The Maids of Paradise
Page 9I took my breakfast by the window, watching the German soldiery
cleaning up Morsbronn.
For that wonderful Teutonic administrative
mania was already manifesting itself while ruined houses still smoked;
method replaced chaos, order marched on the heels of the Prussian
rear-guard, which enveloped Morsbronn in a whirlwind of Uhlans, and
left it a silent, blackened landmark in the August sunshine.
Soldiers in canvas fatigue-dress, wearing soft, round, visorless caps,
were removing the débris of the fatal barricade; soldiers with shovel
and hoe filled in the trenches and raked the long, winding street
clean of all litter; soldiers with trowel and mortar were perched on
shot-torn houses, mending chimneys and slated roofs so that their
officers might enjoy immunity from rain and wind and defective flues.
In the court-yards and stables I could see cavalrymen in
stable-jackets, whitewashing walls and out-buildings and ill-smelling
stalls, while others dug shovelfuls of slaked lime from wheelbarrows
and spread it through stable-yards and dirty alleys.
Everywhere quiet, method, order, prompt precision reigned; I even noticed a big,
red-fisted artilleryman tying up tall, blue larkspurs, dahlias, and
phlox in a trampled garden, and he touched the ragged masses of bloom
with a tenderness peculiar to a flower-loving and sentimental people,
whose ultimate ambition is a quart of beer, a radish, and a green leaf
overhead.
At the corners of the walls and blind alleys, placards in French and
German were posted, embodying regulations governing the village under
Prussian military rule. The few inhabitants of Morsbronn who had
remained in cellars during the bombardment shuffled up to read these
notices, or to loiter stupidly, gaping at the Prussian eagles
surmounting the posters.
A soldier came in and started the fire in my fireplace. When he went
out I drew my code-book from my breeches-pocket and tossed it into the
fire. After it followed my commission, my memoranda, and every scrap
of writing. The diamonds I placed in the bosom of my flannel shirt.
Toward one o'clock I heard the shrill piping of a goat-herd, and I saw
him, a pallid boy, clumping along in his wooden shoes behind his two
nanny-goats, while the German soldiers, peasants themselves, looked
after him with curious sympathy.
A little later a small herd of cattle passed, driven to pasture by a
stolid Alsatian, who replied to the soldiers' questions in German
patois and shrugged his heavy shoulders like a Frenchman.
A cock crowed occasionally from some near dunghill; once I saw a cat
serenely following the course of a stucco wall, calm, perfectly
self-composed, ignoring the blandishments of the German soldiers, who
called, "Komm mitz! mitz!" and held out bits of sausage and black
bread.
A German ambulance surgeon arrived to see me in the afternoon. The
Countess was busy somewhere with Buckhurst, who had come with news for
her, and the German surgeon's sharp double rap at the door did not
bring her, so I called out, "Entrez donc!" and he stalked in,
removing his fatigue-cap, which action distinguished him from his
brother officers.
He was a tall, well-built man, perfectly uniformed in his
double-breasted frocked tunic, blue-eyed, blond-bearded, and
immaculate of hand and face, a fine type of man and a credit to any
army.
After a brief examination he sat down and resumed a very bad cigar,
which had been smouldering between his carefully kept fingers.
"Do you know," he said, admiringly, "that I have never before seen
just such a wound. The spinal column is not even grazed, and if, as I
understand from you, you suffered temporarily from complete paralysis
of the body below your waist, the case is not only interesting but
even remarkable."
"Is the superficial lesion at all serious?" I asked.
"Not at all. As far as I can see the blow from the bullet temporarily
paralyzed the spinal cord. There is no fracture, no depression. I do
not see why you should not walk if you desire to."
"When? Now?"
"Try it," he said, briefly.
I tried. Apart from a certain muscular weakness and a great fatigue, I
found it quite possible to stand, even to move a few steps. Then I sat
down again, and was glad to do so.
The doctor was looking at my legs rather grimly, and it suddenly
flashed on me that I had dropped my blanket and he had noticed my
hussar's trousers.
"So," he said, "you are a military prisoner? I understood from the
provost marshal that you were a civilian."
As he spoke Buckhurst appeared at the door, and then sauntered in,
quietly greeting the surgeon, who looked around at the sound of his
footsteps on the stone floor. There was no longer a vestige of doubt
in my mind that Buckhurst was a German agent, or at least that the
Germans believed him to be in their pay. And doubtless he was in
their pay, but to whom he was faithful nobody could know with any
certainty.
"How is our patient, doctor?" he asked.
"Convalescent," replied the doctor, shortly, as though not exactly
relishing the easy familiarity of this pale-eyed gentleman in gray.
