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The Guns of Europe

by Joseph A. Altsheler · English · Gutenberg #33481 · 466,244 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Guns of Europe

Author: Joseph A. Altsheler

Illustrator: Charles L. Wrenn


        
Release date: August 21, 2010 [eBook #33481]

Language: English

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World War Series

THE GUNS OF EUROPE

by

JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

Author of "The Guns of Bull Run", "The Texan Triumph", etc.

Illustrated by Charles Wrenn







D. Appleton and Company
New York and London
1915


      *      *      *      *      *

THE CIVIL WAR SERIES

The Star of Gettysburg
The Guns of Bull Run
The Scouts of Stonewall
The Guns of Shiloh
The Sword of Antietam
The Rock of Chickamauga (In preparation)

THE WORLD WAR SERIES

The Guns of Europe
The Hosts of the Air
The Forest of Swords

THE YOUNG TRAILERS SERIES

The Young Trailers
The Riflemen of the Ohio
The Forest Runners
The Scouts of the Valley
The Free Rangers
The Border Watch

THE TEXAN SERIES

The Texan Star
The Texan Scouts
The Texan Triumph

Apache Gold
A Soldier of Manhattan
The Quest of the Four
The Sun of Saratoga
The Last of the Chiefs
A Herald of the West
In Circling Camps
The Wilderness Road
My Captive

      *      *      *      *      *


[Illustration: "Their careering machine made but a single
target while they could fire into the pursuing mass."]



FOREWORD


"The Guns of Europe" is the first of three connected romances, of which
"The Forest of Swords" and "The Hosts of the Air" are to be respectively
the second and third, dealing with the world war in Europe.

It was the singular fortune of the author to be present at the beginning
of this, the most gigantic struggle in the history of our globe. He was
in Vienna the day Austria-Hungary declared war upon Servia, thus setting
the torch that lighted the general conflagration. Returning westward, he
reached Munich the day Germany declared war upon Russia. He remained in
Germany nearly a month, having witnessed in turn the Austrian and German
mobilizations, and then arrived in England in time to see the gathering
of the British Empire's armed hosts.

He was also, upon his return, in Quebec when the greatest colony of the
British was rallying to their support. Such an experience at such an
extraordinary crisis makes ineffaceable impressions, and through his
characters, the author has striven his best to reproduce them in these
three romances.



CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.    THE SISTINE MADONNA
CHAPTER II.   THE THUNDERBOLT
CHAPTER III.  THE REFUGE
CHAPTER IV.   THE THRILLING ESCAPE
CHAPTER V.    THE FIGHT IN THE BLUE
CHAPTER VI.   ABOVE THE STORM
CHAPTER VII.  THE ZEPPELIN
CHAPTER VIII. THE FRENCH DEFENSE
CHAPTER IX.   THE RIDE OF THREE
CHAPTER X.    THE DRAGONS OF THE AIR
CHAPTER XI.   THE ARMORED CAR
CHAPTER XII.  THE ABANDONED CHATEAU
CHAPTER XIII. ON THE ROOF
CHAPTER XIV.  THE GERMAN HOST
CHAPTER XV.   THE GIANT GUN



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Their careering machine made but a single target while they could fire
into the pursuing mass."

"A second shot came presently from the forty-two centimeter."

"Overhead the aeroplanes swooped lower and lower, like gigantic birds."

"A vast red whirlwind in which the faces of men shone and steel
glittered."



THE GUNS OF EUROPE



CHAPTER I

THE SISTINE MADONNA


John turned a little to the left, going nearer to the window, where he
could gain a better view of the Madonna, which he had heard so often was
the most famous picture in the world. He was no technical judge of
painting--he was far too young for such knowledge--but he always
considered the effect of the whole upon himself, and he was satisfied
with that method, feeling perhaps that he gained more from it than if he
had been able to tear the master-work to pieces, merely in order to see
how Raphael had made it.

"Note well, John, that this is the Sistine Madonna," began William Anson
in his didactic, tutorial tone. "Observe the wonderful expression upon
the face of the Holy Mother. Look now at the cherubs gazing up into the
blue vault, in which the Madonna like an angel is poised. Behold the
sublime artist's mastery of every detail. There are those who hold that
the Madonna della Sedia at Florence is its equal in beauty and
greatness, but I do not agree with them. To me the Sistine Madonna is
always first. Centuries ago, even, its full worth was appreciated. It
brought a great price at----"

The rest of his speech trailed off into nothingness. John had
impatiently moved further away, and had deliberately closed his ear also
to any dying sounds of oratory that might reach him. He had his own
method of seeing the wonders of the Old World. He was interested or he
was not. It was to him a state of mind, atmospheric in a way. He liked
to breathe it in, and the rattle of a guide or tutor's lecture nearly
always broke the spell.

Anxious that Mr. Anson should not have any further chance to mar his
pleasure he moved yet closer to the great window from which came nearly
all the light that fell upon the Sistine Madonna. There he stood almost
in the center of the beams and gazed upon the illumined face, which
spoke only of peace upon earth and good will. He was moved deeply,
although there was no sign of it in his quiet eyes. He did not object to
emotion and to its vivid expression in others, but his shy nature,
feeling the need of a defensive armor, rejected it for himself.

It was a brighter day than the changeful climate of Dresden and the
valley of the Elbe usually offered. The sunshine came in a great golden
bar through the window and glowed over the wonderful painting which had
stood the test of time and the critics. He had liked the good, gray city
sitting beside its fine river. It had seemed friendly and kind to him,
having in it the quality of home, something almost American in its
simplicity and lack of caste.

They had arrived as soon as the doors were opened, and but few people
were yet in the room. John came from his mood of exaltation and glanced
at the others, every one in turn. Two women, evidently teachers, stood
squarely in front of the picture and looked alternately at the Madonna
and one of the red volumes that mark the advance of the American hosts
in Europe. A man with a thick, black beard, evidently a Russian, moved
incessantly back and forth, his feet keeping up a light shuffle on the
floor. John wondered why some northern races should be so emotional and
others so reserved. He had ceased to think that climate ruled
expression.

A stout German frau stood gazing in apparent stolidity. Yet she was not
so stolid as she seemed, because John caught a beam of appreciation in
her eye. Presently she turned and went out, doubtless returning to some
task of the thrifty housewife in this very city of Dresden. John thought
her emblematic of Germany, homely herself, but with the undying love of
the beautiful shown so freely in her fine cities, and in the parks,
gardens and fountains more numerous than in an other country.

Her place was taken by an officer in a uniform, subdued in color, but
martial. He was a tall, stiff man, and as he walked with a tread akin to
the goosestep his feet clanked upon the floor. He wore a helmet, the
cloth cover over the spike, but John noticed that he did not take off
the helmet in the presence of the Sistine Madonna. He moved to a place
in front of the picture, brushing against the sisterhood of the red
book, and making no apology. There he stood, indifferent to those about
him, holding himself as one superior, dominant by force, the lord by
right of rank over inferior beings.

John's heart swelled with a sense of resentment and hostility. He knew
perfectly well that the stranger was a Prussian officer--a strong man
too, both in mind and body. He stood upright, more than six feet tall,
his wide shoulders thrown well back, his large head set upon a powerful
neck. Reddish hair showed beneath the edges of the helmet, and the blue
eyes that gazed at the picture were dominant and masterful. He was about
thirty, just at the age when those who are strong have tested their
minds against other men in the real arena of life and find them good.
The heavy, protruding jaw and the compressed lips made upon John the
impression of power.

The picture grew somewhat dim. One of those rapid changes to which
Dresden is subject occurred. The sunshine faded and a grayness as of
twilight filtered into the room. The glances of the young American and
the Prussian officer turned away from the Madonna at the same time and
met.

John was conscious that the blue eyes were piercing into him, but he had
abundant courage and resolution and he gave back the look with a
firmness and steadiness, equal to the Prussian's own. The cold steel of
that glance rested upon him only for a few moments. It passed on,
dissected in an instant the two teachers with the red guide book, and
then the man walking, to the window, looked out at the gray walls of the
city.

John had not lowered his eyes before the intrusive gaze, but he felt now
as if he had been subjected to an electric current. He was at once angry
and indignant, but, resolving to throw it off, he shrugged his shoulders
a little, and turned to his older friend who was supposed to be comrade
and teacher at the same time.

Mr. Anson, the didactic strain, strong in him, recovered his importance,
and began to talk again. He did not confine himself any longer to the
Sistine Madonna, but talked of other pictures in the famous gallery, the
wonderful art of Rubens and Jordaens, although it seemed to John's
normal mind that they had devoted themselves chiefly to studies in fat.
But the longest lecture must come to an end, and as the inevitable crowd
gathered before the Madonna William Anson was forced by courtesy into
silence. The Prussian had already gone, still wearing his defiant
helmet, his sword swinging stiffly from his belt, his heavy boots
clanking on the floor.

"Did you notice that officer?" asked John.

"I gave him a casual glance. He is not different from the others. You
see them everywhere in Germany."

"He seemed typical to me. I don't recall another man who has impressed
me so much. To me he personified the great German military organization
which we are all so sure is invincible."

"And it _is_ invincible. Nothing like the German army has ever before
stood on this planet. A great race, strong in both body and mind, has
devoted itself for half a century to learning everything that is to be
learned about war. It's a magnificent machine, smooth, powerful,
tremendous, unconquerable, and for that very reason neither you nor I,
John, will ever see a war of the first magnitude in Europe. It would be
too destructive. The nations would shrink back, appalled. Besides, the
tide is the other way. Remember all those ministers who came over with
us on the boat to attend the peace conference at Constance."

John accepted readily all that Mr. Anson said, and the significance of
the Prussian, due he was sure to his own imagination, passed quickly
from his mind. But he was tired of pictures. He had found that he could
assimilate only a certain quantity, and after that all the rest, even be
they Raphael, Murillo and Rubens, became a mere blur.

"Let's go out and walk on the terraces over the river," he said.

"But many other famous pictures are here. We can't afford to go back to
America, and admit that we haven't seen some of the masterpieces of the
Dresden gallery."

John laughed.

"No, we can't," he said, "because if we do ignore a single one that's
the very one all our friends will tell us we should certainly have seen.
But my eyes are growing tired, there's a congestion in the back of my
head, and these polished floors have stiffened my ankles. Besides, we've
plenty of time, and we can come back as often as we wish."

"I suppose then that we must go," said Mr. Anson, reluctantly. "But one
should make the most of the opportunities for culture, vouchsafed to
him."

John made no reply. He had heard that note so often. Mr. Anson was
tremendous on "culture", and John thought it all right for him and
others like him, but he preferred his own methods for himself. He led
the way from the gallery and the older man followed reluctantly.

The sun, having gone behind the clouds, stayed there and Dresden was
still gray, but John liked it best in its sober colors. Then the homely
touch, the friendly feeling in the air were stronger. These people were
much like his own. Many of them could have passed for Americans, and
they welcomed as brethren those who came from beyond the Atlantic.

He looked from the Bruhl Terraces over the Elbe--a fine river too he
thought it--the galleries, the palaces, the opera house, the hotels, and
all the good gray city, beloved of English and Americans as well as
Germans.

"What is that buzzing and whirring, John?" asked Mr. Anson suddenly.

"Look up! Always look up, when you hear that sound, and you will see the
answer to your question written in the skies! There it goes! It's
passing over the portion of the city beyond the river."

The long black shape of the Zeppelin dirigible was outlined clearly, as
it moved off swiftly toward the southwest. It did not seem to diminish
in size, as it left the city, but hung huge and somber against the sky,
its whirr and buzz still audible.

"An interesting toy," said Mr. Anson.

"If a toy, it's certainly a gigantic one," said John.

"Tremendous in size, but a toy nevertheless."

"We're going up in it you know."

"Are you still bent upon that wild flight?"

"Why there's no danger. Herr Simmering, the proprietor of our hotel,
chartered a dirigible last week, and took up all the guests who were
willing to pay and go. I've talked to some of them and they say it was a
wonderful experience. You remember that he's chartered another for next
week, and you promised me we could go."

"Yes, I promised, but I thought at the time that something would surely
happen to prevent it."

"Indian promises! I won't let you back out now!"

William Anson sighed. His was a sober mind. He liked the solid earth for
his travels, and he would fain leave the air to others. The daring of
young John Scott, for whom he felt in a measure responsible, often
alarmed him, but John concealed under his quiet face and manner an
immense fund of resolution.

"Suppose we go to the hotel," Mr. Anson said. "The air is rather keen
and I'm growing hungry."

"First call in the dining-car," said John, "and I come."

"I notice that you're always eager for the table, although you shirk the
pictures and statues, now and then."

"It's merely the necessity of nature, Mr. Anson. The paint and marble
will do any time."

William Anson smiled. He liked his young comrade, all the more so
perhaps because they were so different. John supplied the daring and
adventurous spirit that he lacked, and the youth had enough for two.

"I wonder if any new people have come," said John, as they walked down
the steps from the terrace. "Don't think I'm weak on culture, Mr. Anson,
but it's always interesting to me to go back to the hotel, see what
fresh types have appeared, and guess from what countries they have
come."

"The refuge of a lazy mind which is unwilling to cope with its
opportunities for learning and progress. John, I feel sometimes that you
are almost hopeless. You have a frivolous strain that you ought to get
rid of as soon as you can."

"Well, sir, I had to laugh at those fat Venuses of Rubens and Jordaens.
They may be art, but I never thought that Venus weighed three hundred
pounds. I know those two painters had to advertise all through the Low
Countries, before they could get models fat enough."

"Stop, John! Is nothing sacred to you?"

"A lady can be too fat to be sacred."

Mr. Anson shook his head. He always stood impressed, and perhaps a
little awed before centuries of culture, and he failed to understand how
any one could challenge the accepted past. John's Philistine spirit,
which he deemed all the more irregular in one so young pained him at
times. Yet it was more assumed than real with young Scott.

They reached their hotel and passed into the dining-room, where both did
full justice to the good German food. John did not fail to make his
usual inspection of guests, but he started a little, when he saw the
Prussian officer of the gallery, alone at a table by a window
overlooking the Elbe. It was one of the pleasantest views in Europe, but
John knew very well that the man was thinking little of it. His jaw had
not lost is pugnacious thrust, and he snapped his orders to the waiter
as if he were rebuking a recruit.

Nobody had told John that he was a Prussian, but the young American knew
it nevertheless, and he knew him to be a product, out of the very heart
of that iron military system, before which the whole world stood afraid,
buttressed as it was by tremendous victories over France, and a state of
readiness known to be without an equal.

Herr Simmering, fat, bland and bald, was bending over them, asking them
solicitously if all was right. John always liked this bit of personal
attention from the European hotel proprietors. It established a friendly
feeling. It showed that one was not lost among the swarm of guests, and
here in Germany it invariably made his heart warm to the civilians.

"Can you tell us, Herr Simmering," he asked, "who is the officer alone
in the alcove by the window?"

Herr Gustav Adolph Simmering, the soul of blandness and courtesy,
stiffened in an instant. With the asking of that simple question he
seemed to breathe a new and surcharged air. He lost his expansiveness in
the presence of the German army or any representative of it. Lowering
his voice he replied:

"A captain attached in some capacity to the General Staff in Berlin.
Rudolf von Boehlen is his name. It is said that he has high connections,
a distant cousin of the von Moltkes, in much favor, too, with the
Emperor."

"Do Prussian officers have to come here and tell the Saxons what to do?"

The good Herr Simmering spread out his hands in horror. These simple
Americans surely asked strange and intrusive questions. One could
forgive them only because they were so open, so much like innocent
children, and, unlike those disagreeable English, quarreled so little
about their bills.

"I know no more," he replied. "Here in Germany we never ask why an
officer comes and goes. We trust implicitly in the Emperor and his
advisers who have guarded us so well, and we do not wish to learn the
higher secrets of state. We know that such knowledge is not for us."

Dignified and slow, as became an important landlord, he nevertheless
went away with enough haste to indicate clearly to John that he wished
to avoid any more questions about the Prussian officer. John was
annoyed. He felt a touch of shame for Herr Simmering.

"I wish the Germans wouldn't stand in such tremendous awe of their own
army," he said. "They seem to regard it as some mysterious and
omnipotent force which is always right."

"Don't forget their education and training, John. The great German
empire has risen upon the victories of 1870, and if ever war between
them should come again Germany could smash France as easily as she did
then."

"I could never become reconciled to the spectacle of an empire treading
a republic into the earth."

Mr. Anson smiled. He had dined well, and he was at peace with the earth.

"Names mean little," he said indulgently.

John did not reply, but his under jaw thrust forward in a pugnacious
manner, startlingly like that of the Prussian. The officer, although no
word had passed between them, nor even a glance of real hostility had
aroused a stubborn antagonism, increased by the obvious awe of Herr
Simmering and the deference paid to him by the whole establishment of
the hotel.

He saw Captain von Boehlen go out, and drawn by a vague resolve he
excused himself, abandoning Mr. Anson who was still trifling pleasantly
with the fruit, and also left the dining-room. He saw the captain
receive his helmet from an obsequious waiter, put it on his head and
walk into the parlor, his heavy boots as usual clanking upon the
polished floor. In the final analysis it was this very act of keeping
his helmet on, no matter where he was, that repelled young Scott and
aroused his keen enmity.

John went to the smoking-room. Von Boehlen lingered a moment or two in
the parlor, and then took his way also down the narrow passage to the
smoking-room. It was perhaps a part of the American's vague plan that he
should decide suddenly to go by the same way to the parlor. Hence it was
inevitable that they should meet if Captain von Boehlen kept his
course--an invariable one with him--in the very center of the hall. John
liked the center of the hall, too, particularly on that day. He was tall
and strong and he knew that he would have the advantage of readiness,
which everybody said was the cardinal virtue of the Prussian army.

Just before they reached the point of contact the Prussian started back
with a muttered oath of surprise and annoyance. His hand flew to the
hilt of his sword, and then came away again. John watching him closely
was sure that hand and hilt would not have parted company so readily had
it been a German civilian who was claiming with Captain Rudolf von
Boehlen an equal share of the way.

But John saw the angry flash in the eyes of the Prussian die suddenly
like a light put out by a puff of wind, and the compressed line of the
lips relax. He knew that it was not the result of innate feeling, but of
a mental effort made by von Boehlen, and he surmised that the fact of
his being a foreigner had all to do with it. Yet he waited for the other
to apologize first.

"Pardon," said the captain, "it is somewhat dark here, and as I was
absorbed in thought. I did not notice you."

His English was excellent and his manner polite enough. John could do
nothing less than respond in kind.

"It was perhaps my fault more than yours," he said.

The face of Captain von Boehlen relaxed yet further into a smile.

"You are an American," he said, "a member of an amiable race, our
welcome guests in Europe. What could our hotels and museums do without
you?"

When he smiled he showed splendid white teeth, sharp and powerful. His
manner, too, had become compelling. John could not now deny its charm.
Perhaps his first estimate of Captain von Boehlen had been wrong.

"It is true that we come in shoals," he responded. "Sometimes I'm not
sure whether we're welcome to the general population."

"Oh, yes, you are. The Americans are the spoiled children of Europe."

"At least we are the children of Europe. The people on both sides of the
Atlantic are apt to forget that. We're transplanted Europeans. The
Indians are the only people of the original American stock."

"But you are not Europeans. One can always tell the difference. You
speak English, but you are not English. I should never take an American
for an Englishman."

"But our basis is British. Despite all the infusions of other bloods,
and they've been large, Great Britain is our mother country. I feel it
myself."

Von Boehlen smiled tranquilly.

"Great Britain has always been your chief enemy," he said. "You have
been at war with her twice, and in your civil war, when you were in dire
straits her predominant classes not only wished for your destruction,
but did what they could to achieve it."

"Old deeds," said John. "The bad things of fifty or a hundred years ago
are dead and buried."

But the Prussian would not have it so. Germany, he said, was the chief
friend of America. Their peoples, he insisted, were united not only by a
tie of blood, but by points of view, similar in so many important cases.
He seemed for some inscrutable reason anxious to convince one as young
as his listener, and he employed a smoothness of speech and a charm of
manner that John in the morning in the gallery would have thought
impossible in one so stiff and haughty. The spell that this man was able
to cast increased, and yet he was always conscious of a pitiless
strength behind it.

John presently found himself telling his name, how he was traveling with
William Anson, older than himself, and in a way both a comrade and a
tutor, how he expected to meet his uncle, James Pomeroy, a United States
Senator, in Vienna, and his intention of returning to America early in
the autumn to finish his course at the university.

