Carefully combing out his favoris with a broken comb and greasing them with perfumed pomade flat over his sunken cheekbones, he fairly wriggled with his new sense of security and bodily comfort.
Now and then he scratched his large, outstanding ears, trying to realize his good fortune; now and then, combing his rouflaquette with tenderness and pride, he lifted his mean, nasal voice in song:
"Depuis que j'suis dans c'tte p – n d'AfriqueA faire l'chameau avec une bosse su' l'dos,Mon vieux frangin, j'suis sec comme un coup d'trique,J'ai b'entôt p'us que d'la peau su'les os!Et v'là l'Bat. d'Af. qui passe,Ohé! ceux d'la classe! – "Combing away and plastering his lovelocks by the help of a fragment of mirror, Asticot whined out his dreadful ballads of Africa, throwing all the soul he possessed into the tragic recital and sniffling sentimentally through his nose:
A Biribi c'est là qu'on marche,Faut pas flancher;Quand l'chaouch crie: 'En avant! Marche!'I'faut marcher,Et quand on veut fair' des épates,C'est peau d'zébi:On vous fiche les fers au quat' pattesA Biribi!A Biribi c'est là qu'on crèveDe soif et d' faim,C'est là qu'i' faut marner sans trêveJusqu' à la fin! …Le soir on pense à la familleSous le gourbi…On pleure encor' quand on roupilleA Biribi!"He was still chanting when the punt glided in among the rushes of the eastern bank. He followed Warner to the land, aided him to beach the punt, then trotted docilely at heel as the American struck out across the quarry road and mounted the retaining wall of the vineyard-clad hill.
Up they climbed among the vines; and Asticot with a leer, but keeping his mousy eyes on Warner, ventured to detach a ripe bunch here and there and breakfast as he trotted along.
The thunder of the cannon had become very distinct; daylight came slowly under the heavy blanket of grey clouds; the foggy sky was still stained with rose over Ausone; red flashes leaped from the fort; the paler glare of the German guns played constantly across the north.
And now, coming out on the hill's crest among the vines, Warner caught sight of Ausone town far below, beyond the Château forest. Here and there houses kindled red as coals in a grate; the sluice and wheel of a mill by the Récollette seemed to be on fire; beyond it haystacks were burning and smothering all the east in smoke.
"Mazette," remarked Asticot, with his mouth full of stolen grapes. "It appears to Bibi that their church of Sainte Cassilda is frying the stone saints inside!"
And then, adjusting his field glasses, Warner discovered what the mouse-eyes of Asticot had detected: Sainte Cassilda the beautiful was merely a hollow shell within which raged a sea of fire crimsoning the gaping doors and windows, glowing scarlet through cracks and fissures in the exquisitely carved façade, mounting through the ruined roof in a whirl of rosy vapors that curled and twisted and glittered with swarming golden sparks.
Another fire burned in the ruins of what had been the Chalons railway station; the Café and Cabaret de Biribi were level wastes of stones and steaming bricks, over which fire played and smoke whirled upward; the market was a long heap of live coals; even trees were afire by the river, and Warner could see flames here and there among the bushes and whole thickets burning fiercely along the river and beyond, where the Bois d'Ausone touches it with a fringe of splendid oaks.
As day broke, a watery light illuminated the still landscape. Smoke hung heavy over Ausone Fort; the great cupola guns flashed redly through it; a wide, high bank of vapor towered above Ausone, stretching away to the west and north. Whole rows of burning houses in Ausone glowed and glimmered, marking the courses of streets; the Hôtel de Ville seemed to be intact, but the Boulevard d'Athos was plainly on fire; and, over the rue d'Auros, an infernal light flickered as flame and smoke alternately lighted the street or blotted it from view.
"The town is done for," said Warner calmly. "The fort is still replying, but very slowly. It looks rather bad to me. It looks like the end."
Asticot scratched one large ear and furtively helped himself to another bunch of grapes. Warner seated himself on the ground and raised his field glasses. Asticot squatted on his haunches, his little, mousy eyes fixed wistfully on the burning town. Looting ought to be good in Ausone – dangerous, of course, but profitable. A heaven-sent opportunity for honest pillage was passing. Asticot sighed and licked his lips.
After a while, and imbued now with the impudent confidence of a tolerated mongrel, he ventured to rise and nose around a bit, keeping, however, his new master carefully in sight.
