh command silenced the singing. An officer had reined in his horse, and was demanding the nature of the errand which brought a squad of men from Visé.
“Sergeant Karl Schwartz,Herr Hauptmann,” reported the leader of the party. “An Englishman, assisted by a miller named Joos and his man, Maertz, has killed three of our officers. He also wounded Herr Leutnant von Huntzel, of the 7th Westphalian regiment, who has recovered sufficiently to say what happened. The general-major has ordered a strict search. I, being acquainted with the district, am bringing these men to a wood where the rascals may be hiding.”
“Killed three, you say? The fiend take all suchschwein-hundsand their helpers! Good luck to you.—Vorwärts!”
The column moved on. Schwartz, the treacherous barber of Visé, led his men into the lane. There were eleven, all told—hopeless odds—because this gang of hunters was ready for a fight and itching to capture averdammtEngländer. And Joos’s “safe retreat” had been guessed by the spy who knew what every inhabitant of Visé did, who had watched and noted even such a harmless occupation as Léontine’s bilberry-picking, who was acquainted with each footpath for miles around, from whose crafty eyes not a cow-byre on any remote farm in the whole countryside was concealed.
This misfortune marked the end, Dalroy thought. But there was a chance of escape, if only for the few remaining hours of the night, and he took it with the same high courage he displayed in going back to the rescue of Irene Beresford in the railway station at Aix. He had a rifle with five rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. At the worst, he might be able to add another couple of casualties to the formidable total already piled up during the German advance on Liège.
The sabots offered a serious handicap to rapid and silent movement, but he dared not dispense with them, and made shift to follow Schwartz and the others as quietly as might be. He was helped, of course, by the din of the guns and the rustling of the leaves; but there was an open space in the narrow road before it merged in the wood which he could not cross until the Germans were among the trees, and precisely in that locality Schwartz halted his men to explain his project. Try as he might, Dalroy, crouched behind a pollard oak, could not overhear the spy’s words. But he smiledwhen the party went on in Indian file, Schwartz leading, because the enemy was acting just as he hoped the enemy would act.
He did not press close on their heels now, but remained deliberately at the foot of the hill and on the edge of the quarry. Standing erect, with the rifle at the ready, he waited. He could hear nothing, but judged time and distance by counting fifty slow steps. He was right to a fifth of a second. A shot rang out, and was followed instantly by a yell of agony. He saw the flash, and, taking aim somewhat below it, fired six rounds rapidly. A fusillade broke out in the wood, the Germans, like himself, firing at the one flash above and the six beneath. A bullet cut through his blouse on the left shoulder and scorched his skin; but when the magazine was empty he ran straight on for a few yards, turned to the right, stepping with great caution, and threw himself flat behind a rock. As he ran, he had refilled the magazine, but now meant using the rifle as a last resource only.
In effect, matters had fallen out exactly as he calculated. Schwartz had blundered into the man-trap set on the path half-way up the cliff, and was shot. The others, lacking a leader, and stupefied by the firing and the darkness, bolted like so many rabbits to the open road and the moonlight as soon as the seeming attack from the rear ceased.
Uncommon grit was needed to press onthrough a strange wood at night, up a difficult path bordering a precipice when each tree might vomit the flame of a gunshot. And these fellows were not cast in heroic mould. Their one thought was to get back the way they came. They were received warmly, too. The passing regiment, hearing the hubbub and seeing the flashes, very reasonably supposed they were being taken in flank by a Belgian force, and blazed away merrily at the first moving objects in sight in that direction.
Dalroy does not know to this day exactly how the battle ended in rear, nor did he care then. He had routed the enemy in his own neighbourhood, and that must suffice. Regaining the path, he sped upward, pausing only to retrieve the pistol which had proved so efficient a sentinel. Judging by the groans and the stertorous breathing which came from among the undergrowth close to the path, Karl Schwartz’s services as a spy and guide were lost to the great cause ofKultur. Dalroy did not bother about the wretch. He pressed on, and reached the plateau above the quarry. The clearing was now flooded with moonlight, and the doorway of the hut was plainly visible. Jan Maertz was not at his post, but this was not surprising, as he would surely have joined old Joos and the terrified women at the first sounds of the firing.
“Liège!” said Dalroy, speaking loudly enough for any one in the hut to hear. Therewas no answer. “Liège!” he cried again, with a certain foreboding that things had gone awry, and dreading lest the precious respite he had secured might be wasted irretrievably.
But the hut was empty, and he realised that he might grope like a blind man for hours in the depths of the wood. The one-sided battle which had broken out in the front of the calvary had died down. He guessed what had happened, the blunder, the frenzied explanations, and their sequel in a quick decision to detach a company and surround the wood.
In his exasperation he forgot the silent figure surveying the scene at the cross-roads, and swore like a very natural man, for he was now utterly at a loss what to do or where to go.