"I should like to see that America of yours," said von Boehlen, after he
had told something of himself, "but I fear it is not to be this year."

"You stay in Dresden long?" asked John.

"No, I leave tonight, but we may meet again, and then you can tell me
more of that far western world, so vast and so interesting, but of which
we Europeans really know so little."

John noticed that he did not tell where he was going. But he surmised
that Prussian army officers usually kept their destination to
themselves. His talk with von Boehlen had impressed him more than ever
with the size, speed and overwhelming power of the German army machine.
It was not possible for anything to stand before it, and the mystery
that clothed it around imparted to it a superhuman quality.

But he brushed away such thoughts. The sun was shining again. It danced
in a myriad golden beams over the Elbe, it clothed in warmth the kindly
city, and von Boehlen, with a politeness that was now unimpeachable rose
to tell him good-bye. He acknowledged to himself that he felt a little
flattered by the man's attention, and his courtesy was equal to that of
the Prussian. Then the officer, dropping his hand to the hilt of his
sword, apparently a favorite gesture, stalked away.

It was John's first impulse to tell Mr. Anson of his talk with von
Boehlen, but he obeyed his second and kept it to himself. Even after he
was gone the feeling that some motive was behind the Prussian's
blandness remained.

A letter came that afternoon from his uncle, the Senator. He was in
Vienna, and he wished his nephew and Mr. Anson to join him there,
cutting short their stay in Dresden. They could come by the way of
Prague, and a day or two spent in that old Bohemian city would repay
them. John showed the letter to Mr. Anson, who agreed with him that a
wish from the Senator was in reality a command, and should be obeyed
promptly.

John, although he liked Dresden, had but one regret. He could not go up
in the Zeppelin dirigible and he hastened to tell Herr Simmering that
his entry was withdrawn.

"I'll have to cut out the dirigible," he said in his colloquial tongue.
"Perhaps you can find somebody to take my place."

"Perhaps," said the landlord, "and on the other hand it may be that the
dirigible will not go up for me.

"Why? I thought you had chartered it for a second trip."

Herr Simmering compressed his lips. John saw that, under impulse, he had
said more than he intended. It was an objection of his to Germany--this
constant secrecy and mystery that seemed to him not only useless but
against the natural flow of human nature.

"Are all the Zeppelins confiscated by the government?" he asked,
speaking wholly at random.

Herr Simmering started. Fat and smooth, he shot a single, menacing
glance at the young American. But, in a moment, he was smiling again and
John had not noticed.

"Our government never tells its plans," he said. "Mr. Anson says that
you leave tomorrow for Prague."

"Yes," said John curiously, "and I can almost infer from your tone, Herr
Simmering, that you will be glad to see us go."

But Herr Simmering protested earnestly that he never liked to lose
paying guests, above all those delightful Americans, who had so much
appreciation and who made so little trouble. The German soul and the
American soul were akin.

"Well, we do like your country and your people," said John. "That's the
reason we come here so much."

In the evening, while Mr. Anson was absorbed in the latest English
newspapers which had just come in, John went out for a walk. His
favorite method of seeing a European city was to stroll the streets, and
using his own phrase to "soak" it in.

He passed now down the street which led by the very edge of the Elbe,
and watched the long freight boats go by, lowering their smokestacks as
they went under the bridges. The night was cloudy, and the city behind
him became dusky in the mists and darkness. Dresden was strangely quiet,
too, but he soon forgot it, as he moved back into the past.

The past, not the details, but the dim forgotten life, always made a
powerful appeal to John. He had read that Dresden began with a little
fishing village, and now he was trying to imagine the tawny men of a
thousand years ago, in their rude canoes, casting their nets and lines
in the river which flowed so darkly before him. But the mood did not
endure long. He strolled presently upon the terraces and then back
toward the king's palace, drawn there by a great shouting.

As he approached the building he became conscious that an event of
interest was occurring. A huge crowd had gathered, and the youth of it
was demonstrating with energy, cheering and breaking soon into national
songs.

John pressed into the edge of the crowd, eager to know what it was all
about, but not yet able to see over the heads of the close ranks in
front of him. "What is it? What is it?" he asked of several, but they
merely shrugged their shoulders, unable to understand English.

John was angry at himself once more for knowing nothing of German. The
whole life of a nation flowed past him, and all of it was mysterious,
merely because he did not have that little trick of tongue. He caught
sight at last of a man in an automobile that moved very slowly in the
heart of the crowd, the people fairly pressed against the body of the
machine. It was obvious that the stranger furnished the occasion for the
cheering and the songs, and John repeated his questions, hoping that he
would ultimately encounter some one in this benighted multitude who
understood English.

His hope was not in vain. A man told him that it was the King of Saxony
returning to his capital and palace. John then drew away in some
distaste. He did not see why the whole population of a city, even though
they were monarchists, should go wild over the coming home of a
sovereign. Doubtless the King of Saxony, who was not so young, had come
home thousands of times before, and there must be something servile in a
people who made such an old story an occasion for a sort of worship.

He pushed his way out of the crowd and returned to the terrace. But the
noise of the shouting and the singing reached him there. Now it was
mostly singing, and it showed uncommon fervor. John shrugged his
shoulders. He liked such an unreasonable display less than ever, and
walked far along the river, until no sound from the crowd reached him.

When he returned toward the hotel everybody had gone, save a few
policemen, and John hoped that the king was not only in his palace, but
was sound asleep. It must be a great tax upon Saxon energy to
demonstrate so heavily every time he came back to the palace, perhaps
from nothing more than a drive. He found that Mr. Anson, having
exhausted the newspapers, had gone to his room, and pleasantly weary in
both body and mind, he sought his own bed.




CHAPTER II

THE THUNDERBOLT


John and Mr. Anson ate breakfast not long after daylight, as they
expected to take an early train for Prague. They sat by a window in a
small dining-room, overlooking pleasant gardens, and the Elbe, flowing
just beyond the stretch of grass and flowers. The weather of the fickle
valley had decided once again to be good. The young sunshine gilded the
surface of the river and touched the gray buildings with gold. John was
reluctant to leave it, but he had the anticipation, too, of fresh
conquests, of new cities to be seen and explored.

"We'll be in Prague tonight," he said, "and it will be something very
different, a place much more medieval than any we have yet visited."

"That's so," said Mr. Anson, and he trailed off into a long historical
account of Prague, which would serve the double purpose of instructing
John, and of exhibiting his own learning. The waiter, who could speak
English, and with whom John, being young, did not hesitate to talk at
times, was bent over, pouring coffee at his elbow.

"Pardon me, sir, but where did you say you were going?" he asked almost
in a whisper.

"To Prague?"

"I shouldn't go there, sir, if I were you."

"Why not?"

"You'll run into a war."

"What do you mean, Albrecht?"

But Albrecht was already on the way to the kitchen, and he was so long
in returning that John dismissed his words as merely the idle talk of a
waiter who wished to entertain Herr Simmering's American guests. But
when they went to an agency, according to their custom, to buy the
railway tickets to Prague they were informed that it would be better for
them not to go to the Czech capital. Both were astonished.

"Why shouldn't we go to Prague?" asked Mr. Anson with some indignation.
"I've never heard that the Czechs object to the presence of Americans."

"They don't," replied the agent blandly. "You can go to Prague without
any trouble, but I don't think you could leave it for a long time."

"And why not. Who would wish to hold us in Prague?"

"Nobody in particular. But there would be no passenger trains during the
mobilization."

The eyes of John and Mr. Anson opened wider.

"Mobilization. What mobilization?" asked the elder.

"For the war that Austria-Hungary is going to make on Servia. The
various army corps of Bohemia will be mobilized first."

"A war!" exclaimed Mr. Anson, "and not a word about it beforehand! Why
this is a thunderbolt!"

John was thoughtful. The agent had made an amazing statement. It was, in
truth a thunderbolt, as Mr. Anson had said, and it came out of a
perfectly clear sky. He suddenly remembered little things, meaning
nothing at the time, but acquiring significance now, the curious actions
of Captain von Boehlen, the extraordinary demonstration at the return of
the Saxon king to his palace, and the warning words of the waiter. He
felt anew their loss in not knowing the language of the country and he
gave voice to it.

"If we'd been able to speak German we might have had some hint of this,"
he said.

"We'll learn German, and be ready for it the next time we come," said
Mr. Anson. "Now, John, in view of what we've heard, it would be unwise
to go to Prague. Have you anything else in mind?"

"Let's go straight to Vienna. It's a great capital, and it has so much
railroad communication that we could certainly get out of it, when we
want to do so. Besides, I'm bound to see the Danube."

"And your uncle, the Senator, is there. Well, we'll chance it and go to
Vienna. Can we get a train straight through to that city?"

"One leaves in an hour and is due at nine tonight," replied the agent to
whom he had addressed the question.

They bought the tickets, and when the Vienna express left the station
the two with their baggage were aboard it. John was by the window of
their compartment, watching the beautiful country. He loved rivers and
lakes and hills and mountains more than either ancient or modern cities,
and as they sped along the valley of the Elbe, often at the very edge of
the river, his mind and his eyes were content. His absorption in what
was flitting by the window kept him for some time from noticing what was
passing in the train. A low, but impatient exclamation from Mr. Anson
first drew his attention.

"I never saw such crowding before in a European train," said he. "This
compartment is marked for six, and already nine people have squeezed
into it."

"That's so," said John, "and there are men sitting on their valises in
the corridors. An enormously large proportion of them are officers, and
I've noticed that great crowds are gathered at every station we pass.
The Austrians seem to get a lot of excitement out of a war with a little
country like Servia, in which the odds in their favor are at least
twenty to one."

"The Austrians are a polite, agreeable, but volatile race," said Mr.
Anson. "They are brave, but in war they are usually beaten. Napoleon
made his early reputation out of the Austrians. They are--wait a minute,
John, and I will read you more about them from this excellent book on
Austria that I bought in Dresden."

"Excuse me this time; won't you, sir. We're coming to another station,
and the crowd is bigger than ever. I want to see if they cheer us more
than they did at the one a few miles back."

When they were beyond the town John turned his attention to the
occupants of the compartment who had now increased to ten. They did not
differ from ordinary travelers, but his attention was held longest by a
young man, not much above his own age. He was handsome and blonde with a
fine open face, and John put him down as a Viennese. He knew that the
Viennese, although fellow Germans, were much unlike the Berliners, their
souls being more akin to those of the French.

He could not remember at what station the young man had boarded the
train, but it was evident that he was already weary, as his head rested
heavily against the cushion and his eyelids drooped. "A good fellow, I'm
sure," said John to himself. "I'd like to know him. I hope he's going on
to Vienna with us."

They were well across the Austrian border now, and an officer came
through the train, asking for passports. Luckily, John and Mr. Anson had
provided themselves with such documents, not because they believed them
of any value, but, as John said, they always ran true to form, and if
any official paper were offered they meant to have their share of it.
Now they found these documents, considered worthless hitherto, very
useful. The Austrian officer smiled when he looked at them.

"Amerikanischer," he said, showing his large, even white teeth. "I haf a
cousin leeving in New York."

"I've no doubt he's a fine fellow," said John, as the officer passed on,
"and I wish I knew him. I believe it's true, Mr. Anson, that we
Americans are the spoiled children of the world."

"It's so, John, although I object to the adjective, 'spoiled' and it's
so because we're far away, and mind our own business. Of course a
democracy like ours does many foolish things, and often we make
ourselves look ridiculous, but remember John, that we're an honest,
straight-forward people, and it's foreign to all our nature to tread on
the weak or cower before the strong."

John thought little of the words then, Mr. Anson preached so
much--although he was to remember them later--because his attention was
diverted to the young stranger whom the officer was now asking for his
passport. The youth--he was little more than such--raised his head
languidly from the cushion and without wholly lifting his weary lids
produced his passport from the inside pocket of his coat. John could not
keep from seeing the name on it, "August Wilhelm Kempner."

"Ah, from Vienna," said the examining officer, "and your occupation is
described here as that of a painter."

"Yes," said the weary youth, "but I fear that it is no occupation at all
in times like these."

As he spoke in German John did not understand him, but he knew that he
was making some sort of explanation. He also saw that the officer was
satisfied, as, smiling with the courtesy common to the Austrians, he
passed into the corridor, and entered the next compartment. John, by and
by, spoke to young Kempner, using good French--he remembered that many
Austrians understood French--and the young man promptly replied but in
broken and fragmentary French.

The two managed to carry on a more or less connected conversation, in
which several people in the compartment joined freely with scraps of
English, French and German, helping out one another, as best they could,
and forming a friendly group. It seemed to John that something of the
ordinary stiffness prevailing among strangers was relaxed. All of them,
men and women, were moved by an unusual emotion and he readily
attributed it to the war, although a great state like Austria-Hungary
should not become unduly excited over a struggle with a little one like
Servia.

But he let Mr. Anson do most of the talking for America, and by and by
began to watch through the window again. The green of the rich country
rested both eye and brain, and, a war between Austria-Hungary and Servia
was not such a tremendous affair. There was always trouble down in that
Balkan region. Trouble there, was far less remarkable than the absence
of it. As for himself he wanted to see the Danube, which these careless
Viennese persisted in calling the Donau, and the fine old capital which
had twice turned back the Turks, but not Napoleon.

He soon saw that they would reach Vienna long after the destined time.
The stops at every station were long and the waiting crowds thickened.
"I did not know so many people were anxious to see our entry into the
capital," said John.

"They are numerous, but not more so than we deserve," replied Mr. Anson
in the same vein.

It was midnight when they reached Vienna. John bade farewell to Kempner,
his companion of the journey to whom he had been strongly attracted, and
after the slight customs examination drove away with Mr. Anson to a
modest hotel.

It was so late and he was so tired that he thought he would sleep
heavily. But sleep passed him by, and it was such a rare thing that John
was troubled greatly. What was the matter with him? It could not be all
those sounds of shouting and singing that were floating in at the open
window! He had slept many a time at home, when the crowds were cheering
continuously on election night.

The noise increased, although it was at least two in the morning. He had
always heard that Vienna was a gay city, and never slept, but he had
scarcely expected such an ebullient night life, and, his curiosity
aroused, he rose and dressed.

From his seat at the window he heard the singing much more plainly, and
far down the avenue he saw columns of marching men. He could not
understand the words they sang, but he knew from the beat of the music
that they were Austrian and German patriotic songs, and his curiosity
increasing, he went down into the street, nodding to the dozing porter
who stood at the door.

He found the streets thronged with a multitude constantly growing
larger, and vivid with a pleased excitement. He had no doubt that it was
the war with the little Balkan state that caused it all, and he could
not refrain from silent criticism of a great nation which made so much
ado over a struggle with a country that it outnumbered enormously. But
he recalled that the Viennese were a gay, demonstrative people, and
their excitement and light-heartedness were certainly infectious.

He was sorry again that he could not speak German, and then he was glad,
when he saw young Kempner leaning against a closed window watching the
parades. "I suppose that like me you couldn't sleep," he said in French.

Kempner started. He had not seen John's approach, and, for the moment,
John almost thought that the look he gave him was not one of welcome.
But it passed swiftly. Then he stretched out his hand and replied.

"No, I couldn't. If you who come from across the sea wish to witness the
enthusiasm of my countrymen how much more would it appeal to me?"

"Has anything definite happened?"

"Yes, Austria-Hungary declared war on Servia today. It had to come. As
our Viennese will tell you the Servians are a race of murderers. They
murdered their own king, and now they have murdered our Archduke and
Archduchess, heaping another sorrow upon the head of our aged emperor.
We will finish them in a week."

John remembered some words of Burke about no one being able to indict a
whole nation, and he was about to quote them, but second thought kept
him silent. He must not argue with a people, perhaps justly infuriated
about what was no business of his. He remained with Kempner, but
sensitive and quick to receive impressions he soon concluded that the
young Austrian wished to be alone. Perhaps he, too, was going to the
war, and would soon have to tell his people good-by. That might account
for his absent manner.

John, as soon as he conveniently could, gave an excuse and turned away.
Kempner was polite, but did not seek to detain him. The American
returned to his hotel, but at the first crossing looked back. He saw the
form of Kempner disappearing into a narrow alley. "Taking a short cut
home," said John to himself, "and it's what I ought to do, too. I've no
business wandering about a strange city at such a time."

The same sleepy porter nodded to him, as he passed in and asked him no
questions. Now slumber came quickly and he did not awake for breakfast,
until Mr. Anson had pounded long and heavily on his door.

"Get up, John!" he cried. "Here's your uncle to see you, and you a
sluggard, lying abed this late!"

John sprang up at the announcement of his uncle's presence. Sleep still
lay heavy on his eyelids, and he was in a mental daze, but by the time
he reached the door he had come out of it. They had not looked for his
uncle the night before, owing to the lateness of the hour, although they
were sure that he was stopping at the same hotel.

"Just a moment," he exclaimed, and without waiting to dress he opened
the door, admitting the stalwart figure of the Senator, who hurried in
to greet his favorite nephew.

"Jackie, my lad," he cried in a loud voice which had become oratorical
from much use on the stump. "The sight of you is good for weak eyes. I'm
always glad to see any American, any member of the finest race on God's
earth, but I'm particularly glad to see you--they do say you look like
me when I was a boy--although I'm bound to tell you that you're more
than half asleep, on this your first morning in Vienna."

"I slipped out late to hear the shouting and singing and see the crowds,
Uncle Jim. I haven't been in bed more than three or four hours. The city
was so much awake that I had to stay awake, too."

"Well, don't you do it again. Always get your sleep, especially when you
are on foreign travel. It's as hard work as political campaigning in the
states, and that, Jackie, my boy, is no soft snap, as I ought to know,
having done it more than thirty years."

Senator James Pomeroy, a western man, was something past sixty, of
medium height, portly, partly bald, but heavy of mustache and with a
short pointed beard. His eyes were gray, his face full, and he was of
great physical strength. He was self-made and the job was no discredit
to him. His nature was simple and open. America was the finest country,
had the finest government and the finest people on earth, and the state
of which he was the senior Senator was the choicest flower of the
flowery flock.

"There was enough to keep a fellow awake," he said, "but I always sleep
well. You must learn to do it, if you expect to achieve a success of
life. When I was making my first campaign for the Lower House of our
state, and I was barely old enough to be eligible, I lay awake and
fretted over the votes that might be lacking to me when election came. I
at last said to myself: 'Don't do it! Don't do it!' You may roll and you
may tumble, but it won't win you a single vote. It's the smooth work
you've done before that brings 'em in. Now, hustle on your clothes,
Jackie, lad, and we'll have breakfast, not one of these thin continental
affairs, but a real breakfast, if I have to go in the kitchen myself and
seize it."

"What about this war, Uncle Jim?"

"A small affair, soon over. We came very near having one, too, with
Mexico, but luckily we've got a president who doesn't play to the
gallery, and he sat hard on the war-maniacs. I think I was of some
little assistance to him myself in that crisis. But, my boy, Europe is
the pet home of war scares. They're always coming across the Atlantic by
mail and wire. 'War clouds in the Balkans!' 'Eastern question sets
Europe by the ears!' 'France plots to get back Alsace-Lorraine and
Germany arms!' 'German Kaiser warns Austrian Kaiser against Triple
Entente!' Bang! Boom! everybody going to war in the next five
minutes--but they don't. You'll find 'em all a half hour later in the
cafes, eating and drinking. Europe can't fight, because there isn't time
between meals. They eat five times a day here, and they eat long at a
time. How could they possibly sandwich in a war. I'm sixty-two years
old, and as far back as I can remember European war clouds have been
passing like little summer clouds, and they will continue to pass long
after you're an old man, Jackie. I make that statement deliberately, and
I challenge successful contradiction."

He expanded his great chest, and looked around with an air of defiance.
It was his favorite oratorical manner, now grown into a habit. But no
one challenged him, and they went to a bountiful breakfast, for which
the Senator paid willingly, demanding no greater return than the
attention of the others while he talked.

Later in the day the three drove together in the grounds of Schoenbrunn,
and John's thoughts passed for a while to the great Corsican who had
slept there, and who had led his army to victory over this the
haughtiest of European monarchies, and perhaps for that reason the
weakest. The tremendous convulsion upon which Napoleon had ridden to
such dazzling heights seemed to him impossible: it was clearly
impossible according to all the rules of logic, and yet it had occurred.
That was the most startling period in the history of the modern world,
and, forgetting what was about him, he tried to evoke it from the past.