The sour little wine grapes had allayed his thirst and hunger; he prowled at random around the summit of the hill, surveying the river valley and the hills beyond. By chance he presently kicked up a big hare, which cleared out at full speed, doubling and twisting before the shower of stones hurled after it by Asticot. He ran after it a little way among the vines, hoping that a chance missile might have bowled over the toothsome game. Craning his neck, he peeped discreetly down the hillside, reconnoitering; then suddenly ducked; squatted for a moment as though frozen to a statue, and, dropping on his belly, he crawled back to Warner, who still sat there with his field glasses bracketed on Ausone.
"M'sieu'!"
Warner turned at the weird whisper, lowering his glasses.
"Las Bosches!" whispered Asticot.
"Where?" demanded Warner incredulously.
"Riding up this very hill where we are sitting! I saw them – six of them on their horses!"
"They must be French!"
"No, Bosches! Uhlans!"
"Did they see you?"
"No."
Along the upper retaining wall of the vineyard a line of low bushes grew in patches, left there, no doubt, so that the roots might make firmer the steep bank of earth and dry-laid stone.
Warner rose, and, stooping low, ran toward this thatch of cover, followed by Asticot.
Under the bushes they crept, stretched themselves flat, and lay listening.
They had not long to wait; straight through the rows of vines toward the crest of the hill rode an Uhlan, walking his big, hard-breathing horse to the very verge of the northern slope.
His lance, with pennon furled, slanted low from the arm loop; he sat his high saddle like a statue, and looked out across the valley toward the burning town beyond.
He was so near that Warner could see the grey uniform in detail – the ulanka piped with dark crimson, shoulder straps bearing the number 2, collar with the eagle-button insignia of the Guard. A grey helmet-slip covered the mortar board and leather body of the schapska; boots and belt were of russet leather.
Another Uhlan rode up, showing the star of an oberleutnant on the pattes-d'épaules.
Four others followed, picking their way among the vines, cautiously yet leisurely. At the stirrups of the oberleutnant strode a man on foot – a big, shambling, bald-headed man wearing a smock and carrying a felt hat in his huge hand. And when he turned to wipe his hairless face on his sleeve, Asticot clutched Warner's arm convulsively.
The man was Wildresse.
The officer of Uhlans sat very straight in his saddle, his field glasses sometimes focussed on the burning town, sometimes sweeping the landscape to the north and west, sometimes deliberately studying the valley below.
Presently he lowered his glasses and turned partly around to look down at Wildresse, who was standing among the vines by his stirrup.
"Wohin führt diese Weg?" he demanded with a nod toward the quarry road below.
"Nach Drieux, Excellenz!"
"Zeigen Sie mir die Richtung nach Dreslin mit der Hand!"
Wildresse raised his arm and pointed, tracing the quarry road north and west.
"Also! Wie tief ist dieser Fluss? Ist eine Brücke?"
The harsh, deep rumble of Wildresse's voice, the mincing, nasal tones of the Prussian, the snort of horses receded as the Uhlans rode slowly over toward the right – evidently a precaution to escape observation from the valley below.
For a while they sat their big horses there, looking out over the valley; then, at a signal from the ober-leutnant, they turned their mounts and rode slowly off down the eastern slope of the vineyard, taking with them the double traitor, Wildresse.
Asticot's eyes were like two minute black sparks; he was shivering now from head to foot as he lay there; and it became very evident to Warner that this young ruffian had had no knowledge of that sort of villainy on the part of Wildresse.
"Ah, le cochon!" hissed Asticot, grasping two fistfuls of earth in his astonishment and fury. "Is he selling France then to the Bosches?"
"Didn't you know it?" inquired Warner coldly.
"I? Nom de Dieu! For what do you take me then? Whatever I am, I am not that! Ah, le sale bougre de Wildresse! Ah! Les salauds de saligauds de Bosches! Ah, Wildresse! – Fumier, viande à corbeau, caserne à puces, gadou', morceau d'chausett's russes – que j'te dis que j't'engeule et que j't'abomine, vermine malade, canard boiteux – "
Ashy white, his mouth twisted with rage, Asticot lay shivering and cursing the treachery of his late employer, Wildresse. And Warner understood that, low as this creature was, ignorant, treacherous, fierce, ruthless, and cowardly, the treason of Wildresse had amazed and horrified and enraged him.
