“Dear Friend,—Save yourself and the others. Lose not a moment. I have seen a handbill. A big reward is offered. My advice is: go west separately. The messenger I employ is a Christian, but I doubt the faith of many. May God guard you! I shall accompany you in my thoughts and prayers.—E. G.”
“Dear Friend,—Save yourself and the others. Lose not a moment. I have seen a handbill. A big reward is offered. My advice is: go west separately. The messenger I employ is a Christian, but I doubt the faith of many. May God guard you! I shall accompany you in my thoughts and prayers.—E. G.”
Dalroy found Joos instantly.
“What is our curé’s baptismal name?” he inquired.
“Edouard, monsieur.”
“He has sent us marching orders. Read that!”
The miller’s wizened face blanched. He had counted on remaining in Verviers till the war was over. At that date no self-respecting Belgian could bring himself to believe that the fighting would continue into the winter. The first comparative successes of the small Belgian army, combined with the meteoric French advance into Alsace, seemed to assure speedyvictory by the Allies. He swore roundly, but decided to follow the priest’s bidding in every respect save one.
“We can’t split up,” he declared. “We are all named in thelaisser passer. You understand what dull pigs these Germans are. They’ll count heads. If one is missing, or there’s one too many, they’ll inquire about it for a week.”
Sound common-sense and no small knowledge of Teuton character lurked in the old man’s comment. Monsieur Garnier, of course, had not been told why this queerly assorted group clung together, nor was he aware of the exact cause of their flight from Visé. Probably the handbill he mentioned was explicit in names and descriptions. At any rate, he must have the strongest reasons for supposing that Verviers no longer provided a safe retreat.
Jan Maertz was summoned. He made a good suggestion. The direct road to Andenne, viâ Liège and Huy, was impracticable, being crowded with troops and transports. Why not use the country lanes from Pepinster through Louveigne, Hamoir, and Maffe? It was a hilly country, and probably clear of soldiers. He would buy a dog-team, and thus save Madame Joos the fatigue of walking.
Dalroy agreed at once. Even though Irene still insisted on sharing his effort to cross the German lines, two routes opened from Andenne, one to Brussels and the west, the otherto Dinant and the south. Moreover, he counted on the Allies occupying the Mons-Charleroi-Namur terrain, and one night’s march from Andenne, with Maertz as guide, should bring the three of them through, as the Joos family, in all likelihood, would elect to remain with their relatives.
In a word, the orderliness of Verviers had already relegated the excesses of Visé to the obscurity of an evil but half-forgotten dream. The horrors of Louvain, of Malines, of the whole Belgian valley of the Meuse, had yet to come. An officer of the British army simply could not allow his mind to conceive the purposeful criminality of German methods. Little did he imagine that, on the very day the fugitives set out for Andenne, Visé was completely sacked and burned by command of the German authorities. And why? Not because of any fault committed by the unfortunate inhabitants, who had suffered so much at the outbreak of hostilities. This second avalanche was let loose out of sheer spite. By this time the enemy was commencing to estimate the fearful toll which the Belgian army had taken of the Uhlans who provided the famous “cavalry screen.” Over and over again the vaunted light horsemen of Germany were ambuscaded and cut up or captured. They proved to be extraordinarily poor fighters when in small numbers, but naturally those who got away made a fine tale of the dangers they had escaped.These constant defeats stung the pride of the headquarters staff, and “frightfulness” was prescribed as the remedy. The fact cannot be disputed. The invaders’ earliest offences might be explained, if not condoned, as the deeds of men brutalised by drink, but the wholesale ravaging of communities by regiments and brigades was the outcome of a deliberate policy of reprisal. The Hun argument was convincing—to the Hun intellect. How dared these puny Belgians fight for their hearths and homes? It was their place to grovel at the feet of the conqueror. If any worn-out notions of honour and manhood and the sanctity of woman inspired them to take the field, they must be taught wisdom by being ground beneath the heel of the Prussian jack-boot.
If the dead mouths of five thousand murdered Belgians did not bear testimony against these disciplined marauders, the mere journey of the little party of men and women who set out from Verviers that Saturday afternoon would itself dispose of any attempt to cloak the high-placed offenders.
They arranged a rendezvous at Pepinster. Dalroy went alone. He insisted that this was advisable. Maertz brought Madame Joos and Irene. Joos, having been besought to curb his tongue, convoyed Léontine. Until Pepinster was reached, they took the main road, with its river of troops. None gave them heed. Nota man addressed an uncivil word to them. The soldiers were cheery and well-behaved.
They halted that night at Louveigne, which was absolutely unscathed. Next day they passed through Hamoir and Maffe, and the peasants were gathering the harvest!
Huy and Andenne, a villager told them, were occupied by the Germans, but all was quiet. They pushed on, turning north-west from Maffe, and descended into the Meuse valley about six o’clock in the evening. It was ominous that the bridge was destroyed and a cluster of houses burning in Seilles, a town on the opposite, or left, bank of the river. But Andenne itself, a peaceful and industrious place, seemed to be undisturbed. While passing a farm known as Dermine they fell in with a priest and a few Belgians who were carrying a mortally wounded Prussian officer on a stretcher.
Then, to his real chagrin, Dalroy heard that the Belgian outposts had been driven south and west only that morning. One day less in Verviers, and he and the others would have been out of their present difficulties. However, he made the best of it. Surely they could either cross the Meuse or reach Namur next day; while the fact that some local residents were attending to the injured officer would supply the fugitives with an excellent safe-conduct into Andenne, just as a similar incident had been their salvation at Argenteau.
The stretcher was taken into the villa of a well-to-do resident; and, it being still broad daylight, Joos asked to be directed to the house of Monsieur Alphonse Stauwaert. The miller was acquainted with the topography of the town, but the Stauwaert family had moved recently to a new abode.
“Barely two hundred mètres,tout droit,” he was told.
They had gone part of the way when a troop of Uhlans came at the gallop along the Namur road. The soldiers advanced in a pack, and were evidently in a hurry. Madame Joos was seated in the low-built, flat cart, drawn by two strong dogs, which had brought her from Verviers. Maertz was leading the animals. The other four were disposed on both sides of the cart. At the moment, no other person was nearer than some thirty yards ahead. Three men were standing there in the roadway, and they moved closer to the houses on the left. Maertz, too, pulled his team on to the pavement on the same side.
The Uhlans came on. Suddenly, without the slightest provocation, their leader swerved his horse and cut down one of the men, who dropped with a shriek of mingled fear and agony.