"Can he travel to-day?" inquired Buckhurst, without apparent
interest.
"Before he travels," said the officer, "it might be well to find out
why he wears part of a hussar uniform."
"I've explained that to the provost," observed Buckhurst, examining
his well-kept finger-nails. "And I have a pass for him also--if he is
in a fit condition to travel."
The officer gave him a glance full of frank dislike, adjusted his
sabre, pulled on his white gloves, and, bowing very slightly to me,
marched straight out of the room and down the stairs without taking
any notice of Buckhurst. The latter looked after the officer, then his
indifferent eyes returned to me. Presently he sat down and produced a
small slip of paper, which he very carefully twisted into a cocked
hat.
"I suppose you doubt my loyalty to France," he said, intent on his
bit of paper.
Then, logically continuing my rôle of the morning, I began to upbraid
him for a traitor and swear that I would not owe my salvation to him,
and all the while he was calmly transforming his paper from one toy
into another between deft, flat fingers.
"You are unjust and a trifle stupid," he said. "I am paid by Prussia
for information which I never give. But I have the entre of their
lines. I do it for the sake of the Internationale. The Internationale
has a few people in its service ... And it pays them well."
He looked squarely at me as he said this. I almost trembled with
delight: the man undervalued me, he had taken me at my own figure, and
now, holding me in absolute contempt, he was going to begin on me.
"Scarlett," he said, "what does the government pay you?"
I began to protest in a torrent of patriotism and sentimentality. He
watched me impassively while I called Heaven to witness and proclaimed
my loyalty to France, ending through sheer breathlessness in a
maundering, tearful apotheosis where mixed metaphors jostled each
other--the government, the Emperor, and the French flag, consecrated
in blood--and finally, calling his attention to the fact that twenty
centuries had once looked down on this same banner, I collapsed in my
chair and gave him his chance.
He took it. With subtle flattery he recognized in me a powerful arm of
a corrupt Empire, which Empire he likened to the old man who rode
Sindbad the Sailor. He admitted my noble loyalty to France, pointing
out, however, that devotion to the Empire was not devotion to France,
but the contrary. Skilfully he pictured the unprepared armies of the
Empire, huddled along the frontier, seized and rent to fragments, one
by one; adroitly he painted the inevitable ending, the armies that
remained cut off and beaten in detail.
And as I listened I freely admitted to myself that I had undervalued
him; that he was no crude Belleville orator, no sentimental
bathos-peddling reformer, no sansculotte with brains ablaze, squalling
for indiscriminate slaughter and pillage; he was a cool student in
crime, taking no chances that he was not forced to take, a calm,
adroit, methodical observer, who had established a theory and was
carefully engaged in proving it.
"Scarlett," he said, in English, "let us come to the point. I am a
mercenary American; you are an American mercenary, paid by the French
government. You care nothing for that government or for the country;
you would drop both to-day if your pay ceased. You and I are
outsiders; we are in the world to watch our chances. And our chance is
here."
He unfolded the creased bit of paper and spread it out on his knees,
smoothing it thoughtfully.
"What do I care for the Internationale?" he asked, blandly. "I am
high in its councils; Karl Marx knows less about the Internationale
than do I. As for Prussia and France--bah!--it's a dog-fight to me,
and I lack even the interest to bet on the German bull-dog.
"You will know me better some day, and when you do you will know that
I am a man who has determined to get rich if I have to set half of
France against the other half and sack every bank in the Empire.
"And now the time is coming when the richest city in Europe will be
put to the sack. You don't believe it? Yet you shall live to see Paris
besieged, and you shall live to see Paris surrender, and you shall
live to see the Internationale rise up from nowhere, seize the
government by the throat, and choke it to death under the red flag of
universal--ahem!... license"--the faintest sneer came into his pallid
face--"and every city of France shall be a commune, and we shall pass
from city to city, leisurely, under the law--our laws, which we will
make--and I pity the man among us who cannot place his millions in the
banks of England and America!"
He began to worry the creased bit of paper again, stealthy eyes on the
floor.
"The revolt is as certain as death itself," he said. "The Society of
the Internationale honeycombs Europe--your police archives show you
that--and I tell you that, of the two hundred thousand soldiers of
the national guard in Paris to-day, ninety per cent. are
ours--ours, soul and body. You don't believe it? Wait!
"Yet, for a moment, suppose I am right? Where are the government
forces? Who can stop us from working our will? Not the fragments of
beaten and exhausted armies! Not the thousands of prisoners which you
will see sent into captivity across the Rhine! What has the government
to lean on--a government discredited, impotent, beaten! What in the
world can prevent a change, an uprising, a revolution? Why, even if
there were no such thing as the Internationale and its secret Central
Committee--to which I have the honor to belong"--and here his sneer
was frightful--"I tell you that before a conquering German army had
recrossed the Rhine this land of chattering apes would be tearing one
another for very want of a universal scape-goat.
