Part 19 (1/2)

Irene, who saw all that had pa.s.sed with an extraordinary vividness, was the only one who understood why the order which undoubtedly saved five lives was given. A stout staff officer, wearing a blue uniform with red facings, rode with the Uhlans, and she was certain that he was in a state of abject terror. His funk was probably explained by an irregular volley lower down the street, though, in the event, the shooting proved to be that of his own men. Two miles away, at Solayn, these same Uhlans had been badly bitten by a Belgian patrol, and the fat man, prospecting the Namur road with a cavalry escort, wanted no more unpleasant surprises that evening. Ostensibly, of course, he was anxious to report to a brigade headquarters at Huy. At any rate, the Uhlans swept on.

They were gone when Dalroy regained his feet. A riderless horse was clattering after them; another with a broken leg was vainly trying to rise. Close at hand lay two Uhlans, one dead and one insensible. Joos and Leontine were bending over the dying woman in the cart, making frantic efforts to stanch the blood welling forth from mouth and breast.

The lance had pierced her lungs, but she was conscious for a minute or so, and actually smiled the farewell she could not utter.

Maertz was swearing horribly, with the incoherence of a man just aroused from drunken sleep. Irene moved a few steps to meet Dalroy. Her face was marble white, her eyes strangely dilated.

”Are you hurt?” she asked.

”No. And you?”

”Untouched, thanks to you. But those brutes have killed poor Madame Joos!”

The wounded Uhlan was stretched between them. He stirred convulsively, and groaned. Dalroy looked at the sword which he still held. He resisted a great temptation, and sprang over the prostrate body. He was about to say something when a ghastly object staggered past. It was the man who received the sabre-cut, which had gashed his shoulder deeply.

”_Oh, mon Dieu!_” he screamed. ”_Oh, mon Dieu!_”

He may have been making for some burrow. They never knew. He wailed that frenzied appeal as he shambled on--always the same words. He could think of nothing else but the last cry of despairing humanity to the All-Powerful.

Owing to the flight of the cavalry, Dalroy imagined that some body of allied troops, Belgian or French, was advancing from Namur, so he did not obey his first impulse, which was to enter the nearest house and endeavour to get away through the gardens or other enclosures in rear.

He glanced at the hapless body on the cart, and saw by the eyes that life had departed. Leontine was sobbing pitifully. Maertz, having recovered his senses, was striving to calm her. But Joos remained silent; he held his wife's limp hand, and it was as though he awaited some rea.s.suring clasp which should tell him that she still lived.

Dalroy had no words to console the bereaved old man. He turned aside, and a mist obscured his vision for a little while. Then he heard the wounded German hiccoughing, and he looked again at the sword, because this was the a.s.sa.s.sin who had foully murdered a gentle, kind-hearted, and inoffensive woman. But he could not demean himself by becoming an executioner. Richly as the criminal deserved to be sent with his victim to the bar of Eternal Justice, the Englishman decided to leave him to the avengers coming through the town.

The shooting drew nearer. A number of women and children, with a few men, appeared. They were running and screaming. The first batch fled past; but an elderly dame, spent with even a brief flurry, halted for a few seconds when she saw the group near the dog-team.

”Henri Joos!” she gasped. ”And Leontine! What, in Heaven's name, are you doing here?”

It was Madame Stauwaert, the Andenne cousin with whom they hoped to find sanctuary.

The miller gazed at her in a curiously abstracted way. ”Is that you, Margot?” he said. ”We were coming to you. But they have wounded Lise.

See! Here she is!”

Madame Stauwaert looked at the corpse as though she did not understand at first. Then she burst out hysterically, ”She's dead, Henri! They've killed her! They're killing all of us! They pulled Alphonse out of the house and stabbed him with a bayonet. They're firing through the openings into the cellars and into the ground-floor rooms of every house. If they see a face at a bedroom window they shoot. Two Germans, so drunk that they could hardly stand, shot at me as I ran. Ah, dear G.o.d!”

She swayed and sank in a faint. The flying crowd increased in numbers.

Some one shouted, ”Fools! Be off, for your lives! Make for the quarries.”

Dalroy decided to take this unknown friend's advice. The terrified people of Andenne had, at least, some definite goal in view, whereas he had none. He lifted Madame Stauwaert and placed her beside the dead body on the cart.

”Come,” he said to Maertz, ”get the dogs into a trot.--Leontine, look after your father, and don't lose sight of us!”

He grasped Irene by the arm. The tiny vehicle was flat and narrow, and he was so intent on preventing the unconscious woman from falling off into the road that he did not miss Joos and his daughter until Irene called on Maertz to stop. ”Where are the others?” she cried. ”We must not desert them.”

In the midst of a scattered mob came the laggards. Joos was not hurrying at all. He was smiling horribly. In his hand he held a large pocket-knife open. ”It was all I had,” he explained calmly. ”But Margot said Lise was dead, so it did his business.”

”I'm glad,” said Dalroy. ”It was your privilege. But you must run now, for Leontine's sake, as she will not leave you, and the Germans may be on us at any moment.”

Luckily, the stream of people swerved into a by-road; the ”quarries”