He was recalled to the present by their driver, an eager Austrian, who
asked them in broken English if they wished to see the old emperor
arrive home from Ischl. He pointed with his whip to an open space,
adjoining the Schoenbrunn grounds, where people were already gathering.

"Of course, my good man," replied Senator Pomeroy in oratorical tones.
"We will go to see the emperor, but only as an object of curiosity. Far
be it from me to pay any homage to the representative of a decayed
system. I look on, merely as a free American citizen, no better and no
worse than the millions whom I strive to the best of my ability to
represent in our National legislative halls. Get us in as close as you
can, driver."

John was frankly eager. He disliked the military monarchies as much as
the Senator did, but he wanted to see the old emperor at whom fate had
shot so many cruel arrows. His carriage was to come down a certain
street from the railway station, and their skillful driver maneuvered
them to the very edge of it. The crowd was immense, and it was electric
with excitement. It was no ordinary occasion and all the emotions of the
excitable Viennese had been aroused.

As far as John could see the multitude ran, and the packed heads seemed
to rise and fall like waves of the sea. Troops in magnificent uniforms
of the most vivid colors were everywhere. The day itself seemed to be
ablaze with their gorgeousness. If John had been asked to define the
chief difference between Europe and America he would have replied that
it was a matter of uniforms.

The crowd which seemed already to fill every space nevertheless grew
larger, and waves of emotion ran through it. John did not think they
could be defined in any other way. At home people differed in their
opinions, every man to his own, but here they appeared to receive them
from somebody higher up, and the crowd always swayed together, to this
point or that, according to the directing power.

He had never before seen so much emotional excitement. Vienna's thrill,
so obvious the night before, had carried over into the day, increasing
as it went along, and it was a happy intoxication, infectious in its
nature. He began to feel it in his own veins, although his judgment told
him that it was no business of his. Yet the brilliant uniforms, the
shimmer of steel, the vast shifting crowd of eager faces, the deep and
unbroken murmur of anticipation would have moved an older and dryer
mind.

Anticipatory shouts arose. They were in German, but John knew that they
meant: "He comes!" Nevertheless "he," which was the Emperor, did not yet
come, and the crowd thickened and thickened. He saw the people
stretching along leafy avenues, and in the distance they were wedged
into a solid mass, faces and figures running together, until they
presented the complete likeness of the waving sea.

"A strange sight and highly interesting," said the Senator oratorically.
"It must take generations of education to teach a people to make a
symbol of one man. And yet if we could get at the reality we'd surely
find him a poor and broken creature."

"Man doesn't always grow according to his nature, he's shaped by
continual pressure," said Mr. Anson.

John scarcely heard either of them, because he saw far down the avenue
that the waves of the human sea were rolling higher than before. An
increasing volume of sound also came from that solid sheet of faces, and
it seemed to part slightly in the center, as if a sword had been thrust
between. Carriages, automobiles and the flame of uniforms appeared in
the cut. A roar like thunder arose from two hundred thousand people.

John knew that the Emperor, in truth, was now coming. Such a spontaneous
outburst could be for nothing else, and, in spite of every effort of the
will, his own excitement increased. He leaned forward for a better view
and just in front of their carriage he saw a slender upright figure that
looked familiar. A second glance told him that it was Kempner.

"Oh, Kempner!" he called, full of friendly feeling. "Come here with us.
You can see better!"

Kempner glanced up, and John distinctly saw a shadow come over his face.
Then he looked at them as one looks at strangers with a blank,
uncomprehending gaze, and the next instant slipped with extraordinary
agility into some crevice of the crowd and disappeared.

John flushed. Kempner's conduct was both rude and strange. He glanced at
his uncle and Mr. Anson, but they, absorbed in the coming of the
Emperor, had neither seen nor heard, and he was glad. His own attention
now turned to the event of the moment, because the mighty roar was
increasing in volume and coming nearer, and down the opening lane a
carriage followed by others was speeding. Along either side of the lane
the soldiers were packed so closely that they formed a living wall, but
John, standing up in their own carriage, saw over their heads.

He saw an old, old man in splendid uniform, sitting by the side of an
impassive officer also in a splendid uniform. The old man's cheeks were
sunken, and the heavy-lidded eyes stared straight before him. He sat
erect, but whether it was his own strength or the arrangement of the
seat John could not tell. His hand flew up, forward, then down, and up
forward and down again in automatic salute.

He was so near presently that it was only a spear's length over the
heads of the soldiers. Then John saw how truly old he was, and suddenly
his heart revolted. Why should this old, old man, broken by appalling
sorrows, be dragged out to have wars made in his name? The schemers and
plotters, whoever they were might let him rest in peace.

The carriage flashed on, and behind it came the others as fast. They
would not linger, to give a chance for bombs and knives. In an instant
the emperor was gone through the gates of Schoenbrunn, and first the
soldiers and then the roaring crowd closed in behind.

The Senator gave the order, and their carriage drove slowly away, the
three discussing what they had seen while the happy driver exulted over
the glorious show, so dear to the heart of a Viennese. But John once
more thought the excitement was not warranted by a little war with a
little country like Servia.

They devoted three or four days to Vienna, a capital, they had often
heard, as gay as Paris, and certainly splendid in appearance, but
pleasure seemed to hang fire. There was a cloud over the city, the
cheering and singing parades went on all through the nights, but at
times in the day the spirits of men seemed to droop.

John told himself over and over again that this heavy change in the
atmosphere was not justified by the size of Servia. The three of them
once more and often bewailed their lack of German. People talked all
around them and they heard nothing. Austrians who hitherto had a fair
knowledge of English forgot it entirely, when they were asked questions.

The Senator in the privacy of their rooms thundered and thundered. He
hated all this secrecy. He wondered what those men were doing at
Schoenbrunn in the name of the old Emperor. As for himself he liked the
arena of public life in the United States, where you rolled up your
sleeves--such was his metaphor--and told what you were for and what you
were against, without fear or favor. Democracies did wrong or rather
foolish things, but in them it was impossible for a few military
leaders, hid in a palace, to play with the lives of hundreds of
thousands.

John, although saying nothing, agreed with him fully. The last three or
four days had depressed him in a manner unusual in one so young. His
silent rebuff by Kempner had hurt his spirit to an extent far beyond the
nature of the incident, and, realizing it, he wondered why. He kept a
sharp watch in the streets for the young Austrian, but he did not see
him again.

At last there came a time when the greatest of all thunderbolts fell. It
was the simple hand of a waiter that caused it to fall. The others had
finished their coffee and rolls at breakfast and had gone out, leaving
John alone at the table.

"What is the matter with Vienna?" he said casually to the waiter, who he
knew could speak English.

The man hesitated, then he leaned over and said in a fearful whisper:

"It's not a little war. It's not just a war with Servia which we can
finish in a week, but it's to be such a war as the world has never
seen."

John started, looked up at the man. His face was intensely earnest. How
should one in his humble calling have news of such import? And yet at
Dresden he had been warned by another waiter, and warned truly.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, they're all going into it. Europe will be covered with
armies!"

"When?"

"In a few hours! Now, sir! Oh, I can't say any more!"

He hurried away, leaving John convinced that he told the truth. It was
stunning, appalling, unbelievable, impossible, but he believed it
nevertheless. There were underground channels of communication and true
news might come by the way of the kitchen as well as the palace. He was
absolutely convinced that he had heard a fact. Now he knew the cause of
that heaviness and depression in the atmosphere. Well the clouds might
gather, when such a thunderbolt as a general war was going to fall!

He immediately hunted up his uncle and Mr. Anson who had not yet left
the hotel, and told them what he had heard. Conviction seized them also.

"It's come at last, this European war! after a thousand false alarms,
it's come!" said the Senator, "and my boy, Vienna is no place for three
honest Americans who do not work in the dark. I say it, and I say it
without fear of contradiction, that it behooves us to flee westward with
all the speed we can."

"You won't hear any contradiction from me," said Mr. Anson. "Vienna is a
fine city, but nothing becomes it more than our leaving it. Which way do
we go?"

"There's a train in two hours for Salzburg and Munich," suggested John.

"Hurried packing," said the Senator, "but we can do it. Get ready the
baggage you two and I'll pay the bills. We'll go to Salzburg and sleep
there tonight, and tomorrow we'll reach Munich. The more I think about
this the less I like it. Why didn't we read all those signs earlier! I
suppose it's because we'd heard the false cry of wolf so many dozens of
times."

John and Mr. Anson made all speed with the baggage while the Senator
paid the bills, and, as they drove in their cab to the station, the
three felt more than ever the need of haste. The clouds seemed to be
shutting down completely on Vienna. John felt that it was hard to
breathe, but he knew it was the effect of the imagination. He was
oppressed by a sense of an impending and appalling catastrophe,
something more tremendous than anything that the world had yet
experienced. He had an impression that he had come to the end of an era,
and the impression was all the more powerful because it had been made so
suddenly.

They passed through an excited station filled with a swirling crowd, and
secured places on a train, they scarcely knew how. Here people sat and
stood upon one another, and, as the train sped westward, they knew that
the storm was bursting with terrific violence. The nervous people around
them no longer restrained themselves. Europe was to be swept with fire
and sword, but above all the Germans and Austrians were going to smash
up France. They dwelt most upon that. The French and the French Republic
must go. There was no longer a place for them in the world.

To John's modest wish that France would not come into it they gave a
stare and frown of disapproval. France had to come in, she must come in,
the two German powers would see that she was smitten down as a nation
was never overwhelmed before. Oh, no, Britain would do nothing. Of
course she wouldn't. She'd stay behind her barrier of the sea, and,
perhaps, at the last when the spoils of war were to be snatched from the
exhausted combatants, she'd step in and snatch them. No, they needn't
consider Britain, and Germany and Austria could easily dispose of France
and Russia.

Much of this was said in English and French to the three travelers and
John's heart sickened. Poor France! Why should she be smashed up! Why
should the French nation be exterminated? He did not forget that France
was a republic like his own country. She had been beaten once by
Germany--and the victor's terms were hard--and whatever her faults had
been that was enough. He did not like Frenchmen personally any better
than Germans, but at that moment his sympathies went to the French and
he felt a great pity for France.

The train crept along, and, after double the usual time, they reached
Salzburg, where they passed an uneasy night, and, the next day, boarded
another train which was to cross the German border and take them to
Munich. It, too, was packed with an excited mass of humanity, and as
John passed along the corridor he saw Kempner in one of the
compartments.

Remembering his previous rebuffs he intended to take no notice, but the
young Austrian nodded at him and smiled.

"I see that you flee," he said in his broken French, "and you do well to
flee. Europe is aflame."

"That's so," said John, "and, since it's no fire of ours, we Americans
mean to be on the Atlantic foam, as soon as we can."

As there was a vacant seat in the compartment and Kempner seemed very
friendly now, John sat down to talk a little. He longed occasionally for
companionship of his own age, and his heart warmed again to the young
Austrian.

"I see that you're running, too," said John.

"Yes," smiled Kempner. "I'm a man of peace, a painter, or rather I would
be one, and as my heart is a little weak I'm not drawn for military
service. I'm on my way to Munich, where I mean to study the galleries."

"I'm going to Munich, too," said John. "So we can travel together."

"Then if we expect to reach Munich we'd better jump out now. Quick!"

"What for?"

"It seems that this is the Austrian border, and trains are not crossing
it now, owing to the mobilization. A German train has come to meet us.
Look, most of the passengers have transferred already!"

John saw his uncle and Mr. Anson standing on the steps of the German
train and looking about vainly for him. There had been no announcement
of the change, and, annoyed, he ran down the corridor and sprang to the
ground, closely followed by Kempner.

"Passporten! passporten!" shouted some one, putting a strong hand on his
arm.

John saw his uncle and Mr. Anson going into the German train, evidently
thinking that he was inside, and his alarm increased.

"Amerikanischer! Amerikanischer!" he said to the Austrian officer, who
was holding his arm and demanding his passport. The officer shook his
head and spoke voluble German. John did not understand it, but he knew
that the man at such a time would insist upon seeing his passport.
Kempner just behind him was in the same bad case.

The whistle of departure sounded from the train, and John, in despair,
tore at the passport in an inside pocket. He saw that the officer would
never be able to read it in time, and he endeavored to snatch himself
from the detaining grasp. But the Austrian hung on firmly.

As he fairly thrust the document in the face of the official he saw the
wheels of the coaches moving.

"I'll come on the next train!" he shouted to the air.

The officer looked over the passport deliberately and handed it back.
The train was several hundred yards down the track.

"Now, yours," he said to Kempner, and the young man passed it to him.

"August Wilhelm Kempner," said the officer, and then he added, looking
the young man squarely in the eye: "I happen to know August William
Kempner who lives in Vienna and he bears no resemblance to you. How do
you happen to have his passport?"

"That I won't explain to you," said the false Kempner, and suddenly he
struck him a stunning blow on the temple with his clenched fist.

The officer, strong though he was, went down unconscious.

"Run! Run! Follow me!" exclaimed the young man. "They'll think you were
my comrade and it may mean your death!"

His action had been so violent, and he spoke with such vehemence that
John was mentally overborne. Driven by a powerful impulse he followed
the flying man.

Kempner, for so John still called him, darted into a narrow street not
wider than an alley, leading between two low houses. He had had no
opportunity hitherto to observe the border place in which they had
stopped. It was small, but like many of the old European towns it was
very closely built, and some of its streets were scarcely wide enough
for two abreast.

The fugitives ran swiftly. Kempner evidently knew the place, as he
sprang in and out with amazing agility, and the sounds of pursuit died
in a minute or two. Then he darted between two buildings that almost
touched, entered a small churchyard in the rear of a Gothic church and
threw himself down behind a great tombstone. And even as he did so he
pulled John down beside him.

As they lay close, still trembling from exertion and excitement, Kempner
said to John, and now he spoke in perfect French:

"Since I got you into this trouble I think it my duty to get you out of
it again if I can. Of course the people of the town saw us running, and
I rushed through that narrow passage in order to evade their sight."

His tone had a dry and quaint touch of humor and John, despite his
exhaustion and alarm, could not keep from replying in a similar vein.

"If I don't owe you thanks for the first statement I do at least for the
second. I don't know German, and so I couldn't understand what you and
that Austrian officer said, but I fancy your name is not Kempner."

"No. It's not, and I'm not an Austrian. I'm a Frenchman, for which I
return thanks to the good God. Not that Americans are not great and
noble people, but it's a fortunate thing that so many of us are
satisfied with our birth."

"I was thinking so when you announced with such pride that you were a
Frenchman."

The other laughed softly.

"A fair hit," he said, "and I laid myself open to it."

"Now since you're not August William Kempner, and are not an Austrian,
will you kindly tell me your name and your nation, as in any event I am
no enemy of yours and will betray you to nobody."

"My race, as you might infer from the beauty and purity with which I
speak my native language, is French, and my name, which I no longer have
a motive in concealing from you, is Philip Lannes. I'm a collateral
descendant of Napoleon's great marshal, Lannes, and I'm willing to boast
of it."

"Occupation--I will risk another inference--is something like that of a
spy."

The Frenchman looked keenly at the American and again laughed lightly.

"You're not far wrong," he said. "It was the passport of another man
that I carried, and I happened to meet an official who knew better. It
was mere chance that you were with me at the time and would have been
taken for my comrade. Didn't you know that a great war was going to
burst?"

"I've just learned it."

"And one of the objects of those who are making the war is to smash my
country, France. How could one serve her better than by learning the
preparations and forces against her? Oh, I've been among the Austrians
and I've been watching them! They've made some terrible mistakes. But
then the Austrians always make mistakes. There's an old saying that what
the Austrian crown loses by war it wins back by marriage. But I don't
think royal marriages count for so much in these days. Lie close! I
think I hear soldiers in the alley!"

John hugged the earth in the shadow of the great tombstone.



CHAPTER III

THE REFUGE


John Scott, in those moments of hiding and physical exhaustion, had
little time to think, yet he was dimly conscious that he, an American
who meant to meddle in the business of nobody, had fallen into a most
extraordinary situation. By a sudden mischance he had lost in a few
moments his uncle and the man who was at once his comrade and tutor, and
now he had been running for his life with a stranger.

Yet he obeyed the warning words of Lannes and fairly tried to burrow
into the earth. The name, Lannes, had exerted at once a great influence
over him. The career of Napoleon had fascinated him, and of all his
marshals the brave and democratic Lannes had appealed to him most. And
now he was hiding with one who had in his veins kindred blood of this
great and gallant figure.

Despite his anxiety John turned a little and looked at the young
Frenchman who lay beside him. Lannes was but a year or two older than
the American. Tall, slender, narrow of waist, and broad of chest and
shoulders he seemed built for both agility and strength. He was fair of
hair and gray of eye. But those gray eyes were his most remarkable
feature. They were intensely bright, and the light in them seemed to
shift and change, but no matter what the change might be they were
always gay and merry. John surmised that he was one of the few, who by a
radiant presence, are born to be a source of joy to the world, and time
was to confirm him in his opinion.

"Luckily the big tombs of dead and forgotten Germans rise on either side
of us," whispered Lannes, "and the chances are good that we won't be
discovered, but we must keep on lying close. We're on the German side in
this town and the Germans will look longer than the Austrians. They're
at the end of the alley now, not thirty feet away."

John heard them marching. The thump, thump of solid German feet was
plainly audible. It was a sound that he was to hear again, and again,
and never forget, that heavy thump, thump of the marching German feet, a
great military empire going forward to crush or be crushed. Even in
those moments he was impressed less by his sense of personal danger than
by his feeling that a nation was on the march.

"They've turned," said Lannes, and John heard the thump, thump of the
feet passing away. But he and the young Frenchman lay still, until the
last echo had died. Then Lannes sat up and peeped over the edge of one
of the tombs.

"They'll search elsewhere," he said, "but they won't come here again.
We'll have to be cautious, however, as they'll never stop, until they've
gone all through the town. Trust the Germans for that. Now aren't you
glad I brought you among the tombs? Could we have found a better hiding
place?"

His manner was so gay and light-hearted that John found it infectious.
Yet, he was resolved not to yield entirely. He had been dragged or
pushed into too desperate a quandary.

"Suppose they don't find us now, what then?" he asked. "It may be all
right for you, but as for me, my uncle and my friend are on the way to
Munich, and I'm marooned in a land, the language of which I don't
understand."

"But you're with me!"

"So I am, but you're a stranger. You belong to a country with which
Germany is at war or going to war. You're a spy, and if you're caught,
which is highly probable, you'll be hanged or shot, and because I'm with
you they'll do the same to me."

Lannes plucked a grass stem and chewed it thoughtfully, although his
eyes at no time lost their cheerful twinkle.

"I do seem to have plunged you into a whole lake of trouble," he said at
length. "I'll admit that my own neck is in the halter, and it behooves
me to escape as soon as I can, but don't think I'll ever neglect you. I
mean to see that you get to Munich and rejoin your friends."

"How?"

"It's a secret for the present, confined to me. But trust me! can't
you?"

His speech had glided from French into English so good that it was
colloquial, and of the vernacular. Now he looked directly into John's
eyes, and John, looking back, saw only truth in their gray smiling
depths. There are some things that we feel, instinctively, and with
overwhelming power, and he knew that the young Frenchman would be as
true as steel. He held out his hand and said:

"I believe every word you say. I'll ask no questions, but wait for what
happens."

Lannes took the outstretched hand and gave it a grasp of extraordinary
power. The joyous lights in his wonderful gray eyes shifted and changed
with extraordinary rapidity.

"I like you, John Scott, you Yankee," he said. "You and I will be the
best of friends and for life. Thus does the great American republic,
which is you, pledge eternal friendship with France, the great European
republic, which is me."

"You put it well, and now what are we going to do?"

"Graveyards are good places, my old--my old, being as you know, a
translation of _mon vieux_, a term of friendship, becoming to you
because of your grave demeanor--but it's not well to stay in them too
long. You've noticed doubtless that the skies are darkening over the
spur of the Alps toward Salzburg?"

"And what then?"

"It means that we must seek quarters for the night, and night is always
friendly to fugitives. I promised that I'd take you to your friends in
Munich--I can't do it in an hour or even in two, although I'll lead you
to food and a bed, which are not to be despised. But we must wait a
little longer."

"Until night comes fully?"

"Truly, until it's complete night. And, fortunately for you, it will be
very dark, as I see plenty of clouds sailing in this direction from the
mountains."