"But that is exactly where we come into the affair. We find the
popular scape-goat and point him out--the government, my friend. And
all we have to do is to let the mob loose, stand back, and count
He leaned forward in his chair, idly twisting his crumpled bit of
paper in one hand.
"I am not fool enough to believe that our reign will last," he said.
"It may last a month, two months, perhaps three. Then we leaders will
be at one another's throats--and the game is up! It's always so--mob
rule can't last--it never has lasted and never will. But the prudent
man will make hay before the brief sunshine is ended; I expect to
economize a little, and set aside enough--well, enough to make it pay,
you see."
He looked up at me quietly.
"I am perfectly willing to tell you this, even if you used your
approaching liberty to alarm the entire country, from the Emperor to
the most obscure scullion in the Tuileries. Nothing can stop us now,
nothing in the world can prevent our brief reign. Because these
things are certain, the armies of France will be beaten--they are
already beaten. Paris will hold out; Paris will fall; and with Paris
down goes France! And as sure as the sun shall rise on a conquered
people, so sure shall rise that red spectre we call the
Internationale."
The man astonished me. He put into words a prophecy which had haunted
me from the day that war was declared--a prophetic fear which had
haunted men higher up in the service of the Empire--thinking men who
knew what war meant to a country whose government was as rotten as its
army was unprepared, whose political chiefs were as vain, incompetent,
ignorant, and weak as were the chiefs of its brave army--an army
riddled with politics, weakened by intrigue and neglect--an army used
ignobly, perverted, cheated, lied to, betrayed, abandoned.
That, for once, Buckhurst spoke the truth as he foresaw it, I did not
question. That he was right in his infernal calculations, I was
fearsomely persuaded. And now the game had advanced, and I must
display what cards I had, or pretended to have.
"Are you trying to bribe me?" I blurted out, weakly.
"Bribe you," he repeated, in contempt. "No. If the prospect does not
please you, I have only to say a word to the provost marshal."
"Wouldn't that injure your prospects with the Countess?" I said, with
fat-brained cunning. "You cannot betray me and hope for her
friendship."
He glanced up at me, measured my mental capacity, then nodded.
"I can't force you that way," he admitted.
"He's bound to get to Paradise. Why?" I wondered, and said, aloud:
"What do you want of me?"
"I want immunity from the secret police, Mr. Scarlett."
"Where?"
"Wherever I may be."
"In Morbihan?"
"Yes."
"In Paradise?"
"Yes."
I was silent for a moment, then, looking him in the eye, "What do I
gain?"
Ah, the cat was out now. Buckhurst did not move, but I saw the muscles
of his face relax, and he drew a deep, noiseless breath.
"Well," he said, coolly, "you may keep those diamonds, for one
thing."
Presently I said, "And for the next thing?"
"You are high-priced, Mr. Scarlett," he observed.
"Oh, very," I said, with that offensive, swaggering menace in my
voice which is peculiar to the weak criminal the world over.
So I asserted myself and scowled at him and told him I was no fool and
taunted him with my importance to his schemes and said I was not born
yesterday, and that if Paris was to be divided I knew what part I
wanted and meant to stand no nonsense from him or anybody.
All of which justified the opinion he had already formed of me, and
justified something else, too--his faith in his own eloquence, logic,
and powers of persuasion. Not that I meant to make his mistake and
undervalue him; he was an intelligent, capable, remarkable
criminal--with the one failing--an overconfident contempt of all
men.
"There is one thing I want to ask you," said I. "Why do you desire
to go to Paradise?"
He did not answer me at once, and I studied his passionless profile as
he gazed out of the window.
"Well," he said, slowly, "I shall not tell you."
"Why not?" I demanded.
"--But I'll say this," he continued. "I want you to come to Paradise
with me and that fool of a woman. I want you to report to your
government that you are watching the house in Paradise, and that you
are hoping to catch me there."
"How can I do that?" I asked. "As soon as the government catches the
Countess de Vassart she will be sent across the frontier."
"Not if you inform your government that you desire to use her and the
others as a bait to draw me to Paradise."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" I asked, thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Buckhurst, "that's it."
"And you do not desire to inform me why you are going to stay in
Paradise?"
"Don't you think you'll be clever enough to find out?" he asked, with
a sneer.
I did think so; more than that, I let him see that I thought so, and
he was contented with my conceit.
