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Barbarians, a fiction by Robert W. Chambers |
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Chapter 25. Kamerad |
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_ CHAPTER XXV. KAMERAD Down the slope, through the thicket, came a man. She could see his legs only. He wore dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like Sticky Smith's and Kid Glenn's, only he wore no big, clanking Mexican spurs. The man passed in front of her, his burly body barely visible through the leaves, but not his features. She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried through the ferns of the warren, retracing her steps, and arrived breathless at the _lavoir_. And scarcely had she dropped to her knees and seized soap and paddle, than a squat, bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared on the opposite bank of the stream, stepping briskly out of the bushes. He did not notice her at first. He looked about for a place to jump, found one, leaped safely across, and came on at a swinging stride across the meadow. The girl, bending above the water, suddenly struck sharply with her paddle. Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee deep in clover. Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence, continued to soap and scrub and slap her wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of a child the chansonette she had made that morning. But out of the corner of her eyes she kept him in view--saw him come sauntering forward as though reassured, became aware that he had approached very near, was standing behind her. Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick up another soiled garment, she suddenly encountered his dark gaze; and her start and slight exclamation were entirely genuine. "_Mon Dieu!_" she said, with offended emphasis, "one does not approach people that way, without a word!" "Did I frighten mademoiselle?" he asked, in recognizable French, but with an accent unpleasantly familiar to her. "If I did, I am very sorry and I offer mademoiselle a thousand excuses and apologies." The girl, kneeling there in the clover, flashed a smile at him over her shoulder. The quick colour reddened his face and powerful neck. The girl had been right; her smile had been an answer that he was not going to ignore. "What a pretty spot for a _lavoir_," he said, stepping to the edge of the pool; "and what a pretty girl to adorn it!" Maryette tossed her head: "Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur. Do you not perceive that I am busy?" "It is not impossible to exchange a polite word or two when people are busy, is it, mademoiselle?" he asked, laughing and showing a white and perfect set of teeth under a short, dark mustache. She continued to wring out her wash; but there was now a slight smile on her lips. "May I not say who I am?" he asked persuasively. "May I not venture to speak?" "_Mon dieu_, monsieur, there is liberty of speech for all in France. That blackbird might be glad to know your name if you choose to tell him." "But I ask _your_ permission to speak to _you_!" There seemed to be no sense of humour in this young man. She laughed: "I am not curious to hear who you are!... But if it affords you any relief to explain to the west wind what your name may be--" She ended with a disdainful shrug. After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes to his--lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes. But they were studying the stranger closely. He was a powerfully built, dark-skinned young man in the familiar khaki of the American muleteers, wearing their insignia, their cap, their holster and belt, and an extra pouch or wallet, loaded evidently with something heavy. She said, coolly: "You must be one of the new Yankee muleteers who came with that beautiful new herd of mules." He laughed: "Yes, I'm an American muleteer. My name is Charles Braun. I came over in the last transport." "You know Steek?" "Who?" "Steek! Monsieur Steekee Smeete?" "Sticky Smith?" "_Mais oui?_" "I've met him," he replied curtly. "And Monsieur Keed Glenn?" "I've met Kid Glenn, too. Why?" "They are friends of mine--very intimate friends. Of course," she added, nose up-tilted, "if they are not also _your_ friends, any acquaintance with me will be very difficult for _you_, Monsieur Braun." He laughed easily and seated himself on the grass beside her; and, as he sat down, a metallic clinking sounded in his wallet. "_Tenez_," she remarked, "you carry old iron and bottles about with you, I notice." "Snaffles, curbs and stirrup irons," he replied carelessly. And in the girl's heart there leaped the swift, fierce flame of certainty in suspicion. "Why do you bring all that ironmongery down here?" she inquired, with frankly childish curiosity, leisurely wringing out her linen. "A mule got away from the corral. I've been wandering around in the bushes trying to find him," he explained, so naturally and in such a friendly voice that she raised her eyes to look again at this young gallant who lingered here at the _lavoir_ for the sake of her _beaux yeux_. Could this dark-eyed, smiling youth be a Hun spy? His smooth, boyish features, his crisp short hair and tiny mustache shading lips a trifle too red and overfull did not displease her. In his way he was handsome. His voice, too, was attractive, gaily persuasive, but it was his pronunciation of the letters c and d