Retribution came swiftly, because the charger slipped on some rounded cobbles, crossed its forelegs, and turned a complete somersault. The rider, a burly non-commissioned officer,pitched clean on his head, and either fractured his skull or broke his neck, perhaps achieving both laudable results, while his blood-stained sabre clattered on the stones at Dalroy’s feet. The nearest Uhlans drove their lances through the other two civilians, who were already running for their lives. In order to avoid the plunging horse and their fallen leader, the two ruffians reined on to the pavement. They swung their weapons, evidently meaning to transfix some of the six people clustered around the cart. The women screamed shrilly. Léontine cowered near the wall; Joos, valiant soul in an aged body, put himself in front of his wife; Maertz, hauling at the dogs, tried to convert the vehicle into a shield for Léontine; while Dalroy, conscious that Irene was close behind, picked up theunteroffizier’ssword.
Much to the surprise of the trooper, who selected this tall peasant as an easy prey, he parried the lance-thrust in such wise that the blade entered the horse’s off foreleg and brought the animal down. At the same instant Maertz ducked, and dodged a wild lunge, which missed because the Uhlan was trying to avoid crashing into the cart. But the vengeful steel found another victim. By mischance it transfixed Madame Joos, while the horse’s shoulder caught Dalroy a glancing blow in the back and sent him sprawling.
Some of the troopers, seeing two of their men prone, were pulling up when a gruff voicecried, “Achtung!We’ll clear out these swine later!”
Irene, who saw all that had passed with an extraordinary vividness, was the only one who understood why the order which undoubtedly saved five lives was given. A stout staff officer, wearing a blue uniform with red facings, rode with the Uhlans, and she was certain that he was in a state of abject terror. His funk was probably explained by an irregular volley lower down the street, though, in the event, the shooting proved to be that of his own men. Two miles away, at Solayn, these same Uhlans had been badly bitten by a Belgian patrol, and the fat man, prospecting the Namur road with a cavalry escort, wanted no more unpleasant surprises that evening. Ostensibly, of course, he was anxious to report to a brigade headquarters at Huy. At any rate, the Uhlans swept on.
They were gone when Dalroy regained his feet. A riderless horse was clattering after them; another with a broken leg was vainly trying to rise. Close at hand lay two Uhlans, one dead and one insensible. Joos and Léontine were bending over the dying woman in the cart, making frantic efforts to stanch the blood welling forth from mouth and breast. The lance had pierced her lungs, but she was conscious for a minute or so, and actually smiled the farewell she could not utter.
Maertz was swearing horribly, with the incoherenceof a man just aroused from drunken sleep. Irene moved a few steps to meet Dalroy. Her face was marble white, her eyes strangely dilated.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“No. And you?”
“Untouched, thanks to you. But those brutes have killed poor Madame Joos!”
The wounded Uhlan was stretched between them. He stirred convulsively, and groaned. Dalroy looked at the sword which he still held. He resisted a great temptation, and sprang over the prostrate body. He was about to say something when a ghastly object staggered past. It was the man who received the sabre-cut, which had gashed his shoulder deeply.
“Oh, mon Dieu!” he screamed. “Oh, mon Dieu!”
He may have been making for some burrow. They never knew. He wailed that frenzied appeal as he shambled on—always the same words. He could think of nothing else but the last cry of despairing humanity to the All-Powerful.
Owing to the flight of the cavalry, Dalroy imagined that some body of allied troops, Belgian or French, was advancing from Namur, so he did not obey his first impulse, which was to enter the nearest house and endeavour to get away through the gardens or other enclosures in rear.
He glanced at the hapless body on the cart,and saw by the eyes that life had departed. Léontine was sobbing pitifully. Maertz, having recovered his senses, was striving to calm her. But Joos remained silent; he held his wife’s limp hand, and it was as though he awaited some reassuring clasp which should tell him that she still lived.
Dalroy had no words to console the bereaved old man. He turned aside, and a mist obscured his vision for a little while. Then he heard the wounded German hiccoughing, and he looked again at the sword, because this was the assassin who had foully murdered a gentle, kind-hearted, and inoffensive woman. But he could not demean himself by becoming an executioner. Richly as the criminal deserved to be sent with his victim to the bar of Eternal Justice, the Englishman decided to leave him to the avengers coming through the town.
The shooting drew nearer. A number of women and children, with a few men, appeared. They were running and screaming. The first batch fled past; but an elderly dame, spent with even a brief flurry, halted for a few seconds when she saw the group near the dog-team.
“Henri Joos!” she gasped. “And Léontine! What, in Heaven’s name, are you doing here?”
It was Madame Stauwaert, the Andenne cousin with whom they hoped to find sanctuary.
The miller gazed at her in a curiously abstracted way. “Is that you, Margot?” he said.“We were coming to you. But they have wounded Lise. See! Here she is!”
Madame Stauwaert looked at the corpse as though she did not understand at first. Then she burst out hysterically, “She’s dead, Henri! They’ve killed her! They’re killing all of us! They pulled Alphonse out of the house and stabbed him with a bayonet. They’re firing through the openings into the cellars and into the ground-floor rooms of every house. If they see a face at a bedroom window they shoot. Two Germans, so drunk that they could hardly stand, shot at me as I ran. Ah, dear God!”
She swayed and sank in a faint. The flying crowd increased in numbers. Some one shouted, “Fools! Be off, for your lives! Make for the quarries.”
Dalroy decided to take this unknown friend’s advice. The terrified people of Andenne had, at least, some definite goal in view, whereas he had none. He lifted Madame Stauwaert and placed her beside the dead body on the cart.
“Come,” he said to Maertz, “get the dogs into a trot.—Léontine, look after your father, and don’t lose sight of us!”
He grasped Irene by the arm. The tiny vehicle was flat and narrow, and he was so intent on preventing the unconscious woman from falling off into the road that he did not miss Joos and his daughter until Irene called on Maertz to stop. “Where are the others?” she cried. “We must not desert them.”
In the midst of a scattered mob came the laggards. Joos was not hurrying at all. He was smiling horribly. In his hand he held a large pocket-knife open. “It was all I had,” he explained calmly. “But Margot said Lise was dead, so it did his business.”
“I’m glad,” said Dalroy. “It was your privilege. But you must run now, for Léontine’s sake, as she will not leave you, and the Germans may be on us at any moment.”
Luckily, the stream of people swerved into a by-road; the “quarries” of which some man had spoken opened up in the hillside close at hand. On top were woods, and a cart-track led that way at a sharp gradient. Dalroy assisted the dogs by pushing the cart, and they reached the summit. Pausing there, while Irene and the weeping Léontine endeavoured to revive Madame Stauwaert, to whom they must look for some sort of guidance as to their next move, he went to the lip of the excavation, and surveyed the scene.
Dusk was creeping over the picturesque valley, but the light still sufficed to reveal distances. The railway station, with all the houses in the vicinity, was on fire. Nearly every dwelling along the Namur road was ablaze; while the trim little farms which rise, one above the other, on the terraced heights of the right bank of the Meuse seemed to have burst into flame spontaneously. Seilles, too, on the opposite bank, was undergoing the same process of wantondestruction; but, a puzzling thing, rifles and machine-guns were busy on both sides of the river, and the flashes showed that a sharp engagement was taking place.
