ADASHof adventure was to crown Gard Kirtley's farewell to Germany as it had crowned Jim Deming's, but with an ominous wreath of the tragic instead of garlands of the comic. War was at hand, yet even Anderson did not see it plainly enough to report it. War was often in the sky in Germany and often had he been fooled. The Teutons must be sure of victory and, he was positive, would avail themselves of a long summer for their campaign.
In those days of July something peculiar and tense hung over the land, but its sources were untraceable, its form, abstract. The unadvised, ordinary people wiped the sweat from their foreheads and said it must be the heat. Kirtley would not have been expected to interpret Friedrich's surprising engagement in the music ranks of theLandwehras a sign thatwidespread preparations were being made for the fullest onslaught of which the nation could be capable. The Government was, nevertheless, quietly laying its hands on all its young men—even musicians who were blind in one eye and could not see out of it.
Gard was glad to go home through the heart of Germany. Jena, Weimar, Erfurt, Eisenach!—the land of Goethe, Schiller, Luther. While these figures were discarded from the blatant pageantry of the armed Empire, the landmarks associated with them remained to satisfy the vision, and he could tell of them to dear old ignorant Rebner who would be waiting to hear of his beloved Deutschland which existed no more. Afterward, Heidelberg; the trip down the Rhine to the spires of Cologne; and then Aix at the western border, where that august sovereign slept in a haunting majesty, wrapped in the mystic grandeur of the Dark Ages. It was the most fitting and impressive place on the frontier from which to bid adieu to Germania.
In gratitude for his recovery Gard made handsome presents to everyone at Loschwitz, accompanied by the conventionalEdelweiss. Villa Elsa, in turn, was profuse in its expressions and little acts of good will. Herr Bucher gave him a queer pipe, and the boys furnished the smoking tobacco. These gifts were to while away the lost hours on the tour. From Frau came a flask of cognac for use in case he were dizzy on the trains. Fräulein bestowed on him one of her tiny etchings showing the Elbe with the Schiller Garden where all had spent so many evenings.
Gard's route, his through ticket to the sea, his traveling clothing, were subjects of daily conversation at the table. Although the family were entirely obliging, Rudi, odd to say, occupied himself the most about the trip. He seemed wonderfully keyed up and more full of military talk even than usual. He insisted on seeing about time-tables, hotels to be recommended, the favorite dishes and brews to be called for at each stopping place for local tone.
Kirtley was pleased over his friendly attentions. He wished to leave with good feelings all around.
When Rudi helped him get his trunk from the store room, Gard's forgotten passport fell out and excited the other's curiosity.
"I've never seen an American state paperbefore," he remarked, puffing a cigarette. "What a droll looking affair! So different from ours. Would you mind if I just glanced at it?"
"Certainly not." Anderson's suspicions of the young German glanced through Kirtley's mind. But Rudi was a thick-headed boy, and what could he or anyone accomplish with a passport? Gard had scarcely been called upon to use it. It had been treated almost as a blank formality, an empty courtesy.
"You don't have to show it in German towns—only at the frontier? Am I right?" inquired Rudi after he had minutely read it through as if he had been an official.
"Only at the frontier." Gard grew wary. This knowing and recent familiarity was not becoming entirely agreeable. It would be prudent to mystify the son.
"But of course somethingmighthappen in a German town and I might need it. So it's always convenient to have about."
"Where are you going to carry it, then?" pursued the other, handing back the ribboned paper.
"Would you think my grip would be the place?"
"Your grip? Yes, that's just like me. I always shove everything into my grip at last. See here, now. I have none of my papers about me. All in my grip—even in the house." Rudi opened to view his inside coat pocket in testimony, as if he were an important individual. Gard shifted ground again.
"I don't know. I may carry it in my pocket—with my ticket. What if I leave it in my trunk after all? I shall have to open up at the border anyhow."
The subject of the passport kept in Rudi's mind. Three days later he called out to Gard:
"I have been thinking it over and I believe you should carry your passport in your grip. It may slip out of your pocket while you are dozing in the train."
"Danke schoen!" said Gard.