"One thing more," I said, blustering a little, "I want to know
whether you mean any harm to that innocent girl?"
"Who? The Countess? What do you mean? Harm her? Do you think I waste
my thoughts on that little fool? She is not a factor in
anything--except that just now I'm using her and mean to use her house
in Paradise."
"Haven't you stripped her of every cent she has?" I asked. "What do
you want of her now?" And I added something about respect due to
women.
"Oh yes, of course," he said, with a vague glance at the street
below. "You need not worry; nobody's going to hurt her--" He suddenly
shifted his eyes to me. "You haven't taken a fancy to her, have
you?" he asked, in faint disgust.
I saw that he thought me weak enough for any sentiment, even a noble
one.
"If you think it pays," he muttered, "marry her and beat her, for
all I care; but don't play loose with me, my friend; as a plain matter
of business it won't pay you."
"Is that a threat?" I asked, in the bullying tone of a born coward.
"No, not a threat, a plain matter of profit and loss, a simple
business proposition. For, suppose you betray me--and, by a miracle,
live to boast of it? What is your reward? A colonelcy in the Military
Police with a few thousand francs salary, and, in your old age, a
pension which might permit you to eat meat twice a week. Against that,
balance what I offer--free play in a helpless city, and no one to
hinder you from salting away as many millions as you can carry off!"
Presently I said, weakly, "And what, once more, is the service you
ask of me?"
"I ask you to notify the government that you are watching Paradise,
that you do not arrest the Countess and Dr. Delmont because you desire
to use them as a bait to catch me."
"Is that all?"
"That is all. We will start for Paris together; I shall leave you
before we get there. But I'll see you later in Paradise."
"You refuse to tell me why you wish to stay at the house in
Paradise?"
"Yes,... I refuse. And, by-the-way, the Countess is to think that I
have presented myself in Paris and that the government has pardoned
me."
"You are willing to believe that I will not have you arrested?"
"I don't ask you to promise. If you are fool enough to try it--try
it! But I'm not going to give you the chance in Paris--only in
Paradise."
"You don't require my word of honor?"
"Word of--what? Well--no;... it's a form I can dispense with."
"But how can you protect yourself?"
"If all the protection I had was a 'word of honor,' I'd be in a
different business, my friend."
"And you are willing to risk me, and you are perfectly capable of
taking care of yourself?"
"I think so," he said, quietly.
"Trusting to my common-sense as a business man not to be fool enough
to cut my own throat by cutting yours?" I persisted.
"Exactly, and trusting to a few other circumstances, the details of
which I beg permission to keep to myself," he said, with a faint
sneer.
He rose and walked to the window; at the same moment I heard the sound
of wheels below.
"I believe that is our carriage," he said. "Are you ready to start,
Mr. Scarlett?"
"Now?" I exclaimed.
"Why not? I'm not in the habit of dawdling over anything. Come, sir,
there is nothing very serious the matter with you, is there?"
I said nothing; he knew, of course, the exact state of the wound I had
received, that the superficial injury was of no account, that the
shock had left me sound as a silver franc though a trifle weak in the
hips and knees.
"Is the Countess de Vassart to go with us?" I asked, trying to find a
reason for these events which were succeeding one another too quickly
to suit me.
He gave me an absent-minded nod; a moment later the Countess entered.
She had mended her black crêpe gown where I tore it when I hung in
the shadow of death under the battlements of La Trappe. She wore black
gloves, a trifle shabby, and carried a worn satchel in her hands.
Buckhurst aided me to rise, the Countess threw my hussar jacket over
my shoulders and buttoned it; I felt the touch of her cool, little
fingers on my hot, unshaved throat.
"I congratulate you on your convalescence," she said, in a low voice.
"Lean on me, monsieur."
My head swam; hips and knees were without strength; she aided me down
the stairway and out into the pale sunshine, where stood the same
mud-splashed, rusty vehicle which had brought us hither from La
Trappe.
The Countess had only a satchel and a valise; Buckhurst's luggage
comprised a long, flat, steel-bound box, a satchel, and a parcel. I
had nothing. My baggage, which I had left in Morsbronn, had without
doubt been confiscated long since; my field-glasses, sabre, and
revolver were gone; I had only what clothes I was wearing--a dirty,
ragged, gray-blue flannel shirt, my muddy jacket, scarlet
riding-breeches, and officer's boots. But in one of the hip-pockets of
my breeches I carried a fortune in diamonds.
As I stood beside the carriage, wondering how I was going to get in, I
knees, and Buckhurst lifted me. Beneath the loose, gray coat-sleeves
his bent arms were rigid as steel; his supple frame straightened; he
moved a step forward and laid me on the shabby cushions.