John, who was lying on his back, looked toward the south, and saw that
the crests of the peaks and ridges were already dim with somber masses
floating northward and westward. The air was growing cooler, and, in a
half hour, the ancient churchyard was sure to be veiled in darkness. For
the present Philip and he relapsed into silence, and John's thoughts
traveled anxiously toward his uncle and Mr. Anson. What would they think
had become of him? He knew that the Senator who was very fond of him
would be alarmed greatly, and it was a bad time in Europe for any one to
be missing.

But there was stern stuff in John Scott, and knowing that they must wait
he put anxiety from him as much as he could and waited.

The heavy clouds, although they did not give forth rain, swept up, and
brought black darkness with them. The white tombstones became pale, and
the town beyond was invisible. Lannes rose and stretched himself
deliberately, limb by limb.

"Are you willing, John Scott?" he asked, "to follow me and ask no
questions?"

"Yes, Philip Lannes, I am."

"Well, then, John--I think I'll call you that because you and I are
friends, and you may say Philip, too, which will save time--I'm going to
lead you to temporary safety and comfort. I'll tell you, too, enough to
assuage your curiosity. There's a little Huguenot quarter to this town.
Louis Quatorze, as you know, drove many good people out of France. Some
went to your own new land, but the majority settled in the surrounding
countries. They've intermarried chiefly with themselves, and, after more
than two hundred years on foreign soil, many of them still have French
hearts in French bodies."

"Lead on then. I think I'd like to meet these good Huguenots. I'm
growing tremendously hungry, Philip."

"Hunger is frequent in a great war. You'll grow used to it."

His manner took away any sting that his words might have contained. John
could yet see those wonderful gray eyes shining through the twilight,
and his heart warmed anew to the young Frenchman. If he were to be cast
away in this strange German town Lannes was just the comrade whom he
would have chosen.

"We're resurrected," continued Lannes, "and we'll leave our graveyard.
May it be a long time before I enter another! And yet with a world going
to war who can tell?"

But the touch of gravity was only for an instant. The joyous note
quickly returned to his voice.

"Keep by my side," he said, "and walk in the most careless manner, as if
you were a native of the town. If anybody asks question let me make all
the replies. God gave me one special gift, and it was an easy tongue.
It's not work for me to talk. I like to do it."

"And I like to hear you," said John.

"Which leaves us both satisfied. Now, it's lucky for us that our old
European towns are so very old. In the Middle Ages they built with
narrow streets, and all sorts of alleys and passages. Leading from the
cemetery is just the sort of passage that you and I need at this time.
Ah, here it is, and luckily it's empty!"

They had crossed the narrow street beyond the cemetery, and were looking
into a dark tunnel between two low stone houses. No one was in sight.
Lannes stepped without hesitation into the tunnel.

"Keep with me," he said, repeating his injunction, "and we'll soon be
under shelter."

His manner was so cheerful, so confident that John instinctively
believed him, and walked boldly by his side into the well of darkness.
But as his eyes grew used to it he made out the walls crumbling with age
and dripping with damp. Then the sound of heavy feet came thundering
down the passage.

"Some one leading a horse," whispered Lannes. "There's a stable on our
right. It's nothing. Seem not to notice as you pass."

The thunder of the feet, magnified in the confined space, increased, and
presently John saw a boy leading one of those huge-footed horses, used
for draft in Europe. The animal stepped slowly and heavily, and the boy
was half asleep. John and Philip, hovering in the shadow of the wall,
passed him so lightly that doubtless he was not conscious of their
presence.

The Frenchman turned into a tributary alley, narrower and darker than
the other, and Lannes knocked at a heavy oaken doorway, before which a
small lantern cast a dim light. John had good eyes, and accustomed to
the heavy shadows, he saw fairly well.

He concealed an imaginative temperament under a quiet manner, and he was
now really back in the Middle Ages. It must have been at least four or
five hundred years since people lived up little alleys like this. And
the door with its heavy iron bands, the shuttered window above it, and
the dim lantern that lighted the passage could belong only to long ago.
The house and its neighbors seemed to have been built as much for
defense as for habitation.

Lannes knocked again, and then John heard inside the soft tread of feet,
and the lifting of heavy bars. It was another mediaeval touch, and he
swung yet further back into the past. The door was opened slightly and
the face of an elderly woman appeared at the crevice.

"It's Philip Lannes with a friend, Mother Krochburg," said the young
Frenchman in a whisper, "and friend as you've often been to me I never
needed the friendship of you and your house more than I do now."

She said something in German and opened the door wider. Lannes and John
pressed in, and she instantly closed it behind them, putting the heavy
bars in place. They stood in complete darkness, but they heard her
moving about, and presently she lighted a small lamp which did not
dispel the shadows beyond the range of a few feet.

But as she stood in the center of the beams the woman was outlined
clearly for John. She was at least sixty, but she was tall and strong,
and bore herself like a grenadier. She was looking at Lannes, and John
had never beheld a gaze of more intense, burning curiosity.

"Well?" she said, and to John's surprise she now spoke in French. Lannes
gave back her gaze with one fully as concentrated and burning.

"Angelique Krochburg, wife of Paul Krochburg, descendant of the
Krochburgs, rightly called the Crochevilles," he said, drawing himself
up and speaking with wonderful distinctness, "it has come at last."

"The war! The great war!" she said in a sharp whisper. John noticed that
her strong figure trembled.

"Yes, the great war!" returned Lannes with dramatic intensity. "Germany
declares war today on Russia. I know it. No matter how I know it, but I
know it. She will make war on France tomorrow, and it will be the first
object of her princes and military caste to destroy our republic. They
reckon that with the aid of Austria they will rule the whole continent,
and that in time the tread of their victorious armies will be heard all
over the world."

The woman drew a breath so deep and sharp that it made a hissing sound
between her teeth. John saw the lamp in her hand trembling.

"Then Philip Lannes," she said, "which is it to be--the peoples or the
kings?"

Lannes drew himself up again--John recognized the dramatic quality in
him--and replied in words that he shot forth like bullets:

"The peoples. Armies can be defeated, but nations cannot be put down.
Our Napoleon, despite his matchless genius, found it so in his later
empire. And they have reckoned ill at Berlin and Vienna. The world in
alarm at military domination will be against them. They say the English
won't fight and will keep out. But Mother Krochburg or Crocheville--I
prefer the sound of Crocheville--we French know better. A thousand years
of our history say that the English will fight. We have Agincourt and
Cressy and Poitiers and La Belle Alliance to say that they will fight.
And now they will fight again, but on our side. The bravest of our
ancient enemies will stand with us, brothers in arms, shoulder to
shoulder against an arrogant foe!"

"Do you know this, Philip Lannes, or is it some dream of that hopeful
brain of yours?"

"It's not a dream. I know it. It hasn't been long since I was among the
English. They will have to join us. The German threat will force them to
it. Blinded by their own narrow teachings the generals at Berlin and
Vienna cannot see the storm they've let loose. Ah, Madame Crocheville,
it's more than two hundred years since any of your people have lived in
France, but you are as true a Frenchwoman as if your feet had never
pressed any but French soil!"

"There is truth in that wild head of yours."

"And the time of France and the French is coming. The republic has
restored us. The terrible year of 1870 will be avenged. French valor and
skill will bloom again!"

John had stood on one side, while they talked or rather allowed their
emotions to shoot forth in words. But he was watching them intently,
bent slightly forward, and, like Parsifal, he had never moved by the
breadth of a single hair. The woman now glanced toward him.

"He can be trusted?" she asked Lannes.

"Absolutely. His head is in the German noose. He must do as we bid or
that noose will close."

The gay ring had returned to Lannes' voice and a faint smile crossed the
face of Madame Crocheville.

"It's the best of securities," she said, and John, compelled to
acknowledge its truth, bowed.

"Who are pursuing you," she asked.

"Nobody at present," replied Lannes. "I'd have passed the border safely,
but a pig of an Austrian officer happened to know the man whose passport
I have. It was one chance in a thousand, and it went against me. My
friend here is an American, and, as he was dragged into it, we must save
him."

"It's likely that you need both food and rest as well as concealment."

"We do, and thank you for what we know we are going to receive."

She smiled again faintly. John surmised that she had a warm place in her
heart for Lannes. Who would not? He was as light-hearted now as if he
had come to a ball and not to a refuge. His eyes moved about the room
and he seemed pleased with all he saw.

"Food and a little of the good wine that I've found here before would be
indeed most welcome," he said, "and I speak for my new American friend
as well as myself."

"Come!" she said briefly, and the two followed, as she led the way into
a passage not more than wide enough for one, and then up a stone
stairway into a room ventilated by only a single narrow window.

"Wait here," she said. She closed the door and John heard the huge
German key turning in the lock. But the slit of a window was open, and
he saw in the room two beds, a table, two chairs and some other
furniture. The ceiling was low and sloping and John knew that they were
directly under the eaves.

Lannes threw himself into one of the chairs and drew several mighty
breaths.

"We're locked in, John," he said, "but it's for our good. Nobody can get
at us, while Madame Crocheville holds the key, and she'll hold it. More
than two hundred years on German soil, and still French, heart and soul.
There must be something great and true in France, when she can inspire
such far-flung devotion. That isn't a bad place, John. As the French
general said in the Crimea, _'J'y suis, j'y reste'_ and I'm resting
now."

"She knows all about you, I take it?"

"Of course. I've been here before, often. That little window looks out
into a tiny court, and you'd probably be amazed at the amount of luxury
to be found in this place. This old Europe of ours is often far better
than it looks."

"I didn't see the man of the house."

"Oh, yes you did. Frau Krochburg or Madame Crocheville, if you wish
secretly to call her so, is very much the man of the house. There is a
Herr Krochburg, but he won't come in our way now. Madame will do
everything for us at present. I've touched a spark of fire to her soul,
and it has blazed up. Those Huguenots of long ago were really
republicans, and it's republican France now, for the success of which
she prays with every breath she draws."

"She's locked us in pretty securely. I heard that big German key turn."

"To keep others from getting at us. Not to keep us from getting out.
Now, I hear it turning again, and I'll wager that she's coming back with
something that will rejoice us to the core."

The door opened and Madame Crocheville walked into the room, bearing a
large tray which she placed upon a chair until she could close and lock
the door again. Then she bore it to the table and John looked at it with
great longing. He was young, he was healthy and he had a digestion
beyond criticism.

"I told you so," exclaimed Lannes triumphantly, "and look, Madame
Crocheville has brought us her best--a bottle of the light, white wine
made in this very district, and good! You can dismiss your American
scruples--it's very mild--filet of beef, tender, too, baked potatoes,
salad, bread and butter and cheese. It is truly fit for a king. Madame
Crocheville, two young and starving souls, thank you."

A smile lighted up her stern, almost masculine features. Then her face,
in truth, looked feminine and tender.

"You're wild and reckless, but you're a good boy, Philip Lannes," she
said, "and I know that you'd willingly lay down your life for the France
that I've never seen, but which I love. You say again that the great war
is at hand."

"It has come. In a few days four hundred million people will be in it,
and I know that France will come out of it with all her ancient glory
and estate."

"I hope and pray so," she said fervently, and then she left them.

The two ate and drank with wonderfully keen appetites, but they did not
forget their manners. John noticed that Philip was extremely fastidious
at the table, and he liked him the better for it. And the food was
wonderfully good. John felt new life and strength flowing into his
veins.

"I suppose we stay here tonight," he said.

"Yes it would be dangerous for us to leave so soon. Madame Crocheville
will take good care of us tonight and tomorrow, and tomorrow night we'll
leave."

"I don't see just how we'll go," said John. "There are German troops in
this town, as we know, and even if we could get out of it, where then
would we be. I want to go to Munich, and you, I take it, want to reach
France. We can't go by land and we can't go by water. How then can we
go?"

"No, we can't go by either land or water, but we'll go in another way.
Yes, we'll surely do it. This filet is certainly good. Take another
piece. You haven't tasted the tomato salad yet, and it's fine. No, I
won't tell you how we're going, because in every affair of life there's
always a possible slip. You just wait upon the event, and learn
patience. Patience is a wonderful quality to have, I ought to know. I've
seen how much it does for others, and how often I've suffered from the
lack of it."

"I'll wait, because I have to. You're right about the filet. It's good.
I think I'll take some more of it."

"You can't have it. Pig of an American, it would be your third piece."

"But it would be your third, too!"

"I know it, but I saw its merits first. So, I get a discoverer's third
as a reward. Feel a lot better, don't you, John?"

"I feel like a general now. Where did you learn such good, every-day
English."

"Studied it ten years at school, and then I lived two years in that
great, splendid unkempt country of yours. Mind your step! Good-by,
little girl, good-by! We must get the men higher up! Tariff for Revenue
only! Hurrah for the Goddess of Liberty! Our glorious American eagle
bathes one wing in Lake Superior and the other in the Gulf of Mexico!
Our foreign commerce would be larger if it were not for our grape-juice
diplomacy! Now for the Maxixe and the Hesitation all at the same time!"

He sprang from his chair and whirled and jerked about the room in a kind
of wild Apache dance. John laughed until his eyes grew wet.

"You've been there," he said, as Lannes sat down again, panting. "You've
proved it, and I no longer wonder at your fine colloquial English."

"I like your country and I like you Americans," said Lannes seriously.
"You are the favorite children of the world, and I say children
purposely, because you are children. You think you are terribly wicked,
but you're not wicked at all. You're mere amateurs in vice compared with
the hoary and sinful nations of Europe. We're more quiet about it, but
we practice tricks that you never dream of. We've made you think you're
dollar-worshipers, but while the dollars are dropping through your
fingers, John, we're hanging on to the francs, and marks, and shillings,
and rubles and gulden and pesos and kronen with a grasp that death
itself often fails to break."

John did not know whether to be pleased or displeased, but finally
concluded to be pleased.

"Perhaps you're telling the truth," he said.

"I know I am. But here comes Madame Crocheville for the dishes. She will
also say: 'Good night my wild and reckless but gallant Philip, and the
same to you young American stranger.'"

"How do you know?"

"Never mind how I know. I know."

Madame Crocheville came in and she looked at the two with satisfaction.
Their appearance had improved greatly under the ministrations of her
good food and drink. She put the dishes on her tray and went to the
door. When she had turned the key she looked back and said:

"Good night, my wild and reckless but gallant Philip, and the same to
you, young American stranger."

Then she went out, closed the door, and the two heard the big key
turning again in the lock. The young Frenchman looked at the young
American and smiled in content.

"How did you know so exactly?" asked John.

"Just call it an uncommonly accurate guess. Now, I think I'll put out
the lamp. The light from the window is sufficient for us, and we don't
want to take any unnecessary risk."

He blew out the light, but John went to the window, and looked out on
the tiny court or place, on the far side of which ran a street so narrow
that it would have been called an alley at home.

He could not see much owing to the thick darkness, and it had begun to
rain also. The air was chill and heavy with damp. John shivered. Fate
had played him a weird trick by causing him to lose his train, but she
had atoned for it partly by giving him this brave young Frenchman as a
comrade. It was wonderfully snug and comfortable in the house of Madame
Crocheville, called by her fellow townsmen and townswomen Frau
Krochburg.

"I'm glad it's not a part of your plan for us to escape tonight,
Philip," he said.

"And what's the cause of your gladness."

"It's raining, and it's as cold as winter. I like this place, and I
think I'll go to bed."

"A good plan. Everything is ready for us."

There was a little adjoining room, in which they found water, towels and
could make all the other preparations for the night, and John, feeling a
sudden great weariness, made ready. When he was in bed he saw Lannes
still at the window.

"Better crawl in, too, Philip," he called. "This is a fine bed, and I
fancy the other is just as good."

"I'll join you in slumber land soon. Good night."

John closed his eyes, and in a few minutes he was sleeping soundly. He
was first to awake the next morning, and he saw that it was a gray day.
The rain had ceased, but there was no one in the little court or street
beyond. Philip slept soundly, and, as it was early, John did not awake
him. But he rose and dressed shortly before Madame Crocheville came with
breakfast.

"You have slept well, I hope," she said.

"Never better," replied Lannes for them both.

"I hear from others that which you told me last night. Germany has
declared war upon Russia, and the mightiest of the German armies marches
today against France. Philip! Philip! Poor France will be crushed!"

"Not so, Madame! France is not ready and the German armies will go far
toward Paris, but France, the republic, will not fall. I am young, but I
have heard, and I have seen. French valor is French valor still, and
Germany is creating for herself a ring of foes."

"You make me believe! You make me believe, Philip, in spite of myself,"
she said.

"We shall see what we shall see," said Lannes with confidence.

The day passed and they did not seek to stir from the room. Madame
Crocheville brought them food, but talked little. Time was very heavy.
John did not dare to go much to the window, for fear of being seen. The
night at last came again, and to their great joy it was dark without
either moon or stars.

"Now we'll go," said Lannes.

"I'm ready," said John, although he did not have the remotest idea how
they were going.




CHAPTER IV

THE THRILLING ESCAPE


Madame Crocheville brought them supper, and they ate with strong
appetites. John was all courage and anticipation. He was chafing over
his compulsory day and night in one room, despite its comfort and
safety, and he was ready for any risk. He wanted to reach his uncle and
Mr. Anson, knowing how great must be their anxiety. Lannes was as eager
to be away, for other reasons.

"Don't make the risks too great," said Madame Crocheville, as she paused
with the tray of empty dishes.

"We will not," replied Lannes earnestly. "It is not a time for folly."

He went out with Madame, leaving John alone in the room, but he returned
in two or three minutes, and thrust an automatic pistol in the young
American's hand.

"Put this in your pocket," he said, "and here's a little bag of
cartridges that you can drop into another pocket."

"But it's not my war," said John, "I don't want to shoot at anybody."

"No, it's not your war, but it's forcing itself upon you, and you may
have to shoot. You'll be wise to take what I offer you."

Then John took them, and an hour later they stole out of the house,
carrying with them the earnest hopes of Madame Crocheville. The house,
doubtless, had other inmates, but she was the only one whom John had
seen, and her competency gave the impression that no other was needed.

"We're going out into the country," said Lannes.

"Show the way."

"Don't you feel any curiosity about it?"

"A lot, but, remember I promised to ask no questions." Lannes laughed.

"So you did," he said, "and I knew that you were a man who'd keep your
word, as you're doing. We're going to leave this town and the country
about it, but I'll say nothing about the way it's to be done. There's
some danger, though, and I'm armed just as you are."

"I'm not afraid of a little danger."

"I knew you were not. Here we are in the passage again, and it's as dark
as a well. Mind your step, and, when we come out into the broader
street, walk as if you had lived here all your life. But the town is
half deserted. All the younger men have gone away to the war."

They came into the street and walked carelessly along, passing only an
occasional old man or woman. The wonderful German mobilization, like a
net, through which nothing slipped, was going on, and the youthful
strength of the town was already departing toward the French border.

"No notice of us will be taken until we come to the outskirts," said
Lannes, "but there they have sentinels whom we must pass."

It was on the tip of John's tongue to ask how, but he refrained. He was
willing to put his trust in this young Frenchman who was proving himself
so trustworthy, and he continued in silence by his side. It did not take
them long to reach the area of scattered houses. Walking swiftly among
them they entered a vegetable garden, and John saw beyond the metals of
a railway track, a bridge, and two soldiers, gun on shoulder, guarding
it.

"We're going to pass under that bridge," said Lannes.

Now John could not refrain from asking how.

"It crosses a canal and not a river," said Lannes. "It's an old disused
canal, with but little water in it, and we'll go down its bed. Come on,
John."

The canal flowed at the foot of the garden, and they lowered themselves
into the bed, where they found a muddy footing, between the water and
the bank, which rose four or five feet.

"We'll bend over and hug the bank," said Lannes. "In the darkness we may
be able to go under the bridge, unseen by the two sentinels. At any rate
we must chance it. If they fire on us the odds are at least twenty to
one against our being hit. So, don't use the automatic unless the need
is desperate."

A chill ran along John's spine. He had never fired at anybody, and
nobody had ever fired at him. A week ago he was a peaceful tourist,
never dreaming of bullets, and now he was fairly hurled into the middle
of a gigantic war. But he was one who accepted facts, and, steadying
himself for anything, he followed Lannes who, bent almost double, was
walking rapidly.

They were within twenty yards of the bridge now, and John distinctly saw
the two sentinels. They were stout Bavarian lads, with heavy, unthinking
faces, but he knew that, taught in the stern German school, they would
fire without hesitation on Lannes and himself. He devoutly hoped they
would not be seen, and it was not alone their own safety of which he was
thinking, but he did not want to use the automatic on those kindly
Bavarian boys.