The parents also took great interest in the matter. The paper ought to be examined by the German authorities. Was it not Herr Kirtley's credentials to the German nation? Nothing would answer but that Herr Bucher and Rudolph should take it in town and see that the proper officials were duly cognizant. It was another evidence to Gard that a Teuton is not content until his Government is givenan opportunity to approve. The document seemed so vital to Villa Elsa that Gard mentioned it to Anderson in the way of gossip.
"Don't leave it in your trunk or grip," cautioned the elder. "Keep it on your person. Sew it on your shirt, by golly. One never needs a passport, you know, and then you need it like the devil. I've heard of two or three persons this month who got separated from their passports and were in trouble. Something seems to be really going on under the surface. But spring is the classic time for war as well as love to break out."
Gard decided to follow Anderson's advice and keep the parchment in his innermost pocket. He also checked his trunk through to the frontier, contrary to Rudi's suggestion. He said nothing of these changes, yet he was far from thinking that the hand of the Goth would dare to reach out after him—a friendly foreigner and guest leaving this peaceful hearthstone, so effusive in its amicable leave-takings.
Just before his departure he felt something of a restraint in the household. He attributed it to the social stiffness of the German. This increases when intercourse comes to a point.Affecting moments jolt hard in him—moments when embarrassment is natural to all humans.
At the gate, for the last time, the Herr was energetically smoking his long pipe. The Frau frequently wiped her sweating face with a handkerchief. The boys kept kicking away the dogs whose barking half drowned the parting words. Gard said good-by, too, to the old linden by his window. How one can miss a tree!
And Elsa! He flattered himself she looked a mite regretful that he was going. She was starting for her class when she joined the topsy-turvy group by the gate and waved her creamy hand. Her small straw hat, wreathed fatiguingly in roses, clung desperately to her head in the awkward way German women have of wearing headgear, and made her, despite her blossom-like attractiveness, seem quaint and so truly German like the rest. She looked to Gard as pink and blonde as the year before when he had first been dazzled by her glistening hair.
On crossing the river he could see her moving down their meadow path where Heine had sung to him, her etching materials under herarm. One last look at the row of knightly castles rimming the heights above her and at the storied Elbe at her feet as she hurried along! He gulped down a small something in his throat, and turned his face toward the station.
After all, Dresden had been a year of his life.
ATEisenach, bound for Frankfort, the train guard punched Kirtley's ticket and showed him into a compartment that was empty save for a military figure engaged in reading a large newspaper, holding it firmly with gloved hands before his face. Although the day was warm, an army cap was clapped down low on the head.
Gard sank back on the cushions and closed his eyes. He was somewhat fatigued from having climbed the Wartburg whose castle, famed in the history of Luther, lay asleep there like a long and oddly shaped beetle. He soon fell into a doze. When he became conscious again, his companion's countenance was buried as before in the paper. Underneath it, gray trousers and large boots protruded in Kirtley's direction as if to ward off any familiar approach.
That editorial page must be extensive and absorbing, Kirtley commented to himself as he whiffed the refreshing breeze that came in his window from Hesse close by on the west. In a delicious half-dreaminess he thought the stranger turned the journal and that a reddish, be-whiskered visage, with a flat, wide-lobed nose, popped into view for a second.
The motionless reading, nevertheless, continued for the remainder of the trip. To the sweet July zephyr and the snug landscapes flitting by, the soldier paid no heed. How German this was!—Kirtley mused. The Teutons are a wintry race and often take their summer joys in a hard, hyperborean fashion. He could not but admire this example of physical constraint. The iron rigors of Prussian drill had made the best army in the world.
Or perhaps this was some queer, abnormal chap. Gard remembered fragments of stories he had heard of comic or tragic happenings in the separated, locked compartments of continental trains. But the tales were too vague in his mind to pique any anxiety. He roused himself and took up his German newspaper. Muffled war scares. Always war scares more or less in evidence. How dull the Teutonjournals would be without them! Dog days were coming and brains were no doubt effervescing.
The forty-eight hours in the rich old capital on the Main were full and Kirtley had almost forgotten his peculiar fellow traveler from Eisenach. What was his amazement, after his guard had punched his transportation and closed him into his compartment in the train for Heidelberg, to find the same individual seated alone again in the corner, engrossed in his voluminous and stationary paper!