"It's the last depths of filth," stammered Asticot. "Ah, non, nom de Dieu! One does not do that! – Whatever else one does! I'll have his skin for this. It becomes necessary to me that I have his skin! Minc' de Marseillaise! Viv' la république! En avant l'armée! Gare au coup d'scion, eh, vache d'apache! Les coutcaur sont faits pour les chiens, mince de purée! C'est vrai qu' Squelette c'est un copain à moi – but if he is in this – he and the père Wildresse, et bon! – Faut leur-z-y casser la geule – "
"That's enough!" interrupted Warner, who for a moment had been struck dumb by the frightful fluency of an invective he never dreamed existed, even in the awful argot of voyous like Asticot.
He rose. Pale and still trembling, Asticot stumbled to his feet, his pasty face twisted with unuttered maledictions.
Moving cautiously to the eastern edge of the vineyard, they saw, far below them, six Uhlans riding slowly eastward toward the Bois de Saïs, and a gross figure on foot shuffling ahead and evidently acting as pilot toward the wilder uplands of the rolling country beyond.
Warner watched them through his glasses until they disappeared in the woods, then he turned, looked at the burning town in the north for a few moments, closed his field glasses and slung them, and, nodding to Asticot, descended the western slope toward the river.
There were no people visible anywhere, either on the quarry road or across the river. The fugitives from Ausone must have gone west toward Dreslin.
Asticot crawled into the punt; Warner shoved off and poled for midstream, where he let the current carry him down toward Saïs.
"Asticot?"
"M'sieu'?"
"That was only one small scouting party of Uhlans. Perhaps there are more of them along the river."
Asticot began to curse again, but Warner stopped him.
"Curb that charmingly fluent flow of classic eloquence," he said. "It may sound well on the outer boulevards, but I don't care for it."
The voyou gulped, swallowed a weird oath, and shivered.
"Asticot, that man Wildresse ought to be apprehended and shot. Have you any idea where his hiding place is?"
"In the Bois d'Ausone. It was there. Animals travel."
"Could you find the place?"
Asticot shrugged and rubbed his pock-marked nose. The forest of Ausone was too near the cannon to suit him, and he said so without hesitation.
"Very well," said Warner. "When we meet any of our soldiers or gendarmes you can explain where Wildresse has been hiding. He won't come out, I suppose, until the occupation of Ausone by the Germans reassures him. He ought to be caught and executed."
"If the cannon would only stop their ugly noises I'd go myself," muttered Asticot. "Tenez, M'sieu', it would be a pleasure for me to bleed that treacherous hog – "
"I don't doubt it," said Warner pleasantly, "but, odd as it may appear to you, Asticot, I have a personal prejudice against murder. It's weak-minded of me, I know. But if you have no objection, we'll let military law catch Wildresse and deal with him if it can."
Asticot looked at him curiously:
"Is it then distasteful to M'sieu' that I bleed this espèce de pig for him?"
"I'm afraid it is."
"You do not desire me to settle the business of this limace?"
"No."
"For what purpose is an enemy?" inquired the voyou. "For revenge. And of what use is revenge if you do not use it on your enemy?"
"You can't understand me, can you, Asticot?"
"No," said Asticot naïvely, "I can't."
CHAPTER XXX
It was still very early as Warner walked up to the Golden Peach, but Magda and Linette were astir and a delicious aroma of coffee floated through the hallway.
Warner surveyed his most recent acquisition with a humorous and slightly disgusted air. As it appeared impossible to get rid of Asticot, there seemed nothing to do but to feed him.
So he called out Linette and asked her to give some breakfast to the young voyou; and Linette showed Asticot into the bar and served breakfast with a scorn and aloofness which fascinated Asticot and also awed him.
None of the leering impudence, none of the easy effrontery of the outer boulevards, aided Asticot to assert himself or helped him toward any attempt at playfulness toward this wholesome, capable, business-like young woman.
She served him with a detached and supercilious air, placed cover and food with all the nonchalance of serving a house cat with its morning milk. And Asticot dared not even look at her until her back was turned; then only did he venture to lift his mousy eyes to study the contemptuous girl who had provided him with what he spoke of as the "quoi d'boulotter."
As for Warner, he had sauntered into the kitchen, where Madame Arlon greeted him heartily, and was prettily confused and flattered when he seated himself and insisted on having breakfast with her.