As they came within the shadow of the bridge they bent lower and went
much more slowly. Strange thrills, the product of excitement and not of
fear, ran down John's back. This was no play, no game of make-believe,
he was running for his life, and a world which had been all peace a few
days ago was now all war. It was impossible, but it was happening and it
was true. He could not comprehend it all at once, and he was angry at
himself because he could not. These emotions went fleeting by, even at
the moment, when they passed under the bridge.

They paused directly beneath the superstructure, and hugged the bank.
John could see the two sentinels above, one at either end. Lannes and he
had come thus far in safety, but beyond the bridge the shadows were not
so deep, and the banks of the canal were lower.

"I think that luck has favored us," whispered Lannes.

"I hope it will continue to do so."

"It will. It usually goes one way for a little while. Come!"

They passed from the shelter of the bridge and ran down the old canal.
Luck favored them for forty or fifty yards, and then one of the
sentinels caught a glimpse of John's figure. Hastily raising his gun he
fired.

John felt a rush of air past his face, and heard the thud of the bullet
as it buried itself in the soft bank. A cold chill ran down his spine,
but he said nothing. Lannes and he increased their speed. The sentinels
did not fire again. Perhaps they thought imagination had been tricked by
a shadow.

A hundred yards farther on, and the canal passed through woods, where it
was so dark that one could not see far. Lannes climbed the bank and
threw himself down among the trees. John imitated him.

"Are you hit?" asked Lannes.

"No, but I felt the wind from the bullet."

"Then you've had your baptism of war, and as it was a German bullet that
was seeking you you're one of us now."

John was silent.

Both lay a while on the grass in the dense shadow of the trees, until
their panting passed into regular breathing. The darkness did not
decrease, and no sound came from the fields. It was evident that they
had not been followed. John felt that all his strength had returned, but
he waited patiently for Lannes to lead the way.

The Frenchman rose presently and went to the edge of the grove.

"The coast is clear," he said, "and we might as well depart. Come,
Monsieur John. You've shown great power over your curiosity, and I'll
ask you to show it a little longer. But I'll say this much. You can
barely make out a line of hills across those fields. Well, they are five
or six miles away and we're going toward them at a leisurely but fairly
rapid pace."

"All right. Show the way. I think I'm in good shape for a canter of
several miles."

They walked steadily more than an hour, and the night lightened
somewhat. As they approached the hills John saw that they were high,
rough, and covered with dark green foliage. It was possible that Lannes
was seeking a refuge among them, but reflection indicated that it was
not probable. There could be no secure hiding place in a country so
thickly populated, and in a region so far away from France. Lannes must
have something else in view.

When they came to the first slope Lannes led boldly upward, although he
followed no path. The trees were larger than one usually sees in Europe,
and there was some undergrowth. At a point two or three hundred feet up
they stopped and looked back. They saw nothing. The town was completely
hidden by the night. John had a strong feeling of silence, loneliness
and awe. He would have insisted upon knowing where Lannes was leading
him, but the young Frenchman had shown himself wholly trustworthy.

The way continued upward. Lannes was following no path, but he advanced
with certainty. The night lightened somewhat. A few stars came out, and
an edge of the moon showed, but the town was now shut off from sight by
the foliage on the hills, and they seemed absolutely alone in the world.

John knew that they were not likely to see houses, owing to the habit
the rural people had on the continent of living in villages, but they
might pass the hut of a stray woodcutter or charcoal burner. He had no
mind to be taken back to the town and his hand slipped down to the butt
of the automatic.

"You've plenty of courage, John," said Lannes, "and you've a very steady
nerve, too. Courage and steady nerve don't always go together. You'll
need both."

"For our escape?"

"Yes. It's scarcely possible to walk out of Germany because the borders
are guarded everywhere. The land is closed to us, nor can we go by water
either. As an American they might have passed you on, if you had not
become so strongly identified with me, but borrowing one of your English
expressions we are now tarred with the same brush. But, as I told you
before, we shall leave Germany nevertheless."

John's curiosity was intense, but pride still kept him from asking any
questions. In silence he followed Lannes, who was traveling upward. The
region now became utterly dreary, steep, stony and rain-washed.

Not even the thrifty European peasant could have drawn any part of a
living from those blasted rocks.

They came at last to the crest of the hills, or rather low mountains,
and passed into a depression which looked to John like some age-old
crater. Then he heard Lannes draw a deep breath, almost a sigh, and he
knew it was caused by relief of the mind rather than of the body.

"Well, we're here," said Lannes, sitting down at the stony edge of the
crater.

"Yes, we're here," said John, also sitting down, "and being here, where
are we?"

Lannes laughed. It was a pleased and friendly laugh, and John recognized
it as such.

"Wait until we draw about a hundred long breaths apiece," said Lannes,
"and then we'll have action."

"Suits me. That was a big climb."

As they rested, John looked down with renewed interest at the crater. He
saw that the center of it was quite level, and evidently the soil on
that spot was rich, as it was covered with thick long grass. Nearer by,
among the stones, lay faggots, and also smaller pieces of wood.

"John," said Lannes, at the end of a few minutes, "you'll help me with
these billets, won't you?"

"Of course. What do you want to do?"

"To build a fire. Aren't you cold?"

"I hadn't thought about it. I'm not likely to notice either heat or cold
at such a time."

Lannes laughed. It was a low laugh of satisfaction, but wholly without
irony.

"You're not cold," he said, "nor am I, and if we were we wouldn't build
a fire to keep us warm. But we're going to build one."

They laid the faggots and smaller pieces together, and then cut off dry
splinters with their clasp knives. Lannes set fire to the splinters with
a match, and the two stood away. The blaze spread rapidly, and soon
crackled and burned at a merry rate, sending up high flames.

"Aren't you afraid the fire will warn some one?" asked John.

"I hope so," was the startling reply.

Lannes threw on more wood. He seemed anxious that the flames should rise
higher. They obeyed his wish, shooting upward, and sending streams of
sparks far above. Then he stepped back, and, sitting down on a stone,
began to look into the skies, not a stray glance, but a long, unbroken
anxious gaze.

The heavens were yet brightening. More stars sprang out, the segment of
the moon broadened and shone like burnished silver. The last cloud was
gone, leaving the skies a vast vault of dusky blue. And Lannes never
took his eyes from the great arch, although they traveled from horizon
to horizon, searching, searching, searching everywhere.

The young Frenchman's action and manner had an indescribable effect upon
John. A warning thrill ran down his back, and there was a strange,
creeping sensation at the roots of his hair. Without knowing why, he,
too, began to gaze steadily into the skies. The little town from which
they had escaped and the possibility of the wandering woodcutter or
charcoal burner passed from his mind. His whole soul was in his eyes as
he stared into the heavens, looking for he knew not what.

The gaze of Lannes turned chiefly toward a range of mountains, to the
south, visible only because of the height on which they stood. Anxiety,
hope, belief and disbelief appeared on his face, but he never moved from
his seat, nor spoke a word. Meanwhile the flames leaped high and
crackled, making the only sound heard in all that desolation and
loneliness.

How long they sat there, watching the skies John never knew, but the
time seemed hours, and throughout it Lannes did not once take his gaze
from above. Now and then, he drew a sharp breath, as if a hope had
failed, but, in a moment or two, hope came back to his eyes, and they
still searched.

John suddenly felt a great thrill again run down his spine, and the
roots of his hair quivered. He was looking toward the mountains in the
south, and he believed that he saw a black dot hanging in the air above
them. Then another dot seemed to hang beside it. So much looking could
make one see things that were not, and he rubbed his eyes. But there
hung the dots, and they were growing larger.

John looked long and he could not now doubt. The black dots grew
steadily. They were apparently side by side, and they came fast toward
the hill on which Lannes and he stood. He glanced at his comrade. He had
never before seen a face express so much relief and exultation.

"They come! they come!" said Lannes, "I knew they would!"

John looked back. The black dots were much nearer, and he began to make
out dim shapes. Now, he knew. The full truth burst upon him. They were
aeroplanes, and he knew that Lannes had summoned them out of the black
ether with his fire. He felt the great thrill along his spine again. It
was magic; nothing less. Flights in the air were yet too novel to allow
of any other feeling.

"They're coming to us!" said John.

"Yes," said Lannes, pride showing in his tone. "I called them and they
came. I told you, John, that we'd escape, neither by land, nor by water,
but that we would escape. And so we will. We go by air, John. The
heavens open and receive us."

He rose and stretched out his arms, as if to meet the coming black
shapes. The dramatic instinct in him was strong, and John could well
pardon it as he saw that his emotion was extraordinary.

"The heavens open a path for us!" he cried.

The two aeroplanes were now circling over their own hill, and John could
discern human shapes in them. They began to descend gently, as the
operators skillfully handled the steering rudders.

"Well done! well done!" said Lannes to himself rather than to John.
"They couldn't be managed better."

Presently the machines began to loop and make spirals, and then both
sank gently upon the grassy turf in the center of the glade. A man
stepped forth from the seat in each machine and saluted Lannes, as if he
were a commander. Lannes returned the salute promptly and gracefully.

"We saw the fiery signal, lieutenant," said one of the men in French, as
he took off his great glasses, "and we came as fast as we could."

"I knew that you would do so, Castelneau," said Lannes, "and I knew that
Mery would be as prompt."

The two aviators bowed with evident gratification, and Castelneau said:

"We are proud of praise that comes from the most daring and skillful
airman in France, which means in this case the world. We thank you,
Lieutenant Lannes."

Lannes blushed and said: "You overrate me, Castelneau."

John glanced at him. And, so this youth with the easy manner and the
wonderful eyes was the greatest of all flying men! John's own mind was
not mechanical, but his glance became a gaze of admiration. What a
mighty achievement it was to cleave the air like a bird, and leave the
whole solid earth beneath. One, in fact, did leave the world and hang in
space. For the moment, he thought more of the wonder than of its bearing
upon his own fortunes.

He glanced down at the machines resting on the grass. Their motors were
still throbbing, and in the dimness they looked like the rocs of Arabian
mythology, resting after a gigantic flight. In truth, everything had
taken on for John an aspect of unreality. These men were unreal, Lannes
and he were unreal, and it was an unreal world, in which nothing but
unrealities moved.

"My new friend is an American," said Lannes, "and he's to be trusted,
since his own life as well as ours is at stake. Monsieur John Scott,
Messieurs Gaston Castelneau and August Mery. John, these are two
skillful and valued members of the French flying corps. I want you to
shake hands with brave men."

John gladly shook their gloved hands.

"Castelneau, and you, Mery, listen," said Lannes, and again his voice
took on that dramatic ring, while his figure seemed to swell in both
size and stature. "It is here! It has come, and the whole world will
shake beneath its tread!"

"The war!" they exclaimed with one voice.

"Aye the war! The great war! the world war! The planet-shaking war!
Germany declared war today on Russia and tomorrow she declares war on
France! Never mind how I know! I know, and that's enough! The strength
and weight of a Germany that has devoted its best mind and energy for
nearly half a century to preparation for war will be hurled at once upon
our poor France! We are to be the first and chief victim!"

"It will not be so!" said Castelneau and Mery together.

"No, I think not. Republican France of 1914 is not Imperial France of
1870. There I think Imperial Germany has made her great mistake. And we
have friends, as Imperial France had not! But every son of France must
be prepared to shed his blood in her defense!"

Castelneau and Mery bowed gravely. John could tell little about them,
except they were short, thick men, apparently very strong. They wore
caps, resembling those of a naval officer, heavy, powerful glasses, and
baggy clothing, thick and warm. John saw that they paid Lannes great
deference, and he remembered the words of Castelneau that the young
Frenchman was the greatest airman in France. And he had a vague
impression, too, that France led in flying.

"Can France win against Germany, my lieutenant?" asked Mery, who had not
spoken hitherto. "The Germans outnumber us now in the proportion of
seven to four, and from a time long before we were born they've thought
war, dreamed war, and planned war."

"We'll not have to fight Germany, single handed, my good Mery," replied
Lannes. "We'll have friends, good friends, powerful friends. And, now, I
suppose that you have extra clothing with you?"

"Enough for two, sir. Your friend goes with you?"

"He does unless he wishes to remain here and be shot as a spy by the
Germans."

Lannes did not glance at John as he spoke, but it was a calculated
remark, and it met with an instant response.

"I'll go with you in the machine," he said.

And yet it took great courage to make the resolve. The three Frenchmen
were practised aviators. They traveled in the air as John would have
traveled on the water. He had never been in a flying machine in his
life, and his mind did not turn to mechanics.

"We must not waste time in delay," said Lannes. "Mr. Scott and I will go
in the first machine, and we will start straight for France. John, I
promised to take you to Munich, but I can't do it now. I'll carry you to
France. Then you may cross over to Switzerland, and communicate with
your people in Munich. It's the best that can be done."

"I know," said John, "and I appreciate the effort you're making for me.
Nor would I be in your way at a time when you may be able to do so much
for your country."

"Then we go at once. Castelneau, we take the _Arrow_."

He pointed to the smaller of the machines.

"Yes, my lieutenant," said Castelneau, "it is the better for a long
flight."

"I thought so. Now, Castelneau, you and Mery return to the hidden
station in the mountains, while Mr. Scott and I take flight for France.
John, here are your clothes."

John hastily put on the heavy garments, which seemed to him to be made
of some kind of oilskin, thrust his hands into heavy gloves, and put on
the protecting glasses. But as he did it his pulses were beating hard.
The earth on which he now stood looked very good and very solid, and the
moonlit ether above him was nothing but air, thin, impalpable air,
through which his body would cleave, if he fell, with lightning speed.
For a moment or two he was afraid, horribly afraid, but he resolutely
put the feeling down.

Lannes was also clothed anew, looking like a great baggy animal, but he
was rapid and skillful. John saw at once that the praise of Castelneau
was justified.

"Here is your seat, John," said Lannes, "and mine is here. All you'll
have to do is to sit still, watch the road and enjoy the scenery. We'll
give her a shove, and then you jump in."

There was some room on the grass for the preliminary maneuver, and the
four shoved the machine forward and upward. Then Philip and John,
quickly releasing their grasp, sprang into their seats.

Lannes' eyes behind the heavy glasses were flashing, and the blood was
flying through his veins. The daring strain, the utter defiance of death
which appears so often in French blood was up and leaping. He was like a
medieval knight, riding to a tournament, confident of victory, only
Philip Lannes was not any conqueror of narrow lists, the vast space in
which the whole universe swings was his field of triumph. His hand
sought the steering rudder, and the machine, under the impulse of the
strong push it had received, rose into the air.

John's sensation as he left the earth for the very first time in his
life was akin to seasickness. The machine seemed to him to be dipping
and gliding, and the throbbing of the motor was like the hum of a ship's
machinery in his ear. For a few moments he would have given anything he
had to be back on that glorious solid earth. But again he put down the
feeling of fear.

He turned his head for a last look at Castelneau and Mery, and, to his
amazement, he could barely make them out standing by the other machine,
which looked like some great, vague bird poised on the grass. Directly
below him he saw the tops of trees, and at that moment they looked to
his excited fancy like rows of glittering spear points, poised to
receive him.

"Look up! Look up!" said the sharp voice of Lannes in his ear. "It's
always the fault of beginners to look down and see what they've left."

His tone was more than sharp, it was peremptory, commanding. John
glanced at him and saw his steady hand on the rudder, and his figure
loose and swinging easily like that of a sailor poised on a rolling
deck. He knew that Lannes' manner was for his own good, and now he
looked straight up at those heavens, into which they were ascending.

The motor throbbed, and John knew that the machine was ascending,
rising, but not at a sharp angle. The dizzy feeling began to depart, and
he longed to look down again, but did not do so. Instead he kept his
eyes upward, his gaze fixed on the dusky blue heavens, which now looked
so wide and chill. He knew that the little distance they had come from
the earth was nothing to the infinity of the void, but by some mental
change the stars seemed to have come much nearer, and to have grown
hugely in size. There they danced in space, vast and cold.

The machine dipped a little and rose again. John dared another glance at
Lannes, who was swaying easily in his seat, feeling all the exaltation
of a confident rider who has a swift horse beneath him.

"I'm better now," said John above the purring of the motor.

Lannes laughed deep down in his throat, and with unction.

"Getting your air-legs, so to speak," he said. "You're learning fast.
But don't look down at the ground, at least not yet. By and by you'll
feel the thrill, which to me is like nothing else on earth--or rather
above it. You've noticed, haven't you, that it's growing colder?"

"Not yet. I suppose the excitement has made my blood flow faster than
usual, and that keeps me warm."

"It won't much longer. We're up pretty high now, and we're flying fast
toward that beautiful country of mine. Can't you feel the wind rushing
like a hurricane past your ears?"

"Yes, I do, and in the last minute or two it's acquired an edge of ice."

"And that edge will soon grow sharper. We're going higher."

John felt the upward swoop of the plane. The sensation that a ship gives
a passenger when it dips after a swell returned, but it quickly passed.
With it went all fear, and instead came a sort of unreasoning
exhilaration, born of a strange new tincture in his blood. His ears were
pounding and his heart had a more rapid beat. He hoped that Lannes would
go yet higher. Yes, his comrade was right. He did feel the wind rushing
past, and heard it, too. It was a pleasant sound, telling of trackless
miles through the ether, falling fast behind them.

Those moments were filled for him with a new kind of exaltation. Despite
the cold heights the blood still flowed, warm, in his veins. The
intangible sky was coming nearer and its dusky blue of the night was
deepening. The great, friendly stars looked down, meeting his upturned
gaze, and still danced before him.

Now, he dared to stare down for the second time, and his heart took a
great leap. Far beneath him, somber and dark, rolled the planet on which
he had once lived. He had left war and the hate of nations behind. Here
was peace, the steady throb of the motor in his ear was soothing music.

"I see that you've got your air-balance, John," said Philip, "you learn
fast. I think that Castelneau and Mery would approve of you. Since
you've learned to look down now with steady eyes take these glasses."

He handed him a pair of powerful glasses that he took from under the
seat, and John, putting them to his eyes turned them downward. It gave
him a strange tingling sensation that he from some unknown point in
space should look at the earth as a distant and foreign planet.

But the effect of the glasses was wonderful. The earth sprang forth in
the moonlight. He saw forests, fields, villages, and the silver ribbon
of a river. But all were racing by, and that, even more than the wind
rushing past, gave him an idea of the speed at which they were going. He
took a long, long look and then returned the glasses.

"It's tremendous," he said. "I confess that at first I felt both fear
and physical ill. But I am getting over it, and I feel instead the
thrill of swift motion."

"It's because we have a perfect piece of track."

"There's no track in the air!"

"Oh, yes, there is. If you'd thought a moment you'd have known it,
though I'll admit it's a shifting one. When you stand on the ground and
turn your eyes upward all the sky looks alike. But it's far from it.
It's full of all kinds of winds, currents and strata, pockets, of which
all aviators stand in deadly fear, mists, vapors, clouds of every degree
of thickness and complexion, and then you have thunder and lightning,
just as you do on land and sea. It's these shifting elements that make
the navigation of the air so dangerous, John. The whole question would
be solved, if there was nothing but stationary air, growing thinner in
exact proportion as we rise. But such a condition of aerial peace could
not be reached unless we could go up fifty miles, where there is no air,
and that we'll never be able to do."

"How high are we now?"

"About three thousand feet. Draw that collar more closely about your
neck. You may not feel cold, because of the new fire in your blood, but
you are cold, nevertheless. Now, see those whitish streams below us.
They're little clouds, vapor mostly, they don't contain rain. You've
read the 'Arabian Nights,' haven't you, John?"

"Yes, and I know just the comparison you're thinking of."

"What is it, then? See if you're right."

"The roc, great, fabled bird, flying through the air with those old
Arabs perched on its back."

"Right! He guessed right the very first time. That's one of your
Americanisms, isn't it? Oh, I know a lot of your choicest expressions.
Hit it up lively! That's what we're doing. He's full of pep! That's what
we are; aren't we, John? Come across with a double play! And we're doing
that, too."

"I don't know that your baseball metaphor is exactly right, Philip, but
your heart is certainly in the proper place. When do we get to France?"

"Don't talk about that yet, because it's impossible to approximate. This
smooth track will not go on forever. It's lasted longer than usual
already. Then, we'll have to eat, later on. There's food here in a tiny
locker that you can't see, but it may be better for us to drop down to
the earth when we eat. Besides, while we're sailing through the sky, I'd
like to observe as much as I can of this German mobilization and take
the news of it to France. That, of course, leaves you out of
consideration, John, but I'm bound to do it."