This began to be disturbing. Gard was not more brave than the average mortal, but fear had not really been born into his bones. Was this some weird affair? Was it a spy at work, combining German earnestness with German farcicalness? The ludicrous extremes of Jim Deming's experience flashed over Kirtley's mind. But he felt as full confidence in his innocence as had Jim, and he had not given a Cinderella party.
It was a short run to the celebrated university town on the Neckar through ancient Hesse. What would Gard do? This was a nonsensical situation. He decided to crack it open, find out what it was all about. Hesummoned his best German and formally addressed a casual remark to the stranger. No answer. He did not hear.
"Oh, deaf! Probably dumb too!" Gard exclaimed to himself. His next move was to step across to the other window for the evident purpose of throwing out something. A lurch of the train caused him to stumble against the high boots. They remained motionless. He discovered that the eyes behind the paper were fixed in a stare.
It was a stuffed figure!
A mere puppet. And yet a thrill of alarm, for the first time, shot through Gard. It was not reassuring. He thought of Rudi. Was this some official prank young Bucher had set going? It would be like him. He must be a spy, as Anderson had insisted. Was the son trying to act with confederates far away over here near the Rhine?
The passport! Rudi and the family knew all about it. Kirtley felt in his inside shirt pocket. He was relieved to find the parchment still there. How foolish he would have been to leave it in his grip, as Rudi had urged! A traveler couldn't be with his grip everymoment. But why was such a paper considered valuable by the Secret Service?
As he returned to his seat, Kirtley gave the legs a kick "just for luck." He could not help laughing. The burlesque! The Germans were certainly a curious people. This was like some fantastic tale of Hoffmann with its marionettes and other childish stuff so dear to the race.
It came over him that this image was thus being conveniently transported from one town to another for some show—some Jarley waxworks. But how, then, about that other form in the train from Eisenach? It had certainly been alive. Had he not seen it turn its paper? Yet, was he sure? He had been half asleep and might have imagined it.
As he revolved the matter in his mind, he was less and less positive. At any rate, how explain the fact that this exact figure had been on the two trains and that each time he had been with it alone? How was it known here what trains he would take? Only the Buchers were advised.
Whether a silly hoax or a performance of the tremendous sleuth system of Germany, Gard was too unsettled to enjoy fully his briefsojourn at Heidelberg. He decided to trip up any pursuers. Instead of resuming by rail his journey to Mannheim, according to that section of his ticket, he took an auto. For every reason that would be pleasanter. He could see to better advantage the far-famed, vine-clad valley of the Neckar where it merges into the wide and noble plains of the Rhine.
From Mannheim he went by boat as proposed. His be-whiskered friend did not put in an appearance and Kirtley congratulated himself on the riddance. The more he reflected, the less he made any sense out of it. Coincidence, practical joke, spy system at white heat, hallucination—all suggestions seemed equally untenable.
At Cologne he found the newspapers full of discussions about war. On the trip he had not read much. He was either sight-seeing, traveling, weary or sleepy. For that matter, the public generally was not aware that fearful hostilities were imminent, and he gave the subject no keen notice.
There is not much to view in the city of odors—Coleridge's city of "two and seventy" smells. Only the cathedral. Although themuseum is mediocre Gard dropped in there at noon to fill in his time. After wandering about he became aware that there was, in the distance, another visitor whose occasional shuffling footsteps first attracted his attention among the eye-obstructing objects. Then he saw, at times, a bulky form bending over some curiosity and contemplating it.
As Kirtley had no companion on his journey, except the military scarecrow, he felt a touch of lonesomeness and was glad when he gradually approached near enough to see that this person was a kindly looking German who had the wondering air of a sight-seer. In their leisurely itineraries they at last met in front of a small bronze copy of a Roman horse marked with italics in Gard's guide book.
The other looked, too, as if he wanted to speak, and his cheerful countenance invited Kirtley's readiness to visit with someone. The stranger was in appearance a prosperous man of about thirty-five, blond, with a very small curling mustache under a small nose. Though he kept smiling he still said nothing, as if doubtful of a first advance.
Gard hesitated, then broke the ice.
"I don't know anything about Romanhorses," he essayed. "I can't tell whether this is a good thing or not." The other was affably relieved and was soon pouring out information about the animal.