The Countess looked at me, turned and glanced up at her
smoke-blackened house, where a dozen Prussian soldiers leaned from the
lower windows smoking their long porcelain pipes and the provost
marshal stood in the doorway, helmeted, spurred, immaculate from
golden cheek-guard to the glittering tip of his silver scabbard. An
Uhlan, dismounted, stood on guard below the steps, his lance at a
"present," the black-and-white swallow-tailed pennon drooping from
the steel point.
The Countess bent her pretty head under its small black hat; the
provost's white-gloved hand flew to his helmet peak.
"Fear nothing, madame," he said, pompously. "Your house and its
contents are safe until you return. This village is now German soil."
The Countess looked at him steadily, gravely.
"I thank you, monsieur, but frontiers are not changed in a day."
But she was mistaken. Alsace henceforth must be written Elsass, and
the devastated province called Lothringen was never again to be
written Lorraine.
The Countess stepped into the carriage and took her place beside me;
Buckhurst followed, seating himself opposite us, and the Alsatian
driver mounted to the box.
"Your safe-conduct carries you to the French outposts at Saverne,"
said the provost, dryly. "If there are no longer French outposts at
Saverne, you may demand a visé for your pass and continue south to
Strasbourg."
Buckhurst half turned towards the driver. "Allez," he said, quietly,
and the two gaunt horses moved on.
There was a chill in the white sunshine--the first touch of autumn.
Not a trace of the summer's balm remained in the air; every tree on
the mountain outlines stood out sharp-cut in the crystalline light;
the swift little streams that followed the road ran clear above
autumn-brown pebbles and golden sands.
Distant beachwoods were turning yellow; yellow gorse lay like patches
of sunshine on the foot-hills; oceans of yellow grain belted the
terraced vineyards. Here and there long, velvety, black strips cut the
green and gold, the trail of fire which had scarred the grain belts;
here and there pillars of smoke floated, dominating blue woodlands,
where the flames of exploding shells had set the forest afire.
Already from the plateau I could see a streak of silver reflecting the
intense blue sky--the Rhine, upon whose westward cliffs France had
mounted guard but yesterday.
And now the Rhine was lost, and the vast granite bastions of the
Vosges looked out upon a sea of German forests. Above the Col du
Pigeonnier the semaphore still glistened, but its signals now
travelled eastward, and strange flags fluttered on its invisible
halliards. And every bridge was guarded by helmeted men who halted us,
and every tunnel was barred by mounted Uhlans who crossed their lances
to the ominous shout: "Wer da? On ne basse bas!" The Vosges were
literally crawling with armed men!
Driving slowly along the base of the hills, I had glimpses of rocky
defiles which pierced the mountain wall; and through every defile
poured infantry and artillery in unbroken columns, and over every
mountain pass streamed endless files of horsemen. Railroad tunnels
were choked with slowly moving trains piled high with artillery;
viaducts glistened with helmets all moving westward; every hillock,
every crag, every height had its group of tiny dark dots or its
solitary Uhlan.
Very far away I heard cannon--so far away that the hum of the
cannonade was no louder than the panting of our horses on the white
hill-road, and I could hear it only when the carriage stopped at
intervals.
"Do we take the railroad at Saverne?" I asked at last. "Is there a
railroad there?"
Buckhurst looked up at me. "It is rather strange that a French
officer should not know the railroads in his own country," he said.
I was silent. I was not the only officer whose shame was his
ignorance of the country he had sworn to defend. Long before the
war broke out, every German regimental officer, commissioned and
non-commissioned, carried a better map of France than could be
found in France itself. And the French government had issued to us
a few wretched charts of Germany, badly printed, full of gross
errors, one or two maps to a regiment, and a few scattered about
among the corps headquarters--among officers who did not even know the
general topography of their own side of the Rhine.
"Is there a railroad at Saverne?" I repeated, sullenly.
"You will take a train at Strasbourg," replied Buckhurst.
"And then?"
"And then you go to Avricourt," he said. "I suppose at least you
know where that is?"
"It is on the route to Paris," said I, keeping my temper. "Are we
going direct to Paris?"
"Madame de Vassart desires to go there," he said, glancing at her
with a sort of sneaking deference which he now assumed in her
presence.
"It is true," said the Countess, turning to me. "I wish to rest for
a little while before I go to Point Paradise. I am curiously tired of
poverty, Monsieur Scarlett," she added, and held out her shabby gloves
with a gesture of despair; "I am reduced to very little--I have
scarcely anything left,... and I am weak enough to long for the scent
of the winter violets on the boulevards."
