Part 25 (2/2)

”Djack!”

But the clang of the volley precluded any response from him except the half tender, half reckless smile that remained on his youthful face where he lay looking up at the sky with pleasant, sightless eyes, and a sunbeam touching the metal mule on his blood-wet collar.

CHAPTER XVII

FRIENDs.h.i.+P

She tried once more to lift the big, warm, flexible body, exerting all her slender strength. It was useless. It was like attempting to lift the earth. The weight of the body frightened her.

Again she sank down among the ferns under the great oak tree; once more she took his blood-smeared head on her lap, smoothing the bright, wet hair; and her tears fell slowly upon his upturned face.

”My friend,” she stammered, ”--my kind, droll friend.... The first friend I ever had----”

The gun thunder beyond Nivelle had ceased; an intense stillness reigned in the forest; only a leaf moved here and there on the aspens.

A few forest flies whirled about her, but as yet no ominous green flies came--none of those jewelled harbingers of death which appear with horrible promptness and as though by magic from nowhere when anything dies in the open world.

Her donkey, still attached to the little gaily painted market cart, had wandered on up the sandy lane, feeding at random along the fern-bordered thickets which walled in the Nivelle byroad on either side.

Presently her ear caught a slight sound; something stirred somewhere in the woods behind her. After an interval of terrible stillness there came a distant cras.h.i.+ng of footsteps among dead leaves and underbrush.

Horror of the Hun still possessed her; the victim of Prussian ferocity still lay across her knees. She dared not take the chance that friendly ears might hear her call for aid--dared not raise her voice in appeal lest she awaken something monstrous, unclean, inconceivable--the unseen thing which she could hear at intervals prowling there among dead leaves in the demi-light of the woods.

Suddenly her heart leaped with fright; a man stepped cautiously out of the woods into the road; another, dressed in leather, with dry blood caked on his face, followed.

The first comer, a French gendarme, had already caught sight of the donkey and market cart; had turned around instinctively to look for their owner.

Now he discovered her seated there among the ferns under the oak tree.

”In the name of G.o.d,” he growled, ”what's that child doing there!”

The airman in leather followed him across the road to the oak; the girl looked up at them out of dark, tear-marred eyes that seemed dazed.

”Well, little one!” rumbled the big, red-faced gendarme. ”What's your name?--you who sit here all alone at the wood's edge with a dead man across your knees?”

She made an effort to find her voice--to control it.

”I am Maryette Courtray, bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse,” she answered, trembling.

”And--this young man?”

”They shot him--the Prussians, monsieur.”

”My poor child! Was he your lover, then?”

Her tear-filled eyes widened:

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