"Excuse me," he ventured, "but I raise horses on my estate and I know a little about them. The Roman horse was, of course, smaller, shorter, stockier, than our modern type. Small heads, short necks, built closer to the ground. Just like the Roman himself. This is a splendid example."
Seeing that Gard followed him he began again with:
"Excuse me." And he plunged into a minute, quite exhaustive, discussion of the Latin specimen before them, as they walked round and round to view it from all angles. Kirtley had never before realized there were so many points—fine points—about this familiar quadruped. The German showed why this animal could not speed, could not make nearly as many miles a day as his present successor. But, like the Roman, he had endurance and he was undoubtedly easier to handle. There were the withers, the haunch, the hock, and a score of other features upon which Gard's new acquaintance held forth, introducingalmost every remark with his rather embarrassed "excuse me."
The astonishing Teuton erudition again! Gard had to marvel at it once more. This German was, by rare exception, ingratiating. They finally introduced themselves. Herr Furstenheimer of Wuerttemberg—a farmer. Gard concluded he did not dislike Germans of the south. Their temperaments, voices, manners, are somewhat softer than those of the north.
"I haven't been in Cologne in twenty years," Furstenheimer explained. "Just stopped off. I wonder if you—I see you too are a tourist—happen to be going my way. Excuse me, but that would be odd, wouldn't it?"
"Yes—I'm bound for Rotterdam."
"Rotterdam—- why so am I!" ejaculated the German in a happy moment. "I'm on my way to visit my sister there. I haven't seen her for years. It's really shameful. What train do you take?"
"The two o'clock. I wish you might be going along. One gets somewhat bored traveling alone."
"I'm the same way. I like company. Ihad intended going on to-night, but this Cologne one hears so much about is disappointingly dull, isn't it? Nothing to see." They conversed in German to Kirtley's linguistic satisfaction.
"But I'm stopping off at Aix-la-Chapelle," he had to say. "That's at four. Then I'm taking the late train."
"What is there at Aix? I don't remember."
"I want to see Charlemagne's tomb."
"Oh,so? That can't be duller than Cologne, can it? I don't see that I would be losing any time by it either. I'll tell you what I'll do. If I decide to join you—and I hope I shall—you'll see me at the two o'clock. But if I don't—well, Aufwiedersehen!—let us hope—and I am delighted to have met you."
Gard was gratified when the sociable Wuerttemberger arrived at the station. They went on to Aix in a compartment full ofmilitaires. The countryside, swimming in the sunlight, lay tidy and dimpling in the gentle arms of a peace and prosperity that made the newspaper talk of a campaign seem unreal and preposterous.
Furstenheimer appeared to have only the interests of a small land-holder, and gossiped about his farm, his horses and prices. He was not apparently concerned about the war excitement. Agriculture in Wuerttemberg was more important. Like most Germans, whether there was war or no war, seemed much the same thing with him. Either must be taken naturally and philosophically like a state of Nature. Furstenheimer was not fond of being away from home. To be frank, his brother-in-law in Rotterdam had got into financial straits and his own sister was ill. They had become almost strangers in the long separation. And that was not right,wasit? He really had had to go.
When they arrived at Aix—the German Aachen—they decided to leave their grips in an inn, across the station Platz, so that they could conveniently dine there and be near at hand for the express. Then they started for the cathedral which, with its eleven centuries, loomed under a lofty octagon from a low hill.
INa few minutes the two travelers reached the side portal of the hoary temple. It represented the seat of Charlemagne's political and ecclesiastical power—the capitol of the ancient Franks. The door was closed. A service was being held. It would be out at five o'clock.
To occupy the interim Gard and his new friend went over to the neighboring town hall, located on the site of the emperor's palace. They found it a gay Gothic edifice, the roof flanked by two pert towers. Inside they tiptoed about with silent respect in the immense coronation gallery—one of the largest rooms in the world. Here the medieval German emperors were crowned and imperial diets held.
When the tourists returned to the cathedral they met two young, clean-shaven Germans,obviously travelers like themselves, also wishing to enter. One was tall, the other short. While waiting for the audience to file out, the four struck up a casual conversation about the edifice. Gard, full of his guide book, was pleased to inform them on a subject of which they pleaded ignorance.