"Don't regard me. I've no right to ask anything of you. I'm a guest or a
prisoner, and in either capacity it behooves me to take what comes to
me."

"But I got you into it, and so I feel obligations, but, heavy as they
are, they're not heavy enough to keep me from seeing what I can see. I
told you that we were going toward France, but we're not taking the
direct course. I mean to fly over the ancient city of Nuremburg, and
then over Frankfort-on-the-Main. Look out, now, John, we're going to
drop fast!"

The machine descended rapidly in a series of wide spirals, until it was
within seven or eight hundred feet of the earth.

"Look down now," said Lannes, "and without the glasses you can see a
town."

But he had taken the glasses himself, and while he held one hand on the
steering rudder he made a long and attentive examination of the place,
and of low works about it, which he knew contained emplacements for
cannon.

"It's a fortified town and a center for mobilization," he said. "All day
long the recruits have been pouring in here, responding to the call.
They receive their uniforms, arms and ammunition at that big barracks on
the hill, and tomorrow they take the trains to join the giant army which
will be hurled on my France."

John heard a sigh. Lannes was afraid after all that the mighty German
war machine, the like of which the world had never seen before would
crush everything.

"It will be hard to stop that army," he could not keep from saying.

"So it will. The Germans have prepared for war. The French have not.
John, John, I wish I knew the secrets of our foes! For more than forty
years they've been using their best minds and best energies for this. We
don't even know their weapons. I've heard strange tales of monster
cannon that the Krupps have sent out of Essen, and of new explosives of
unimagined power, I don't know whether to believe these tales or not.
But I do know that the Germans will be ready to the last cartridge."

"But something in the machine may go wrong, Phil."

"That's our hope. We've got to smash some of the wheels, or rods or
levers. If we compel them to change their plan they won't have time to
organize a perfect new one."

"The old simile of the watch, I suppose. It'll run a hundred years if
all the works are kept right. But if a single one of them goes wrong
it's done forever."

"It's as you say. Sit steady, now. We're going to take another upward
swoop. I've seen enough of that town and its forts, and I don't want to
linger so close to the earth that they'll see us."

The machine rose like a mighty bird, but shortly after it reached the
top of its flight John felt a slight jerk. It was a sudden movement of
Lannes' hand on the steering rudder that had caused it.

"John," he said, and the voice shook a little, "take the glasses. Look
off there in the northwest, and see if you can't make out a black object
hanging in the sky?"

John took the glasses and put them to his eyes.




CHAPTER V

THE FIGHT IN THE BLUE


John turned his glasses toward the northwest, where cloud wrack hung. At
first he could see nothing, as the dark blue sky was obscured by the
darker mists and vapors, but he presently discovered in the very midst
of them an object that looked jet black. It was moving, and slowly it
took the shape of an aeroplane. He wondered at the keenness of Lannes'
vision, when he was able to pick out so distant an object with the naked
eye.

"What do you make of it?" asked Lannes.

"It's an aeroplane, or some other kind of flying machine."

"And which way do you think it's going?"

"The same way that we are. No, it seems to be nearer now."

"Likely it's running parallel with us in a sense; that is we two are
moving down the sides of a triangle, and if we continue long enough we'd
meet at the point."

"Perhaps it's Castelneau and Mery in the other plane?"

"Impossible! They would certainly stay on the mountains far behind us.
They would never disobey orders. We're back into a bank of fine air now
and the machine almost sails itself. Let me have the glasses a moment."

But he looked many moments. Then he calmly put the glasses away in the
tiny locker and said:

"It's not a French machine, John, and it's not a friend's. It's a German
Taube, and it's flying very fast. I think the man in it has seen us,
which is unfortunate."

"And there's another!" exclaimed John in excitement. "Look! He's been
hidden by that long, trailing sheet of vapor off toward the north. See
it's close to the other one."

"Aye, so it is! And they are friends, twin foes of ours! Two Taubes, but
only one man in each, while there are two in this tight little machine!
They have certainly seen us, because they're bending in rapidly toward
us now!"

"What do you intend to do? Meet them and fight?"

"Not unless we have to do it. I've news for France which is worth more
than my life, or yours either for that matter--or more than my honor or
yours. No, John, we'll run for it with all our might, and the _Arrow_ is
one of the prettiest and sweetest little racers in all the heavens!"

Lannes' hand pressed upon the steering rudder, and the machine, curving
from its western course, turned toward the south. The motor throbbed
faster and louder and John became conscious almost at once that their
speed was increasing. Although the heavy cap was drawn down over his
ears he heard the wind whistling as it rushed past, and it was growing
much colder. In spite of himself he shivered, and he was sure it was the
cold, not fear.

John's nature was sensitive and highly intellectual, but his heart was
brave and his will powerful. He remembered that while two planes were in
pursuit only one man was in each pursuer while there were two in the
pursued. His gloved hand slipped down to the butt of the automatic.

He had no idea how fast they were going, but he knew the speed must be
terrific. He grew colder and colder. He wondered how Lannes, taut and
strained, bent over the steering rudder, could stand it, but he recalled
the words of Castelneau that he was the best flying man in the world.

Lannes, in truth, felt neither stiffness nor cold, then. The strain of
daring in the French nature which the Anglo-Saxon would call
recklessness responded fully and joyfully to the situation. Not in vain,
while yet so young, was he a king of the air. Every pulse in him
thrilled with the keen and extraordinary delight that comes only from
danger, and the belief in victory over it. His hand touched the rudder
as the fingers of a pianist touches the keys of a piano, and in either
case it was the soul of an artist at work.

Oh, it was a beautiful machine, the _Arrow_, strong, sinuous, graceful!
Sure like the darting bird! It answered the lightest pressure of his
hand upon the rudder, and he drew from it harmonies of motion that were
true music to him.

But while the hand on the rudder did its work his eyes swept the heavens
with a questing gaze. Had he been alone in the _Arrow_ he could have
left the German Taubes far behind, but the extra weight of the passenger
was a terrible burden for so light and delicate a machine. Yet he was
glad John was with him. Already Lannes had a deep liking for the young
American whose nature was so unlike his own.

That questing gaze lingered longest on the southern heavens. One who
flees on the land must pick his way and so must one who flees through
the skies. Now, the mind of the flying man was keyed to the finest
pitch. He thought of the currents of air, the mists, the vapors, and,
above all, of those deadly pockets which could send them in an instant
crashing to the earth far below. No engineer with his hand at the
throttle of a locomotive was ever more watchful and cautious.

John, too, was looking into the south, where he saw a loom of cloud and
haze. It appeared that the heavens had drawn a barrier across their way,
and he saw that Lannes was turning the _Arrow_ again toward the west, as
if he were seeking a way around that barrier.

Then he looked back. The Taubes, beyond a doubt, were nearer, and were
flying in a swift true line.

"Are they gaining?" asked Lannes, who kept his eyes on the "country"
ahead, seeking to choose a way.

"Considerably. They have been flying close together, but now they're
separating somewhat; at least it seems so, although my eyes are tricky
in an element so new to me."

"They're probably right in this instance. It's their obvious course.
It's impossible for us to fly perfectly straight, and whenever we curve
one or the other of their machines will gain on us. I've heard that a
troop of lions will adopt this method in pursuing an antelope, and that
it's infallible."

"Which means that we can't escape?"

"There's a difference. The antelope can't fight back, but we can. Don't
forget the automatic I gave you."

"I haven't. Not for a second."

"But it won't come to that yet, and may not at all. See, how those
clouds and vapors are stretching. They hem us in on the south, and now
they're curving around in our front on the west, too. We can't lose the
Taubes, John, here on this lower level, as we're not more than two
thousand, perhaps not more than fifteen hundred feet above the earth,
but we may be able to do it higher up. Steady, now! We're going to rise
fast!"

The machine tilted up at an angle that made John gasp, but he quickly
recovered himself and resisted a desperate inclination to grasp anything
he could reach and hold on with all his might. He knew that the strap
passed about his body held him so firmly that he could not fall out.
Still, it shortened his breath and made his pulses bound, rather than
beat.

Up! up they went into the thinner air, the nose of the _Arrow_ again
turned toward the south. Lannes did not look back. His mind and soul
were absorbed in the flight of his machine, and his heart throbbed with
exaltation as he knew that it was flying beautifully. But he called upon
John to note the pursuers.

"They're curving up, too," said John. "They're very steady, and I think
they're still gaining."

"Daring men! Yes, the Germans have good flyers, and we'll have a hard
time in shaking them off. Still, we may lose them among the clouds."

"I think they're rising at a sharper angle than we are."

"Trying to get above us! Ah, I know what that means! Why did I not think
of it at first? We must not permit it! Never for a moment!"

"Why not?"

But Lannes did not reply. Apparently he had not heard him, and John did
not repeat the question.

"Watch! John! Watch!" said Lannes, "and tell me every movement of
theirs!"

"You can depend on me!"

The nose of the _Arrow_ was still tilted upward, and John knew that they
had come to a great height, as the cold struck to his very bones. The
air also was darker and damper, and he saw that they were in the region
of mists of vapors. Mentally he already used terms of land as terms of
the air. Before them lay banks of cloud which were the same as
mountains.

"One Taube is directly behind us and it seems to me a little higher," he
announced. "The other has cut off to the right and also a little higher,
if I see right."

"Then we must rise fast! We can't let them get above us!"

The nose of the _Arrow_ tilted up yet farther, and shot into colder and
darker regions. John saw mists and vapors below, but the earth was
invisible. He was truly hanging between a planet and the stars, and this
was the void, dark and thin, cold and infinite.

"Steady again!" said Lannes. "We're going to descend for a while."

The nose of the _Arrow_ dropped down many degrees, and then they seemed
to John to slide through space, although they slid like lightning. The
air felt damper and thicker, and the area of vision contracted fast.
They had plunged into a bank of vapor, and search as he would with both
eye and glass he could see no sign of the Taubes.

"We've lost them for the time at least," he said.

"I hoped for it," said Lannes. "That's why I made for this area of
vapor. It's exactly like a ship escaping in a fog from a fleet--only we
haven't escaped yet."

"Why not?"

"We can't hang in here. If we do they'll explore for us, and if we go on
and through it they'll follow. Yet we can hope for a gain. Isn't it a
beautiful machine, John, and hasn't it behaved nobly?"

He patted the _Arrow_ as a man would a horse that had saved his life
with its speed.

"We'll go slowly here, John. Have you got good ears?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Then uncover them and listen. In case one of the Taubes draws near you
can hear its humming and throbbing. My hearing may be deadened a little
for the time by my tension in sailing the _Arrow_, so you're our
reliance."

John listened intently, and in a few minutes the sound they feared came
to his ears.

"I hear it," he said suddenly, "and as sure as we live it's directly
over our heads!"

"Then we must mount at once!"

Up shot the _Arrow_, and passing through the vapor it flew again with
nothing above it but the clear, cold stars. John looked down, but his
vision was lost in the mass of floating mist. He exulted. They had lost
the Taubes! But joy lasted only a moment. Out from the bank shot a dark
shape. It was one of the machines, and in two minutes the other
appeared.

"They've come through the mist, too, and they see us," he said to
Lannes. "They seem to be trying to rise above us."

"I thought it would be their plan, if we didn't lose 'em. We've got to
make another dash. We're pointing toward Switzerland, now, John, and
maybe if we have luck we can descend in a neutral country. But I don't
want to do it! I tell you I don't want to do it!"

He spoke with uncommon energy, but relapsed afterward into complete
silence. The humming of the motor increased, and the icy wind rushed
past John's ears in a perfect hurricane. He drew his cap down further
and sank his neck and ears deeper in his collar. Nevertheless he thought
he would freeze. The fingers that still clasped the butt of the
automatic felt stiff and bloodless.

"What are they doing now, John?"

"They are gaining again--Ah, and there's a change!"

"What's that change?"

"One machine seems to have dropped a little lower than we are, while the
other is rising higher."

"And that has come, too! I expected it. This, John, is what you might
call an attempt to surround us. I'm surprised that they didn't attempt
it sooner. Watch the Taube that's rising. Watch it all the time, and
tell me everything it does!"

He spoke with the most intense energy and earnestness, and John knew
that he had some great fear in regard to the upper Taube. So, he never
took his eyes from it, and he noted that it was not only rising fast,
but that its gain was perceptible. As it was his first flight it did not
occur to him in those moments of excitement that his own weight was
holding back the _Arrow_, and Lannes had been willing to risk death
rather than tell him.

"They're coming very fast," he said to Lannes, "and the upper machine
seems to be the swifter of the two."

"Naturally. That's the reason why it's now the upper one. Is it above us
yet?"

"No, but in fifteen minutes more it will be, at the present rate of
speed."

"About how much higher above us do you think it is?"

"A thousand feet maybe, but I never calculated distances of this kind
before."

"Likely it's near enough. Let me know when it's about to come directly
over us, and on your life don't fail!"

John watched with all his eyes. He saw the hovering shape, and he caught
a glimpse of the arm of the man who steered. But it became to his fancy
a great bird which, with its comrade below, pursued them. That name,
Taube, the dove, called so from its shape, was very unfitting.

While he was watching he saw the Taube swoop down at least five hundred
feet, and at the same time make a burst of speed forward.

"It will be over us! almost directly! within a minute!" he shouted to
Lannes.

The _Arrow_ swerved to on side with such suddenness that John reeled
hard against his seat, despite the strap that held him. At the same
moment he caught a glimpse of some small object shooting past the
_Arrow_.

"What was it? what was it?" he cried.

"A bomb," replied Lannes. "That was the reason why I didn't want either
of the Taubes to get above us. I was sure they had bombs, and if one of
them fell upon us, well, nobody would ever find our pieces. Hold hard
now, we're going to do a lot of zigzagging, because that fellow probably
has more bombs, where the one he just dropped came from."

John's interest in what followed was, in a measure, scientific. He
realized afterward that he should have been terribly frightened. In
fact, he felt more fear later on, but at that moment the emotions that
produce fear were atrophied. The extraordinary nature of his situation
caused instead wonder and keen anticipation.

The _Arrow_ shot to the right and then to the left. It dipped, and it
rose, and then it darted on a level line toward the south.

John wondered afterwards that the delicate fabric was not torn to
pieces, but Lannes was not a supreme flying man for nothing. Every
movement was part of a plan, executed with skill and precision. Once
more his hand played upon the rudder, as the fingers of a great pianist
play upon the keys.

"Is the fellow directly above us yet, John?" he asked.

"Not at this moment, but I think he must have been several times. He has
dropped at least three more bombs."

"Then his supply is probably getting small, and he'll be extremely
careful with what's left. It's no easy task, John, to drop a bomb from a
height, and hit a small target, moving as swiftly as the _Arrow_. Let
him alone for the present, and look out for the fellow below. See what
he is doing."

John looked down quickly. He had almost forgotten the existence of the
second Taube, and he was surprised to find it beneath them and close at
hand. The dark, hooded face of the man in the seat looked up at them. As
well as John could judge he was using the superior speed of his Taube to
keep up with the _Arrow_, and, at the same time, to rise slowly until
they approached the point of contact. His apprehensions were quickly
transferred from the upper to the lower Taube.

"The second machine is under us and rising," he said.

"And the second attack is likely to come from that point. Well, he can't
drop bombs on us. That's sure, and we can meet him on his own ground or
rather in his air. John, did you ever shoot at a man?"

"Never!"

"You're going to do it very soon. The automatic I gave you is a powerful
weapon, and when the fellow rises enough you must shoot over the side at
him. Take good aim and have no compunction, because he'll be shooting at
us. But you've the advantage. You're free, while he has to steer his
Taube and fire at the same time."

John drew the big automatic. He felt a shiver of reluctance, but only
one. He and Lannes were in desperate case, and he would be fighting for
the lives of both.

Clutching the powerful weapon in a firm hand he looked down again. The
Taube had come much nearer, and he heard suddenly a crack sharp and
clear in the thin air of the heights. A bullet sang by his ear. The man
in the lower machine had a pistol or perhaps a rifle--John had not seen
him raise any weapon.

Lannes glanced at John, whose face had hardened, but he said nothing.
John pulled the trigger of the big automatic, and he saw the Taube waver
for a moment, and then come on as steadily as ever.

"I don't think I hit him," he said, "but I believe the bullet flattened
on his machine."

"You're getting close. Give him another. There went his second. I felt
its wind past my face."

John pulled the trigger again, but marksmanship at such an immense
height, between two small machines, flying at great speed was almost
impossible. Bullet after bullet flew, but nobody was hit, although
several bullets struck upon the _Arrow_ and the Taube, doing no serious
harm, however.

"I'm doing my best," said John.

"I know it," said Lannes. "I notice that your hand is steady. You'll get
him."

John looked down, seeking aim for his fifth bullet, when he suddenly
heard an appalling crash, and the Taube, a flying mass of splinters,
disappeared in a flash from view. It had happened so quickly that he was
stunned. The machine had been and then it was not. He looked at Lannes.

"The fellow above us dropped another bomb," said Lannes in a voice that
shook a little. "It missed us and hit his comrade, who was almost
beneath."

"What a death!" said John, aghast for a little while. Then he pulled
himself together and looked up at the other Taube. It was hovering
almost over them like a sinister shadow. As John looked something
flashed from it, and a heavy bullet sang past.

"He has a rifle! Give him what's left in the automatic!" shouted Lannes.

John fired and he knew that his bullet had struck one of the exposed
arms, because a moment later a drop of blood fell almost on his face.

"You've winged him," said Lannes. "Look how the Taube wobbles! You must
have given him a bad wound in the arm. He'll have all he can do now to
save himself. Good-bye to the pursuit. Luck and your skill, John, have
saved us."

John, feeling faint, leaned against the seat.

"I think I'm air-sick," he said.

"It'll pass soon, but you're tremendously lucky. It's not often a fellow
gets into a battle in the air the first time he goes up. See what's
become of the Taube."

"It's descending fast. I can see the man struggling with it. I hope
he'll reach the ground all right."

"He did his best to kill us both."

"I know, but I hope he'll get down, anyway."

"He will. He's regained control of his machine, but he can use only one
arm. The other hangs limp. And now for a glorious flight in this brave
little _Arrow_ of ours."

"Will you return to our original course?"

"I think we'd better not. The German flying men are out, and we might
have another fight, from which we would not emerge as well as we have
from this. No one must ever underestimate the Germans. They're organized
to the last detail in every department. I, a Frenchman, willingly say
this. I'll make our flight more southerly. We'll come down in
Switzerland. I'd like to go on to France, but we must make a descent
soon. We're both cold and overstrained, and it won't be a real violation
of neutrality just to touch Switzerland once."

The _Arrow_ now sank to a much lower level, and that planet, which they
had left came again into view. It was not much more than a dark shadow,
save for the sheen of high mountains in the south, but John was glad to
see it again. It was like the return of an old friend. It was the fine
Earth, not one of the great planets, but the only planet he knew.

He felt a great weakness, but they had descended so much that the
intense cold was going away. The thicker and warmer air lulled him, and
he sank into a sort of stupor from which he soon roused himself with
anger. He considered it a disgrace to him that he should sleep, while
Lannes still picked their way through the currents, and pockets and
flaws of the heavens.

"You might sleep if you feel like it," said Lannes. "You did all the
fighting, and I ought to do all the flying, especially as it's my
business and I've had lots of experience. Go ahead, old man. It'll be
all the better for us if you get back your strength."

Under Lannes' urging John leaned back a little more in his seat, and
closed his eyes. It was true that he was horribly tired, and his will
seemed to have weakened, too. Flying was new to him, and now the
collapse after so much tension and excitement had come. In a few minutes
he slept, but the _Arrow_ sailed swiftly on, mile after mile.

John's sleep was sound, but not long. When he awoke it was still night,
although the dark bore a suspicious tint of silver in the east. The
physical and mental weakness had departed, but he was singularly cold
and stiff. When he sought to move, something firm and unyielding about
his waist restrained him.

His eyes opened slowly and he looked around. On three sides space met
his vision, just dusky blue sky with floating banks and wisps of vapor.
But far off to the south, rising like mighty battlements, he saw a dim
line of mountains clad in snow. Then it all came back to him. He was
aloft in the _Arrow_, the first time that he had ever awakened in the
void between the stars and his own planet.

There was Lannes at the rudder, looking a little bent and shrunken now,
but his hand was as delicate and true as ever. The machine hummed softly
and steadily in his ears, like the string of a violin.

"Philip!" he cried in strong self-reproach, "show me how, and I'll sail
the _Arrow_ for a while and you can rest."