A man, carrying a child in his arms, who had come with them, was standing at Dalroy’s elbow. He appeared self-possessed enough, so the Englishman sought information.
“Are those Belgian troops in Seilles?” he inquired.
The man snorted. “Belgians? No! They retreated to Namur this morning. That is a Bavarian regiment shooting at Brandenburgers in Andenne. They are all mad drunk, officers and men. They’ve been here since eleven o’clock, first Uhlans, then infantry. The burgomaster met them fairly, not a shot was fired, and we thought we were over the worst. Then, as you see, hell broke loose!”
Such was the refuge Andenne provided on Monday, 20th August. Hell—by order!
The stranger, a Monsieur Jules Pochard, proved a most useful friend. In the first instance, he was a cool-headed person, who did not allow imagination to run riot. “No,” he said, when questioned as to the chance of reaching Namur by a forced march along country lanes, “every road in that section of the province is closed by cavalry patrols. You cannot avoid them, monsieur. Come with me to Huy, and you’ll be reasonably safe.”
“Why safer in Huy than here, or anywhere else where these brutes may be?”
“Huy has been occupied by the Germans since the 12th, and is their temporary headquarters. From what I gather, they usually spare such towns. That is why we never dreamed of Andenne being sacked.”
Dalroy remembered the aged curé’s exposition ofKulturas a policy. “Is this sort of thing going on generally, then?” he asked.
Monsieur Pochard was a Frenchman. He raised his eyebrows. “Where can you have been, monsieur, not to know what has happened at Liège, Visé, Flemelle Grande, Blagny Trembleur, and a score of other places?”
“Visé!” broke in the cracked, piping voice of Joos. “What’s that about Visé?”
“It is burnt to the ground, and nearly all the inhabitants killed.”
“Is anything said of a fat major named Busch, whom Henri Joos the miller stuck with a fork?”
“A Prussian, do you mean?”
“Ay. One of the same breed—a Westphalian.”
“I haven’t heard.”
“He tried to assault my daughter, so I got him. The second one, a Uhlan, killed my wife, and I gothimtoo. I cut his throat down there in the main street. It’s easy to kill Germans. They’re soft, like pigs.”
Though Joos’s half-demented boasting was highly injudicious, Dalroy did not interfere. He was in a mood to let matters drift. They could not well be worse. He had tried to control the course of events in so far as they affected his own and Irene Beresford’s fortunes, but had failed lamentably. Now, fate must take charge.
Pochard’s comment was to the point, at any rate. “I congratulate you, monsieur,” he said. “I’ll do a bit in that line myself when this little one is lodged with his aunt in Huy. If every Belgian accounts for two Prussians, you’ll hold them till the French and English join up.”
“Do you know for certain where the English are?” put in Dalroy eagerly.
“Yes, at Charleroi. The French are in Namur. Come with me to Huy. A few days, and thesales Albocheswill be pelting back to the Rhine.”
For the second time Dalroy heard a slang epithet new to him applied to the Germans. He little guessed how familiar the abbreviated French form of the word would become in his ears. Briton, Frenchman, Slav, and Italian have cordially adopted “Boche” as a suitable term for the common enemy. It has no meaning, yet conveys a sense of contemptuous dislike. Stricken France had no heart for humour in 1870. The merciless foe was then a “Prussian”; in 1914 he became a “Boche,” and the change held a comforting significance.
Dalroy, of course, did not share the Frenchman’s opinion as to the speedy discomfiture of the invader; but night was falling, the offer of shelter was too good to be refused. Nevertheless, he was careful to reveal a real difficulty. “Unfortunately, we have a dead woman in the cart,” he said. “Madame Stauwaert, too, is ill, but she has recovered from a fainting fit, I see.”
“Ah, poor Stauwaert!” murmured the other. “A decent fellow. I saw them kill him. And that’s his wife, of course. I didn’t recognise her before.”
Dalroy was relieved to find that the Frenchmanand the bereaved woman were friends. He had not forgotten the priest’s statement that there would be a spy in every group in that part of Belgium. Later he ascertained that Monsieur Pochard was a well-to-do leather merchant in Andenne, who, like many others, refused to abandon a long-established business for fear of the Germans; doubtless he was destined to pay a heavy price for his tenacity ere the war ended. He behaved now as a true Samaritan, urging an immediate move, and promising even to arrange for Madame Joos’s burial. Dalroy helped him to carry the child, a three-year-old boy, who was very sleepy and peevish, and did not understand why he should not be at home and in bed.
Joos suffered them to lead him where they listed. He walked by the side of the cart, and told “Lise” how he had dealt with the Uhlan. Léontine sobbed afresh, and tried to stop him, but he grew quite angry.
“Why shouldn’t she know?” he snapped. “It is her affair, and mine. You screamed, and turned away, but I hacked at him till his wind-pipe hissed.”
Monsieur Pochard brought them to Huy by a rough road among the hills.
It was a dreadful journey in the gloaming of a perfect summer’s evening. The old man’s ghoulish jabbering, the sobs of the women, the panting of two exhausted dogs, and the wailing of the child, who wanted his father’s armsround him rather than a stranger’s, supplied a tragic chorus which ill beguiled thatVia Dolorosaalong the heights of the Meuse.
Irene insisted on taking the boy for a time, and the youngster ceased his plaint at once.
“That’s a blessed relief,” she confided to Dalroy. “I’m not afflicted with nerves, but this poor little chap’s crying was more than I could bear.”
“He is too heavy that you should carry him far,” he protested.
“You’re very much of a man, Arthur,” she said quietly. “You don’t realise, I suppose, that nature gives us women strong arms for this very purpose.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. The fact is, I’m worried. I have a doubt at the back of my head that we ought to be going the other way.”
“Which other way?”
“In precisely the opposite direction.”
“But what can we do? At what stage in our wanderings up to this very moment could we have parted company with our friends? Do you know, I have a horrible feeling that we have brought a good deal of avoidable misery on their heads? If we hadn’t gone to themill——”
“They would probably all have been dead by this time, and certainly both homeless and friendless,” he interrupted. Then he began telling her the fate of Visé, but was brought up short by an imperative whisper from Pochard.They were talking English, without realising it, and Huy was near.
“And why carry that sword?” added the Frenchman. “It is useless, and most dangerous. Thrust it into a ditch.”
Dalroy obeyed promptly. He had thoughtlessly disregarded the sinister outcome if a patrol found him with such a weapon in his hand.
They came to Huy by a winding road through a suburb, meeting plenty of soldiers strolling to and from billets. Luck befriended them at this ticklish moment. None saw a little party turning into a lane which led to the back of the villa tenanted by Monsieur Pochard’s married sister. This lady proved both sympathetic and helpful. The cart, with its sad freight, was housed in a wood-shed at the bottom of the garden, and the dogs were stabled in the gardener’s potting-shed.
