Part 4 (1/2)

It was too late; my right foot barely made another step before down I went, gun, sh.e.l.ls, and all, up to my chin in ice-cold water. The next instant he had me by the collar of my leather coat in a grip of steel, and I was hauled out, dripping and draining, on the bank.

”I'm all right,” I sputtered.

”Come inside _instantly_,” he said.

”Inside? Inside where?” I asked.

He pointed to the hump.

”You must get your wet things off and into bed at once.” This came as a command.

”Bed! Where? Whose bed?” Was he an Aladdin with a magic lamp, that could summon comfort in that desolation? ”Monsieur,” I choked, ”I owe you a thousand apologies. I came near killing one of your nine decoys. I mistook them for wild mallards.”

He laughed softly. ”They are not mine,” he explained. ”They belong to the marquis; it is his gardener who pickets them out for me. I could not afford to keep them myself. They eat outrageously, those nine deceivers.

They are well placed to-day; just the right distance.” And he called the three nearest us by name, for they were quacking loudly. ”Be still, Fannine! There, Pierrot! If your cord and swivel does not work, my good drake, I'll fix it for you, but don't make such a fuss; you'll have noise enough to make later.” And gripping me by the arm, he pushed me firmly ahead of him to a small open door in the mound. I peered into the darkness within.

”Get in,” said he. ”It's small, but it's warm and comfortable inside.

After you, my friend,” he added graciously, and we descended into a narrow ditch, its end blocked by a small, safe-like door leading into a subterranean hut, its roof being the mound, shelving out to a semicircular, overhanging eyebrow skirting the edge of the circular pool some ten yards back of the line of live decoys.

”Ah!” exclaimed Monsieur le Cure, ”you should have seen the duck-blind I had three years ago. This _gabion_ of mine is smaller, but it is in better line with the flights,” he explained as he opened the door. ”Look out for the steps--there are two.”

I now stood s.h.i.+vering in the gloom of a box-like, underground anteroom, provided with a grated floor and a low ribbed ceiling; beyond this, through another small door, was an adjoining compartment deeper than the one in which we stood, and in the darkness I caught the outline of a cot-bed, a carved, high-backed, leather-seated chair, and the blue glint of guns lying in their racks. The place was warm and smelled, like the cabin of some fis.h.i.+ng-sloop, of sea-salt and tar.

It did not take me long to get out of my clothes. When the last of them lay around my heels I received a rubbing down with a coa.r.s.e sailor's s.h.i.+rt, that sent the blood back where it belonged.

”_Allons!_ Into bed at once!” insisted the cure. ”You'll find those army blankets dry.”

I felt my way in while he struck a match and lighted a candle upon a narrow shelf strewn with empty cartridges. The candle sputtered, sunk to a blue flame, and flared up cheerfully, while the cure poured me out a stiff gla.s.s of brandy, and I lay warm in the blankets of the _Armee Francaise_, and gazed about me at my strange quarters.

Back of my pillow was, tightly closed, in three sections, a narrow firing-slit. Beside the bed the candle's glow played over the carved back of the leather-seated chair. Above the closed slit ran a shelf, and ranged upon it were some fifty cartridges and an old-fas.h.i.+oned fat opera-gla.s.s. This, then, was Monsieur le Cure's duck-blind, or rather, in French, his _gabion_.

The live decoys began quacking nervously. The cure, about to speak, tip-toed over to the firing-slit and let down cautiously one of its compartments.

”A flight of plovers pa.s.sing over us,” he remarked. ”Yes, there they go.

If the wind will only hold you shall see--there will be ducks in,” his gray eyes beaming at the thought.

Then he drew the chair away from the firing-slit and seated himself, facing me.

”If you knew,” he began, ”how much it means to me to talk to one of the outside world--your country--America! You must tell me much about it. I have always longed to see it, but----” He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. ”Are you warm?” he asked.

”Warm?” I laughed. ”I never felt better in my life.” And I thanked him again for his kindness to a stranger in distress. ”A stranger in luck,”

I added.

”I saw you at ma.s.s this morning,” he returned bending over, his hands on his knees. ”But you are not a Catholic, my friend? You are always welcome to my church, however, remember that.”

”Thank you,” I said. ”I like your little church, and--I like you, Monsieur le Cure.”