Lannes shook his head and smiled.

"You're an apt student," he said, "but you couldn't learn enough in one
lesson, at least not for our purpose. Besides, I'll have plenty of rest
soon. We're going to land in an hour. Behold your first sunrise, seen
from a point a mile above the earth!"

He swept his free hand toward the east, where the suspicion of silver
had become a certainty. In the infinity of space a mile was nothing, but
all the changes were swift and amazingly vivid to John. The silver
deepened, turned to blue, and then orange, gold and red sprang out,
terrace after terrace, intense and glowing.

Then the sun came up, so burning bright that John was forced to turn his
eyes away.

"Fine, isn't it?" said Lannes appreciatively. "It's good to see the
sunrise from a new point, and we're up pretty high now, John. We must
be, as I said, nearly a mile above the earth."

"Why do we keep so high?"

"Partly to escape observation, and partly because we're making for a
cleft in the mountain straight ahead of us, and about on our own level.
In that cleft, which is not really a cleft, but a valley, we'll make our
landing. It's practically inaccessible, except by the road we're taking,
and our road isn't crowded yet with tourists. Look how the light is
growing! See, the new sun is gilding all the mountains now with gold!
Even the snow is turned to gold!"

His own wonderful eyes were shining at the tremendous prospect,
outspread before them, peak on peak, ridge on ridge, vast masses of
green on the lower slopes, and now and then the silver glitter of a
lake. The eyes of him who had been so stark and terrible in the battle
were now like those of a painter before the greatest picture of the
greatest master.

"The Alps!" exclaimed John.

"Aye, the Alps! Hundreds of thousands of you Americans have come all the
way across the sea to see them, but few of you have ever looked down on
them in the glow of the morning from such a height as this, and you are
probably the only one who has ever done so, after an all-night fight and
flight for life."

"Which makes them look all the better, Philip. It's been a wonderful
night and flight as you call it, but I'll be glad to feel the solid
mountain under my feet. Besides, you need rest, and you need it badly.
Don't try to deny it."

"I won't, because what you say is true, John. My eyes are blurred, and
my arms grow unsteady. In that valley to which we are going nobody can
reach us but by way of the air, but, as you and I know, the air has our
enemies. Do you see any black specks, John?"

"Not one. I never saw a more beautiful morning. It's all silver, and
rose and gold, and it's not desecrated anywhere by a single German
flying machine."

"Try the glasses for a longer look."

John swept the whole horizon with the glasses, save where the mountains
cut in, and reported the same result.

"The heavens are clear of enemies," he said.

"Then in fifteen minutes the _Arrow_ will be resting on the grass, and
we'll be resting with it. Slowly, now! slowly! Doesn't the machine obey
beautifully?"

They sailed over a river, a precipice of stone, rising a sheer two
thousand feet, above pines and waterfalls, and then the _Arrow_ came
softly to rest in a lovely valley, which birds alone could reach before
man took wings unto himself.

The humming of the motor ceased, and the machine itself seemed fairly to
snuggle in the grass, as if it relaxed completely after long and arduous
toil. It was in truth a live thing to John for the time, a third human
being in that tremendous flight. He pulled off his gloves and with his
stiffened fingers stroked the smooth sides of the _Arrow_.

"Good old boy," he said, "you certainly did all that any plane could
do."

"I'm glad you've decided the sex of flying machines," said Lannes,
smiling faintly. "Boats are ladies, but the _Arrow_ must be a gentleman
since you call it 'old boy.'"

"Yes, it's a gentleman, and of the first class, too. It's earned its
rest just as you have, Philip."

"Don't talk nonsense, John. Why, flying has become my trade, and I've
had a tremendously interesting time."

John in common with other Americans had heard much about the "degenerate
French" and the "decadent Latins." But Lannes certainly gave the lie to
the charge. If he had looked for a simile for him in the animal kingdom
he would have compared him with the smooth and sinuous tiger, all grace,
and all power. Danger was the breath of life to him, and a mile above
the earth, with only a delicate frame work holding him in the air he was
as easy and confident as one who treads solid land.

John unbuckled the strap which had held him in the _Arrow_, stepped out
and fell full length upon the grass. His knees, stiff from such a long
position in one attitude, had given way beneath him. Lannes, laughing,
climbed out gingerly and began to stretch his muscles.

"You've something to learn yet about dismounting from your airy steed,"
he said. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Not a bit," replied John, sitting up and rubbing his knees. "The grass
saved me. Ah, now I can stand! And now I can move the rusty hinges that
used to be knees! And as sure as you and I live, Philip, I can walk
too!"

He flexed and tensed his muscles. It was a strange sight, that of the
young American and the young Frenchman capering and dancing about in a
cleft of the Alps, a mile above the valley below. Soon they ceased, lay
down on the grass and luxuriated. The heavy suits for flying that they
had worn over their ordinary clothing kept them warm even at that
height.

"We'll rest until our nerves relax," said Lannes, "and then we'll eat."

"Eat! Eat what?"

"What people usually eat. Good food. You don't suppose I embark in the
ship of the air like the Arrow for a long flight without provisioning
for it. Look at me."

John did look and saw him take from that tiny locker in the _Arrow_ a
small bottle, two tin cups, and two packages, one containing crackers,
and the other thin strips of dried beef.

"Here," he said, shaking the bottle, "is the light red wine of France.
We'd both rather have coffee, but it's impossible, so we'll take the
wine which is absolutely harmless. We'll get other good food elsewhere."

He put the food on a little mound of turf between them, and they ate
with hunger, but reserve. Neither, although they were on the point of
starvation would show the ways of an animal in the presence of the
other. So, their breakfast lasted some time, and John had never known
food to taste better. When they finished Lannes went back to the locker
in the Arrow.

"John," he said, "here are more cartridges. Reload your automatic, and
keep watch, though nothing more formidable than the lammergeyer is ever
likely to come here. Now, I'll sleep."

He rolled under the lee of a bank, and in two minutes was sleeping
soundly.




CHAPTER VI

ABOVE THE STORM


John had slept well in the Arrow, and that fact coupled with his
extraordinary situation kept him wide-awake. It was true that he had
returned from the dizzy heights of the air, but he was still on the
dizzy side of a mountain.

He stood up and tensed and flexed his muscles until he was sure of his
physical self. He remembered the weakness in his knees that had sent him
down like a little child, and he was so ashamed of himself that he was
resolved it should not happen again.

Then he walked to the edge of the little valley which in the far
distance had looked like a cleft in the side of the mountain. It was
rimmed in by a line of stunted pines, and holding to a pine with each
hand he looked over. He saw that sheer stone wall which he had beheld
first from above when he was in the Arrow, and far below was the ripple
of silvery white that he knew to be the river. To the north lay rolling
hills and green country melting under the horizon, the old Europe that
men had cultivated for twenty centuries and that was now about to be
trodden to pieces by the iron heel of tremendous war.

John understood it. It seemed at the moment that his mind expanding to
such an extent could comprehend the vastness of it all, the kingdoms and
republics, the famous and beautiful old cities, and the millions of men
who did not hate one another involved in a huge whirlpool of
destruction. And yet, expand as his mind did, it could not fully
comprehend the crime of those who had launched such a thunderbolt of
death.

His eyes turned toward the south. It was perhaps not correct to call
that little nest in which the Arrow lay a valley. It was a pocket
rather, since the cliffs, unscalable by man rose a full half mile above
it, and far beyond glimmering faintly in the sunshine he saw the crest
of peaks clad in eternal snow.

Truly his view of the Alps was one of which he had never dreamed, and
Lannes was right in saying that no man had ever before come into that
valley or pocket, unless he had taken wings unto himself as they had
done. They were secure where they were, except from danger that could
come through the air.

He took the glasses, an uncommonly powerful pair from the locker and
examined every corner of the heavens that he could reach. But he saw
none of those ominous, black dots, only little white clouds shot with
gold from the morning sun, floating peacefully under the blue arch, and
now and then some wide-winged bird floating, aslant, from peak to peak.
There was peace, peace everywhere, and he went back from the dizzy edge
of the precipice to the side of the Arrow. Lannes still slept heavily,
and John appreciated his great need of it, knowing how frightful his
strain must have been during that long night.

He felt that he was wholly in Lannes' hands, and he did not know the
young Frenchman's plans. He might wish to get away early, but John
resolved to let him sleep. Whatever they undertook and wherever they
went strength and steadiness must be of the utmost importance, and
Lannes alone could take them on their flight.

John leaned against a little hillock and watched the country that rolled
northward. For the first time in hours he thought of his uncle and Mr.
Anson. And yet he was so filled with wonder at his own translation into
another element that he did not worry greatly about them. They would
hear of him soon, he felt sure, and in a time of such vast anxiety and
fear for half a world brief apprehension about a single person amounted
to but little.

He dozed a short while, and then awoke with a start and an effort of the
will. Lannes still slept like one dead. He felt that the young Frenchman
and the _Arrow_ were in his care, and he must fail in nothing. He stood
up and walked about in the pocket, shaking the dregs of sleep from his
brain. The sun doubled in size from that height, was sweeping toward the
zenith. The radiant sky contained nothing but those tiny clouds floating
like white sails on a sea of perfect blue. The gold on the snow of the
far peaks deepened. He was suffused with the beauty of it, and, for a
little space the world war and the frightful calamities it would bring
fled quite away.

Lannes awoke about noon, stood up, stretched his limbs and sighed with
deep content. He cast a questing glance at the heavens, and then turned
a satisfied look on John.

"No enemy in sight," he said, "and I have slept well. Yea, more, I tell
you, Yankee that you are, that I have slept magnificently. It was a
glorious bed on that grass under the edge of the cliff, and since I may
return some day I'll remember it as one of the finest inns in Europe.
Have you seen anything while I slept, Monsieur Jean the Scott?"

"Only the peaks, the hills, the blue sky and three or four big birds
which I was unable to classify."

"Let their classification go. When we classify now we classify nothing
less than armies. Do you think the _Arrow_ has had sufficient rest?"

"A plenty. It's a staunch little flying machine."

"Then we'll start again, and I think we'll have an easy trip, save for
the currents which are numerous and varied in high mountains."

"What country are we in now?"

"A corner of Switzerland, and I mean for us to descend at a neat little
hamlet I've visited before. They don't know war has begun yet, and we
can get there provisions and everything else we need."

They launched the Arrow, and once more took flight, now into the maze of
mountains. Their good craft frequently rocked and swayed like a ship at
sea and John remembered Lannes' words about the currents. Reason told
him that intervening peaks and ridges would make them break into all
forms of irregularity, and he was glad when they hovered over a valley
and began to descend.

He saw about half a mile below them a small Swiss village, built on both
sides of a foaming little river, and, using the glasses as they dropped
down, he also saw the whole population standing in the streets, their
heads craned back, staring into the skies. The effect was curious, that
of the world turned upside down.

"The place has four or five hundred inhabitants, and it is a good
village," said Lannes. "I have been here four times before, and they
know me. Also they trust me, though through no merit of mine. They have
seen flying machines often enough to know that they are not demons or
monsters, but not often enough to lose their curiosity concerning them.
We shall descend in the midst of an audience, inquisitive but friendly."

"Which you like."

Lannes laughed.

"You judge me right," he said. "I do love the dramatic. Maybe that's one
reason why I'm so fond of flying. What could appeal to the soul more
than swimming through the air, held up on nothing, with a planet
revolving at your feet? Why a man who is not thrilled by it has no soul
at all! And how grand it is to swoop over a village, and then settle
down in it softly and peacefully like some magnificent bird, folding its
wings and dropping to the ground! Isn't it far more poetical than the
arrival of a train which comes in with a clang, a rattle, and smoke and
soot?"

John laughed in his turn.

"You do put it well for yourself, Philip," he said, "but suppose our
machine broke a wing or something else vital. A mile or a half mile
would be a long drop."

"But you'd have such a nice clean death. There would never be a doubt
about its completeness."

"No, never a doubt. Have you picked your port?"

"'Port' is a good enough place. We'll land on that little park, squarely
in the center of the population."

"You're truly in love with the dramatic. You want an audience whenever
it's safe."

"I admit it. There is something about the old Roman triumph that would
have made a mighty appeal to me. Think of a general, young, brilliant,
garlanded, coming into Rome along the Appian Way, with the chariots
before him, the captive princes behind him, miles of beautiful young
girls covered with roses, on either side, and then the noble villas, and
the patricians looking down from the porticoes, the roar of Rome's
thunderous million acclaiming him, and then the Capitoline with the
grave and reverend senators, and the vestals and the pontifex maximus,
and all the honors for the victory which his brain and courage have won
for the state."

"I'm not so sure that I'd like it, Philip."

"'De gustibus non disputandum,' as somebody wrote, John. Well, here we
are, settling down gently in the place something or other, and just as I
told you all the people are around it, with their eyes and mouths wide
open."

The aeroplane settled softly upon the grass amid great and sincere
cheers, and John looked about curiously. He had returned to the world
from space, a space inhabited only by Lannes, himself and the two
Germans, one of whom was now dead. That pocket in the mountain had not
counted. It was like a bird's nest in a tree, and this was the solid,
planetary world, upon which he had once dwelled.

An elderly man of fine appearance, and with a long brown beard, reaching
almost to his waist, stepped forward. Lannes lifted the cap and glasses
that hid his head and face and greeted him in French.

"It is I, Philip Victor Auguste Lannes, Heir Schankhorst," he said
politely. "You will remember me because I've dropped out of the skies
into your village before. The young gentleman with me is one of those
strange creatures called Yankees, who come from far across the ocean,
and who earn money by the sweat of their brows in order that we may take
it from them."

There was such a mellow tone in his voice, and the friendly gleam in his
eyes was so wonderful that neither Herr Schankhorst nor his people could
resist him. It seemed that most of them understood French as they raised
another cheer, and crowded around the two men of the sky, plainly
showing their admiration. None mentioned the war, and it was clear that
the news of it had not yet penetrated to that remote valley in the high
mountains. Lannes introduced John by his right name and description to
Herr Schankhorst who was the burgomaster and then, still followed by the
admiring crowd, they hurried away to the little inn, two stalwart youths
being first detailed to keep watch over the Arrow.

"They're proud of their trust and they'll guard it as they would their
lives," said Lannes in English to John. "Meanwhile we'll have dinner in
this inn, which I know from experience to be the best, and we'll have
the burgomaster and the Protestant clergyman to dine with us. This is
German-speaking Switzerland, but these people fear the Germans and they
don't fear us. So, we're welcome."

The inn was small, but the food and drink were of the best. John was
well supplied with gold, and he did not hesitate to spend it for the
burgomaster, the Lutheran clergyman, Lannes and himself.

"No you can't pay your share," he said to Lannes, "because you haven't
any share. Remember, I've been a free passenger in the Arrow, which
belongs to you, and it's my time to settle the bill."

"Have your way," said Lannes.

They had been speaking in English, and Lannes politely explained to
their guests that his comrade was an obstinate Yankee, a member of a
nation, noted for its stubborness, but the most delightful of people
when you let them have their way, which after all was a way that
generally harmed nobody.

The burgomaster and the clergyman smiled benevolently upon John and John
smiled back. He had noticed already that Americans were popular among
the great masses of the people in Europe. It was only those interested
in the upholding of the classes who frowned upon them and who tried to
write or talk them down. He was keen enough too, despite his youth, to
deduce the reasons for it.

Here in this little town he was looked upon with favor because he was
from America, and soon he was busy answering questions by the
burgomaster and clergyman about his own land.

They made no reference to any war or approaching war, and he surmised
that they had no thought of such a tremendous catastrophe--Lannes
informed him later that they had neither telegraph nor telephone--and
John following the cue of his comrade made no reference to it. They ate
with sharp appetites, but an end had to come at last. Then Lannes went
out into the town to buy his supplies, leaving John to entertain the
guests.

John felt deeply that little period of rest and kindly simplicity and
the time was soon to come, when he would look back upon it as the
greenest of green spots in the desert.

Lannes returned in an hour and announced that they were ready for
another flight. They went back to the _Arrow_ which the stalwart youths
were still guarding, proud of their trust.

"Must you really go?" said the burgomaster to Lannes. "Why not stay with
us until tomorrow? Look, the clouds are gathering on the mountains.
There may be a storm. Better bide with us till the morrow."

"We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your kindness," said
Lannes, as he and John took their seats, "and under any other
circumstances we would stay, but Herr Schankhorst there is a call for
us, a call that is sounding all over Europe, a call louder than any that
was ever heard before on this old continent."

Lannes raising his voice spoke in clear, loud tones, and he had the
impressive manner that he knew so well how to assume. The crowd, eager
and expectant, pressed nearer, all about the Arrow. John saw that the
dramatic instinct, always alive within his partner, had sparkled into
flame.

"And there is reason for this call," continued Lannes, raising his voice
yet further, until the most distant were sure to hear every syllable.
"The trumpet is sounding throughout Europe. You may well thank the good
God that you dwell here in your little valley, and that all around you
the mountains rise a mile above you. There were many trumpets when the
great Napoleon rode forth to war, but there are more now."

A gasp arose from the crowd, and John saw faces whiten.

"All Europe is at war," continued Lannes. "The nations march forth
against one another and the continent shakes with the tread of twenty
million soldiers. But stay here behind your mountain walls, and the
storm will pass you by. Now push!"

Twenty youths shoved the _Arrow_ with all their might and the plane
rising gracefully in the air, soared far above the village. John looked
down and again he saw the whole population with heads craned back and
eyes turned upward, but he knew now that they were swayed by new and
powerful emotions.

"Lannes," he said, "I never saw such an actor as you are."

"But think of the opportunity! How could I overlook such a chance! They
knew absolutely nothing of the war, did not dream of it, and here was I
with the chance to tell them the whole tremendous truth, and then to
shoot suddenly up into the air far beyond their hearing. It was the
artistic finish that appealed to me as much as the announcement. Tell
your great news and then disappear or become silent. Don't linger over
it, or you will mar the effect."

"We're leaving the valley out of sight, and I judge by the sun that our
course is northwesterly."

"Right my brave aviator, but I don't think you'll be able to use the sun
much longer for reckoning. The worthy burgomaster was right. Look behind
you and see how the clouds are gathering!"

John gazed at the vast mass of the Alps, stretching their tremendous
rampart across the very heart of Europe. The _Arrow_ had gone higher,
and deep down in the south he saw the ridges and sharp peaks stretching
on apparently to infinity. But it was a wild and desolate world. Even as
he looked the far edges dropped away in the gloom of advancing clouds.
The gray of the horizon became black and sinister.

But he looked on, his gaze held by the sublimity of the mountains and
the powerful spell, cast by an historic imagination. He was not only
gazing upon the heart of Europe, but upon the heart of great history.
There, where that long black line led through the clefts the army of
Hannibal was passing. He shut his eyes and he saw the dark Carthaginian
with his deep eyes, his curly perfumed beard, a scarlet robe wrapped
around him, its ends dropping upon his horse, his brothers and the
captains riding just behind him, and behind them the Carthaginian sacred
band, the Spaniards, the Gauls, the Celts, the wild Numidians shivering
on their barebacked horses, the monstrous elephants, the women, and all
the strange and heterogeneous elements which the fire and genius of the
great leader fused into an army unconquerable by the bravest and best
soldiers of antiquity, a great man holding a great nation at bay for
half a life time.

Mind and eye ran down the long line of the ages. He saw Goths and
Vandals, Germans and Gauls pouring through the passes upon Italy, and
then almost in his own time he saw that other, the equal of Hannibal,
almost exactly the same age, leading another army over the mighty
mountains into the rich plains below. He watched the short figure of
Napoleon, and behind him the invincible French youth, born of the
republic, dragging their cannon through the snow to victory.

"Open your eyes, John, are you going to sleep?"

"I was never further from sleep, and my eyes were so wide open that I
saw more than I ever did before in my life."

"And what did you see, my wise John?"

"I saw generals and nations crossing the mountains down there. I saw
through a space of many centuries, and the last I saw was your Napoleon
leading his troops over the Great St. Bernard to Marengo."

Lannes' eyes flamed like stars.

"And the great marshal whose name I bear was there with him," he said.
"It was near Marengo that he won his Dukedom of Montebello. Napoleon
cannot come back, but victory may perch again on the banners of France."