Never before in the course of a somewhat varied life had Dalroy felt so irresolute, so helplessly the victim of circumstances. Bereft of the local knowledge possessed by Joos and the other Belgians, any scheme he adopted must depend wholly on blind chance. The miller had described the wood as occupying a promontory in a bend of the Meuse, with steep cliffs forming the southern bank of the river. There was a tow-path; possibly, a series of narrow ravines or clefts gave precarious access from the plateau to this lower level. Probably, too, in the first shock of fright, the people in the hut had made for one of these cuttings, taking Irene with them. They believed, no doubt, that the Englishman had been shot or captured, and after that spurt of musketry so alarmingly near at hand the lower part of the wood would seem alive with enemies.
Dalroy blamed himself, not the others, for this fatal bungling. Before snatching a much-needed rest he ought to have arranged with Joos a practicable line of retreat in the event of a night alarm. Of course he had imposed silence on all as a sort of compulsory relief from the tension of the earlier hours, but hesaw now that he was only too ready to share the miller’s confidence. Not without reason had poor Dr. Lafarge warned his fellow-countrymen that “there were far too many Germans in Belgium.” Schwartz and his like were to be found in every walk of life, from the merchant princes who controlled the trade of Antwerp to the youngest brush-haired waiter in the Café de la Régence at Brussels.
Dalroy was aware of a grim appropriateness in the fate of Schwartz. The German automatic pistols carried soft-nosed bullets, so the arch-traitor who murdered the Visé doctor had himself suffered from one of the many infernal devices brought byKulturto the battlefields of Flanders. But the punishment of Schwartz could not undo the mischief the wretch had caused. The men he led knew the nature and purpose of their errand. They would report to the first officer met on the main road, who might be expected to detail instantly a sufficient force for the task of clearing the wood. In fact, the operation had become a military necessity. There was no telling to what extent the locality was held by Belgian troops, as, of course, the runaway warriors would magnify the firing a hundredfold, and no soldier worth his salt would permit the uninterrupted march of an army corps along a road flanked by such a danger-point. In effect, Dalroy conceived a hundred reasons why he might anticipate a sudden and violent end, but not one offeringa fair prospect of escape. At any rate, he refused to be guilty of the folly of plunging into an unknown jungle of brambles, rocks, and trees, and elected to go back by the path to the foot of the quarry, whence he might, with plenty of luck, break through on a flank before the Germans spread their net too wide.
He had actually crossed some part of the clearing in front of the hut when his gorge rose at the thought that, win or lose in this game of life and death, he might never again see Irene Beresford. The notion was intolerable. He halted, and turned toward the black wall of the wood. Mad though it was to risk revealing his whereabouts, since he had no means of knowing how close the nearest pursuers might be, he shouted loudly, “Miss Beresford!”
And a sweet voice replied, “Oh, Mr. Dalroy, they told me you were dead, but I refused to believe them!”
Dalroy had staked everything on that last despairing call, little dreaming that it would be answered. It was as though an angel had spoken from out of the black portals of death. He was so taken aback, his spirit was so shaken, that for a few seconds he was tongue-tied, and Irene appeared in the moonlit space before he stirred an inch. She came from an unexpected quarter, from the west, or Argenteau, side.
“The others said I was a lunatic to return,” she explained simply; “but, when I came to my full senses after being aroused from a soundsleep, and told to fly at once because the Germans were on us, I realised that you might have outwitted them again, and would be looking for us in vain. So, here I am!”
He ran to her. Now that they were together again he was swift in decision and resolute as ever. “Irene,” he said, “you’re a dear. Where are our friends? Is there a path? Can you guide me?”
“Take my hand,” she replied. “We turn by a big tree in the corner. I think Jan Maertz followed me a little way when he saw I was determined to go back.”
“I suppose I had unconscious faith in you, Irene,” he whispered, “and that is why I cried your name. But no more talking now. Rapid, silent movement alone can save us.”
They had not gone twenty yards beneath the trees when some one hissed, “Visé!”
“Liège, you lump!” retorted Dalroy.
“Monsieur, I——”
“Shut up! Hold mademoiselle’s hand, and lead on.”
He did not ask whither they were going. The path led diagonally to the left, and that was what he wanted—a way to a flank.
Maertz, however, soon faltered and stopped in his tracks.
“The devil take all woods at night-time!” he growled. “Give me the highroad and a wagon-team, and I’ll face anything.”
“Are you lost?” asked Dalroy.
“I suppose so, monsieur. But they can’t be far. I told Joos——”
“Jan, is that you?” cried Léontine’s voice.
“Ah, Dieu merci!These infernal trees——”
“Silence now!” growled Dalroy imperatively. “Go ahead as quickly as possible.”
The semblance of a path existed; even so, they stumbled over gnarled roots, collided with tree-trunks which stood directly in the way, and had to fend many a low branch off their faces. They created an appalling noise; but were favoured by the fact that the footpath led to the west, whereas the pursuers must climb the cliff on the east.
Léontine, however, led them with the quiet certainty of a country-born girl moving in a familiar environment. She could guess to a yard just where the track was diverted by some huge-limbed elm or far-spreading chestnut, and invariably picked up the right line again, for the excellent reason, no doubt, that the dense undergrowth stood breast high elsewhere at that season of the year.