They sauntered into the somber, august interior. Above were the impressive stained glass windows, high-flung in the octagon. Kirtley's binocular, strung over his shoulders, came in handy to the others. The Germans seemed somewhat posted on stained glass (Teuton erudition!) and with Gard's binocular they went off for an inspection from the exterior.
He preferred to remain and contemplate alone the solemn scene about him. It was an hour he had looked forward to. He wanted to recall what he had read of this historic spot and the epic and romantic associations here of the most celebrated of Carolingians.
In the mosaic flooring at his feet, as he sat down, was the tombstone which (in the tradition) lies above the imperial victor who sits below waiting with his scepter in his hand and his white beard ever growing—the king of theMiddle Ages. How many, many potentates, great and small, during all the intervening centuries, had bowed their heads and spoken words of reverence in the presence of the only sepulchre remainingin situand intact of the world-conquerors of antiquity! Of all these reputed soliloquies, that of Don Carlos, in the spacious Alexandrines of Victor Hugo in "Hernani," Gard remembered as being the most famous. He had heard what a long and impressive recital it always is as one of the tests of the dramatic actor at the Théâtre Français.
His thoughts ran on. Without Charlemagne's military successes, his widespread reorganizations, the political and civil grandeur of his acts, his picturesque journeys, his union of church and state, what would the Dark Ages have been? In its mountains of fact and luring mists of fable he had stood mighty and solitary, inspiring its imagination, its legends, its superstitions, its songs. He was its compelling figure. He it was who unified medievaldom and laid the bases of what had since governed in western Europe and prevented it from remaining a vast region of large and small tribes fighting among themselves.And he alone, among the powerful military chieftains of the old, old past, had died both peacefully and undefeated.
Why, then, has he faded from view? This was an interesting question to Kirtley. Why has Cæsar so outshone Charlemagne? Why are Homer and Vergil, in comparison, coming ever more to the fore? Why has Dante become the masterly profile of medievalism?
A significant answer had before occurred to Gard. These four personages couldwritemarvelously well while Charlemagne could scarcely even write his name. Had he been a great author, why would not his fame be burning brightly like theirs? In every institution of education their classic language is kept before both youth and professor. Their cults accordingly grow. While the Frank so largely shaped the Middle Ages and furnished leading motives for its background, the Italian merely pictured it.
And yet the latter has become its most distinct luminary. His art has surpassed in renown the medieval sword and crown. His pen is a constant self-advertiser while those emblems of state fall to the ground. Though every spot associated with the lives of Cæsar,of Vergil, of Dante, is sought by student and sage, the tomb of Charlemagne is being forgotten. Who knows that it exists or cares? And is it all because he had no literary skill? A gigantesque character, surrounded by his romantic paladins—Roland, Oliver, Ganelon and the rest—his face turned alike toward west, east and south—to France and Germany and Italy—he nevertheless has long been sinking into the ever-darker shadows of a dulled obscurity....
Gard's friend and the other two Germans presently returned and interrupted his ruminations. They had seen their fill and were anxious to escape from this gray cavern of a dim oblivion. Outdoors the party of four found the sun shining, but rain clouds were hovering in the east. The strangers had plenty of time as they were without a fixed itinerary. They were very agreeable and it was suggested that all dine together. Would not a stroll in the environs be meanwhile a suitable diversion?—out toward the attractive Lousberg and its belvedere?
Herr Furstenheimer had indicated an inquiry to Kirtley as to whether he would like to join the other two. Upon his signifyingaffirmatively, the four walked northward. The flat face of one of the young men Gard fancied he had seen before. It was, however, of a somewhat familiar Teuton variety and lost in the maze of all the German visages he had seen.
They idled along, recounting their exciting experiences in traveling. Gard told of the wax image in the train as the singular incident he had to offer. As it did not appear to appeal to the curiosity of his companions, he dropped the subject. The Germans are used to the grotesque and egregious.
At intervals the company changed about by twos, their hats coming off frequently in the warmth of the evening. On reaching the top of a small ascent, a summer inn there invited to cooling drinks. It was a low-storied, straggling construction, with a large green yard and trees. There were no guests as yet for the approaching meal time.