John understood him. He knew how Frenchmen must have writhed through all
the years over Gravelotte and Sedan and Metz. He knew how deeply they
must have felt the taunt that they were degenerate, and the prediction
of their enemies that they would soon sink to the state of a second
class power. He knew how Americans would have felt in their place, and,
while he had never believed the sneers, he knew they had been made so
often that some Frenchmen themselves had begun to believe them. He
understood fully, and the ties that were knitting him so strongly to
Lannes increased and strengthened.

"They were really republicans who won the victories of Napoleon," he
said, "and you have been a republic again for forty-four years.
Republics give life and strength."

"I think they do, and so does a liberal monarchy like that of England.
Freedom makes the mind grow. Well, I hope we've grown so much that with
help we'll be able to whip Germany. What's become of the Alps, John?"

"The clouds have taken 'em."

There was nothing now in the south but a vast bank of gray, and
presently John felt drops of rain on his face. Besides, it was growing
much colder. He did not know much about flying, but he was quite sure
that in the midst of a great storm of wind and rain they would be in
acute danger. He looked anxiously at Lannes, who said reassuringly:

"We'll go above it, John. It's one of the advantages of flying. On earth
you can't escape a storm, but here we mount so high that it passes
beneath us. After you get used to flying you'll wonder why people trust
themselves on such a dangerous place as the earth."

John caught the twinkle in his eye, but he was learning fast, and his
own heart thrilled too as they swung upward, rising higher and higher,
until the thin air made the blood beat heavily in his temples. At last
he looked down again. The earth had vanished. Vast clouds of gray and
black floated between, and to John's startled eyes they took on all the
aspects of the sea. Here the great swells rolled and tumbled, and off
far in the north stretched a vast smooth surface of tranquility. But
beneath him he saw flashes of light, and heard the heavy mutter as of
giant guns. High above, the air was thin, cold and motionless.

A troubled world rolled directly under them, and the scene that he
beheld was indescribably grand and awful. The clouds were in
conjunction, and thunder and lightning played as if monstrous armies had
crashed together. But here they sailed steadily on a motionless sea of
air. He shared the keen pleasure that Lannes so often felt. The _Arrow_
suddenly became a haven of safety, a peaceful haven away from strife.

"Aren't you glad you're not down there?" asked Lannes.

"Aye, truly."

"The winds that blow about the world, and the clouds that float where
the winds take them appear to be having a terrible commotion, but we are
safe spectators. Monsieur Jean the Scott, I wonder if the time will ever
come when we'll have a flying machine that can manufacture its own air
to sail in. Then it could rise to any height."

"Phil, you're dreaming!"

"I know I am but I'm not dreaming any more than you were just now when
you saw Napoleon and his army crossing the Alps. Besides who can
forecast the achievements of science? Why, man who was nothing but a
savage yesterday is just getting a start in the world! Who can tell what
he'll be doing a million years from now? Think of going on, and on in
the void, and maybe arriving on Venus or Mars!"

"In that case we'll find out whether that Mars canal story is true or
not."

Lannes laughed.

"I come back to earth," he said, "or rather I come back to a point a
safe distance above it. How's our storm making out?"

"It seems to be moving westward."

"And we're flying fast toward the north. We'll soon part company with
the storm, and then we'll drop lower. But John, you must take the
glasses and watch the skies all the time."

"Which means that we'll fly near the French border, and that I've got to
be on the lookout for the Taubes and the dirigibles."

"And he guessed right the very first time. That's more of your American
slang. Yes, John, the hosts of the air are abroad, and we must not have
another encounter with the Germans. Before night we'll be approaching
the battle lines, and the air will be full of scouts. Perhaps it will be
better to do the rest of our traveling at night. We might drop down in a
wood somewhere, and wait for the twilight."

"That's true Philip, but there's one question I'd like to ask you."

"Go ahead."

"Just how do you classify me? I belong to America, which has nothing to
do with your gigantic war, and yet here I am scouting through the air
with you, and exposed to just as much danger as you are."

"I don't think I could have answered that question about classification
yesterday, John, but I can without hesitation today. You're an Ally. And
you're an Ally because you can't help it. Germany represents autocracy
and France democracy. So does England who is going to help us. You've
risked your life over and over again with me, a Frenchman, one who would
look upon the defeat of the German empire as almost the millennium. You
may like the German people, but all your principles, all your
heart-beats are on our side. When we get to some convenient place you'll
write to your uncle and friend at Munich that you've joined England and
France in the fight against German militarism. Oh, you needn't protest!
It's true. I know you. You're quiet and scholarly, but your soul is the
soul of adventure. I've seen how you responded to the thrill of the
Arrow, how you're responding at this very moment I know with absolute
certainty, Monsieur Jean the Scott, that you'll be fighting on the side
of England and France. So you'd better make up your mind to stick to me,
until we reach the French army."

John was silent a moment or two. Then he reached out and grasped Lannes'
free hand.

"I was thinking of doing the things you predict," he said, "and to keep
you from being a false prophet, Phil, old man, I'll do them."

Lannes returned his strong grasp.

"But if the English come into the war on your side," continued John, "I
think I'll join them. Not that I'm overwhelmingly in love with the
English, but they speak our American language, or at least variations of
it. In the heat of battle I might forget the French word for, retreat,
but never the English."

Lannes smiled.

"You won't be running, old fellow," he said. "You're right of course to
join the English since they're close kin to you, but I have a feeling,
John Scott, that you and I will see much of each other before this war
is over."

"It may be so. I'm beginning to think, Phil, that lots of things we
don't dream about happen to us. I certainly never expected a week ago to
be in the middle of a great war."

"And you expected least of all, Monsieur Jean the Scott, to be sailing
smoothly along in the air far above the clouds, and with a terrific
storm raging below."

"No, I didn't. If a man had predicted that for me I should have said he
was insane. But I think, Phil, the storm is leaving us or we've left it.
That big ball of darkness giving out thunder and fire is moving fast
toward the west."

"So it is, and there's clear air beneath us. And the Alps are
reappearing in the south."

"Right you are, Philip. I can see a half dozen peaks, and there is
another, and now another. See, their white heads coming out of the mists
and vapors, whole groups of them now!"

"Don't they look from here like a friendly lot of old fellows, John,
standing there and nodding their snowy pates to one another, just as
they've done for the last million years or more!"

"You hit the nail on the head, Phil. Understand that? It's one of our
phrases meaning that you've told the exact truth. There goes that wicked
storm, farther and farther to the west. Soon the horizon will swallow it
up."

"And then it will go on toward Central France. I hope it won't damage
the vineyards. But what a fool I am to be talking about storms of
weather, when the German storm of steel is about to sweep over us!"

"You don't talk very hopefully, when you speak of a German invasion at
once."

"But I am hopeful. I expect the invasion because we are not ready. They
accuse us French of planning a surprise attack upon Germany. What
nonsense, when we're not even prepared to defend ourselves! The first
sound of this war will show who was getting ready to attack. But John
we'll drive back that invasion, we and our allies. I repeat to you that
the French of 1914 are not the French of 1870. The Third Republic will
command the same valor and devotion that served the First. But here I am
talking like an old politician. Get the glasses, John, and look at our
field of battle, the heavens. It's all in the light now, and we can't
afford another encounter with the Taubes."

John took a long look. The passage of the storm had purified the air
which was now of dazzling clearness, a deep, silky blue, with a sun of
pure red gold that seemed to hang wonderfully near. Lannes permitted the
_Arrow_ to drop lower and lower, until the earth itself sprang up into
the light.

John saw again the green hills, the blue lakes and the streams, neat
villages and splendid country houses. It was his planet, and he was glad
to come once more where he could see it.

"It was fine up there above the clouds," he said to Lannes, "but after
all I've got a very kindly feeling for the earth. It's like meeting an
old friend again."

"Comes of use and habit, I suppose if we lived on Venus or Mars we'd
have the same kind of attachment. But like you, John, I'm glad to see
the earth again. The scenery is more varied than it is up in the
heavens. What do you see through the glasses, John? Don't miss anything
if it's there. It's too important."

"I see in the north just under the horizon four black specks. It's too
far away for me to tell anything about 'em, but they move just as those
two Taubes did before their shape became clear."

"More Taubes. That's certain. And it's time for us to get away. We're
almost on the border John and the German aeroplanes and dirigibles are
sure to have gathered."

"There's a forest a little to the right of us. Suppose we go down
there."

Lannes examined the forest.

"It seems fairly large," he said, "and I think it will make a good
covert. But whether good or bad we must drop into it. The German
airships are abroad and we can take no chances."

The _Arrow_ descended with increased speed. John still used the glasses,
and he searched every nook of the forest, which like most of those of
Europe had little undergrowth. It contained no houses at all, but he
picked out an open space near the center, large enough for the landing
of the Arrow, which he pointed out to Lannes.

"I suppose you'd call it a respectable forest," said John. "I see some
trees which are at least a foot through, near the ground. Luckily it's
summer yet and the foliage is thick. If I were one of you Europeans I'd
never boast about my trees."

"Some day I'm going to run over to that America of yours, and see
whether all you tell me about it is true. Steady now, John, I'm about to
make the landing, and it's my pride to land more gently every time than
I did the time before."

They slid down softly and alighted on the grass. Lannes' triumph was
complete, and his wonderful eyes sparkled.

"The best I've done yet," he said, "but not the best I will do. John,
what time is it?"

"Half-past five."

"With our long evenings that makes considerable daylight yet. Suppose
you take your automatic, and examine the woods a little. I'd go with
you, but I'm afraid to leave the _Arrow_ here alone. Leave the glasses
with me though."

John, after regaining his land legs, walked away among the woods, which
evidently had been tended with care like a park, bearing little
resemblance, as he somewhat scornfully reminded himself to the mighty
forests of his own country. Still, these Europeans, he reflected were
doing the best they could.

The region was hilly and he soon lost sight of Lannes, but he threshed
up the wood, thoroughly. There was no sign of occupancy. He did not know
whether it lay in Germany or France, but it was evident that all the
foresters were gone. A clear brook ran through a corner of it, and he
knelt and drank. Then he went back to Lannes who was sitting placidly
beside the Arrow.

"Nothing doing," said John in the terse phrase of his own country. "At
imminent risk from the huge wild animals that inhabit it I've searched
all this vast forest of yours. I've forded a river three feet wide, and
six inches deep, I've climbed steep mountains, twenty feet high, I've
gone to the uttermost rim of the forest, a full half-mile away on every
side, and I beg to report to you, General, that the wilderness contains
no human being, not a sign of any save ourselves. Strain my eyes as I
would I could not find man anywhere."

Lannes smiled.

"You've done well as far as you've gone," he said.

"I could go no farther."

"You said you saw no sign of man."

"None whatever."

"But I do."

"Impossible!"

"Not impossible at all. Why don't you look up?"

John instantly gazed into the heavens, and he was startled at the sight
he beheld. The population of the air had increased suddenly and to a
wonderful extent. A score of aeroplanes were outlined clearly against
the sky, and as he looked the distant drumming noise that he had heard
in Dresden came again to his ears. A monstrous black figure cut across
his vision and soon sailed directly overhead.

"A Zeppelin!" he said.

"A huge fellow," said Lannes. "The aeroplanes are German too, or there
would soon be trouble between them and the Zeppelin."

"Should we take to flight?"

"No, it's too late. Besides, I think we're safe here. The foliage is so
dense that they're not likely to see us. This forest must lie in
Germany, and I judge that the heads of their armies have already passed
to the west of us. The planes may be scouting to see whether French
cavalry is in their rear. Do you hear that? I say, John, do you hear
that?"

From a far point in the west came a low sound which swelled gradually
into a crash like thunder. In a few moments came another, and then
another and then many. They could see no smoke, no fire, and the very
distance lent majesty to the sound.

John knew well what it was, the thudding of great guns, greater than any
that had been fired before by man on land. Lannes turned ashy-pale.

"It's the cannon, the German cannon!" he said, "and that sound comes
from France. The Kaiser's armies are already over the border, marching
on Paris. Oh, John! John! all the time that I was predicting it I was
hoping that it wouldn't come true, couldn't come true! You Americans
can't understand! In your new country you don't have age-old passions
and hates and wrongs and revenges burning you up!"

"I do understand. It must be a serious battle though. All the planes are
now flying westward, and there goes the Zeppelin too."

"Which leaves us safe for the present. Besides, the twilight is coming."




CHAPTER VII

THE ZEPPELIN


The brilliant sunlight faded into gray, but the European twilight
lingers, and it was long before night came. John and Lannes stood beside
the Arrow, and for a while neither spoke. They were listening to the
thunder of the great guns and they were trying to imagine how the battle
was swaying over the distant and darkening fields. The last of the air
scouts had disappeared in the dusk.

"The sound doesn't seem to move," said Lannes, "and our men must be
holding their own for the present. Still, it's hard to tell about the
location of sound."

"How far away do you think it is?"

"Many miles. We only hear the giant cannon. Beneath it there must be a
terrible crash of guns and rifles. I've heard, John, that the Germans
have seventeen-inch howitzers, firing shells weighing more than two
thousand pounds, and France furnishes the finest roads in the world for
them to move on."

He spoke with bitterness, but in an instant or two he changed his tone
and said:

"At any rate we haven't made a god out of war, and that's why we haven't
seventeen-inch cannon. Perhaps by not setting up such a god we've gained
something else--republican fire and spirit that nothing can overcome."

The twilight now deepened and the darkness increased fast in the wood,
but the deep thunder on the western horizon did not cease. John thought
he saw flashes of fire from the giant cannon, but he was not sure. It
might be sheaves of rays shot off by the sunken sun, or, again, it might
be his imagination, always vivid, but stimulated to the last degree by
the amazing scenes through which he was passing.

After a while, although the throb of the great guns still came complete
darkness enveloped the grove. It seemed now to John that the sound had
moved farther westward, but Lannes had just shown such keen emotion that
he would not say the Germans were pushing their way farther into France.
However, Lannes himself noticed it. Presently he said:

"The battle goes against us, but you may be sure of one thing, Monsieur
Jean the Scott, we were heavily outnumbered and the German artillery
must have been in caliber as four to our one."

"I've no doubt it's so," said John with abundant sympathy.

"The fire seems to be dying. Probably the night is too dark for the
combat to go on. What do you think we ought to do, John?"

"You're the airman, Phil. I'm only a raw beginner."

"But a beginner who has learned fast. I think the sound of that battle
in France has weakened my nerve for the moment, and I want your advice.
I ask for it again."

"Then suppose we stay where we are. This isn't a bad little forest, as
forests go in Europe, and in the night, at least, it's pretty dark. The
enemy is all around us, and in the air over our heads. Suppose we sleep
here beside the Arrow."

"That's a good sound Yankee head of yours, John. Just as you think, it
would be dangerous for us to run either on land or in the air, and so
we'll stay here and take the chances. I secured two blankets at the
village, and each will have one. You go to sleep, John, and I'll take
the first watch."

"No, I'll take the first. You need rest more than I do. You've been
sailing the Arrow, and, besides, your nerves have been tried harder by
the echo of that battle. Just for a little while I mean to boss. 'Boss,'
I'll explain to you, means in our American idiom a commander, a
Napoleon. Now, stop talking, wrap yourself in your blanket and go to
sleep."

"I obey. But keep your automatic handy."

He fell asleep almost instantly, and John, lying near with his own
blanket about him, kept watch over him and the Arrow. He did not feel
sleepy at all. His nerves had been keyed to too high a pitch for rest to
come yet. His situation and the scenes through which he had passed were
so extraordinary that certain faculties seemed to have become blunted.
Although surrounded by many dangers all sensation of fear was gone.

The blanket was sufficient protection even against the cool European
night, and he had found a soft and comfortable place on the turf. The
wood was silent, save for the rustle of a stray breeze among the leaves.
Far in the night he heard twice the faint boom of the giant cannon deep
down on the western horizon. For all he knew the sounds may have come
from a point twenty miles away.

He walked a little distance from the Arrow, and listened intently. But
after the two shots the west was silent. The earth settled back into
gloom and darkness. He returned to the _Arrow_ and found that Lannes was
still sleeping heavily, his face pale from exertion and from the painful
emotions that he had felt.

John was sorry for him, sorry from the bottom of his heart. Love of
country was almost universal, and it must be almost death to a man,
whose native land, having been trodden deep once, was about to be
trodden again by the same foe.

He went once more to the little stream and took another drink. He sat by
its banks a few minutes, and listened to its faint trickle, a pleasant
soothing sound, like the almost unheard sigh of the wind. Then he
returned to his usual place near the Arrow.

Dead stillness reigned in the grove. There was no wind and the leaves
ceased to rustle. Not another note came from the battle of the nations
beyond the western horizon. The _Arrow_ and its master both lay at peace
on the turf. The stillness, the heavy quiet oppressed John. He had been
in the woods at night many times at home, but there one heard the
croaking of frogs at the water's edge, the buzzing of insects, and now
and then the cry of night birds, but here in this degenerate forest
nothing stirred, and the air was absolutely pulseless.

Time began to lengthen. He looked at his watch, but it was not yet
midnight, and Lannes was still motionless and sleeping. He had resolved,
as most of the strain had fallen upon his comrade, to let him sleep far
beyond his allotted half, and he walked about again, but soundlessly, in
order to keep his faculties awake and keen.

The night had been dark. Many clouds were floating between him and the
moon. He looked up at them, and it seemed incredible now that beyond
them human beings could float above the thunder and lightning, and look
up at the peaceful moon and stars. Yet he had been there, not in any
wild dash of a few minutes, but in a great flight which swept over
nights and days.

His early thoughts were true. A long era had ended, and now one, charged
with wonders and marvels, had begun. This mighty war was the signal of
the change, and it would not be confined to the physical world. The mind
and soul would undergo like changes. People would never look at things
in the same way. There had been such mental revolutions in the long
past, and it was not against nature for another to come now.

John was thoughtful, perhaps beyond his years, but he had been subjected
to tremendous emotions. The unparalleled convulsion of the old world was
enough to make even the foolish think. Event and surmise passed and
repassed through his mind, while he walked up and down in the wood.
Hours crept slowly by, the clouds drifted away, and the moon came out in
a gush of silver. The stars, great and small, danced in a sky that was
always blue, beyond the veil.

He came back for the third time to the brook. He was thirsty that night,
but before he knelt down to drink he paused and every muscle suddenly
became rigid. He was like one of those early borderers in his own land
who had heard a sinister sound in the thicket. It was little, a slight
ring of steel, but every nerve in John was alive on the instant.

Still obeying the instincts of ancestors, he knelt down among the trees.
His vivid fancy might be at work once more! And then it might not! The
ringing of steel on steel came again, then a second time and nearer. He
slid noiselessly forward, and lay with his ear to the earth. Now he
heard other sounds, and among them one clear note, the steady tread of
hoofs.

Cavalry were approaching the grove, but which? German or French? John
knew that he ought to go and awake Lannes at once, but old inherited
instincts, suddenly leaping into power, held him. By some marvelous
mental process he reverted to a period generations ago. His curiosity
was great, and his confidence in his powers absolute.

He dragged himself twenty or thirty yards along the edge of the brook
toward the tread of hoofs, and soon he heard them with great
distinctness. Mingled with the sound was the jingling of bits and the
occasional impact of a steel lance-head upon another. John believed now
that they were Germans and he began to creep away from the brook, toward
which the troop was coming directly. It was not possible to estimate
well from sound, but he thought they numbered at least five hundred.

He was back thirty yards from the brook, lying flat in the grass, when
the heads of horses and men emerged from the shadows. The helmets showed
him at once that they were the Uhlans, and without the helmets the face
of the leader alone was sufficient to tell him that the Prussian
horsemen had ridden into the wood.

The one who rode first with his helmet thrown back a little was Rudolf
von Boehlen, the man with whom John had talked at Dresden, and who had
made such an impression upon him. He had known the scholarly Prussian,
the industrial Prussian, and the simple good-natured Prussian of the
soil, but here was the Prussian to whom the first god was Mars, with the
Kaiser as his prophet. It was he, and such as he, who ruled the
industrious and kindly German people, teaching them that might was
right, and that they always possessed both.

John saw through the eyes of both fact and fancy. Von Boehlen was a
figure of power. Mind and body were now at the work for which they had
been trained, and to which the nature of their owner turned them.

Despite his size and weight he sat his horse with lightness and grace,
and his cold blue eyes searched the forest for victims rather than foes.
John saw in him the product of ceaseless and ruthless training, helped
by nature.

But von Boehlen, keen as his eyes were, did not see the figure of the
watcher prone in the grass. He let his horse drink at the brook, and
others rode up by his side, until there was a long line of horses with
their heads bent down to the stream. It occurred to John then that their
only pu

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