After a walk that seemed much longer than it really was—the radius of the wood from the hut being never more than two hundred yards in any direction—the others heard her say anxiously, “Are you there, father?”
“Where the deuce do you think I’d be?” came the irritated demand. “Do you imagine that your mother and I are skipping down these rocks like a couple of weasels?”
“It is quite safe,” said the girl. “I and Marie Lafarge went down only last Thursday. Jules always goes that way to Argenteau. He has cut steps in the bad places. Jan and I will lead. We can help mother and you.”
Dalroy, still holding Irene’s arm, pressed forward.
“Are we near the tow-path?” he asked.
“Oh, is that you,Monsieur l’Anglais?” chuckled the miller. “Name of a pipe, I was positive thosesales Albocheshad got you twenty minutes since. Yes, if you trip in the next few yards you’ll find yourself on the tow-path after falling sixty feet.”
“Go on, Léontine!” commanded Dalroy. “What you and your friend did for amusement we can surely do to save our lives. But there should be moonlight on this side. Have any clouds come up?”
“These are firs in front, monsieur. Once clear of them, we can see.”
“Very well. Don’t lose another second. Only, before beginning the descent, make certain that the river bank holds no Germans.”
Joos grumbled, but his wife silenced him. That good lady, it appeared, had given up hope when the struggle broke out in the kitchen. She had been snatched from the jaws of death by a seeming miracle, and regarded Dalroy as a very Paladin. She attributed her rescue entirely to him, and was almost inclined to be sceptical of Joos’s sensational story about thekilling of Busch. “There never was such a man for arguing,” she said sharply. “I do believe you’d contradict an archbishop. Do as the gentleman bids you. He knows best.”
Now, seeing that madame herself, after one look, had refused point-blank to tackle the supposed path, and had even insisted on retreating to the cover of the wood, Joos was entitled to protest. Being a choleric little man, he would assuredly have done so fully and freely had not a red light illumined the tree-tops, while the crackle of a fire was distinctly audible. The Germans had reached the top of the quarry, and, in order to dissipate the impenetrable gloom, had converted the hut into a beacon.
“Miséricorde!” he muttered. “They are burning our provisions, and may set the forest ablaze!”
And that is what actually happened. The vegetation was dry, as no rain had fallen for many a day. The shavings and store of logs in the hut burned like tinder, promptly creating a raging furnace wholly beyond the control of the unthinking dolts who started it. The breeze which had sprung up earlier became a roaring tornado among the trees, and some acres of woodland were soon in flames. The light of that fire was seen over an area of hundreds of miles. Spectators in Holland wrongly attributed it to the burning of Visé, which was, however, only an intelligent anticipation of events, because the delightful old town was completelydestroyed a week later in revenge for the defeats inflicted on the invaders at Tirlemont and St. Trond during the first advance on Antwerp.
Once embarked on a somewhat perilous descent, the fugitives gave eyes or thought to naught else. Jules, the pioneer quoted by Léontine, who was the owner of the hut and maker of sabots, had rough-hewed a sort of stairway out of a narrow cleft in the rock face. To young people, steady in nerve and sure of foot, the passage was dangerous enough, but to Joos and his wife it offered real hazard. However, they were allowed no time for hesitancy. With Léontine in front, guiding her father, and Maertz next, telling Madame Joos where to put her feet, while Dalroy grasped her broad shoulders and gave an occasional eye to Irene, they all reached the level tow-path without the least accident. Irene, by the way, carried the rifle, so that Dalroy should have both hands at liberty.
Without a moment’s delay he took the weapon and readjusted the magazine, which he had removed for the climb. Bidding the others follow at such a distance that they would not lose sight of him, yet be able to retire if he found the way disputed by soldiers, he set off in the direction of Argenteau.
In his opinion the next ten minutes would decide whether or not they had even a remote chance of winning through to a place of comparativesafety. He had made up his own mind what to do if he met any Germans. He would advise the Joos family and Maertz to hide in the cleft they had just descended, while he would take to the Meuse with Irene—provided, that is, she agreed to dare the long swim by night. Happily there was no need to adopt this counsel of despair. The fire, instead of assisting the flanking party on the western side, only delayed them. Sheer curiosity as to what was happening in the wood drew all eyes there rather than to the river bank, so the three men and three women passed along the tow-path unseen and unchallenged.
After a half-mile of rapid progress Dalroy judged that they were safe for the time, and allowed Madame Joos to take a much-needed rest. Though breathless and nearly spent, she, like the others, found an irresistible fascination in the scene lighted by the burning trees. The whole countryside was resplendent in crimson and silver, because the landscape was now steeped in moonshine, and the deep glow of the fire was most perceptible in the patches where ordinarily there would be black shadows. The Meuse resembled a river of blood, the movement of its sluggish current suggesting the onward roll of some fluid denser than water. Old Joos, whose tongue was seldom at rest, used that very simile.