The Girl Philippa

"Thousands," nodded Warner.

The soldier saluted; Warner lifted his cap, and he and Philippa entered the Boule d'Argent, where, in a little, lace-curtained dining-room to the left, they seated themselves by the street window and ordered tea and sugar-buns.

The gérant, who knew Warner, came up and made a most serious and elaborate bow to Philippa and to the American.

"Ah, Monsieur Warner!" he said. "Voyez-vous the Bosches have begun at last! But, God willing, it shall not be 1870 again!"

"It won't be; don't worry, François. The Republic knows how to confront what is coming!"

"Yes. I hope we have learned something. All Frenchmen will do what is possible. As for me, I expect that my class will be called. I shall do my best, Monsieur Warner… It is a great happiness to know that the English are with us. We must stand by those poor Belgians. Have you heard the news, Monsieur?"

"Nothing since noon."

"Ah! The Bosches are ruining everything with their artillery. Liége, Namur, are crumbling; Louvain has been swept by shells. The great cupola forts are in ruins; everything is on fire; they are shooting the people in their houses, in the streets – the dead lie everywhere – women, children, in the ditches, in the fields, on the highroads. Ah, Monsieur Warner, c'est triste, allez!"

"Where did you hear such things, François?"

"It is already common talk. The noon bulletins of the Petit Journal confirm it. They say that our fort is shelling the Uhlans of Guillaume now. They say that the forest of Ausone crawls with them."

A waiter brought their tea; the gérant bowed himself out and sent a porter to the lumber room to collect and cord up Warner's canvases.

While Philippa poured their tea, the cups began to rattle in the saucers, and the windows shivered and trembled in the increasing thunder. Twice his cup slopped over; and he was just lifting it to his lips when suddenly the very floor seemed to jump under them and a tremendous shock rocked the room.

"A big gun in the fort," said Warner, coolly forcing a smile. "I think, Philippa, as soon as you have finished – "

A terrific salvo cut him short. Somewhere he could hear a crashing avalanche of broken glass, prolonged into a tinkling cascade; then came a second's silence, then another splitting roar from the end of the street.

The waiter came in hurriedly, very pale.

"An aëroplane, Monsieur! They are firing at it from the boulevard – "

His words were obliterated in the rush and clatter of horses outside.

Dragoons were galloping up the stony rue d'Auros, squadron on squadron, and behind them rattled three high-angle guns harnessed to teams driven by dragoons.

"Attention there!" shouted an officer, reining in and halting a peloton of horsemen. "Fire at will from your saddles!"

Warner sprang to the window; the street and the market square was full of halted cavalry firing skyward. They had several high-angle guns there too; the ear-splitting detonations became continuous; and all the time the solid earth was shaking under terrible detonations from the fort's cupolas, where the big cannon were concealed.

From everywhere came the treble clink and tinkle of broken glass; people in the hotel were running to the windows and running away from them; the building itself seemed to sway slightly; dust hung in the air, greying everything.

Warner drew Philippa to him and said calmly, but close to her ear:

"The thing to do is to get out of this at the first opportunity. I had no idea that anything would happen as near – "

His voice was blotted out in a loud report, shouts, a woman screaming, the rumble and tumbling roar of bricks. Another shattering report almost deafened him; the air was filled with whizzing, whining noises; the entire front of a shop diagonally across the street caved in with a crystalline crash of glass, and the cornice above it lurched outward, swayed, crumpled, and descended in a pouring avalanche of bricks and mortar.

Somebody in the hotel lobby shouted:

"An aëroplane is directly over us. They are dropping bombs!"

"Go to the cellar!" cried another.

An officer of gendarmerie came in, followed by a trooper.

"Stay where you are!" he said. "It's safer."

Another explosion sounded, but farther away this time.

"Their Taube is steering toward the fort," continued the same quiet-voiced officer who had spoken. "Don't go out into the streets!"

