The Girl Philippa
Carefully combing out his _favoris_ with a broken comb and greasing them
with perfumed pomade flat over his sunken cheekbones, he fairly wriggled
with his new sense of security and bodily comfort.
Now and then he scratched his large, outstanding ears, trying to realize
his good fortune; now and then, combing his _rouflaquette_ with
tenderness and pride, he lifted his mean, nasal voice in song:
"Depuis que j'suis dans c'tte p--n d'Afrique
A faire l'chameau avec une bosse su' l'dos,
Mon vieux frangin, j'suis sec comme un coup d'trique,
J'ai b'entot p'us que d'la peau su'les os!
Et v'la l'Bat. d'Af. qui passe,
Ohe! ceux d'la classe!--"
Combing away and plastering his lovelocks by the help of a fragment of
mirror, Asticot whined out his dreadful ballads of Africa, throwing all
the soul he possessed into the tragic recital and sniffling
sentimentally through his nose:
A Biribi c'est la qu'on marche,
Faut pas flancher;
Quand l'chaouch crie: 'En avant! Marche!'
I'faut marcher,
Et quand on veut fair' des epates,
C'est peau d'zebi:
On vous fiche les fers au quat' pattes
A Biribi!
A Biribi c'est la qu'on creve
De soif et d' faim,
C'est la qu'i' faut marner sans treve
Jusqu' a la fin! ...
Le soir on pense a la famille
Sous le gourbi....
On pleure encor' quand on roupille
A Biribi!"
He was still chanting when the punt glided in among the rushes of the
eastern bank. He followed Warner to the land, aided him to beach the
punt, then trotted docilely at heel as the American struck out across
the quarry road and mounted the retaining wall of the vineyard-clad
hill.
Up they climbed among the vines; and Asticot with a leer, but keeping
his mousy eyes on Warner, ventured to detach a ripe bunch here and there
and breakfast as he trotted along.
The thunder of the cannon had become very distinct; daylight came slowly
under the heavy blanket of grey clouds; the foggy sky was still stained
with rose over Ausone; red flashes leaped from the fort; the paler glare
of the German guns played constantly across the north.
And now, coming out on the hill's crest among the vines, Warner caught
sight of Ausone town far below, beyond the Chateau forest. Here and
there houses kindled red as coals in a grate; the sluice and wheel of a
mill by the Recollette seemed to be on fire; beyond it haystacks were
burning and smothering all the east in smoke.
"_Mazette_," remarked Asticot, with his mouth full of stolen grapes.
"It appears to Bibi that their church of Sainte Cassilda is frying the
stone saints inside!"
And then, adjusting his field glasses, Warner discovered what the
mouse-eyes of Asticot had detected: Sainte Cassilda the beautiful was
merely a hollow shell within which raged a sea of fire crimsoning the
gaping doors and windows, glowing scarlet through cracks and fissures in
the exquisitely carved facade, mounting through the ruined roof in a
whirl of rosy vapors that curled and twisted and glittered with swarming
golden sparks.
Another fire burned in the ruins of what had been the Chalons railway
station; the Cafe and Cabaret de Biribi were level wastes of stones and
steaming bricks, over which fire played and smoke whirled upward; the
market was a long heap of live coals; even trees were afire by the
river, and Warner could see flames here and there among the bushes and
whole thickets burning fiercely along the river and beyond, where the
Bois d'Ausone touches it with a fringe of splendid oaks.
As day broke, a watery light illuminated the still landscape. Smoke
hung heavy over Ausone Fort; the great cupola guns flashed redly through
it; a wide, high bank of vapor towered above Ausone, stretching away to
the west and north. Whole rows of burning houses in Ausone glowed and
glimmered, marking the courses of streets; the Hotel de Ville seemed to
be intact, but the Boulevard d'Athos was plainly on fire; and, over the
rue d'Auros, an infernal light flickered as flame and smoke alternately
lighted the street or blotted it from view.
"The town is done for," said Warner calmly. "The fort is still
replying, but very slowly. It looks rather bad to me. It looks like
the end."
Asticot scratched one large ear and furtively helped himself to another
bunch of grapes. Warner seated himself on the ground and raised his
field glasses. Asticot squatted on his haunches, his little, mousy eyes
fixed wistfully on the burning town. Looting ought to be good in
Ausone--dangerous, of course, but profitable. A heaven-sent opportunity
for honest pillage was passing. Asticot sighed and licked his lips.
After a while, and imbued now with the impudent confidence of a
tolerated mongrel, he ventured to rise and nose around a bit, keeping,
however, his new master carefully in sight.
The sour little wine grapes had allayed his thirst and hunger; he
prowled at random around the summit of the hill, surveying the river
valley and the hills beyond. By chance he presently kicked up a big
hare, which cleared out at full speed, doubling and twisting before the
shower of stones hurled after it by Asticot. He ran after it a little
way among the vines, hoping that a chance missile might have bowled over
the toothsome game. Craning his neck, he peeped discreetly down the
hillside, reconnoitering; then suddenly ducked; squatted for a moment as
though frozen to a statue, and, dropping on his belly, he crawled back
to Warner, who still sat there with his field glasses bracketed on
Ausone.
"M'sieu'!"
Warner turned at the weird whisper, lowering his glasses.
"Las Bosches!" whispered Asticot.
"Where?" demanded Warner incredulously.
"Riding up this very hill where we are sitting! I saw them--six of them
on their horses!"
"They must be French!"
"No, Bosches! Uhlans!"
"Did they see you?"
"No."