which had instantly set her on her guard. Seated on the bank near her, his roving eyes full of bold curiosity bent on her from time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little wreath out of long-stemmed clover and _boutons d'or_, he appeared merely an intrusive, irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse himself with a few moments' rustic courtship here before he continued on his way. "You are exceedingly pretty," he said. "Will you tell me your name in exchange for mine?" "Maryette Courtray." "Oh," he exclaimed in quick recognition; "you are bell-mistress in Sainte Lesse, then! _You_ are the celebrated carillonnette! I have heard about you. I suspected that you might be the little mistress of Sainte Lesse bells, because you wear the Legion--" He nodded his handsome head toward the decoration on her blouse. "And to think," he added effusively, "that it is just a mere slip of a girl who was decorated for bravery by France!" She smiled at him with all the beguilingly _bete_ innocence of the young when flattered: "You are too amiable, monsieur. I really do not understand why they gave me the Legion. To encourage all French children, perhaps--because I really am a dreadful coward." She tapped the holster on her thigh and gazed at him quite guilelessly out of wide and trustful eyes. "You see? I dare not even come here to wash my clothes unless I carry this--in case some Boche comes prowling." "Whose pistol is it?" he asked. "The weapon belongs to Monsieur Steek. When I come to wash here I borrow it." "Are you the sweetheart of Monsieur Steek?" he inquired, mimicking her pronunciation of "Stick," and at the same time fixing his dark eyes boldly and expressively on hers. "Does a young girl of my age have sweethearts?" she demanded scornfully. "If she hasn't had one, it's time," he returned, staring hard at her with a persistent and fixed smile that had become almost offensive. "Oh, la!" she exclaimed with a shrug of her youthful shoulders. "Perhaps you think I have time for such foolishness--what with housework to do and washing, and caring for my father, and my duties in the belfry every day!" "Youth passes swiftly, belle Maryette." "Imitate him, beau monsieur, and swiftly pass your way!" "_L'amour est doux, petite Marie!_" "_Je m'en moque!_" He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his knees beside her, and rolled back his cuffs. "Come," he said, "I'll help you wash. We two should finish quickly." "I am in no haste." "But it will give you an hour's leisure, belle Maryette." "Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?" "I shall try to instruct you why, when we have our hour together." "Do you mean to pay court to me?" "I am doing that now. My ardent courtship will already be accomplished, so that we need not waste our hour together!" He began to laugh and wring out the linen. "Monsieur," she expostulated smilingly, "your apropos disturbs me. Have you the assurance to believe that you already appeal to my heart?" "Have I not appealed to it a little, Maryette?" The girl averted her head coquettishly. For a few minutes they scrubbed away there together, side by side on their knees above the rim of the pool. Then, without warning, his hot, red lips burned her neck. Her swift recoil was also a shudder; her face flushed. "Don't do that!" she said sharply, straightening up in the grass where she was kneeling. "You are so adorable!" he pleaded in a low, tense voice. There was a long silence. She had moved aside and away from him on her knees; her head remained turned, too, and her features were set as though carven out of rosy marble. She was summoning every atom of resolution, every particle of courage to do what she must do. Every fibre in her revolted with the effort; but she steeled herself, and at last the forced smile was stamped on her lips, and she dared turn her head and meet his burning gaze. "You frighten me," she said--and her unsteady voice was convincing. "A young girl is not courted so abruptly." "Forgive me," he murmured. "I could not help myself--your neck is so fragrant, so childlike----" "Then you should treat me as you would a child!" she retorted pettishly. "Amuse me, if you aspire to any comradeship with me. Your behaviour does not amuse me at all." "We shall become comrades," he said confidently, "and you shall be sufficiently amused." "It requires time for two people to become comrades." "Will you give me an hour this evening?" "What? A rendezvous?" she exclaimed, laughing. "Yes." "You mean somewhere alone with you?" "Will you, Maryette?" "But why? I am not yet old enough for such foolishness. It would not amuse me at all to be alone with you for an hour." She pouted and shrugged and absently plucked a hollow stem from the sedge. "It would amuse me much more to sit here and blow bubbles," she added, clearing the stem with a quick breath and soaping the end of it. Then, with tormenting malice, she let her eyes rest sideways on him while she plunged the hollow stem into the water, withdrew it, dripping, and deliberately blew an enormous golden bubble from the end. "Look!" she cried, detaching the bubble, apparently enchanted to see it float upward. "Is it not beautiful, my fairy balloon?" On her knees there beside the basin she blew bubble after bubble, detaching each with a slight movement of her wrist, and laughing delightedly to see them mount into the sunshine. "You _are_ a child," he said, worrying his red underlip with his teeth. "You're a baby, after all." She said: "Very well, then, children require toys to amuse them, not sighs and kisses and bold, brown eyes to frighten and perplex them. Have you any toys to amuse me if I give you an hour with me?" "Maryette, I can easily teach you----" "No! Will you bring me a toy to amuse me?