Warner, beaten from his balance, had fallen to his knees. As the plunging punt swept downstream, he continued to use his pole mechanically. Around them debris still rained into the discolored river, branches, fragments of sod; the surface of the water was covered with floating boards, sticks, green leaves, uprooted reeds and rushes; a mangled and bloody swan floated near, its snowy neck and head under water.
Philippa crouched on the bottom of the punt, deadly pale, her hands over her ears, her grey eyes riveted on Warner.
When his voice was under control, he said:
"Are you all right, dear?"
She read his lips, nodded, tried to smile, fell to trembling with both hands still convulsively crushed over her ears.
Current and pole had already swept the punt out past the banlieu, past the suburban cottages, past the farms and the cattle and the clotheslines where the wash hung drying.
Behind them lay the town, amid a hell of exploding shells; the hills and woods reëchoed the infernal crash; and, high overhead, above the dreadful diapason of the guns, rose the crazy treble hooting of incoming projectiles, dominating the awful roar on earth with a yelling bedlam in the sky.
Again and again he looked aloft, fearfully attempting to trace and trail and forestall some whistling screech growing louder and louder and nearer and nearer, until the shattering crash of the explosion in the town behind them relaxed the nerve-breaking tension.
Farther out in the green countryside he no longer looked up and back. Philippa still lay huddled at his feet, looking up out of grey eyes that quivered and winced sometimes, but always opened again, steady and clear with faith.
On the Ausone road fugitives from every farm and hamlet were afoot again, but he could not see them very distinctly through the dust that hung there. Also clouds now obscured the declining sun; the world had turned grey around them; and the Récollette flowed away ahead with scarcely a glimmer on its tarnished flood, save where a dull and leaden sparkle came and went along the water weeds inshore.
It was as though the subtle poison of war itself had polluted material things, killing out brightness and health and life, staining sky and water and earth with its hell-distilled essence.
Then a more concretely sinister omen took shape, floating under the trees in a deep, still cove – a dead cavalry horse, saddled and bridled, stranded there, barely awash; and a hooded crow already walking busily about over the level gravel of the shoal.
As they neared Saïs, the quarry road across the river became visible. Dust eddied and drifted there, and he could distinguish the slanted lances of cavalry in rapid motion and catch the muffled roar of hoofs.
They were galloping north, a dusty, interminable column enveloped in an endless grey cloud of their own making in the thickening evening mist already hanging palely over land and water.
There was scarcely a tint of color left in the east, and that vague hue died out under clotted clouds as he looked.
And after a while he was aware of a vague rumor in the air, which seemed to come from the east – a vibration, low, indefinite, almost inaudible, yet always there to challenge his attention.
The Vosges lay beyond; and the Barrier Forts.
Duller and duller grew the twilight. He drove the punt forward into dusky reaches shrouded in mist, where not a ripple glimmered, and the trees and river reeds stood motionless in the fog.
There were no stars, no lights ashore. On his left he could hear the unbroken trample of cavalry riding north; far beyond, the air was heavily unsteady with the dull rumor beyond the hills; behind him the shriller tumult had died away and the deadened booming of the guns sounded like the heavy thunder of surf on sand.
Philippa had risen to a sitting position, and now she was lying back comfortably extended among the cushions.
They exchanged a few words; her voice was calm, cheerful, untroubled. She offered to take the punt pole; said that at first she had felt more bewildered and dazed than frightened; explained that real fear had first possessed her when the dead and bloody swan floated past, and that then she had been horribly afraid of the sky noises – the shrieking, hooting, whistling approach of the unseen.
He had been under fire in the Balkans; Lule Bourgas had blunted for him the keener edge of terror. And now, still thoroughly stirred, only the excitement of the past hour remained and stimulated him.
"It's war all around us now," he said, driving his punting pole steadily and straining his keen eyes into the shadows beyond. "There are stirring days ahead for France in this region, I fear; the Barrier Forts are far away and there is nothing in the north to hold the deluge breaking over Luxembourg into Belgium.
"A great war is beginning, Philippa; the greatest that the earth has ever faced… I never supposed that I should live to see such a war – the greatest of all wars – the last great war, I think.
"If I were anything except a useless painter, I'd go into it… I don't know what good I'd be to anybody. But if anybody wants me – "
"We both can offer ourselves," said Philippa.