Along the upper retaining wall of the vineyard a line of low bushes grew
in patches, left there, no doubt, so that the roots might make firmer
the steep bank of earth and dry-laid stone.
Warner rose, and, stooping low, ran toward this thatch of cover,
followed by Asticot.
Under the bushes they crept, stretched themselves flat, and lay
listening.
They had not long to wait; straight through the rows of vines toward the
crest of the hill rode an Uhlan, walking his big, hard-breathing horse
to the very verge of the northern slope.
His lance, with pennon furled, slanted low from the arm loop; he sat his
high saddle like a statue, and looked out across the valley toward the
burning town beyond.
He was so near that Warner could see the grey uniform in detail--the
ulanka piped with dark crimson, shoulder straps bearing the number 2,
collar with the eagle-button insignia of the Guard. A grey helmet-slip
covered the mortar board and leather body of the schapska; boots and
belt were of russet leather.
Another Uhlan rode up, showing the star of an oberleutnant on the
_pattes-d'epaules_.
Four others followed, picking their way among the vines, cautiously yet
leisurely. At the stirrups of the oberleutnant strode a man on foot--a
big, shambling, bald-headed man wearing a smock and carrying a felt hat
in his huge hand. And when he turned to wipe his hairless face on his
sleeve, Asticot clutched Warner's arm convulsively.
The man was Wildresse.
The officer of Uhlans sat very straight in his saddle, his field glasses
sometimes focussed on the burning town, sometimes sweeping the landscape
to the north and west, sometimes deliberately studying the valley below.
Presently he lowered his glasses and turned partly around to look down
at Wildresse, who was standing among the vines by his stirrup.
"Wohin fuehrt diese Weg?" he demanded with a nod toward the quarry road
below.
"Nach Drieux, Excellenz!"
"Zeigen Sie mir die Richtung nach Dreslin mit der Hand!"
Wildresse raised his arm and pointed, tracing the quarry road north and
west.
"Also! Wie tief ist dieser Fluss? Ist eine Bruecke?"
The harsh, deep rumble of Wildresse's voice, the mincing, nasal tones of
the Prussian, the snort of horses receded as the Uhlans rode slowly over
toward the right--evidently a precaution to escape observation from the
valley below.
For a while they sat their big horses there, looking out over the
valley; then, at a signal from the ober-leutnant, they turned their
mounts and rode slowly off down the eastern slope of the vineyard,
taking with them the double traitor, Wildresse.
Asticot's eyes were like two minute black sparks; he was shivering now
from head to foot as he lay there; and it became very evident to Warner
that this young ruffian had had no knowledge of that sort of villainy on
the part of Wildresse.
"Ah, le cochon!" hissed Asticot, grasping two fistfuls of earth in his
astonishment and fury. "Is he selling France then to the Bosches?"
"Didn't you know it?" inquired Warner coldly.
"I? Nom de Dieu! For what do you take me then? Whatever I am, I am not
_that_! Ah, le sale bougre de Wildresse! Ah! Les salauds de saligauds
de Bosches! Ah, Wildresse!--Fumier, viande a corbeau, caserne a puces,
gadou', morceau d'chausett's russes--que j'te dis que j't'engeule et que
j't'abomine, vermine malade, canard boiteux----"
Ashy white, his mouth twisted with rage, Asticot lay shivering and
cursing the treachery of his late employer, Wildresse. And Warner
understood that, low as this creature was, ignorant, treacherous,
fierce, ruthless, and cowardly, the treason of Wildresse had amazed and
horrified and enraged him.
"It's the last depths of filth," stammered Asticot. "Ah, non, nom de
Dieu! One does not do _that_!--Whatever else one does! I'll have his
skin for this. It becomes necessary to me that I have his skin! Minc'
de Marseillaise! Viv' la republique! En avant l'armee! Gare au coup
d'scion, eh, vache d'apache! Les coutcaur sont faits pour les chiens,
mince de puree! C'est vrai qu' Squelette c'est un copain a moi--but if
he is in this--he and the pere Wildresse, et bon!--Faut leur-z-y casser
la geule----"
"That's enough!" interrupted Warner, who for a moment had been struck
dumb by the frightful fluency of an invective he never dreamed existed,
even in the awful argot of _voyous_ like Asticot.
He rose. Pale and still trembling, Asticot stumbled to his feet, his
pasty face twisted with unuttered maledictions.
Moving cautiously to the eastern edge of the vineyard, they saw, far
below them, six Uhlans riding slowly eastward toward the Bois de Sais,
and a gross figure on foot shuffling ahead and evidently acting as pilot
toward the wilder uplands of the rolling country beyond.
Warner watched them through his glasses until they disappeared in the
woods, then he turned, looked at the burning town in the north for a few
moments, closed his field glasses and slung them, and, nodding to
Asticot, descended the western slope toward the river.
There were no people visible anywhere, either on the quarry road or
across the river. The fugitives from Ausone must have gone west toward
Dreslin.
Asticot crawled into the punt; Warner shoved off and poled for
midstream, where he let the current carry him down toward Sais.
"Asticot?"
"M'sieu'?"
"That was only one small scouting party of Uhlans. Perhaps there are
more of them along the river."
Asticot began to curse again, but Warner stopped him.
"Curb that charmingly fluent flow of classic eloquence," he said. "It
may sound well on the outer boulevards, but I don't care for it."
The _voyou_ gulped, swallowed a weird oath, and shivered.
"Asticot, that man Wildresse ought to be apprehended and shot. Have you
any idea where his hiding place is?"
"In the Bois d'Ausone. It _was_ there. Animals travel."