“The ladies can share my bedroom and my daughter’s,” she said. “You men must sleep in the greenhouse, as every remaining room is filled with Uhlans. Their supper is ready now, but there is plenty. Come and eat before they arrive. They left on patrol duty early this morning.”
And that is where the fugitives experienced a stroke of amazing good fortune. That particular batch of Uhlans never returned. It was supposed that they were cut off while scouting along the Tirlemont road. Apparently theirabsence only contributed to an evening of quiet talk and a night of undisturbed rest. In reality, it saved the lives of the whole party, including the hostess and her family.
Early next morning Monsieur Pochard interviewed an undertaker, and Madame Joos was laid to rest in the nearest cemetery. Maertz, Madame Stauwaert, and Léontine attended the funeral. Joos showed signs of collapse. His mind wandered. He thought his wife was living, and in Verviers. They encouraged the delirium, and dosed him with a narcotic.
Irene helped in the kitchen, and Dalroy dug the garden. Thus, the confederacy remained split up during the morning, and was not noticed by an officer who came to inquire about the missing Uhlans.
About noon Monsieur Pochard drew Dalroy aside. “Monsieur,” he said, and his face wore anxious lines, “last night the old man implied that he was Henri Joos, of Visé. No, please listen. I don’t want to be told. I can only give you certain facts, and leave you to draw your own conclusions. Active inquiries are being made by the authorities for Henri Joos, Elisabeth Joos, Léontine Joos, their daughter, and Jan Maertz, all of Visé. With them are an Englishwoman aged twenty, and an English officer named Dalroy, both dressed as Belgian peasants. The appended descriptions seem to be remarkably accurate, and a reward of one thousand marks is offered for their capture.”
“They may be willing to pay double the price for freedom,” said Dalroy.
The Frenchman was not offended. He realised that this was not a suggestion of a personal bribe.
“You have not heard all,” he continued. “These people were traced to Verviers, but the trail was lost after Maertz bought a cart and a dog-team in that town three days ago. Unfortunately, some Uhlans, passing through Andenne last night, have reported the presence of just such a party on the main road. Other soldiers believe they saw a similar lot entering Huy after dark, and the burgomaster is warned that the strictest search must be made among refugees at Huy. To make sure, a German escort will assist. It is estimated that Joos and the others will be caught, because they will probably depend on alaisser passerissued in Argenteau under false names, which are known. Joos figures as Wilhelm Schultz, for instance. Don’t look so surprised, monsieur. The burgomaster is my brother-in-law’s partner. He will not reach this quarter of Huy till half-past three or four o’clock.”
“But there is the record of Madame Joos’s burial,” put in Dalroy instantly.
“No. The poor creature remains a ‘woman unknown, found dead.’ The Germans don’t worry about such trifles. But, by a strange coincidence, Madame Stauwaert practically takes her place for identification purposes. Bythe mercy of Providence, no German soldier was in this house last night, or he would now be the richer by a thousand marks. The notice is placarded at theKommandantur, and is being read by the multitude.”
“We shall not bring further trouble on a family which has already run grave risk in our behalf,” vowed Dalroy warmly. “We must scatter at once, and, if caught, suffer individually.”
“I was sure you would say that, monsieur; but sworn allies carry friendship to greater lengths. Now, let us take counsel. Madame Stauwaert can remain here. Fifty people in Huy will answer for her. My sister can hire a servant, Léontine. If Joos is tractable he can lodge in safety with some cottagers I know. Maertz wishes to join the Belgian army, and you the British; while that charming young lady will want to get to England. Well, we may be able to contrive all these things. I happen to be a bit of an antiquary, and Huy owns more ruined castles and monasteries than any other town of similar size in Belgium, or in the world, I imagine. Follow my instructions to the letter, and you will cheat the Germans yet. They are animals of habit and cast-iron rule. When searching for six people they will never look for one or two. Yet it would be folly if you and mademoiselle wandered off by yourselves in a strange country. Then, indeed, even German official obtuseness might show aspark of real intelligence; whereas, by gaining a few days, who knows whether your armies may not come to you, rather than you go to them?”
The good-hearted Frenchman’s scheme worked without a hitch. The cart was broken up for firewood, the harness burnt, and the dogs taken a mile into the country by Maertz, who sold them for a couple of francs, and came back to a certain ruined priory by a roundabout road.
Irene and Dalroy had gone there already. The place lay deep in trees and brushwood, and was approachable by a dozen hidden ways. Although given over to bats and owls, its tumbledown walls contained one complete room, situated some twenty feet above the ground level, and reached by a winding staircase of stone slabs, which looked most precarious, but proved quite sound if used by a sure-footed climber.
Here, then, the three dwelt eleven weary days. During daylight their only diversion was the flight of hosts of aeroplanes toward the French frontier. Twice they saw Zeppelins. For warmth at night they depended on horse-rugs and bundles of a species of bracken which throve among the piles of stones. They were well supplied with food, deposited at dusk in a fosse, and obtained when the opening bars of “La Brabançonne” were whistled at a distance. The air itself was a guarantee that no Germanwas near, because the Belgian national anthem is not pleasing to Hun ears.
A typed note in the basket formed their sole link with the outer world. And what momentous issues were conveyed in the briefest of sentences!
“Namur has fallen after a day’s bombardment by a new and terrible cannon.”
“Brussels has capitulated without resistance.”
“After a fierce battle, the French and English have retired from Charleroi and Mons.”
“The retreat continues. France is invaded. Valenciennes has fallen.”
On the eleventh morning Dalroy hid among the bushes until the daily basket was brought. Monsieur Pochard himself was the go-between. He feared lest Léontine would contrive to meet Maertz, so the girl did not know where her lover was hidden.
The Frenchman started visibly when Dalroy’s voice reached him; but the latter spoke in a tone which would not carry far. “I’m sorry to seem ungrateful,” he said, “but we are growing desperate. Do us one last favour, monsieur, and we impose no more on your goodness. Tell me where and when we can cross the Meuse, and the best route to take subsequently. Sink or swim, I, at any rate, must endeavour to reach England, and mademoiselle is equally resolved to make the attempt.”
“I don’t blame you,” came the sorrowful reply.“This is going to be a long war. Twenty years of deadly preparation are bearing fruit. I am sick with anxiety. But I dare not loiter in this neighbourhood, so, as to your affair, my advice is that you cross the Meuse to-morrow in broad daylight. The bridge is repaired, and no very strict watch is kept. Make for Nivelles, Enghien, and Oudenarde. The Belgians hold the Antwerp-Gand-Roulers line, but are being driven back daily. I have been thinking of you. If you delay longer you will—at the best—be imprisoned in Belgium for many months. Are you determined?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want money?”