--a clay pipe to blow bubbles? I adore bubbles." "If I promise to amuse you, will you give me an hour?" he asked. "How can I?" she demanded with sudden caprice. "I have my wash to finish; then I have to see that my father has his soup; then I must attend to customers at the inn, go up to the belfry, oil the machinery, play the carillon later, wind the drum for the night----" "I shall come to you in the tower after the angelus," he said eagerly. "I shall be too busy----" "After the carillon, then! Promise, Maryette!" "And sit up there alone with you in the dark for an hour? _Ma foi!_ How amusing!" She laughed in pretty derision. "I shall not even be able to blow bubbles!" Watching her pouting face intently, he said: "Suppose I bring some toy balloons for you to fly from the clock tower? Would that amuse you--you beautiful, perverse child?" "Little toy balloons!" she echoed, enchanted. "What pleasure to set them afloat from the belfry! Do you really promise to bring me some little toy balloons to fly?" "Yes. But _you_ must promise not to speak about it to anybody." "Why?" "Because the gendarmes wouldn't let us fly any balloons." "You mean that they might think me a spy?" she inquired naively. "Or me," he rejoined with a light laugh. "So we shall have to be very discreet and go cautiously about our sport. And it ought to be great fun, Maryette, to sail balloons out over the German trenches. We'll tie a message to every one! Shall we, little comrade?" She clapped her hands. "That _will_ enrage the Boches!" she cried, "You won't forget to bring the balloons?" "After the carillon," he nodded, staring at her intently. "Half past ten," she said; "not one minute earlier. I cannot be disturbed when playing. Do you understand? Do you promise?" "Yes," he said, "I promise not to bother you before half past ten." "Very well. Now let me do my washing here in peace." ------------------ She was still scrubbing her linen when he went reluctantly away across the meadow toward Sainte Lesse. And when she finally stood up, swung the basket to her head, and left the meadow, the sun hung low behind Sainte Lesse Wood and a rose and violet glow possessed the world. At the White Doe Inn she flew feverishly about her duties, aiding the ancient peasant woman with the simple preparations for dinner, giving her father his soup and helping him to bed, swallowing a mouthful herself as she hastened to finish her household tasks. Kid Glenn came in as usual for an _aperitif_ while she was gathering up her wooden gloves. "Did a mule stray today from your corral?" she asked, filling his glass for him. "No," he said. "Are you sure?" "Dead certain. Why?" "Do you know one of the new muleteers named Braun?" "I know him by sight." "Keed!" she said, going up to him and placing both hands on his broad shoulders; "I play the carillon after the angelus. Bring Steek to the bell-tower half an hour after you hear the carillon end. You will hear it end; you will hear the quarter hour strike presently. Half an hour later, after the third quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring pistols. Do you promise?" "Sure! What's the row, Maryette?" "I don't know yet. I _think_ we shall find a spy in the tower." "Where?" "In the belfry, _parbleu_! And you and Steek shall come up the stairs and you shall wait in the dark, there where the keyboard is, and where you see all the wires leading upward. You shall listen attentively, and I will be on the landing above, among my bells. And when you hear me cry out to you, then you shall come running with pistols!" "For heaven's sake----" "Is it understood? Give me your word, Keed!" "Sure!----" "_Allons! Assez!_" she whispered excitedly. "Make prisoner any man you see there!--_any_ man! You understand?" "You bet!" "_Any man!_" she repeated slowly, "even if he wears the same uniform _you_ wear." There was a silence. Then: "By God!" said Glenn under his breath. "You suspect?" "Yes. And if it _is_ one of our German-American muleteers, we'll lynch him!" he whispered in a white rage. But Maryette shook her head. "No," she said in a dull, even voice, "let the gendarmerie take him in charge. Spy or suspect, he must have his chance. That is the law in France." "You don't give rats a chance, do you?" "I give everything its chance," she said simply. "And so does my country." She drew the automatic pistol from her holster, examined it, raised her eyes gravely to the American beside her: "This is terrible for me," she added, in a low but steady voice. "If it were not for my country--" She made a grave gesture, turned, and went slowly out through the arched stone passage into the main street of the town. A few minutes later the angelus sounded sweetly over the woods and meadows of Sainte Lesse. ------------------ At ten, as the last stroke of the hour ended, there came a charming, intimate little murmur of awakening bells; it grew sweeter, clearer, filling the starry sky, growing, exquisitely increasing in limpid, transparent volume, sweeping through the high, dim belfry like a great wind from Paradise carrying Heaven's own music