Barbarians Part 44

"Yes. But _you_ must promise not to speak about it to anybody."

"Why?"

"Because the gendarmes wouldn't let us fly any balloons."

"You mean that they might think me a spy?" she inquired navely.

"Or me," he rejoined with a light laugh. "So we shall have to be very discreet and go cautiously about our sport. And it ought to be great fun, Maryette, to sail balloons out over the German trenches. We'll tie a message to every one! Shall we, little comrade?"

She clapped her hands.

"That _will_ enrage the Boches!" she cried, "You won't forget to bring the balloons?"

"After the carillon," he nodded, staring at her intently.

"Half past ten," she said; "not one minute earlier. I cannot be disturbed when playing. Do you understand? Do you promise?"

"Yes," he said, "I promise not to bother you before half past ten."

"Very well. Now let me do my was.h.i.+ng here in peace."

She was still scrubbing her linen when he went reluctantly away across the meadow toward Sainte Lesse. And when she finally stood up, swung the basket to her head, and left the meadow, the sun hung low behind Sainte Lesse Wood and a rose and violet glow possessed the world.

At the White Doe Inn she flew feverishly about her duties, aiding the ancient peasant woman with the simple preparations for dinner, giving her father his soup and helping him to bed, swallowing a mouthful herself as she hastened to finish her household tasks.

Kid Glenn came in as usual for an _aperitif_ while she was gathering up her wooden gloves.

"Did a mule stray today from your corral?" she asked, filling his gla.s.s for him.

"No," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Dead certain. Why?"

"Do you know one of the new muleteers named Braun?"

"I know him by sight."

"Keed!" she said, going up to him and placing both hands on his broad shoulders; "I play the carillon after the angelus. Bring Steek to the bell-tower half an hour after you hear the carillon end. You will hear it end; you will hear the quarter hour strike presently. Half an hour later, after the third quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring pistols. Do you promise?"

"Sure! What's the row, Maryette?"

"I don't know yet. I _think_ we shall find a spy in the tower."

"Where?"

"In the belfry, _parbleu_! And you and Steek shall come up the stairs and you shall wait in the dark, there where the keyboard is, and where you see all the wires leading upward. You shall listen attentively, and I will be on the landing above, among my bells. And when you hear me cry out to you, then you shall come running with pistols!"

"For heaven's sake----"

"Is it understood? Give me your word, Keed!"

"Sure!----"

"_Allons! a.s.sez!_" she whispered excitedly. "Make prisoner any man you see there!--_any_ man! You understand?"

"You bet!"

"_Any man!_" she repeated slowly, "even if he wears the same uniform _you_ wear."

There was a silence. Then:

"By G.o.d!" said Glenn under his breath.

"You suspect?"

"Yes. And if it _is_ one of our German-American muleteers, we'll lynch him!" he whispered in a white rage.

But Maryette shook her head.

"No," she said in a dull, even voice, "let the gendarmerie take him in charge. Spy or suspect, he must have his chance. That is the law in France."

"You don't give rats a chance, do you?"

"I give everything its chance," she said simply. "And so does my country."

She drew the automatic pistol from her holster, examined it, raised her eyes gravely to the American beside her:

"This is terrible for me," she added, in a low but steady voice. "If it were not for my country--" She made a grave gesture, turned, and went slowly out through the arched stone pa.s.sage into the main street of the town. A few minutes later the angelus sounded sweetly over the woods and meadows of Sainte Lesse.

At ten, as the last stroke of the hour ended, there came a charming, intimate little murmur of awakening bells; it grew sweeter, clearer, filling the starry sky, growing, exquisitely increasing in limpid, transparent volume, sweeping through the high, dim belfry like a great wind from Paradise carrying Heaven's own music out over the darkened earth.

All Sainte Lesse came to its doorways to listen to the playing of their beloved Carillonnette; the bell-music ebbed and swelled under the stars; the ancient Flemish masterpiece, written by some carillonneur whose bones had long been dust, became magnificently vital again under the enchanted hands of the little mistress of the bells.

In fifteen minutes the carillon ended; a slight pause followed, then the quarter hour struck.

With the last stroke of the bell, the girl drew off her wooden gloves, laid them on the keyboard, turned slowly in her seat, listening. A slight sound coming from the spiral staircase of stone set her heart beating violently. Had the suspected man violated his word? She drew the automatic pistol from her holster, rose, and stole up to the stone platform overhead, where, rising tier on tier into the darkness, the great carillon of Sainte Lesse loomed overhead.

She listened uneasily. Had the man lied? It seemed to her as though her hammering heart must burst from her bosom with the terrible suspense of the moment.

Suddenly a shadowy form appeared at the head of the stairs, reaching the platform at one bound. And her heart seemed to stop as she realized that this man had arrived too early for her friends to be of any use to her. He had lied to her. And now she must take him unaided, or kill him there in the starlight under the looming bells.

"Maryette!" he called. She did not stir.