“We have plenty.”
“Farewell, then, and may God protect you!”
“Is there no chance of nearing the British force?” was Dalroy’s final and almost despairing question.
“Not the least. You would be following on the heels of a quick-moving and victorious army. Progress is slower toward the coast. You have a fighting chance that way, none the other. Good-bye, monsieur.”
“Good-bye, best of friends!”
The sudden collapse of Namur, and the consequent failure of the Anglo-French army’s initial scheme, had served to alter this shrewd man’s opinion completely. His confidence was gone, his nerve shaken. The pressure of the jack-boot was heavy upon him. Dalroy wascertain that he walked away with a furtive haste, being in mortal fear lest the people he had helped so greatly might put forth some additional request which he dared not grant.
Next morning they left the priory grounds separately, and strolled into the town, keeping some fifty yards apart. It was only after a struggle that Jan Maertz relinquished the notion of trying to see Léontine before going from Huy, but the others convinced him that he might imperil both the girl and their benefactors. As matters stood, her greatest danger must have nearly vanished by this time; it would be a lamentable thing if her lover were arrested, and it became known that he had visited the villa.
They crossed the river on pontoons. The Germans were already rebuilding the stone bridge. They seemed to have men to spare for everything. That the bridge was being actually rebuilt, and not made practicable by timber-work only, impressed Dalroy more forcibly than any other fact gleaned during his Odyssey in a Belgium under German rule. There was no thought of relinquishing the occupied territory, no hint of doubt that it might be wrested from their clutch in the near future. He noticed that the post-office, the railway station, the parcels vans, even the street names, were Germanised. He learnt subsequently that the schools had been taken over by German teachers, while the mere sound of French in ashop or public place was scowled at if not absolutely forbidden.
There were not many troops on the roads, but crowded troop-trains passed on both sides of the Meuse, and ever in the same direction. Two long hospital trains came from the south-west, and Dalroy knew whatthatmeant. Another long train of closed wagons, heavily laden, as a panting engine testified, perplexed him, however. He spoke of it to Maertz, the three being on the road in company as they climbed the hill to Heron, and the carter promptly sought information from a farmer.
The man eyed them carefully. “Where are you from?” he demanded in true Flemish.
“What has that to do with it?” grinned Maertz, in the samepatois.
The questioner was satisfied. He jerked a thumb toward the French frontier. “Dead uns!” he said. “They’re killing Germans like flies down yonder. They can’t bury them—haven’t time—so they tie the corpses together, slinging four on a pole for easy handling, ship them to Germany, and chuck them into furnaces.”
“So,” guffawed Maertz, “the swine know where they are going then!”
To Dalroy’s secret amazement, Irene, who understood each word, laughed with the others. Campaigning had not coarsened, but it had undeniably hardened her nature. A month ago she would have shuddered at sight of these duntrucks, with their ghastly freight. Now, so long as they only contained Germans, she surveyed them with interest.
“Allowing forty bodies to one wagon,” she said, “there are over a thousand dead men in that train alone.”
The farmer spat approval. “I’ve been busy, and have missed some; but that’s the tenth lot which has gone east this morning,” he remarked cheerfully.
“Is the road to Nivelles fairly open?” Dalroy ventured to inquire.
“One never knows. Anyhow, always give the next village as your destination. If doubtful, travel by night.”
This counsel was well meant. In the silent bitterness of hours yet to come, Dalroy recalled it, and wished he had profited by it.
Roughly speaking, they had set out on a fifty miles’ tramp, which the men could have tackled in two days, or less. But the presence of Irene lowered the scale, and Dalroy apportioned matters so that twelve miles daily formed their programme, with, as theentrepreneurssay, power to increase or curtail. Thus, that first afternoon, the date being September 2nd, they pulled up at Gembloux, quite a small place, finding supper and beds in a farm beyond the village.
Next day they pushed ahead through Nivelles, and entered the forest of Soignies, that undulating woodland on which Wellington depended for the protection of a dangerous flank duringthe unavoidable retreat to the coast if Napoleon had beaten the British army at Waterloo.
Dalroy explained the Iron Duke’s strategy to Irene as they paced a road which provides an ideal walking tour.
“That a General was not worth his salt who did not secure the track of his army if defeated was one of his fixed principles,” he said. “He would never depart from it, and his dispositions at Waterloo were based on it. In fact, his solicitude in that respect nearly caused a row between him and Blücher.”
“Let me see,” mused the girl aloud. “The Germans have never fought the British in modern times until this war.”
“That is correct.”
“And how far away is Mons?”
Dalroy smiled at the thought which had evidently occurred to her.
“We are now just half-way between Mons and Waterloo. Each is about ten miles distant.”
“We were allied then with the Belgians, Germans, and Russians against the French. Now we have joined the Belgians, French, and Russians against the Germans. It sounds like counting in a game of cribbage. A hundred years from to-day our combination may be with the Belgians, Germans, and French against the Russians.”
“You mustn’t even hint treason against our present Allies,” he laughed.
“What are Allies? Of what avail are treaties? You men have mismanaged things woefully. It is high time women took a lead in governing.”
“Awful! I do verily believe you are a suffragette.”
“I am. During what periods has England been greatest? In the reigns of Elizabeth and Victoria.”
“Why leave out poor Queen Anne?”
“She was a very excellent woman. As soon as she came to the throne she declared her resolution ‘not to follow the example of her predecessors in making use of a few of her subjects to oppress the rest.’ The common people don’t err in their estimate of rulers, and they knew what they were about in christening her ‘Good Queen Anne.’”
“Now I’m sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“You have never told me what you were doing in Berlin.”
“You haven’t asked me,” she broke in.
“Did it matter? I——”
Irene’s intuition warned her that this harmless chatter had swung round with lightning rapidity to a personal issue. Sad to relate, she had not washed her face or hands for eleven days, so a blush told no tales; but she interrupted again rather nervously, “What is it you are sure of?”
“You must have been a governess-companionin some German family of position. I can foresee a trying future. I must brush up my dates, or lose caste forever. Isn’t there a doggerel jingle beginning:
“In fifty-five and fifty-fourCame Cæsar o’er to Britain’s shore?
“In fifty-five and fifty-fourCame Cæsar o’er to Britain’s shore?
“If I learn it, it may save me many a trip.”
“Here, you two,” growled Jan Maertz, “talk a language a fellow can understand.”
The road was deserted save for themselves, and the others had unconsciously spoken English. Dalroy turned to apologise to their rough but trusty friend, and thus missed the quizzical and affectionate glance which Irene darted at him. She was still smiling when next he caught her eye.
“What is it now?” he asked.
“I was thinking how difficult it is to see a wood for the trees,” she replied.
Maertz took her literally.
“I’ll be glad when we’re in the open country again, mademoiselle,” he said. “I don’t like this forest. One can’t guess what may be hiding round the corner.”