The cathedral acquaintances took one side of a table under the branches, and the companionable Furstenheimer with Gard faced them. With the beer they began comparing the parts of the world they hailed from. Kirtley belonged to that distant land—America!Incredible! He had traveled so far. It was a country the two newcomers wished to visit. They could not credit the surprising things they had heard concerning the United States. All was so odd there.
The smaller German, with the broad face, having lost no time in being full of compliments about Kirtley's accent, went on:
"You Americans learn our language better than we do yours. I could never get the th in my school. You seem todoeverything so differently in America, too. Now, there's your great game of cards, for instance. I was on a boat once going down the Danube and some of your compatriots were playing it. They called it—ach Gott!—what did they call it?Youknow."
"Poker," said Gard, amused.
"No, that isn't it."
"Bridge."
"No, the devil, why can't I think of it? They played it—if I had a pack of cards I would show you what I mean. You could name it then."
The German called the attendant. The latter did not come. The other hurried into the restaurant and came back waving a deck.
"Now I will try to show you. I can't do it well. I have never seen it but once."
"Monte," said Gard. It was not the name the German recognized. Kirtley laughed over this old county fair acquaintance. Three card monte under the walls of Charlemagne's church! This was bringing the ancient and the modern together with a vengeance. Furstenheimer thought the game was droll. He had never seen any played like that.
"How can that be a game!" he exclaimed—"only three cards! You must have left out something. It looks ridiculous. What's the point?"
"Why, youbet!" cried the dealer who was awkwardly manipulating the cards. The two strangers wagered with each other, and the Wuerttemberger at last got interested and bet first against one, then the other. In a few minutes he had lost two hundred marks to the dealer, and acted as if worried. The dealer won also from his associate, but not so readily.
"A gambler, and playing clumsily to fool me," Gard had promptly said to himself. He endeavored to save his friend from falling deeper into the toils. He nudged him under the table, but the Teuton stupidly understoodnothing. He kept on, more and more distraught, losing money, then groaning about it and wiping his trickling and distressed countenance.
When the dealer finally saw that Kirtley would not wager, he grew noisy.
"Not to play your own national game—is it polite, I say?" He flaunted the cards before Gard.
"I do not bet," Kirtley repeated as pleasantly as he could, and the tall German tried to quiet his mate.
The rain, which had been brewing, presently began to come down and was breaking up the sport. They agreed to dine in the inn and go back to town when the downpour was over. Gard's friend squared accounts—four hundred and eighty marks passed across. He looked unhappy enough. But the dealer was still far from satisfied because the American had not played. The German had won from the other two. Could he not win from an American in an American game? He had been eager to wager at one turn all the money he had gained.
"A pair of cheap gamblers," Gard repeated to himself. He wished his foolish friend fromWuerttemberg had kept out of it. They were here on the edge of a strange city, in an unknown inn, at nightfall. It showed that Furstenheimer was a green country man who, as he admitted, had seldom been away from home. He had not even seen his neighboring Rhine in years.
The rain was now pelting them and they scurried indoors.
THEshort German had worked himself up into an irritable state. He led the way about the arrangements for dining, his tall friend all the while mildly attempting to soothe his ruffled feelings. Furstenheimer, appearing much crest-fallen, meekly followed their wishes.
A private room must be had, the dealer announced. They took a detached one with the door opening out toward the highway. Each one of the three proposed to have a favorite dish from his province.
The little German grew more fussy. He condemned the restaurant manager and got at loggerheads with the waiter. He must at least have a Mecklenburg salad as he came from Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The waiter did not know what it was and the irascible Teuton informed him bluntly that he was aDummkopf. The card player would make it himself and all must do him the honor of eating it. He proclaimed in a loud voice that it was the superior of all salads. He had won at cards, the money stuck out of his pockets. He was triumphant and becoming insolent.
Kirtley wished he were out of this company. He opened the outside door a moment for fresh air. He noticed that the door had a spring lock. The rain was coming down in torrents. And he ought not to abandon his naïve friend.
The repast was begun by drinking the prevailing toast to Der Tag! His companions now talked openly about the threatening war, and Gard, who had not seen a paper since morning, did not know that hostilities were at last in the way of breaking out. From the conversation he could but judge that all Belgium and northern France were to be made German. This seemed simple and inevitable through all the blustering and bragging. England—America—did not appear to cut any figure. They had no armies, hence they were negligible.
