Part 16 (2/2)
”No you can't pay your share,” he said to Lannes, ”because you haven't any share. Remember, I've been a free pa.s.senger in the Arrow, which belongs to you, and it's my time to settle the bill.”
”Have your way,” said Lannes.
They had been speaking in English, and Lannes politely explained to their guests that his comrade was an obstinate Yankee, a member of a nation, noted for its stubborness, but the most delightful of people when you let them have their way, which after all was a way that generally harmed n.o.body.
The burgomaster and the clergyman smiled benevolently upon John and John smiled back. He had noticed already that Americans were popular among the great ma.s.ses of the people in Europe. It was only those interested in the upholding of the cla.s.ses who frowned upon them and who tried to write or talk them down. He was keen enough too, despite his youth, to deduce the reasons for it.
Here in this little town he was looked upon with favor because he was from America, and soon he was busy answering questions by the burgomaster and clergyman about his own land.
They made no reference to any war or approaching war, and he surmised that they had no thought of such a tremendous catastrophe--Lannes informed him later that they had neither telegraph nor telephone--and John following the cue of his comrade made no reference to it. They ate with sharp appet.i.tes, but an end had to come at last. Then Lannes went out into the town to buy his supplies, leaving John to entertain the guests.
John felt deeply that little period of rest and kindly simplicity and the time was soon to come, when he would look back upon it as the greenest of green spots in the desert.
Lannes returned in an hour and announced that they were ready for another flight. They went back to the _Arrow_ which the stalwart youths were still guarding, proud of their trust.
”Must you really go?” said the burgomaster to Lannes. ”Why not stay with us until tomorrow? Look, the clouds are gathering on the mountains.
There may be a storm. Better bide with us till the morrow.”
”We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your kindness,” said Lannes, as he and John took their seats, ”and under any other circ.u.mstances we would stay, but Herr Schankhorst there is a call for us, a call that is sounding all over Europe, a call louder than any that was ever heard before on this old continent.”
Lannes raising his voice spoke in clear, loud tones, and he had the impressive manner that he knew so well how to a.s.sume. The crowd, eager and expectant, pressed nearer, all about the Arrow. John saw that the dramatic instinct, always alive within his partner, had sparkled into flame.
”And there is reason for this call,” continued Lannes, raising his voice yet further, until the most distant were sure to hear every syllable.
”The trumpet is sounding throughout Europe. You may well thank the good G.o.d that you dwell here in your little valley, and that all around you the mountains rise a mile above you. There were many trumpets when the great Napoleon rode forth to war, but there are more now.”
A gasp arose from the crowd, and John saw faces whiten.
”All Europe is at war,” continued Lannes. ”The nations march forth against one another and the continent shakes with the tread of twenty million soldiers. But stay here behind your mountain walls, and the storm will pa.s.s you by. Now pus.h.!.+”
Twenty youths shoved the _Arrow_ with all their might and the plane rising gracefully in the air, soared far above the village. John looked down and again he saw the whole population with heads craned back and eyes turned upward, but he knew now that they were swayed by new and powerful emotions.
”Lannes,” he said, ”I never saw such an actor as you are.”
”But think of the opportunity! How could I overlook such a chance! They knew absolutely nothing of the war, did not dream of it, and here was I with the chance to tell them the whole tremendous truth, and then to shoot suddenly up into the air far beyond their hearing. It was the artistic finish that appealed to me as much as the announcement. Tell your great news and then disappear or become silent. Don't linger over it, or you will mar the effect.”
”We're leaving the valley out of sight, and I judge by the sun that our course is northwesterly.”
”Right my brave aviator, but I don't think you'll be able to use the sun much longer for reckoning. The worthy burgomaster was right. Look behind you and see how the clouds are gathering!”
John gazed at the vast ma.s.s of the Alps, stretching their tremendous rampart across the very heart of Europe. The _Arrow_ had gone higher, and deep down in the south he saw the ridges and sharp peaks stretching on apparently to infinity. But it was a wild and desolate world. Even as he looked the far edges dropped away in the gloom of advancing clouds.
The gray of the horizon became black and sinister.
But he looked on, his gaze held by the sublimity of the mountains and the powerful spell, cast by an historic imagination. He was not only gazing upon the heart of Europe, but upon the heart of great history.
There, where that long black line led through the clefts the army of Hannibal was pa.s.sing. He shut his eyes and he saw the dark Carthaginian with his deep eyes, his curly perfumed beard, a scarlet robe wrapped around him, its ends dropping upon his horse, his brothers and the captains riding just behind him, and behind them the Carthaginian sacred band, the Spaniards, the Gauls, the Celts, the wild Numidians s.h.i.+vering on their barebacked horses, the monstrous elephants, the women, and all the strange and heterogeneous elements which the fire and genius of the great leader fused into an army unconquerable by the bravest and best soldiers of antiquity, a great man holding a great nation at bay for half a life time.
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