Yet they stopped that night at Brainé le Comte, and crossed Enghien next day without incident. It is a pity that such a glorious ramble should be described so baldly. In happier times, when Robert Louis Stevenson took that blithe journey through the Cevennes with a donkey, a similar excursion produced abook which will be read when the German madness has long been relegated to a detested oblivion. But Uhlan pickets and “square-head” sentries supply wretched sign-posts in a land of romance, and the wanderers were now in a region where each kilomètre had to be surveyed with caution.
Maertz owned an aunt in every village, and careful inquiry had, of course, located one of these numerous relatives in Lierde, a hamlet on the Grammont-Gand road. Oudenarde was strongly held by the enemy, but the roads leading to Gand were the scene of magnificent exploits by the armoured cars of the Belgian army. Certain Belgian motorists had become national heroes during the past fortnight. An innkeeper in Grammont told with bated breath how one famous driver, helped by a machine-gun crew, was accounting for scores of marauding cavalrymen. “The English and French are beaten, but our fellows are holding them,” he said with a fine air. “When you boys get through you’ll enjoy life. My nephew, who used to be a greatchasseur, says there is no sport like chasing mounted Boches.”
This frank recognition of Dalroy as one of the innumerable young Belgians then engaged in crossing the enemy’s lines in order to serve with their brothers was an unwitting compliment to a student who had picked up the colloquial phrases and Walloon words in Maertz’s uncouth speech. A man who looked like anunkempt peasant should speak like one, and Dalroy was an apt scholar. He never trod on doubtful ground. Strangers regarded him as a taciturn person, solely because of this linguistic restraint. Maertz made nearly all inquiries, and never erred in selecting an informant. The truth was that German spies were rare in this district. They were common as crows in the cities, and on the frontiers of Belgium and France, but rural Brabant harboured few, and that simple fact accounts for the comparatively slow progress of the invaders as they neared the coast.
It was at a place called Oombergen, midway between Oudenarde and Alost, that the fugitives met the Death’s-Head Hussars. And with that ill-omened crew came the great adventure.
Had Dalroy followed his own plans, supported as they were by the well-meant advice tendered by the farmer of the Meuse valley, he might have led his companions through the final barrier without incurring any risk at all comparable with the hair’s-breadth escapes of Visé, Argenteau, Andenne, and Huy.
But the weather broke. Rain fell in torrents, and Irene’s presence was a real deterrent to spending a night in a ditch or lurking in the depths of a wood till dawn. Maertz, too, jubilant in the certainty that the Belgian outposts were hardly six miles distant, advocated the bold policy of a daylight march. Still, there was no excuse for Dalroy, who knew that patrols in an enemy’s country are content to stand fast by night, and scout during the day. Unluckily, Irene was eager as their Belgian friend to rush the last stage. She was infected by the prevalent spirit of the people. Throughout the whole of September these valiant folk in the real Flanders held the Germans rather cheap. They did not realise that outpost affairs are not battles—that a cavalry screen, as its very name implies, is actually of more value in cloakingmovements of armies in rear than in reconnoitring.
Be that as it may, in the late afternoon of 5th September the three were hurrying past some lounging troopers who had taken shelter from the pouring rain in the spacious doorway of a ruined barn, when one man called to them, “Hi! where are you off to?”
They pretended not to hear, whereupon a bullet passed through Dalroy’s smock between arm and ribs.
It was useless to think of bolting from cavalry. They turned at once, hoping that a bold front might serve. This occurred a mile or more from Oombergen. Maertz had “an aunt” in Oosterzeele, the next village, and said so.
“If she’s anything like you, you’re welcome to her; but let’s have a look at your cousin,” grinned the German, striding forward, carbine in hand, and grasping Irene by the shoulder.
“You stop here,Fräulein—or, is itFrau?” he said, with a vilely suggestive leer. “Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. If one of these pig-heads is your husband we can soon make you a widow.”
Now to Irene every German soldier was a boor, with a boor’s vices and limitations. The man, a corporal, spoke and acted coarsely, using theargotof the barrack-room, and she was far too frightened to see in his satyr-like features acertain intellectuality. So, in her distress, she blundered twice.
“Leave me alone!” she said shrilly, trying in voice and manner to copy Léontine Joos.
“Now don’t be coy, pretty one,” chuckled the trooper, beginning to urge her forcibly in the direction of the barn.
Dalroy and Jan Maertz had remained stock-still when the hussar came up. Suddenly the Belgian sheered off, and ran like a hare into the dense wood surrounding the small cleared space in which stood the barn. The building had evidently been meant to house stock only. There was no dwelling attached. It had served, too, as a rallying-point during some recent scrimmage. The outer walls were chipped with bullets; the doors had been torn off and burnt; it was typical of Belgium under German rule—a husk given fictitious life by the conqueror’s horses and men.
Irene had seen Jan make off, while Dalroy lurched slowly nearer. She could not hear the fierce whisper which bade their sturdy ally bolt for the trees, and, if he got away, implore a strong Belgian patrol to come to the rescue. But she knew thatsomedaring expedient had been devised on the spur of the moment, and gathered all her resources for an effort to gain time.
The corporal heard Jan break into a run. Letting go the girl, he swung on his heel and raised the carbine.
Dalroy had foreseen that this might happen. With a calm courage that was superb because of its apparent lack of thought, he had placed himself in the direct line of fire. Standing with his hands in his pockets and laughing loudly, he first glanced over his shoulder at the vanishing Maertz, and then guffawed into the hussar’s face.
“He’s done a bunk!” he cried cheerfully. “You said he might go,Herr Unteroffizier, so he hopped it without even saying ‘Auf wieder sehn.’”
Meanwhile, as he was steadily masking the German’s aim, he might have been shot without warning. But the ready comment baffled the other for a few precious seconds, and the men in the barn helped unconsciously by chaffing their comrade.
“You’ve got your hands full with the girl, Franz,” said one.
“What’s she like?” bawled another. “I can only see a pair of slim ankles and a dirty face.”
“That’s all youwillsee, Georg,” said Franz, believing that a scared Belgian peasant had merely bolted in panic. “This little bit is mine by the laws of war.—Here, you,” he added, surveying Dalroy quite amicably, “be off to your aunt! You’ll probably be shot at Oosterzeele; but that’s your affair, not mine.”
“You don’t know my aunt,” said Dalroy.“I’d sooner face a regiment of soldiers than stand her tongue if I go home without her niece.”
If he hoped to placate this swaggering scoundrel by a display of good-humour he failed lamentably. An ugly glint shone in the man’s eyes, and he handled the carbine again threateningly.