When the company got down to the Mecklenburg salad, the clamorous German expatiated about it at length as he began his bustling preparations for its manufacture.
"One of the great points of my salad is plenty of pepper." With a flourish he grabbed the little pepper box to suit the action to the words, and nothing came out. It was empty.
"Waiter, waiter, bring some pepper, you stupidKerl. Don't you know enough to set the table properly?"
Another pepper receptacle was brought, but it would not work. It was stopped up.
"Gott im Himmel! waiter, you idiot, bring somepepperand be quick about it." And the swaggerer began abusing him, the inn and inferentially men who would not wager in a social little card game. The servitor raced in, mad and muttering, and banged down a big can of the much desired condiment. At last, Gott sei Dank! there was pepper by the wholesale. The salad proceeded on its troubled course.
"You like our Germany—yes?" was inserted. Kirtley assured the three that he had had a pleasant year.
"Our Germany is a great country," explained the tall Teuton in a high, cracked voice. "And after the war it will be a muchgreater country." He was flushed with drink like the other two. The Germans lifted their glasses again to Der Tag, and Gard, their guest, joined in half-heartedly. There was this time an ugly firmness showing in the demonstration that he did not fancy. He was frankly uncomfortable. His companions did not like it because he drank sparingly in spite of all the vehement urging.
The salad proved to be a wonderful dish, hot and strong, fit for the iron stomach of a "blond beast." It not only bit but was provocative. In the growing conviviality the subject leaped from salad to cards. The winner took out his money. He began shaking it in Gard's eyes, insisting once more on wagering it that his American friend could not pick the card. With thedemi-tassesand cigars he ordered the deck and table. He started the game, having locked out the blockhead of a waiter and dropped the key into his own pocket.
Gard would not play. His ire was rising. The small German declared himself mistreated. He jumped up from the table and burst out in a tirade against shoddy Americans. This brought each man to his feet. Thedealer, violent and familiar, put his hands on Gard.
"You are a dollar American and dare not bet."
"Please keep your hands off me," cried Kirtley and drew back, shaking with the affront. The German persisted and Gard's football days stood him in good stead. He knocked him down. At this the mask was thrown off.
"Get his passport!" yelled the dealer on the floor. The other two began to draw weapons and started toward Kirtley. He was almost unnerved. His genial Wuerttemberg friend a spy! It was theSecret Service.
As he stepped back, thunderstruck, his hand grazed the big pepper can which had been left on the side table. It sent an inspiration whizzing through his brain. He whisked off its unfastened top, grabbed a handful of pepper, and with a swing of the kind he used to use in his throws from left field to home plate—let go with all his force.
The aim was true. The pepper swept into the eyes and mouths of the two men. The other was half lying on the floor near their feet and he also received a dose. Pepper filledtheir side of the room and blinded them as they sneezed and groped about in pain. Gard bolted for the outer, self-locking door and, almost before he realized it, was out in the highway in the rain, heading away from the city and in the direction of the Dutch border which, he knew, lay not far away.
ITwas an instinctive move to get out of Deutschland—raucous, hostile Deutschland, lying athwart his soul. But his grip? his overcoat? his umbrella? He faced back toward the town. His mind was in a tumult. No, he must make for the frontier at all hazards. The Germans, whenever they recovered, would naturally expect him to return for his articles and would watch them or have them watched. He felt for his passport, money, trunk check. They were safe. He was sure his trunk would be at the border for him. He turned about and began running. The bellowing condition of the agonized sleuths and the locked door would enable him to get a good start under the cover of the darkness and storm.
When almost breathless he stopped running and walked forward rapidly. There wasno travel in his direction. But he had to dodge frequent oncoming vehicles with men and materials of some kind. They were being concentrated at Aix—a main distributing point for the invasion of Belgium.
He was wet through, yet hot as a furnace. The cooling rain was grateful. The loss of his grip and things would be inconvenient, not serious. He began running again. Then he walked as fast as he could. He was more and more convinced that those Germans would count on his going back for his belongings. They would not imagine that a dollar American would leave his possessions and hoof it to the Dutch Limberg on a night like this.