With a faint smile she touched the bright hair above her brow, where
the wind had flung a gleaming tendril over her black veil.
As I looked at her, I marvelled that she had found it possible to
forsake all that was fair and lovely in life, to dare ignore caste, to
deliberately face ridicule and insult and the scornful anger of her
own kind, for the sake of the filthy scum festering in the sinkholes
of the world.
There are brave priests who go among lepers, there are brave
missionaries who dispute with the devil over the souls of half-apes in
the Dark Continent. Under the Cross they do the duty they were bred
to.
But she was bred to other things. Her lungs were never made to breathe
the polluted atmosphere of the proletariat, yelping and slavering in
their kennels; her strait young soul was never born for communion with
the crooked souls of social pariahs, with the stunted and warped
intelligence of fanatics, with the crippled but fierce minds which
dominated the Internationale.
Not that such contact could ever taint her; but it might break her
heart one day.
"You will think me very weak and cowardly to seek shelter and comfort
at such a time," she said, raising her gray eyes to me. "But I feel
as though all my strength had slipped away from me. I mean to go back
to my work; I only need a few days of quiet among familiar
scenes--pleasant scenes that I knew when I was young. I think that if
I could only see a single care-free face--only one among all those
who--who once seemed to love me--"
She turned her head quickly and stared out at the tall pines which
fringed the dusty road.
Buckhurst blinked at her.
* * * * *
It was late in the afternoon when the last Prussian outpost hailed us.
I had been asleep for hours, but was awakened by the clatter of
horses, and I opened my eyes to see a dozen Uhlans come cantering up
and surround our carriage.
After a long discussion with Buckhurst and a rigid scrutiny of our
permit to pass the lines, the slim officer in command viséd the order.
One of the troopers tied a white handkerchief to his lance-tip,
wheeled his wiry horse, and, followed by a trumpeter, trotted off
ahead of us. Our carriage creaked after them, slowly moving to the
summit of a hill over which the road rose.
Presently, very far away on the gray-green hill-side, I saw a bit of
white move. The Uhlan flourished his lance from which the handkerchief
fluttered; the trumpeter set his trumpet to his lips and blew the
parley.
One minute, two, three, ten passed. Then, distant galloping sounded
along the road, nearer, nearer; three horsemen suddenly wheeled into
view ahead--French dragoons, advancing at a solid gallop. The Uhlan
with the flag spurred forward to meet them, saluted, wheeled his
horse, and came back.
Paid mercenary that I was, my heart began to beat very fast at sight
of those French troopers with their steel helmets bound with
leopard-hide and their horsehair plumes whipping the breeze, and their
sun-bronzed, alert faces and pleasant eyes. I had had enough of the
supercilious, near-sighted eyes of the Teuton.
As for the young Countess, she sat there smiling, while the clumsy
dragoons came rattling up, beaming at my red riding-breeches, and all
saluting the Countess with a cheerful yet respectful swagger that
touched me deeply as I noted the lines of hunger in their lean jaws.
And now the brief ceremony was over and our rusty vehicle moved off
down the hill, while the Uhlans turned bridle and clattered off,
scattering showers of muddy gravel in the rising wind.
The remains of our luncheon lay in a basket under our seat--plenty of
bread and beef, and nearly a quart of red wine.
"Call the escort--they are starving," I said to Buckhurst.
"I think not," he said, coolly. "I may eat again."
"Call the escort!" I repeated, sharply.
Buckhurst looked up at me in silence, then glanced warily at the
Countess.
A few moments later the gaunt dragoons were munching dry bread as they
rode, passing the bottle from saddle to saddle.
We were ascending another hill; the Countess, anxious to stretch her
limbs, had descended to the road, and now walked ahead, one hand
holding her hat, which the ever-freshening wind threatened.
Buckhurst bent towards me and said: "My friend, your suggestion that
we deprive ourselves to feed those cavalrymen was a trifle peremptory
in tone. I am wondering how much your tone will change when we reach
Paris."
"You will see," said I.
"Oh, of course I'll see," he said,... "and so will you."
"I thought you had means to protect yourself," I observed.
"I have. Besides, I think you would rather keep those diamonds than
give them up for the pleasure of playing me false."
I laughed in a mean manner, which reassured him. "Look here," said I,
"if I were to make trouble for you in Paris I'd be the most besotted
fool in France, and you know it."
He nodded.
And so I should have been. For there was something vastly more
important to do than to arrest John Buckhurst for theft; and before I
suffered a hair of his sleek, gray head to come to harm I'd have hung
myself for a hopeless idiot. Oh no; my friend John Buckhurst had such
strong as he to lift them out again. And I meant to know what those
irons were for, and who were the gentlemen to aid him lift them. So
not only must Buckhurst remain free as a lively black cricket in a
bog, but he must not be frightened if I could help it.