“To hell with you and your aunt!” he snarled. “Perhaps you don’t know it, you Flemish fool, but you’re a German now and must obey orders. Cut after your pal before I count three, or I’ll put daylight through you! One,two——”
Then the hapless Irene committed a second and fatal error, though it was pardonable in the frenzy of a tragic dilemma, since the next moment might see her lover ruthlessly murdered. To lump all German soldiers into one category was a bad mistake; it was far worse to change her accent from the crude speech of the province of Liège to the high-sounding periods of Berlin society.
“How dare you threaten unoffending people in this way?” she almost screamed. “I demand that you send for an officer, and I ask the other men of your regiment to bear witness we have done nothing whatsoever to warrant your brutal behaviour.”
The hussar stood as though he, and not Dalroy, had been silenced by a bullet. He listened to the girl’s outburst with an expression ofblank amazement, which soon gave place to a sinister smile.
“Gnädiges Fräulein,” he answered, springing to “attention,” and affecting a conscience-stricken tone, “I cry your pardon. But is it not your own fault? Why should such a charming young lady masquerade as a Belgian peasant?”
On hearing the man speak as a well-educated Berliner, Irene became deathly white under the tan and grime of so many days and nights of exposure. She nearly fainted, and might have fallen had not Dalroy caught her. Even then, when their position was all but hopeless, he made one last attempt to throw dust in the crafty eyes which were now piercing both Irene and himself with the baneful glare of a tiger about to spring.
“My cousin has been a governess in Berlin,” he said deferentially. “She isn’t afraid of soldiers as a rule, but you have nearly frightened her to death.”
Their captor still examined them in a way that chilled even the Englishman’s dauntless heart. He was summing them up, much as a detective might scan the features of a pair of half-recognised criminals to whom he could not altogether allot their proper places in the Rogues’ Gallery.
“You see, she’s ill,” urged Dalroy. “Mayn’t we go? My aunt keeps a decent cellar. I’ll come back with some good wine.”
Never relaxing that glowering scrutiny, thecorporal shouted suddenly, “Come here, Georg!”
The man thus hailed by name strode forward. With him came three others, Irene’s fluent German and the parade attitude assumed by Franz having aroused their curiosity.
“You used to have a good memory for descriptions of ‘wanteds,’ Georg. Can you recall the names and appearance of the English captain and the girl there was such a fuss about at Argenteau a month ago?”
Georg, a strongly-built, rather jovial-looking Hanoverian, grinned.
“Better than leaving things to guess-work, I have it in my pocket,” he said. “I copied it at theKommandantur. A thousand marks are worth a pencilled note, my boy. Halves, if these are they!”
Dalroy knew then that he, and possibly Irene, were doomed. A struggle was impossible. Franz’s reference to Oosterzeele being in German occupation forbade the least hope of succour by a Belgian force. There was a hundred to one chance that Irene’s life might be spared, and he resolved to take it. It was pitiful to feel the girl trembling, and he gave her arm an encouraging squeeze.
Georg was fumbling in the breast of his tunic, when he seemed to realise that it was raining heavily.
“Why the devil stand out here if we’re going to hold a court of inquiry?” he cried. Evidently,the iron discipline of the German army was somewhat relaxed in the Death’s-Head Hussars.
“Go to the barn,” commanded Franz. “And, mind, you pig of an Englishman, no talking till you’re spoken to!”
Dalroy wondered why the man allowed him to assist Irene; but such passing thoughts were as straws in a whirlwind. He bent his wits to the one problem. He was lost. Could he save her? Heaven alone would decide. A poor mortal might only pray for guidance as to the right course.
Inside the tumbledown barn the light was bad, so the prisoners were halted in the doorway, and a score of troopers gathered around. They were not, on the whole, a ruffianly set. Every man bore the stamp of a trained soldier; the device of a skull and cross-bones worked in white braid on their hussar caps gave them an imposing and martial aspect.
“Here you are!” announced the burly Georg, producing a frayed sheet of paper. “Let’s see—there’s six of ’em. Henri Joos, miller, aged sixty-five, five feet three inches. Elizabeth Joos, his wife, aged forty-five. Léontine Joos, daughter, aged nineteen, plump, good-looking, black eyes and hair, clear complexion, red cheeks. Jan Maertz, carter, aged twenty-six, height five feet eight inches, a Walloon, strongly built. Arthur Dalroy, captain in British army, about six feet in height, of athleticphysique, blue eyes, brown hair, very good teeth, regular features. An English girl, name unknown, aged about twenty, very good-looking, and of elegant appearance and carriage. Eyes believed brown, and hair dark brown. Fairly tall and slight, but well-formed. These latter (the English) speak German and French. The girl, in particular, uses good German fluently.”
“Click!” ejaculated Franz, imitating the snapping of a pair of handcuffs. “Shave that fellow, and rig out the lady in her ordinary togs, and you’ve got them to the dots on the i’s. Who are the first two for patrol?”
A couple of men answered.
“Sorry, boys,” went on Franz briskly, “but you must hoof it to Oosterzeele, and lay Jan Maertz by the heels. You saw him, I suppose? You may even pick him up on the road. If you do, bring him back here.—Georg, ride into Oombergen, show an officer that extract from the Argenteau notice, and get hold of a transport. These prisoners are of the utmost importance.”
Irene, who lost no syllable of this direful investigation, had recovered her self-control. She turned to Dalroy. Her eyes were shining with the light which, in a woman, could have only one meaning.
“Forgive me, dear!” she murmured. “I fear I am to blame. I was selfish. I might have savedyou——”
“No, no, none of that!” interrupted the corporal. “You go inside,Fräulein. You can sit on a broken ladder near the door. The horses won’t hurt you.—As for you, Mr. Captain, you’re a slippery fellow, so we’ll hobble you.”
Dalroy knew it was useless to do other than fall in with the orders given. He did not try to answer Irene, but merely looked at her and smiled. Was ever smile more eloquent? It was at once a message of undying love and farewell. Possibly, he might never see her again. But the bitterness of approaching death, enhanced as it was by the knowledge that he should not have allowed himself to drift blindly into this open net, was assuaged in one vital particular. The woman he loved was absolutely safe now from a set of licentious brutes. She might be given life and liberty. When brought before some responsible military court he would tell the plain truth, suppressing only such facts as would tend to incriminate their good friends in Verviers and Huy. Not even a board of German officers could find the girl guilty of killing Busch and his companions, and this, he imagined, was the active cause of the hue and cry raised by the authorities. How determined the hunt had been was shown by the changed demeanour of the corporal. The man was almost oppressed by the magnitude of the capture. Dalroy was convinced that it was not the monetary rewardwhich affected him. Probably this young non-commissioned officer saw certain promotion ahead, and that, to a German, is an all-sufficing inducement.
The prisoner’s hands were tied behind his back, and the same rope was adjusted around waist and ankles in such wise that movement was limited to moderately short steps. But Herr Franz did not hurt him needlessly. Rather was he bent on taking care of him. Throwing a cavalry cloak over the Englishman’s shoulders, he said, “You can squat against the wall and keep out of the rain, if you wish.”