"Dear child! I'd like to catch you wandering into this sort of – "
"I shall volunteer if you do!"
"You shall not! You'll go to Paris with Madame de Moidrey – that's what you'll do!"
"Jim, that is absurd. If I'm wanted I shall volunteer for hospital service, anyway. And if you offer yourself I shall wait until I find out where you are to be sent, and then I shall beg them to take me at the nearest field ambulance."
"No good, Philippa. They do that sort of thing in romances, but in real life a course of hospital training is required of volunteers."
"I can scrub floors and sew and cook," she said serenely. "Do they not need such people?"
"There's no use discussing it," he said. "Only trained women will be wanted – tolerated; and I suppose only trained men. The amateur nurse and warrior were utterly and definitely discredited in South Africa. There'll be no more of that. There's no room for us, Philippa; the firing line would reject me with derision, and the base hospital would politely bow you out." He laughed rather mirthlessly. "There remains for us," he said, "the admirable, but somewhat monotonous thinking-rôles of respectable citizens – items in the world-wide chorus which marches harmlessly hither and thither during the impending drama, and forms pleasing backgrounds for the principals when they take their curtain calls."
She felt the undertone of slight bitterness in his voice; understood it, perhaps, for, when the punt was turned and driven gently ashore among the foggy rushes, she retained the supporting arm he offered, clung to it almost caressingly.
"I know you," she murmured, as they mounted the grassy bank together; "you have no need to tell me what you are – dearest, noblest, best among men."
He answered almost impatiently:
"I don't want you to think that of me! You must not believe it, Philippa. Keep your head clear, and your judgment independent of that warm, sweet heart of yours. I'm a most ordinary sort of man, little distinguished, not in any way remarkable – "
"Don't!" she said. "You only hurt me, not yourself. Of what use is it saying such things to a girl when the whole world would be a solitary place if you were not in it – if your living mind did not make the earth a real and living place to me!
"I tell you that, to me, life itself – the reality of the living world – depends on you. If you die, all dies. Without you there is nothing – absolutely nothing! – Not even myself!"
Calm, passionless, clear, her voice serenely pronounced and emphasized her childish creed. And, impatient, restless, disturbed at first, yet in this young girl's exaggerated and obstinate devotion he found no reason for mirth, no occasion for the suppressed amusement of experience.
He said:
"I can try to be what you think me, Philippa. Yours is a very tender heart, and noble. Perhaps your heart may gradually lend me a little of its own quality, so that the glamour with which you invest me shall not be all unreal."
There was a short silence, then Philippa laughed. It was a sweet, happy, confused little laugh. She made an effort to explain it.
"The greatest thing in the world," she said – "the only thing!"
"What, Philippa?"
"Our friendship."
It was still early evening as they entered the house together and traversed the hall to the north terrace.
The Countess de Moidrey, a book on her lap, was seated by a lighted lamp in the billiard room, gazing out of the open windows, through which the thunder of the cannonade, wave after wave, came rolling in from the north.
"Madame – " began the girl timidly.
"Philippa!" she exclaimed, rising.
The girl came forward shyly, the unuttered words of explanation still parting her lips; and the Countess de Moidrey drew her into her arms.
"My darling," she whispered unsteadily, "my darling child!"
Suddenly Philippa's eyes filled and her lips quivered; she turned her face away, stood silent for a moment, then slowly she laid her cheek on the elder woman's breast, and a faint sigh escaped her.
Madame de Moidrey looked at Warner over the chestnut head in its velvet bonnet, which lay close and warm against her breast.
"Jim," she said, "they told me where you had taken this child. Can you imagine what my state of mind has been since that horrible uproar began over there in Ausone?"
"I must have been a lunatic to take her," he admitted; but Philippa's protesting voice interrupted, unruffled, childishly sweet.
"The fault was mine, Madame. I was very willful; I made him take me. I'll try not to be willful any more – "
"Darling! He ought to have known better. Do you understand how far you have crept into all our hearts? It was as though a child of my own were out there among the cannon – " She bent and kissed the girl's flushed cheek. "I'm not inclined to forgive Mr. Warner, but I shall if you want me to. Now, run up stairs, darling, and speak to Peggy. She's still sitting at her bedroom window, I fancy, watching those dreadful flashes out there, and perfectly miserable over you – "
"Oh!" cried Philippa, lifting her head. "You all are so sweet to me – so dear! I shall hasten immediately – " She stooped swiftly and touched her lips to the hands that held and caressed her, then turned and mounted the stairs with flying feet.
