Part 25 (1/2)

Desnoyers was losing exact track of the pa.s.sing of time. He was beginning to believe that all which had gone before must have been a bad dream. The calm surrounding him made what had been happening here seem most improbable.

Suddenly he saw something moving at the far end of the road, at the very highest point where the white ribbon of the highway touched the blue of the horizon. There were two men on horseback, two little tin soldiers who appeared to have escaped from a box of toys. He had brought with him a pair of field gla.s.ses that had often surprised marauders on his property, and by their aid he saw more clearly the two riders clad in greenish gray! They were carrying lances and wearing helmets ending in a horizontal plate ... They! He could not doubt it: before his eyes were the first Uhlans!

For some time they remained motionless, as though exploring the horizon.

Then, from the obscure ma.s.ses of vegetation that bordered the roadside, others and still others came sallying forth in groups. The little tin soldiers no longer were showing their silhouettes against the horizon's blue; the whiteness of the highway was now making their background, ascending behind their heads. They came slowly down, like a band that fears ambush, examining carefully everything around.

The advisability of prompt retirement made Don Marcelo bring his investigations to a close. It would be most disastrous for him if they surprised him here. But on lowering his gla.s.ses something extraordinary pa.s.sed across his field of vision. A short distance away, so that he could almost touch them with his hand, he saw many men skulking along in the shadow of the trees on both sides of the road. His surprise increased as he became convinced that they were Frenchmen, wearing kepis. Where were they coming from? ... He examined more closely with his spy gla.s.s. They were stragglers in a lamentable state of body and a picturesque variety of uniforms--infantry, Zouaves, dragoons without their horses. And with them were forest guards and officers from the villages that had received too late the news of the retreat--altogether about fifty. A few were fresh and vigorous, others were keeping themselves up by supernatural effort. All were carrying arms.

They finally made the barricade, looking continually behind them, in order to watch, in the shelter of the trees, the slow advance of the Uhlans. At the head of this heterogeneous troop was an official of the police, old and fat, with a revolver in his right hand, his moustache bristling with excitement, and a murderous glitter in his heavy-lidded blue eyes. The band was continuing its advance through the village, slipping over to the other side of the barricade of carts without paying much attention to their curious countryman, when suddenly sounded a loud detonation, making the horizon vibrate and the houses tremble.

”What is that?” asked the officer, looking at Desnoyers for the first time. He explained that it was the bridge which had just been blown up.

The leader received the news with an oath, but his confused followers, brought together by chance, remained as indifferent as though they had lost all contact with reality.

”Might as well die here as anywhere,” continued the official. Many of the fugitives acknowledged this decision with prompt obedience, since it saved them the torture of continuing their march. They were almost rejoicing at the explosion which had cut off their progress.

Instinctively they were gathering in the places most sheltered by the barricade. Some entered the abandoned houses whose doors the dragoons had forced in order to utilize the upper floors. All seemed satisfied to be able to rest, even though they might soon have to fight. The officer went from group to group giving his orders. They must not fire till he gave the word.

Don Marcelo watched these preparations with the immovability of surprise. So rapid and noiseless had been the apparition of the stragglers that he imagined he must still be dreaming. There could be no danger in this unreal situation; it was all a lie. And he remained in his place without understanding the deputy who was ordering his departure with roughest words. Obstinate civilian! ...

The reverberation of the explosion had filled the highway with hors.e.m.e.n.

They were coming from all directions, forming themselves into the advance group. The Uhlans were galloping around under the impression that the village was abandoned.

”Fire!”

Desnoyers was enveloped in a rain of crackling noises, as though the trunks of all the trees had split before his eyes.

The impetuous band halted suddenly. Some of their men were rolling on the ground. Some were bending themselves double, trying to get across the road without being seen. Others remained stretched out on their backs or face downward with their arms in front. The riderless horses were racing wildly across the fields with reins dragging, urged on by the loose stirrups.

And after this rude shock which had brought them surprise and death, the band disappeared, instantly swallowed up by the trees.

CHAPTER IV

NEAR THE SACRED GROTTO

Argensola had found a new occupation even more exciting than marking out on the map the manoeuvres of the armies.

”I am now devoting myself to the taube,” he announced. ”It appears from four to five with the precision a punctilious guest coming to take tea.”

Every afternoon at the appointed hour, a German aeroplane was flying over Paris dropping bombs. This would-be intimidation was producing no terror, the people accepting the visit as an interesting and extraordinary spectacle. In vain the aviators were flinging in the city streets German flags bearing ironic messages, giving accounts of the defeat of the retreating army and the failures of the Russian offensive.

Lies, all lies! In vain they were dropping bombs, destroying garrets, killing or wounding old men, women and babes. ”Ah, the bandits!” The crowds would threaten with their fists the malign mosquito, scarcely visible 6,000 feet above them, and after this outburst, they would follow it with straining eyes from street to street, or stand motionless in the square in order to study its evolutions.

The most punctual of all the spectators was Argensola. At four o'clock he was in the place de la Concorde with upturned face and wide-open eyes, in most cordial good-fellows.h.i.+p with all the bystanders. It was as though they were holding season tickets at the same theatre, becoming acquainted through seeing each other so often. ”Will it come? ... Will it not come to-day?” The women appeared to be the most vehement, some of them rus.h.i.+ng up, flushed and breathless, fearing that they might have arrived too late for the show... . A great cry--”There it comes! ...

There it is!” And thousands of hands were pointing to a vague spot on the horizon. With field gla.s.ses and telescopes they were aiding their vision, the popular venders offering every kind of optical instruments and for an hour the thrilling spectacle of an aerial hunt was played out, noisy and useless.

The great insect was trying to reach the Eiffel Tower, and from its base would come sharp reports, at the same time that the different platforms spit out a fierce stream of shrapnel. As it zigzagged over the city, the discharge of rifles would crackle from roof and street. Everyone that had arms in his house was firing--the soldiers of the guard, and the English and Belgians on their way through Paris. They knew that their shots were perfectly useless, but they were firing for the fun of retorting, hoping at the same time that one of their chance shots might achieve a miracle; but the only miracle was that the shooters did not kill each other with their precipitate and ineffectual fire. As it was, a few pa.s.sers-by did fall, wounded by b.a.l.l.s from unknown sources.

Argensola would tear from street to street following the evolutions of the inimical bird, trying to guess where its projectiles would fall, anxious to be the first to reach the bombarded house, excited by the shots that were answering from below. And to think that he had no gun like those khaki-clad Englishmen or those Belgians in barrick cap, with ta.s.sel over the front! ... Finally the taube tired of manoeuvering, would disappear. ”Until to-morrow!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Spaniard. ”Perhaps to-morrow's show may be even more interesting!”

He employed his free hours between his geographical observations and his aerial contemplations in making the rounds of the stations, watching the crowds of travellers making their escape from Paris. The sudden vision of the truth--after the illusion which the Government had been creating with its optimistic dispatches, the certainty that the Germans were actually near when a week before they had imagined them completely routed, the taubes flying over Paris, the mysterious threat of the Zeppelins--all these dangerous signs were filling a part of the community with frenzied desperation. The railroad stations, guarded by the soldiery, were only admitting those who had secured tickets in advance. Some had been waiting entire days for their turn to depart. The most impatient were starting to walk, eager to get outside of the city as soon as possible. The roads were black with the crowds all going in the same directions. Toward the South they were fleeing by automobile, in carriages, in gardeners' carts, on foot.

Argensola surveyed this hegira with serenity. He would remain because he had always admired those men who witnessed the Siege of Paris in 1870.