Over their café-au-lait they discussed the menace of invasion very quietly, and the stout, cheery landlady told him that she had concluded to keep the inn open in any event.
"What else is there for me to do?" she asked. "To leave my house is to invite robbery; perhaps even destruction, if the Prussians arrive. I had rather remain and protect my property if I can. At any rate, it will not be for long, God willing!"
"I do not believe it will last very long, this headlong rush of the Germans into France," he said thoughtfully. "It seems to me as though they had the start of us, but nothing more serious. I'm very much afraid we are going to see them here in the Récollette Valley before they are driven back across the frontier."
Linette's cheeks grew very red.
"I had even rather serve that frightful voyou in there than be forced to set food before a Prussian," she said in a low voice.
"Wait a bit longer," said Warner. " – A little patience, perhaps a little more humiliation, but, sooner or later, surely, surely the liberation of the Vosges – the return of her lost children to France, the driving out of German oppression, arrogance, and half-cooked civilization forever… It's worth waiting for, worth endurance and patience and sacrifice."
"It is worth dying for," said Magda simply.
"If," added Linette, "one only knew how best to serve France by offering one's life."
"It is best to live if that can be accomplished honorably," said Madame Arlon. "France is in great need of all her children."
The three women spoke thoughtfully, naturally, with no idea of heroics, expressing themselves without any self-consciousness whatever.
After a silence Warner said to Linette with a smile:
"So you don't admire my new assistant, Monsieur Asticot?"
"Monsieur Warner! That dreadful voyou in yourservice!"
Warner laughed:
"It seems so. I didn't invite him. But I can't get rid of him. He sticks like a lost dog."
"Send him about his business – which doubtless is to pick pockets!" cried Linette. "Monsieur has merely to whisper 'Gendarmes!' to him, and he does not stop running until he sights the Eiffel Tower!"
Madame Arlon smiled:
"He really is a dreadful type," she said. "The perfume of Paris gutters clings to him. Monsieur Warner had better get rid of him before articles begin to be missed."
"Oh, well," remarked Warner, "he'll probably scuttle away like a scared rabbit when the Germans come through Saïs. I'm not worrying. Meanwhile, he carries my field kit and washes brushes – if I ever can make up my mind to begin painting again… That heavy, steady thunder from the north seems to take all ambition out of me."
"It affects me like real thunder," nodded Madame Arlon. "The air is lifeless and dead; one's feet drag and one's head grows heavy. It is like the languor which comes over one before a storm.
"Do the guns seem any louder to you since last night?"
"I was wondering… Well, God's will be done… But I do not believe it is in His heart to turn the glory of His face from France… Magda, if we are to make the preserves today, it will be necessary for you to gather plums this morning. Linette, is that type still eating?"
"He stuffs himself without pause," replied the girl scornfully. "Only a guinea pig can eat like that!"
She went into the bar café and bent a pair of pretty but hostile eyes upon Asticot, who stared at her with his mouth full, then, still staring, buttered another slice of bread.
"Voyons," she said impatiently, "do you imagine yourself to be at dinner, young man? Permit me to remind you that this is breakfast – café-au-lait – not a banquet at the Hôtel de Ville!"
"I am hungry," said Asticot simply.
"Really?" she retorted, exasperated. "One might almost guess as much, what with the tartines and tranches you swallow as though you had nothing else to do. Come, stand up on what I suppose you call your feet. Your master is out in the road already, and I don't suppose that even you have the effrontery to keep him waiting."
Asticot arose; a gorged sigh escaped him. He stretched himself with the satisfaction of repletion, shuffled his feet, peeped cunningly and sideways out of his mousy eyes at Linette.
"Allons," she said coldly, "it's paid for. Fichez-moi le camp!"
There was a vase of flowers on the bar. Asticot shuffled over, sniffed at them, extracted the largest and gaudiest blossom – a yellow dahlia – and, with a half bold, half scared smirk, laid it on the table as an offering to Linette.
The girl was too much astonished and incensed to utter a word, and Asticot left so hurriedly that when she had recovered her power of speech he was already slouching along down the road a few paces behind Warner.
The latter had hastened his steps because ahead of him walked Sister Eila; and he meant to overtake and escort her as far as the school, and then back to the Château, if she were returning.