Dalroy obeyed without a word. He felt inexplicably weary. In that unhappy hour body and soul alike were crushed. But the cloud lifted soon. His spirit was the spirit of the immortals; it raised itself out of the slough of despond.
The day was closing in rapidly; lowering clouds and steady rain conspired to rob the sun of some part of his prerogatives. At seven o’clock it would be dark, whereas the almanac fixed the close of day at eight. It was then about half-past six.
Resolutely casting off the torpor which had benumbed his brain after parting from the woman he loved, Dalroy looked about him. The hussars, some twenty all told, reduced now to seventeen, since the messengers had ridden off without delay, were gathered in a knot aroundthe corporal. Some of their horses were tethered in the barn, others were picketed outside.
Scraps of talk reached him.
“This will be a plume in your cap, Franz.”
“A thousand marks, picked up in a filthy hole like this!Almächtig!”
“What are they? Spies?”
“Didn’t you hear? They stabbed Major Busch with a stable fork. Jolly old Busch—one of the best!”
“And bayoneted two officers of the Westphalian commissariat, wounding a third.”
“The devil! Was there a fight?”
“Some of the fellows said Busch and the others must have been drunk.”
“Quite likely. I was drunk every day then.”
A burst of laughter.
“Lucky dog!”
“Ach, was!what’s the good of having been drunk so long ago? There isn’t a bottle of wine now within five miles.”
“Tell us then,Herr Kaporal, do we remain here till dawn?”
Dalroy grew faintly interested. It was absurd to harbour the slightest expectation of Jan Maertz bringing succour, but one might at least analyse the position, though the only visible road led straight to a firing-party.
“Those were our orders,” answered Franz. “Things may be altered now. You fellows haven’t grasped the real value of this cop. It wasn’t stated on the notice, but somebody ofmuch more importance than any ordinary officer was interested in the girl being caught—she far more than the man.”
“Well, well! Tastes differ! A peasant like that!”
“You silly ass, she’s no peasant. That’s the worst of living in a suburb. You acquire no standard of comparison.”
These men were Berliners, and were amused by a sly dig at some locality which, like Koepenick, offered a butt for German humour.
“Hello! isn’t that a car?” said one.
There was silence. The thrumming of a powerful automobile could be heard through the patter of the rain.
“Attention!” growled Franz. A few troopers went to the picketed horses. The others lined up. A closed motor-car arrived. Its brilliant head-lights proclaimed the certain fact that the presence of Belgian troops in that locality was not feared. Dalroy recognised this at once, and forthwith dismissed from his mind the last shred of hope.
The chauffeur was a soldier. By his side sat the usual armed escort. Georg galloped up. Oombergen was only a mile and a half distant, and the road through the wood was in such a condition that the car was compelled to travel slowly.
A cloaked staff-officer alighted. The hussars stood stiff as so many ramrods. The new-comer took their salute punctiliously, but histone in addressing the corporal was far from gracious.
“What’s this unlikely tale you’ve sent in to headquarters?” he demanded harshly.
“I don’t think I’m mistaken,Herr Hauptmann,” was the answer. “I’ve got that English captain and the lady wanted at Visé. They’ve practically admitted it.”
“Where are they?”
“The man is sitting there against the wall. The lady is in the barn.—Stand up, prisoner!”
Franz snatched away the cloak. Dalroy rose to his feet. He was smiling at the ruthlessness of Fate. He was still smiling when Captain von Halwig, of the Prussian Imperial Guard, flashed an electric torch in his face. It was unnecessary, perhaps, to render thus easy the task of recognition. But what did it matter? That lynx of a corporal was sure of his ground, and would refuse to be gainsaid even by a staff-officer and a Guardsman.
Von Halwig’s astonishment seemed to choke back any display of wrath.
“Then it is really you?” he said quietly in English.
“Yes,” replied Dalroy.
The torch was switched off. Dalroy’s eyes were momentarily blinded by the glare, but he heard an ugly chuckle.
“Where is the female prisoner?” said Von Halwig, with a formality that was as perplexing as his subdued manner.
“Here,Herr Hauptmann.”
The two entered the barn. So far as Dalroy could judge, no word was spoken. The torch flared again, remained lighted a full half-minute, and was extinguished.
Von Halwig reappeared, seemed to ponder matters, and turned to the corporal.
“Put the woman in my car,” he said. “Fall in your men, and be ready to escort me back to the village. You’ve done a good day’s work, corporal.”
“Two men have gone in pursuit of Jan Maertz, sir.”
“Never mind. They’ll have sense enough to come on to headquarters if they catch him. How is this Englishman secured?”
The jubilant Franz explained.
“Mount him on one of your horses. The trooper can squeeze in in front of the car. Has the female prisoner a dagger or a pistol?”
“I have not searched her,Herr Hauptmann.”
“Make sure, but offer no violence or discourtesy. No, leave this fellow here at present. I want a few words with him in private. Assemble your men around the car, and take the woman there now.”
Irene was led out. She paused in the doorway, and the corporal thought she did not know what she was wanted for.
“You are to be conveyed in the automobile,Fräulein,” he said.
But she was looking for Dalroy in the gloom. Before anyone could interfere, she ran and threw her arms around him, kissing him on the lips.
“Good-bye, my dear one!” she wailed in a heart-broken way. “We may not meet again on this earth, but I am yours to all eternity.”
“With these words in my ears I shall die happy,” said Dalroy. Her embrace thrilled him with a strange ecstasy, yet the pain of that parting was worse than death. Were ever lovers’ vows plighted in such conditions in the history of this gray old world?
Franz seized the girl’s arm. She knew it would be undignified to resist. Kissing Dalroy again, she whispered a last choking farewell, and suffered her guide to take her where he willed. She walked with stumbling feet. Her eyes were dimmed with tears; but, sustained by the pride of her race, she refused to sob, and bit her lower lip in dauntless resolve not to yield.
The rain was beating down now in heavy gusts. Von Halwig, if he had no concern for the comfort of the troopers, had a good deal for his own.
“Damn the weather!” he grunted. “Come into the bar. You can walk, I suppose?”
He turned on the torch, which was controlled by a sliding button, and saw how the prisoner was secured. Then he flashed the light into the interior of the barn. It was a ramshackleplace at the best, and looked peculiarly forlorn after the rummaging it had undergone since the fight, a recent picket having evidently torn down stalls and mangers to provide materials for a fire. Part of a long sloping ladder had been consumed for that purpose, so that an open trap-door in the boarded floor of an upper storey was inaccessible. The barn itself was unusually lofty, running to a height of twenty feet or more. There were no windows. Some rats, tempted out already by the oats spilled from the horses’ nose-bags, scuttled away from the light. Through the trap-door the noise of the rain pounding on a shingle roof came with a curious hollowness.