The uproar in the square had become terrific; high-angle guns poured streams of fire into the sky; dragoons sitting their restless horses fired upward from their saddles; an engine escorted by brass-helmeted pompiers arrived and a stream of water was turned on the debris of the shop across the street, where already pale flames flickered and played over the dusty ruins.

"Somebody has been killed," whispered Philippa in Warner's ear.

He nodded, watching the Red Cross bearers as they hastened up with their stretchers, where the firemen were uncovering something from beneath the heap of smoking debris.

A staff officer, attended by a hussar lancer, and followed by two mounted gendarmes, rode into the street just as the dragoons, forming to whistle signal in column of fours, rode out of the street at a gallop.

There came another clatter of hoofs; an open carriage escorted by six gendarmes-à-cheval rolled through the rue d'Auros. In it was a white-haired gentleman wearing a top hat and a tri-colored sash.

"The mayor," nodded Warner, as carriage and escort passed rapidly in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville.

The sky-guns had ceased firing, now; three of them were limbered up and dragged away toward the Boulevard d'Athos by dragoons. More Red Cross brassards appeared in the street, more stretchers. Two double-decked motor ambulances drew up; others, following, continued on toward the Place and the railroad station. Then three grey military automobiles full of officers came whizzing through the rue d'Auros with terrific blasts of warning; and sped on, succeeded by others filled with infantry soldiers, until a steady stream of motor cars of every description was rushing past the windows, omnibus motors, trucks, hotel busses, furniture vans, private cars, of every make and varying capacities, all loaded with red-capped fantassins and bristling with rifles.

Warner opened the window and leaned far out, one arm around Philippa.

Eastward, on the Plaza Sainte Cassilda, masses of lancer cavalry were defiling at a trot, dragoons, hussars, and chasseurs-à-cheval, and the rue d'Auros was filled with onrushing motor cars as far as he could see. Westward, parallel with the stream of automobiles, field artillery was crossing the Place d'Ausone, battery after battery, the drivers whipping and spurring in their saddles, the horses breaking from trot to gallop.

"Something unexpectedly serious is happening," said Warner, trying to make his voice audible in the din from the fort. "Look into those alleys and lanes and cross streets! Do you see the people hurrying out of their houses? I must have been crazy to bring you here!"

"I can't hear you, Jim – " Her lips formed the words; he pointed across the street into the alleyways and mews; she nodded comprehension.

"Until these automobiles pass we can't cross – can't get across!" He found himself almost shouting; and he emphasized his meaning with pantomime and gesticulation.

She nodded, undisturbed. Now and then, when soldiers in automobiles looked up at them, she tossed white flowers from her bouquet into the tonneau and nodded a gay response to the quick salutes. One lily remained; she drew it through the laces that held her scarlet and black bodice, then, resting her hand on Warner's shoulder, looked gravely down at the rushing column underneath.

The tremendous concussions from the fort had loosened plaster and broken window glass everywhere in the hotel; a smarting mist drifted through the open window; the room behind them was obscured as by a fog, and every shock from the guns added to the thickening dust veil.

The gérant, François, ghastly pale but polite, came presently to inform Warner by signs that a chimney had fallen in on the lumber room and that at present it was not possible for the porter to enter and find the canvases stored there.

Warner understood, catching a word or two here and there, and shrugged his indifference to what might become of his sketches.

"All I want," he shouted into the gérant's ear, "is to get this young lady out of Ausone!"

François nodded, pointed toward the cross streets which were now swarming with people preparing for flight. There came a sudden lull in the cannonade, and almost at the same time the last motor filled with soldiers sped through the street below.

Instantly the street, now occupied only by firemen and Red Cross soldiers, was filled with citizens. Groups formed, surged hither and thither, mingled with other groups and became a swaying crowd. Already hand-carts and wheelbarrows appeared, piled with bedding and household furniture; the open carriage of the mayor repassed, was halted, and the aged magistrate stood up and addressed the people; but Warner could not make out what he was saying, and in a moment or two the carriage continued toward the Boulevard d'Athos, escorted by gendarmes.