Barbarians Part 26

"Oh, no," she said navely; "it is sadder than that. He was my friend."

The big gendarme scratched his chin; then, with an odd glance at the young airman who stood beside him:

"To lose a friend is indeed sadder than to lose a lover. What was your friend's name, little one?"

She pressed her hand to her forehead in an effort to search among her partly paralyzed thoughts:

"Djack.... That is his name.... He was the first real friend I ever had."

The airman said:

"He is one of my countrymen--an American muleteer, Jack Burley--in charge at Sainte Lesse."

At the sound of the young man's name p.r.o.nounced in English the girl began to cry. The big gendarme bent over and patted her cheek.

"_Allons_," he growled; "courage! little mistress of the bells! Let us place your friend in your pretty market cart and leave this accursed place, in G.o.d's name!"

He straightened up and looked over his shoulder.

"For the Boches are in Nivelle woods," he added, with an oath, "and we ought to be on our way to Sainte Lesse, if we are to arrive there at all.

_Allons_, comrade, take him by the head!"

So the wounded airman bent over and took the body by the shoulders; the gendarme lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed, holding to one of the sagging arms, as though fearing that these strangers might take away from her this dead man who had been so much more to her than a mere lover.

When they laid him in the market cart she released his sleeve with a sob.

Still crying, she climbed to the seat of the cart and gathered up the reins. Behind her, flat on the floor of the cart, the airman and the gendarme had seated themselves, with the young man's body between them.

They were opening his tunic and s.h.i.+rt now and were whispering together, and wiping away blood from the naked shoulders and chest.

"He's still warm, but there's no pulse," whispered the airman. "He's dead enough, I guess, but I'd rather hear a surgeon say so."

The gendarme rose, stepped across to the seat, took the reins gently from the girl.

"Weep peacefully, little one," he said; "it does one good. Tears are the tisane which strengthens the soul."

"Ye-es.... But I am remembering that--that I was not very k-kind to him,"

she sobbed. "It hurts--_here_--" She pressed a slim hand over her breast.

"_Allons!_ Friends quarrel. G.o.d understands. Thy friend back there--he also understands now."

"Oh, I hope he does!... He spoke to me so tenderly--yet so gaily. He was even laughing at me when they shot him. He was so kind--and droll--" She sobbed anew, clasping her hands and pressing them against her quivering mouth to check her grief.

"Was it an execution, then?" demanded the gendarme in his growling voice.

"They said he must be a franc-tireur to wear such a uniform----"

"Ah, the scoundrels! Ah, the a.s.sa.s.sins! And so they murdered him there under the tree?"

"Ah, G.o.d! Yes! I seem to see him standing there now--his grey, kind eyes--and no thought of fear--just a droll smile--the way he had with me--" whispered the girl, "the way--_his_ way--with me----"

"Child," said the gendarme, pityingly, "it _was_ love!"

But she shook her head, surprised, the tears still running down her tanned cheeks:

"Monsieur, it was more serious than love; it was friends.h.i.+p."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE AVIATOR

Where the Fontanes highroad crosses the byroad to Sainte Lesse they were halted by a dusty column moving rapidly west--four hundred American mules convoyed by gendarmerie and remount troopers.

The sweating riders, pa.s.sing at a canter, shouted from their saddles to the big gendarme in the market cart that neither Nivelle nor Sainte Lesse were to be defended at present, and that all stragglers were being directed to Fontanes and Le Marronnier. Mules and drivers defiled at a swinging trot, enveloped in torrents of white dust; behind them rode a peloton of the remount, las.h.i.+ng recalcitrant animals forward; and in the rear of these rolled automobile ambulances, red crosses aglow in the rays of the setting sun.

The driver of the last ambulance seemed to be ill; his head lay on the shoulder of a Sister of Charity who had taken the steering wheel.

The gendarme beside Maryette signalled her to stop; then he got out of the market cart and, lifting the body of the American muleteer in his powerful arms, strode across the road. The airman leaped from the market cart and followed him.

Between them they drew out a stretcher, laid the muleteer on it, and shoved it back into the vehicle.

There was a brief consultation, then they both came back to Maryette, who, rigid in her seat and very pale, sat watching the procedure in silence.

The gendarme said:

"I go to Fontanes. There's a dressing station on the road. It appears that your young man's heart hasn't quite stopped yet----"

The girl rose excitedly to her feet, but the gendarme gently forced her back into her seat and laid the reins in her hands. To the airman he growled:

"I did not tell this poor child to hope; I merely informed her that her friend yonder is still breathing. But he's as full of holes as a pepper pot!" He frowned at Maryette: "_Allons!_ My comrade here goes to Sainte Lesse. Drive him there now, in G.o.d's name, before the Uhlans come clattering on your heels!"

He turned, strode away to the ambulance once more, climbed in, and placed one big arm around the sick driver's shoulder, drawing the man's head down against his breast.

"_Bonne chance!_" he called back to the airman, who had now seated himself beside Maryette. "Explain to our little bell-mistress that we're taking her friend to a place where they fool Death every day--where to cheat the grave is a flouris.h.i.+ng business! Good-bye! Courage! En route, brave Sister of the World!"

The Sister of Charity turned and smiled at Maryette, made her a friendly gesture, threw in the clutch, and, twisting the steering wheel with both sun-browned hands, guided the machine out onto the road and sped away swiftly after the cloud of receding dust.

"Drive on, mademoiselle," said the airman quietly.

In his accent there was something poignantly familiar to Maryette, and she turned with a start and looked at him out of her dark blue, tear-marred eyes.

"Are _you_ also American?" she asked.

"Gunner observer, American air squadron, mademoiselle."