His brain was on fire. He thought of everything. Furstenheimer had been a trailing sleuth. He had fooled Kirtley completely. It was a masterly piece of work. Gard metaphorically took off his hat to the German Secret Service. Notwithstanding the Jim Deming episode and Anderson's animadversions, this had been a highly expert demonstration of the art.
Gard's mind went over his whole trip from Eisenach, trying to find where his suspicions should have been more aroused. He coulddiscover no loophole where any unflattering dullness on his part was particularly at fault. He had made rather the most advances at Cologne to the self-styled Furstenheimer with his Roman horse.
How casually, too, the two confederates had been picked up at the cathedral! Their intelligent interest in stained glass! Very clever. All had been wonderfully clever. He now saw that when Furstenheimer left him at Cologne to decide about joining him, and also when the three had gone off to inspect the windows, there had been ample time to perfect their scheme.
His passport! What on earth could they want of that! In the German way they had used a steam hammer to crack a hickory nut. No one in 1914 had an inkling of what service American passports were to be to the Kaiser's Government. The world was soon to rub its eyes over Germany's treacherous, fiendish, employment of chemicals both on documents and on humans. Lackadaisical mankind did not then dream of the thoroughness and elaboration with which Deutschland was preparing her many deep and diabolical designs.
Toward dawn Gard, pretty well winded and in a bath of perspiration, trudged along more slowly while his thoughts streamed precipitately ahead under the pressure of the stupefying developments. He now knew who the little German was. He was that rigid, whiskered, military person in the train from Eisenach! The same flat, wide-lobed nose. He had not guessed it before because the face, clear of a beard, had really suggested in Aix (he now realized) that of the typical shaven Teuton waiter. But why had the spy traveled in such a stiff and mysterious fashion? Likely to locate the passport—find out whether it was then being carried in the grip or on Kirtley's person. In some way—probably from the manner in which the grip had been handled—the sleuth had convinced himself it was kept in a pocket.
Although Gard could not clearly make it out, the puppet must have been an ingenious device to mislead. The ridiculous card dealer, going through all his mock part with such desperate earnestness, could very well have conceived this eccentric project. Would anyone outside Germany have believed in such use of a stuffed figure? The maneuver succeeded ina fashion, for Gard had not been as shrewd as he imagined in taking the auto from Heidelberg. He may have caused a change in tactics, but he had simply fallen into the hands of Furstenheimer in the museum. The leisurely stroll, the game of cards, the badgering over the betting, everything, had been fully worked out. Somehow, through it all, they were to deprive him of his state paper—likely when he had become intoxicated, as was evidently planned.
But the revelation about the Buchers! That was the finishing blow. "Dastards!" Gard hurled out the word. It was not only Rudi but his parents who had followed his leadership. The son's surprising concern over the passport, their insistence on seeing about his route and his ticket, Rudi's persistence about suggestions for carrying the document—all was now plain. It must be that war was coming and Rudi knew it.
Dastards! To betray their guest, to cause him to go through this miserable experience, endanger his health when he had lately been in a sick bed! Their kind hospitality, their flush demonstrations of friendliness, their little presents! This was the final mark that,to Gard Kirtley, branded the German as only a partly reclaimed Goth.
Perhaps the atmosphere of restraint he had detected in the Buchers at the last, amid all their cordial expressions and deeds, was due to the changed rôle they then knew they were playing as against an American "pig." At their frontier all human relations—obligations, honor, amicability, trust, good faith, religion—were exchangeable for brutality and dastardly brutality.
Yet who in 1914 would have believed such things? It was the case of old Rome asleep, with barbarians swarming in Europe. Gard kept coming back to the sole word for it all—Hun!—in the Anderson definition.
And what to do with the Huns—about them? Can the world ever get on a genuine, fraternal basis for living with them? Can they ever be made to become like other people? These questions kept surging through his mind as he hurried along.
When Holland was reached that morning, his passport was declared impeccable and his faithful trunk caused him no trouble. Although the war excitement was seizing that region he fortunately met no delay in gettingto the coast. Once out of Deutschland he felt amazingly well despite the weariness of his exhausting night. He concluded that the vigorous exercise and sweating he had been through had steamed out of him the vileness he had found in Germany. It acted like a rejuvenating process. Gard now seemed to himself like a clean, new man. Hewasto be a new man.