Warner gazed rather blankly at Madame de Moidrey.
"I must have been crazy to risk taking her. But, Ethra, I hadn't any reason to suppose there was any danger."
"Were you in Ausone when the fort began firing? Didn't you know enough to come home?"
"Yes; I didn't realize it was the Fort d'Ausone. We were at tea in the Boule d'Argent when the Taube appeared. Then everything was in a mess, Ethra. I know a number of people have been killed. We saw a shop blown up across the street. After that the cupola guns on the fort opened and the town shook; and before we could cross the rue d'Auros to find our punt, where we had left it tied under the river wall, the big German shells began to fall all over the town. It was certainly a rotten deal – "
"Jim, I am furious at you for taking that child into such a place. I wish you to understand now, from this moment, that I love her dearly. She is adorable; and she's mine. You can't take her about with you without ceremony, anywhere and everywhere. Anyway, it's sheer madness to go roaming around the country in such times as these. Hereafter, you will please ask my permission and obtain my sanction when you are contemplating any further harebrained performances."
Warner took his rebuke very humbly, kissed the pretty hand that, figuratively, had chastised him, and went away to dress, considerably subdued.
"By the way," he asked, when halfway up the stairs, "how is that man, Reginald Gray?"
"I think he is better, Jim. Sister Eila is with him. Poor child, she has been superintending the placing of the cot beds which have arrived, and she is really very tired. If you are going to stop in and speak to Mr. Gray, please say to Sister Eila that I shall relieve her in a few moments."
He met Peggy with Philippa in the upper hall.
"You brute!" remarked Peggy, turning up her nose; and Philippa laughed and closed the girl's lips with her soft hand.
"You may chase me about and kick me, too," said Warner, contritely. "Anyway, I'm not to go anywhere with Philippa any more, it seems – "
"What!" exclaimed Philippa, then smiled and flushed as Peggy said scornfully:
"You couldn't keep away from her if you tried. But hereafter you'll include me on your charming excursions in quest of annihilation!" And she tightened her arm around Philippa's waist and swung her with her toward the further end of the hall.
Very conscious of his temporary unpopularity, he went in to see how Gray was feeling, and found him sitting up in bed and Sister Eila preparing his dose for him.
So Warner gave the Sister of Charity the message from Madame de Moidrey, and offered to sit beside Gray until the Countess arrived.
When Sister Eila had retired, Gray said, rather wistfully:
"I shan't know how to thank these people for taking me in. It's really a beastly imposition – "
"Nonsense, my dear fellow. They like it. All women adore a hero. How do you feel, anyway?"
"Much fitter, thanks. I don't know what medicine they're giving me, but it is evidently what I needed… And do you know that the Countess de Moidrey has been kind enough to visit me and read to me, and even write a letter to Halkett for me? I sent it to London. They'll get into touch with him there." His sunken eyes rested on the window through which, far away over Ausone Fort, the flicker and flare of the guns lighted up the misty darkness, throwing a wavering red glare over the clouds.
Boom – boom – rumble – rumble – boom! came the dull thundering out of the north. Every window was shaking and humming.
"A devil of a row," remarked Gray, restlessly.
"You've heard that the German shells are already falling on Ausone, haven't you?"
"No. Are they?"
Warner drew a brief picture of what he had seen that afternoon in Ausone, and the Englishman listened, intensely interested.
"And I don't know," he ended, "what is to prevent the Germans from battering the Ausone Fort to pieces if they have silenced those big Belgian fortresses around Namur. In that case, we'll have their charming Uhlans here in another forty-eight hours – "
He checked himself as Madame de Moidrey knocked and entered, followed by a maid with Gray's dinner on a tray.
"Thank you, Jim; you may go and dress now. Mr. Gray, you are to dine a little earlier, if you don't mind – Suzanne, place the tray on this tabouret. Now, shall I help you, Mr. Gray?"