And to that end I leered at him knowingly, and presently bestowed a
fatuous wink upon him.
It was unpleasant for me to do this, for it implied that I was his
creature; and, in spite of the remorseless requirements of my
profession, I have an inborn hatred of falsehood in any shape. To lie
in the line of duty is one of the disagreeable necessities of certain
professions; and mine is not the only one nor the least respectable.
The art of war is to deceive; strategy is the art of demonstrating
falsehood plausibly; there is nothing respectable in the military
profession except the manual--which is now losing importance in the
eyes of advanced theorists. All men are liars--a few are unselfish
ones.
"You have given me your word of honor," said Buckhurst.
"Have I?" I had not, and he knew it. I hoped I might not be forced
to.
"Haven't you?" asked Buckhurst.
"You sneered at my word of honor," I said, with all the spite of a
coward; "now you don't get it."
He no longer wanted it, but all he said was: "Don't take unnecessary
offence; you're smart enough to know when you're well off."
* * * * *
I dozed towards sunset, waking when the Countess stepped back into the
carriage and seated herself by my side. Then, after a little, I slept
again. And it was nearly dark when I was awakened by the startling
whistle of a locomotive. The carriage appeared to be moving slowly
between tall rows of poplars and telegraph-poles; a battery of
artillery was clanking along just ahead. In the dark southern sky a
luminous haze hung.
"The lights of Strasbourg," whispered the Countess, as I sat up,
rubbing my hot eyes.
I looked for Buckhurst; his place was empty.
"Mr. Buckhurst left us at the railroad crossing," she said.
"Left us!"
"Yes! He boarded a train loaded with wounded.... He had business to
transact in Colmar before he presented himself to the authorities in
Paris.... And we are to go by way of Avricourt."
So Buckhurst had already begun to execute his programme. But the
abrupt, infernal precision of the man jarred me unpleasantly.
In the dark I felt cautiously for my diamonds; they were safe in my
left hip-pocket.
* * * * *
The wind had died out, and a fine rain began to filter down through a
mist which lay over the flat plain as we entered the suburbs of
Strasbourg.
Again and again we were halted by sentinels, then permitted to proceed
in the darkness, along deserted avenues lighted by gas-jets burning in
tall bronze lamp-posts through a halo of iridescent fog.
We passed deserted suburban villas, blank stretches of stucco walls
enclosing gardens, patches of cabbages, thickets of hop-poles to which
the drenched vines clung fantastically, and scores of abandoned
houses, shutters locked, blinds drawn.
High to the east the ramparts of the city loomed, set at regular
distances with electric lights; from the invisible citadel rockets
were rising, spraying the fog with jewelled flakes, crumbling to
golden powder in the starless void above.
Presently our carriage stopped before a tremendous mass of masonry
pierced by an iron, arched gate, through which double files of
farm-wagons were rolling, escorted by customs guards and marines.
"No room! no room!" shouted the soldiers. "This is the Porte de
Pierre. Go to the Porte de Saverne!"
So we passed on beneath the bastions, skirting the ramparts to the
Porte de Saverne, where, after a harangue, the gate guards admitted
us, and we entered Strasbourg in the midst of a crush of vehicles. At
the railroad station hundreds of cars choked the tracks; loaded
freight trains stalled in the confusion, trains piled with ammunition
and provisions, trains crowded with horses and cattle and sheep,
filling the air with melancholy plaints; locomotives backing and
whistling, locomotives blowing off deafening blasts of steam; gongs
sounding, bells ringing, station-masters' trumpets blowing; and, above
all, the immense clamor of human voices.
The Countess and our Alsatian driver helped me to the platform, I
looked around with dread at the throng, being too weak to battle for a
foothold; but the brave Alsatian elbowed a path for me, and the
Countess warded off the plunging human cattle, and at length I found
myself beside the cars where line-soldiers stood guard at every ten
paces and gendarmes stalked about, shoving the frantic people into
double files.
"Last train for Paris!" bawled an official in gilt and blue; and to
the anxious question of the Countess he shook his head, saying,
"There is no room, madame; it is utterly impossible--pardon, I cannot
discuss anything now; the Prussians are signalled at Ostwald, and
their shells may fall here at any moment."
"If that is so," I said, "this lady cannot stay here!"
"I can't help that!" he shouted, starting off down the platform.
I caught the sleeve of a captain of gendarmerie who was running to
enter a first-class compartment.
