Barbarians

Once she spoke in mixed French and Breton:

"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques, monchéri?"

"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do you?"

"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"

"He has the tricks of speech. Also his accent is of an English university. There is no mistaking it."

"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed in the universities of England?"

"Yes.... But–"

"Gar à nous, mon p'tit, Jacques. In Finistère a stranger is a suspect. Since earliest times they have done us harm in Finistère. The strangers—God knows what centuries of evil they have wrought."

"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned again to the airman, who had now satisfied his hunger and had already risen to gather up the roll of canvas, the hammer, nails, and shellac.

"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially. "I'll take these articles, if I may. It's very good of you … I'm in a tearing hurry–"

"Won't your pilot come over and eat a bit?"

"I'll take him this bread and meat, if I may. Many thanks." He held out his heavily gloved hand with a friendly smile, nodded to Marie-Josephine. And as he hurriedly turned to go, the ancient carving on the high-backed chair caught him between the buttons of his leather coat, tearing it wide open over the breast. And Wayland saw the ribbon of the Iron Cross there fastened to a sea-grey tunic.

There was a second's frightful silence.

"What's that you wear?" said Wayland hoarsely. "Stop! Stand where you–"

"Halt! Don't touch that shotgun!" cried the airman sharply. But Wayland already had it in his hands, and the airman fired twice at him where he stood—steadied the automatic to shoot again, but held his fire, seeing it would not be necessary. Besides, he did not care to shoot the old woman unless military precaution made it advisable; and she was on her knees, her withered arms upflung, shielding the prostrate body with her own.

"You Yankee fool," he snapped out harshly—"it is your own fault, not mine!… Like the rest of your imbecile nation you poke your nose where it has no business! And I—" He ceased speaking, realizing that his words remained unheard.

After a moment he backed toward the door, carrying the canvas roll under his left arm and keeping his eye carefully on the prostrate man. Also, one can never trust the French!—he was quite ready for that old woman there on the floor who was holding the dead boy's head to her breast, muttering: "My darling! My child!—Oh, little son of Marie-Josephine!—I told thee—I warned thee of the stranger in Finistère!… Marie—holy—intercede!… All—all are born to grief in Finistère!…"

CHAPTER VIII

EN OBSERVATION

The incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.

Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle and Isole, had seen a werewolf in Laïs Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two enormous eyes.

The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes Lighthouse; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.

That an enemy airman had done murder in Finistère was now certain; but that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel, at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.

That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des Chouettes and Finistère, and landing men, seemed to be practically an impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.

But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck, and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild boar roamed and rooted unmolested?

And where in Finistère was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the enemy's flag had vanished from the seas?

Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for any possible aërial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the coasts.

Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.

And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion, Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to verify or discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.

The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.

Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman, however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.

He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finistère pretty well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be reasonable as well as original.

It had been a stiff walk across country—fifteen miles, as against thirty odd around by road—but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield, crossing the marshes, skirting étangs, a solitary figure in the waste, easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.

CHAPTER IX

L'OMBRE

Aulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered, unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns, startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.

It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were long past timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the acrid odour of decay.

Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.

It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.

Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint sounds—perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily conceding him right of way.

After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of stone stood, and where there should have been gates.

But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.

He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become indistinguishable.

Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded panes were broken; nobody came to the closed and discoloured door of massive oak.

The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.

Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in his autumn migration.

The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the house—a low, weather-ravaged structure in the grassy glade, ringed by a square, wet moat.

There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and continued on into the forest.

An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.

A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching his approach.