"Thanks, so much; but I am detaining you from dinner – "
"No, indeed. Let me help you a little – " arranging a napkin for him and uncovering his cup of fragrant broth.
Warner and the maid, Suzanne, lingered, looking on, thinking they might be needed.
But realizing presently that neither the Countess nor her patient was paying the slightest attention to them, they looked at each other very gravely and quietly walked out.
That night at dinner Sister Eila was absent.
Certain prescribed devotions made Sister Eila's attendance at any meal an uncertainty. The private chapel in the east wing had now become a retreat for her at intervals during the day; the kitchen knew her when Gray's broth was to be prepared; she gently directed the servants who had been setting up the hospital cots in the east wing, and she showed them how to equip the beds, how to place the tables, how to garnish the basins of running water with necessaries, where to pile towels, where to assemble the hospital stores which had arrived with the cots in cases and kegs and boxes.
Besides this she had not forgotten to give Gray his medicine and to change his bandages.
It had been a busy day for Sister Eila.
And now, in the little chapel whither she had crept on tired feet to her devotions, she had fallen asleep on her knees, the rosary still clinging to her fingers, her white-bonneted head resting against the pillar beside which she had knelt.
Warner, wandering at hazard after dinner, discovered her there and thought it best to awaken her.
As he touched her sleeve, she murmured drowsily:
"I have need of prayer, Mr. Halkett… Let me pray – for us – both – "
For a long while Warner stood motionless, not daring to stir. Then, moving cautiously, he left her there asleep on her knees, her white cheek against the pillar, the wooden prayer beads hanging from her half-closed hand.
CHAPTER XXIX
The first streak of tarnished silver in the east aroused the sleeping batteries beyond Ausone. Warner, already dressed and out of doors, felt the dim world around him begin to shake again, as one by one the distant guns awoke and spoke to the ruined fort of doom. There was not a soul astir in the Château or about the grounds. Over shrubbery and woods thin films of night mist drooped, sagging like dew-laden spiders' webs; in the demi-light the great house loomed spectral and huge amid its phantom trees, and the wet lawns spread away and vanished under the pallid pall that bathed them.
Warner had slept badly. What might be transpiring in the north had haunted his troubled slumber, had broken it continually, and finally had driven him from his hot and tumbled pillows to dress and go out into the dark obscurity.
To see for himself, to try to form some conclusion concerning the approaching situation of the people in the Château des Oiseaux, was his object.
The first grey tint in the east woke up the guns; from the northern terrace he could see the fog all rosy over Ausone; pale flashes leaped and sparkled far beyond as the deep waves of sound came rolling and tumbling toward him, breaking in thunderous waves across the misty darkness.
Now and then a heavier concussion set the ground shaking, and a redder glare lighted the north and played shakily over the clouds. Ausone was still replying.
On the other side of the Récollette there was a hill terraced to the summit with vineyards. From its western slope he knew that part of Ausone town was visible, and from there he believed that with his field glasses he could see for himself how much of the town was really on fire; how near to it and to the fort were those paler flashes reflected on the clouds which ringed the northern sky.
Nobody was astir in the house as he left it; nobody in the roadway.
At the lodge he rapped on the dark window until the old man peered out at him through the diamond panes, yawning and blinking under his Yvetot nightcap, a candle trembling in his hand.
Outside the wall he crossed the road, climbed the hedge stile and struck across a field of stubble.
Over the darker eastern hills a wet sky lowered; the Récollette ran black under its ghostly cerements of vapor; lapwings were calling somewhere from the foggy sky, and their mournful and faint complaint seemed to harmonize sadly with the vague grey world around him.
A trodden path twisted through the grass down to the reedy shore where the punt lay. Peering about for it, his foot struck the pole, where it lay partly buried in the weeds; he picked it up and went down among the rushes. But until he laid his hand on the boat he did not notice the man asleep there. And not until the man sat up with a frightful yawn, rubbing his sleep-swollen lids, did he recognize Asticot.
"What the devil – " he began, but Asticot stumbled to his large, flat feet with a suppressed yelp of apprehension, as Warner's dreaded grasp fell on his collar.
"Mon Dieu," moaned the young ruffian, "may I not even sleep without offending M'sieu' – "
Warner shook him, not roughly.
"Now answer me once and for all! Why are you hanging around Saïs?"