As he joined her and they exchanged grave but friendly greetings, he suddenly remembered her as he had last seen her, kneeling asleep by the chapel pillar.
And then he recollected what she had murmured, still drowsy with dreams; and the memory of it perplexed him and left his face flushed and troubled.
"How is your patient, Sister?" he inquired, dropping into step beside her.
"Much better, Mr. Warner. A little care is all he needs. But I wish his mind were at rest." She glanced behind her at Asticot, plainly wondering who he might be.
"What worries Gray?" inquired Warner.
"The prospect of being taken prisoner, I suppose."
"Of course. If the Germans break through from the north they'll take him along. That would be pretty hard luck, wouldn't it? – To be taken before one has even a taste of battle!"
Sister Eila nodded:
"He says nothing, but I know that is what troubles him. When I came in this morning, I found him up and trying to walk. I sent him back to bed. But he tells me he does not need to use his legs in his branch of the British service, and that if he could only get to Chalons he would be fit for duty. I think, from things he has said, that both he and Mr. Halkett belong to the Flying Corps."
Warner was immensely interested. Sister Eila told him briefly why she suspected this to be true, then, casting another perplexed glance behind her, she asked in a low voice who might be the extremely unprepossessing individual shuffling along the road behind them. And Warner told her, humorously; but she did not smile.
Watching her downcast eyes and grave lips in the transparent shadow of her white coiffe, he thought he had never seen a human face so pure, so tender – with such infinite capacity for charity.
She said very gently:
"My duties have led me more than once into the Faubourgs. There is nothing sadder to me than Paris… Always I have believed that sin and degradation among the poor should be treated as diseases of the mind… Poor things – they have no doctor, no medicines, no hospital to aid them in their illness – the most terrible illness in the world, which they inherit at birth – poverty! Poverty sickens the body, and at last the mind; and from a diseased mind all evil in the world is born… They are not to blame who daily crucify Christ; for they know not what they do."
He walked silently beside her. She spoke again of crippled minds, and of the responsibility of civilization, then looked up at his gloomy visage with a faint smile, excusing herself for any lack of cheerfulness and courage.
"Indeed," she said almost gayly, "God is best served with a light heart, I think. There is no palladin like good humor to subdue terror and slay despair; no ally of Christ so powerful as he who laughs when evil threatens. Sin is most easily slain with a smile, I think; its germs die under it as bacilli die in the sunlight. Tenez, Monsieur Warner, what do you think of my theories of medicine, moral, spiritual, and mundane? Is it likely that the Academy will award me palms?"
He laughed and assured her that her views were sound in theory and in practice. A moment later they came in sight of the school.
"It is necessary that I make some little arrangements with Sister Félicité for my absence," she explained. "I scarcely know what she is going to do all alone here, if the children are to remain."
They went into the schoolroom, where exercises had already begun, and the droning, minor singsong of children filled the heavy air.
Sister Félicité greeted Warner, then, dismissing the children to their desks, withdrew to a corner of the schoolroom with Sister Eila.
Their low-voiced consultation lasted for a few minutes only; the little girls, hands solemnly folded, watched out of wide, serious eyes.
On the doorstep outside, Asticot sat and occasionally scratched his large ears with a sort of bored embarrassment.
Warner went out to the doorstep presently and looked up at the sky, which threatened rain. As he stood there, silent, preoccupied, Sister Eila came out with Sister Félicité, nodding to Warner that she was ready to leave. And, at the same instant, two horsemen in grey uniforms rode around the corner of the school, pistols lifted, lances without pennons slanting backward from their armslings.
Asticot, paralyzed, gaped at them; Warner, as shocked as he, stood motionless as four more Uhlans came trotting up and coolly drew bridle before the school.
Already three of the Uhlans had dismounted, stacked lances, abandoning their bridles to the three who remained on their horses.
As they came striding across the road toward the school, spurs and carbines clinking and rattling, a child in the schoolroom caught sight of them and screamed.
Instantly the room was filled with the terrified cries of little girls: Sister Eila and Sister Félicité, pale but calm, backed slowly away before the advancing Uhlans, their arms outstretched in protection in front of the shrieking, huddling herd of children. Behind them the terrified little girls crouched under desks, hid behind the stove, or knelt clinging hysterically to the grey-blue habits of the Sisters, who continued to interpose themselves between the Uhlans and their panic-stricken pupils.
