In Secret

"That," said McKay, coldly, "is a lie!"

"What! You offer a Swiss officer such an injury--"

"Yes; and I may add an insulting bullet to the injury in another minute. You've lied to me. I have already done what you say is an impossibility. I have reached the plateau below Les Errues by way of this forest. And I'm going there again, Swiss or no Swiss, Hun or no Hun! And if the Boche do drive me out of this forest into the east, where you say there is no water to be found among the brush and bowlders, and where, at last, you say I shall stand with my back to the last sheer precipice, then tell your observation post on the white shoulder of Thusis to turn their telescopes on me!"

"In God's name, for what purpose?"

"To take a lesson in how to die from the man your nation has betrayed!" drawled McKay.

Then, lying flat, he levelled his pistol, supporting it across the palm of his left hand.

"Yellow-hair?"' he said in a guarded voice, not turning.

"Yes, Kay."

"Slip the pack over your shoulders. Take the pigeon and the rifle. Be quick, dear."

"It is done," she said softly.

"Now get up and make no noise. Two men are lying in the scrub behind that fellow across the chasm. I am afraid they have grenades.... Are you ready, Yellow-hair?"

"Ready, dear."

"Go eastward, swiftly, two hundred yards parallel with the precipice. Make no sound, Yellow-hair."

The girl cast a pallid, heart-breaking look at him, but he lay there without turning his head, his steady pistol levelled across the chasm. Then, bending a trifle forward, she stole eastward through the forest dusk, the pigeon in its wicker cage in one hand, and on her back the pack.

And all the while, across the gulf out of which golden vapours curled more thickly as the sun's burning searchlight spread out across the world, the man in Swiss uniform stood on the chasm's edge, as though awaiting some further word or movement from McKay.

And, after awhile, the word came, clear, startling, snapped out across the void: "Unsling that haversack! Don't touch the flap! Take it off, quick!"

The Swiss seemed astounded. "Quick!" repeated McKay harshly, "or I fire."

"What!" burst out the man, "you offer violence to a Swiss officer on duty within Swiss territory?"

"I tell you I'll kill you where you stand if you don't take off that haversack!"

Suddenly from the scrubby thicket behind the Swiss a man's left arm shot up at an angle of forty degrees, and the right arm described an arc against the sun. Something round and black parted from it, lost against the glare of sunrise.