The tiny, mousy eyes of Asticot became fixed; a grin of terror stiffened the pasty features.
"Why do I still find you in Saïs?" repeated Warner. "Tell me the truth!"
"I – I am too f-frightened to tell you – "
"Get over your fright. Listen, Asticot, I'm not going to hurt you. But you've got to answer me. Come, compose yourself – " He relaxed his grasp on the coat collar and stepped aside. "Come, Asticot; tell me why I find you here in Saïs?"
"M'sieu' – "
"Yes, go on. Just tell me the truth. I'm not going to beat you."
"M'sieu' will not believe me – God knows I do not know how to explain it to myself – but since that frightful beating bestowed upon me I do not know how to get along without the protection of M'sieu' – "
"What do you mean?"
"I am afraid! I do not know why. I desire to be taken under the patronage of him I fear. C'est plus fort que moi. Tenez, M'sieu', like a dog owned by nobody I once ran about at random, and not afraid, until caught and nearly killed by M'sieu'. And now I desire to be his. It is natural for me to follow him – even though I remain afraid of him, even risking his anger and another beating – "
"Asticot!"
"M'sieu'?"
"Do you nourish any agreeable dreams that you may one day live to insert your knife in my back?"
The sheer astonishment in the young ruffian's visage was sufficient answer for Warner. He realized then that this yellow mongrel would never again try to bite – that he might collapse and succumb under violence, but never again would he twist and try to mangle the hand of punishment which once had broken him so mercilessly.
"Get into the punt, anyway," said Warner, much perplexed.
Asticot turned and crept into the stern.
"Sit down!"
The young man squatted obediently. Warner shoved off, sprang aboard, and sent the punt shooting out across the misty water.
"So you don't want to murder me any more?" he asked humorously.
"No," said Asticot, with sullen but profound conviction.
"What's become of your delightful friend, Squelette?"
Asticot looked up, bared every tooth.
"Figurez-vous, M'sieu', a dragoon patrol caught him yesterday stealing a goose from a farm. Me, I hid in a willow tree. It's the Battalion of Biribi for Squelette – his class having been called a year ago – and he over the Belgian line with his fingers to his nose! Hé – hé!" laughed Asticot, writhing in the enjoyment of the prospect before his recent comrade. "Me, I have done my time in Biribi! – And the scars of it – God! – hot irons on the brain! – And the heart a cinder! Biribi! Is there a priest's hell like it?" He spat fiercely into the river.
"And Squelette, who always mocked me for the time I did in Biribi! Tenez, M'sieu', now they've caught him and he'll do a tour for himself in that dear Biribi! Hè – hè! C'est bien fait! Chacun à son tour! As for me – " His voice suddenly relapsed into a whine. "I shall now be well protected by M'sieu' and I shall be diligent and grateful in his service, ready always with brush and black soap or with knife and noose – "
"Thanks," said Warner dryly. "You may stick to the bowl of black soap until your class is summoned."
Asticot looked at him earnestly.
"If I have to go with my class, will M'sieu' speak a word for me that it shall be the line and not Biribi again?"
"Yes, if you behave yourself."
"A – a certificate of honest employment? – A few kind words that I have diligently labored in the service of M'sieu'?"
"Yes, I'll do that."
Asticot squirmed with delight. And Warner, poling steadily up stream, saw him making his toilet in the grey light, dipping his fists into the water, scrubbing his battered features, carefully combing out favoris and rouflaquette and greasing both from the contents of a knotted bandana handkerchief which he drew from the capacious pocket of the coat which the charity of Warner had bestowed upon him.
He was as merry as a washer-raccoon over his ablutions; all care for the future had fled, and an animal-like confidence in this terrible young patron of his reigned undisturbed in the primitive brain of Asticot.
There was now only one impelling force in life for him – the instinctive necessity of running rather close to Warner's heels, wherever that might lead him. Anxiety for personal comfort and well-being he dismissed; he would eat when his master thought best; he would find shelter and warmth and clothing when and where it pleased the man after whom he tagged. He was safe, he was comfortable. That dominating physical strength which had nearly destroyed him, coupled with that awesome intellectual power which now held him in dumb subjection, would in future look out for him and his needs. Tant mieux! Let his master do the worrying.
