The Girl Philippa
Halkett, at the telephone, called back through the dim hallway to
Warner:
"Somebody has cut the telephone wire. I can't do anything with the
instrument!"
Philippa, still clasping Ariadne, had betrayed no sign of fear or
excitement.
"If somebody would tell me what to do," she began--but Warner quickly
drew her into the office of the inn, which was really the inner cafe and
bar.
"Stay here," he said. "Those men outside might open fire on us at any
moment. Don't go near a window. Do you promise?"
The girl seated herself obediently and began to stroke the cat, her eyes
serenely fixed on Warner.
Halkett had gone to the floor above to lurk by one of the windows giving
on the garden. When Warner came up with a box of cartridge clips, the
Englishman, filling his pockets, remarked quietly:
"They're over the wall already, and dodging about among the fruit
trees--four of them. There were two others. Perhaps you had better
keep an eye on the front door, if you really insist on being mixed up
with this mess I'm in."
"Do you suppose those fellows will be silly enough to attack the house?"
asked the American incredulously.
Halkett nodded:
"They are desperate, you see. I can understand why. They know that war
is likely to be declared within the next few hours. If they don't get
me now they won't stand much chance later. That's why I'm prepared for
anything on their part."
Warner walked swiftly back toward the front, cutting the cords of the
latticed window blinds in every room, so that they fell full length.
"No lights in the house!" he called down over the banisters; "and keep
away from the windows, everybody! Philippa, do you hear me?"
"I understand; I shall tell them to light no candles," came the
untroubled voice of Philippa.
"Are _you_ all right down there?"
"Yes, _I_ am. But the cat is still quite frightened, poor darling."
In spite of his anxiety, Warner laughed as he reloaded.
Outdoors there still remained sufficient light to see by. Flat against
the wall, pistol in hand, he cautiously reconnoitered the dusky roadway
in front of the house, then, leaning further out, he ventured to look
down between lattice and sill at the doorstep below. A mound of dry hay
had been piled against the door.
"Get out of there!" he shouted, catching a glimpse of two shadowy
figures skulking toward the doorway arch.
His reply was a red flash which split the dusk, another, and another;
the window glass above him flew into splinters under the shower of
bullets; the persiennes jerked and danced.
But the men who stood pouring bullets in his direction had been obliged
to drop double armfuls of faggots. One of these men, still firing as he
ran, took cover behind a poplar tree across the road; the other man
flattened himself against the wall of the house, so far under the door
arch that no shot could reach him from an upper window unless the
marksman exposed himself.
Standing so, he lighted a chemical match and tossed it, flaring, on the
heap of hay piled high against the door; and almost at the same instant
a boilerful of hot water splashed through the bars of the lower window
beside him, scalding and soaking him; and he bounded out into the road
with a yell of astonishment and pain.
The hay, instantly on fire, sent a cloud of white thick smoke billowing
along the facade of the house, then burst into flame; but Linette and
Magda dashed water on it from the lower windows, and the red blaze
leaped and died.
Then, from the rear of the house, the dry rattle of Halkett's automatic
broke out, and the pattering racket of pistol shots redoubled when other
automatics crackled from the garden. Thick as hailstones pelting a tin
roof the bullets clanged on the iron rear door, filling the house with
deafening dissonance.
Halkett, peering out through his lattice into the dusk, ceased firing.
A few moments longer the door reechoed the bullets' impact; then all
sound ceased, the silence still vibrating metallic undertones.
Prowling from window to window, Warner, pistol lifted, peered warily
from the shelter of the lowered lattice blinds.
One man still crouched behind the poplar tree; the other, he thought,
was lying in the long grass of the roadside ditch.
"Are you all right, Halkett?" he called back through the stinging fumes
of the smokeless powder which filled the hallway.
"Quite fit, thanks. How is it with you?"
"Still gayly on the job. I didn't hit anybody. I didn't try to."
"Nor I. Did you ever see such obstinacy and determination? Very
German, isn't it?"
"Perfectly.... They're keeping rather too quiet to suit me. What do
you suppose they're up to?"
But neither he nor the Englishman could discover any movement or hear
any sound around the house. And it had now become too dark to see
anything very clearly.
Philippa appeared mounting the stairs, looking for Ariadne who had
scrambled out of her arms during the fusillade.
Warner nodded to her from where he was standing guard. She came up
quietly behind him, stood for a moment with both hands around his left
arm--a silent figure in the dusk, friendly as a well-bred dog, and as
winningly unconscious of self. Her cheek, resting lightly against her
hands, where they clasped his arm, pressed a trifle closer before she
went away.
And while he stood there, perplexedly conscious of this youthful
affection, and listening to every slightest sound, suddenly he heard her
voice, startled, calling out to him from a bedroom on the east side of
the house.
As he entered the room, running, a man outside on a garden ladder kicked
in the window panes, drew back his heavy foot, sent it crashing again
through the wooden frame, and lurched forward across the sill, only to
be held there, fighting, in the grasp of Philippa.