"Eh--what do you want, monsieur?" he snapped, in surprise. Then, as I
made him a sign, he regarded me with amazement. I had given the
distress signal of the secret police.
"Try to make room for this lady in your compartment," I said.
"Willingly, monsieur. Hasten, madame; the train is already moving!"
and he tore open the compartment door and swung the Countess to the
car platform.
I suppose she thought I was to follow, for when the officer slammed
the compartment door she stepped to the window and tried to open it.
"Quick!" she cried to the guard, who had just locked the door; "help
that officer in! He is wounded--can't you see he is wounded?"
The train was gliding along the asphalt platform; I hobbled beside the
locked compartment, where she stood at the window.
"Will you unlock that door?" said the Countess to the guard. "I wish
to leave the train!"
The cars were rolling a little faster than I could move along.
The Countess leaned from the open window; through the driving rain her
face in the lamp-light was pitifully white. I made a last effort and
caught up with her car.
"A safe journey, madame," I stammered, catching at the hand she held
out and brushing the shabby-gloved fingers with my lips.
"I shall never forgive this wanton self-sacrifice," she said,
unsteadily. Then the car rolled silently past me, swifter, swifter,
and her white face faded from my sight. Yet still I stood there,
bareheaded, in the rain, while the twin red lamps on the rear car grew
smaller and smaller, until they, too, were shut out in the closing
curtains of the fog.
As I turned away into the lighted station a hospital train from the
north glided into the yard and stopped. Soldiers immediately started
carrying out the wounded and placing them in rows on mattresses ranged
along the walls of the passenger depot; sisters of charity, hovering
over the mutilated creatures, were already giving first aid to the
injured; policemen kept the crowd from trampling the dead and dying;
gendarmes began to clear the platforms, calling out sharply, "No more
trains to-night! Move on! This platform is for government officials
only!"
Through the scrambling mob a file of wounded tottered, escorted by
police; women were forced back and pushed out into the street, only to
be again menaced by galloping military ambulances arriving,
accompanied by hussars. The confusion grew into a tumult; men
struggled and elbowed for a passage to the platforms, women sobbed and
cried; through the uproar the treble wail of terrified children broke
out.
Jostled, shoved, pulled this way and that, I felt that I was destined
to go down under the people's feet, and I don't know what would have
become of me had not a violent push sent me against the door of the
telegraph office. The door gave way, and I fell on my knees, staggered
to my feet, and crept out once more to the platform.
The station-master passed, a haggard gentleman in rumpled uniform and
gilt cap; and as he left the office by the outer door the heavy
explosion of a rampart cannon shook the station.
"Can you get me to Paris?" I asked.
"Quick, then," he muttered; "this way--lean on me, monsieur! I am
trying to send another train out--but Heaven alone knows! Quick, this
way!"
The glare of a locomotive's headlight dazzled me; I made towards it,
clinging to the arm of the station-master; the ground under my feet
rocked with the shock of the siege-guns. Suddenly a shell fell and
burst in the yard outside; there was a cry, a rush of trainmen, a
gendarme shouting; then the piercing alarm notes of locomotives,
squealing like terrified leviathans.
The train drawn up along the platform gave a jerk and immediately
moved out towards the open country, compartment doors swinging wide,
trainmen and guards running alongside, followed by a mob of frenzied
passengers, who leaped into empty compartments, flinging satchels and
rugs to the four winds. Crash! A shell fell through the sloping roof
of the platform and blew up. Through the white cloud and brilliant
glare I saw a porter, wheeling boxes and trunks, fall, buried under an
avalanche of baggage, and a sister of charity throw up her arms as
though to shield her face from the fragments.
A car, doors swinging wide, glided past me; I caught the rail and fell
forward into a compartment. The cushions of the seats were afire, and
a policeman was hammering out the sparks with naked fists.
I was too weak to aid him. Presently he hurled the last burning
cushion from the open door and leaped out into the train-yard, where
red and green lamps glowed and the brilliant flare of bursting shells
lighted the fog. By this time the train was moving swiftly; the car
windows shook with the thunder from the ramparts under which we were
passing; then came inky darkness--a tunnel--then a rush of mist and
wind from the open door as we swept out into the country.
Passengers clinging to the platforms now made their way into the
compartment where I lay almost senseless, and soon the little place
was crowded, and somebody slammed the door.
Then the flying locomotive, far ahead, shrieked, and the train leaped,
rushing forward into the unknown. Blackness, stupefying blackness,
outside; inside, unseen, the huddled passengers, breathing heavily
with sudden stifled sobs, or the choked, indrawn breath of terror; but
not a word, not a quaver of human voices; peril strangled speech as
our black train flew onward through the night.