Behind them another man on the ladder was already struggling to fling
his leg over the sill; the head and shoulders of a third appeared just
behind him, menacing with uplifted pistol any interference.
Already Philippa had been dragged headlong half-way through the
shattered window, and the man whom she had seized was endeavoring to
fling her down in the flower bed below, when Warner, leaping forward,
hit him heavily in the face and caught the girl's shoulders, jerking her
back into the room as her assailant's grasp on her waist relaxed.
The man with the pistol had not been able to use it; he staggered, his
weapon fell, and he clung with both hands to the rungs as Philippa's
assaulter went tumbling down the ladder, carrying with him the man
directly behind him. And the next moment Warner had upset the ladder,
sprung back, and pulled Philippa with him down on the floor.
A hurricane of bullets swept through the shattered window above them;
Halkett, from his latticed vantage, was firing, too.
The girl lay panting beside him, silent, her head across his arm.
"Are you hurt?" he whispered.
"Are _you_?"
"No; answer me!" he repeated impatiently.
"He was--very rough. I don't think I am hurt," she breathed.
"You plucky little thing!"
She pressed her cheek against his arm.
"Are you contented with me?" she whispered.
The shots had ceased. After a long interval of quiet, Warner ventured
to creep to the window and look through a corner of the ragged lattice
blind. Little by little he raised himself to his knees, peered out and
finally over.
The ladder lay there just below in the garden path; the men were gone.
And, even as he looked, the staccato noise of departing motor cycles
broke out like a startling volley of rifle fire in the night.
For an hour he stood on guard there, with the girl Philippa crouching
beside him on the floor. From time to time he called cautiously:
"All well here!"
And the Englishman from the front windows always answered:
"All well here!"
Finally:
"Halkett!" he called. "I believe they've cut away for good!"
Halkett presently appeared in the hallway, coming from the front of the
house, as Philippa rose to her knees and stood up, a trifle dazed.
"Warner," he whispered, "a dozen horsemen have just ridden up in front
of our house. They look like French gendarmes to me, but it's so dark
outside that I am not quite certain. Will you take a look at them?"
Warner ran to the front and gazed out. The road below was filled with
mounted gendarmes, their white aiguillettes plainly visible in the dark.
Two had already descended from their horses, and while one held an
electric torch the other was busily nailing a big placard to the front
door of the inn. His hammer strokes rang out sharply in the darkness.
It took only a moment for him to complete his business; the electric
torch shifted, flashed upward, was extinguished.
"Mount!" came the quick order from the shadowy peloton of horsemen; up
on their high saddles popped the two troopers; there came a trample of
hoofs, the dull clank of sabres, and away they galloped into the
darkness.
Warner turned slowly, looked hard at Halkett, who merely nodded in reply
to the silent question.
Philippa slipped downstairs in front of them and began to unlatch the
door, as Linette and Magda appeared from the kitchen carrying lighted
candles.
Then, when the front door had swung open, the little group gathered in
front of it and read on the placard, by flickering candlelight, the
decree of the Government of Republican France.
It was the order for general mobilization.
The nation was already at war.
*CHAPTER XIII*
A pale streak of daybreak along the eastern hills, a blackbird piping,
then that intense stillness which heralds the sun.
In mid-heaven the last star-drops melted, washed out in the grey silver
of the sky; a light breeze sighed through the trees, and, sighing, died.
Then, above earth, a sudden misty glory of gold and rose; and through
it, as through a veil, the sword-edge of the celestial scimitar curved
up, glittering.
Thus dawned the year of war on Sais.
But the awakening world of summer did not seem to comprehend; the
yellow-haired lad who drove his cows to pasture halted to read the
placard on the door of the inn, then, whistling his dog to heel, ran
forward after his slowly moving herd.
The miller of Sais drove by on his way to the mill, drew rein to read
the placard, looked up at the bullet-shattered window above, then jogged
on, his furrowed features unaltered, his aged eyes fixed on his horse's
ears.
One or two washerwomen on the way to the meadow pool stood gracefully
regarding the poster, flat baskets of clothes balanced on their heads;
then moved on through the golden sunrise, still graceful, unhurried,
exchanging leisurely comments on life and death as they walked.
In the kitchen of the Golden Peach, Magda was astir, and presently
Linette appeared, very sleepy. As they went about the routine business
to which they had been bred, they too exchanged tranquil views
concerning emperors and kings and the mortality of all flesh. Also they
took counsel together regarding the return of Madame Arlon, the ultimate
necessity of summoning a glazier from Ausone, the damage done in the
garden by the ladder.
The door of Philippa's bedroom remained closed; Warner's door also. But
Halkett, his hands in his pockets, was out at sunrise, pacing the road
in front of the inn, sometimes looking up at the shot-riddled windows,
or at the placard on the front door, or along the road at the telephone
wires which appeared to be intact as far as he could see.
But somewhere they had been cut, and communication still remained
interrupted.
Deeply worried over the non-appearance of Gray, the cutting of the
telephone wires now became a matter of serious concern to him. He