out over the darkened earth. All Sainte Lesse came to its doorways to listen to the playing of their beloved Carillonnette; the bell-music ebbed and swelled under the stars; the ancient Flemish masterpiece, written by some carillonneur whose bones had long been dust, became magnificently vital again under the enchanted hands of the little mistress of the bells. In fifteen minutes the carillon ended; a slight pause followed, then the quarter hour struck. With the last stroke of the bell, the girl drew off her wooden gloves, laid them on the keyboard, turned slowly in her seat, listening. A slight sound coming from the spiral staircase of stone set her heart beating violently. Had the suspected man violated his word? She drew the automatic pistol from her holster, rose, and stole up to the stone platform overhead, where, rising tier on tier into the darkness, the great carillon of Sainte Lesse loomed overhead. She listened uneasily. Had the man lied? It seemed to her as though her hammering heart must burst from her bosom with the terrible suspense of the moment. Suddenly a shadowy form appeared at the head of the stairs, reaching the platform at one bound. And her heart seemed to stop as she realized that this man had arrived too early for her friends to be of any use to her. He had lied to her. And now she must take him unaided, or kill him there in the starlight under the looming bells. "Maryette!" he called. She did not stir. "Maryette!" he whispered. "Where are you, little sweetheart? Forgive me, I could not wait any longer. I adore you----" All at once he discovered her standing motionless in the shadow of the great bell Bayard--sprang toward her, eager, ardent, triumphant. "Maryette," he whispered, "I love you! I shall teach you what a lover is----" Suddenly he caught a glimpse of her face; the terrible expression in her eyes checked him. "What has happened?" he asked, bewildered. And then he caught sight of the pistol in her hand. "What's that for?" he demanded harshly. "Are you afraid to love me? Do you think I'm the kind of lover to stop for a thing like that----" She said, in a low, distinct voice: "Don't move! Put up both hands instantly!" "What!" he snapped out, like the crack of a lash. "I know who you are. You're a Boche and no Yankee! Turn your back and raise your arms!" For a moment they looked at each other. "I think," she said, steadily, "you had better explain your gas cylinders and balloons to the gendarmes at the Poste." "No," he said, "I'll explain them to you, _now_!----" "If you touch your pistol, I fire!----" But already he had whipped out his pistol; and she fired instantly, smashing his right hand to pulp. "You damned hell-cat!" he screamed, stretching out his shattered hand in an agony of impotent fury. Blood rained from it on the stone flags. Suddenly he started toward her. "Don't stir!" she whispered. "Turn your back and raise both arms!" His face became ghastly. "Let me go, in God's name!" he burst out in a strangled voice. "Don't send me before a firing squad! Listen to me, little comrade--I surrender myself to your mercy----" "Then keep away from me! Keep your distance!" she cried, retreating. He followed, fawning: "Listen! We were such good comrades----" "Don't come any nearer to me!" she called out sharply; but he still shuffled toward her, whimpering, drenched in blood, both hands uplifted. "Kamerad!" he whined, "Kamerad--" and suddenly launched a kick at her. She just avoided it, springing behind the bell Bayard; and he rushed at her and struck with both uplifted arms, showering her with blood, but not quite reaching her. In the darkness among the beams and the deep shadows of the bells she could hear him hunting for her, breathing heavily and making ferocious, inarticulate noises, as she swung herself up onto the first beam above and continued to crawl upward. "Where are you, little fool?" he cried at length. "I have business with you before I cut your throat--that smooth, white throat of yours that I kissed down there by the _lavoir_!" There was no sound from her. He went back toward the stairs and began hunting about in the starlight for his pistol; but there was no parapet on the bell platform, and he probably concluded that it had fallen over the edge of the tower into the street. Supporting his wounded hand, he stood glaring blankly about him, and his bloodshot eyes presently fell on the door to the stairs. But he must have realized that flight would be useless for him if he left this girl alive in her bell-tower, ready to alarm the town the moment he ran for the stairs. With his left hand he fumbled under his tunic and disengaged a heavy trench knife from its sheath. The loss of blood was making his legs a trifle unsteady, but he pulled himself together and moved stealthily under the shadows of beam and bell until he came to the spot he selected. And there he lay down, the hilt of the knife in his left hand, the blade concealed by his opened tunic. ------------------ His heavy groans at last had their effect on the girl, who had climbed high up into the darkness, creeping from beam to beam and mounting from one tier of bells to another. Standing on the lowest beam, she cautiously looked out through an oubliette and saw him lying on his back near the sheer edge of the roof. Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted against the stars, for he called up to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding to death and unable to move. After a few moments, opening his eyes again, he saw her standing on the roof beside him, looking down at him. And he whispered his appeal in the name of Christ. And in His name the little bell-mistress responded. When she had used the blue kerchief at her neck for a tourniquet and had checked the hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a better opportunity to employ his knife. It would not do to bungle the affair. And he thought he knew how it could be properly done--if he could get her head in the crook of his muscular elbow. "Lift me, dear ministering angel," he whispered weakly. She stooped impulsively, hesitated, then, suddenly terrified at the blazing ferocity in his eyes, she shrank back at the same instant that his broad knife flashed in her very face. He was on his feet at a bound, and, as she raised her voice in a startled cry for help, he plunged heavily at her, but slipped and fell in his own blood. Then the clattering jingle of spurred boots on the stone stairs below caught his ear. He was trapped, and he realized it. He slowly got to his feet. As Smith and Glenn appeared, springing out of the low-arched door, the muleteer Braun turned and faced them. There was a silence, then Glenn said, bitterly: "It's you, is it, you dirty Dutchman!" "Hands up!" said Smith quietly. "Come on, now; it's a case of 'Kamerad' for yours." Braun did not move to comply with the demand. Gradually it dawned on them that the man was game. "Maryette!" he called; "where are you?" Smith said curiously: "What do you want with her, Braun?" "I want to speak to her." "Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn sullenly. The girl crept out of the shadows. Her face was ghastly. Braun looked at her with pallid scorn: "You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I'd have made you a better lover than you'll ever have now!" He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt, turned without a glance at Smith and Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And as he fell there between sky and earth, hurtling downward under the stars, Glenn's pistol flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair while falling. "Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely, turning on Smith. "Ain't that me all over!--soft-hearted enough to do that skunk a kindness thataway!" But his youthful voice was shaking, and he stared at the edge of the abyss, listening to the far tumult now arising from the street below. "Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling his nervous voice with an effort. "Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "... Now, Maryette, put one arm around my neck, and me and the Kid will take you down them stairs, because you look tired--kind o' peeked and fussed, what with all this funny business going on----" "Oh, Steek! Steek!" she sobbed. "Oh, _mon ami_, Steek!" She began to cry bitterly. Smith picked her up in his arms. "What you need is sleep," he said very gently. But she shook her head: she had business to transact on her knees that night--business with the Mother of God that would take all night long--and many, many other sleepless nights; and many candles. She put her left arm around Smith's neck and hid her tear-wet face on his shoulder. And, as he bore her out of the high tower and descended the unlighted, interminable stairs of stone, he heard her weeping against his breast and softly asking intercession in behalf of a dead young man who had tried to be to her a "Kamerad"--as he understood it--including the entire gamut, from amorous beast to fiend. ------------------ There was a single candle lighted in the bar of the White Doe. On the "zinc," side by side, like birds on a rail, sat the two muleteers. In each big, sunburnt fist was an empty glass; their spurred feet dangled; they leaned forward where they sat, hunched up over their knees, heads slightly turned, as though intently listening. A haze of cigarette smoke dimmed the candle flame. The drone of an aeroplane high in the midnight sky came to them at intervals. At last the sound died away under the far stars. By the smoky candle flame Kid Glenn unfolded and once more read the letter that kept them there: Jack.
"When Jack comes," he drawled, "it's a-goin' to he'p a lot. That Maryette girl's plumb done in." "Sure she's done in," nodded Kid Glenn. "Wouldn't it do in anybody to shoot up a young man an' then see him step off the top of a skyscraper?" Smith admitted that he himself had felt "kind er squeamish." He added: "Gawd, how he spread when he hit them flags! You didn't look at him, did you, Kid?" "Naw. Say, d'ya think Maryette has gone to bed?" "I dunno. When we left her up there in her room, I turned and took a peek to see she was comfy, but she was down onto both knees before that china virgin on the niche over her bed." "She oughter be in bed. You gotta sleep off a thing like that, or you feel punk next day," remarked Glenn, meditatively twirling the last drops of eau-de-vie around in his tumbler. Then he swallowed them and smacked his lips. "She'll come around all O. K. when she sees Jack," he added. "Goin' to let him wake her up?" "Can you see us stoppin' him? He'd kick the pants off us----" "Sh-h-h!" motioned Smith; "there's a automobile! By gum! It's stopped!----" The two muleteers set their glasses on the bar, slid to the floor, and marched, clanking, into the covered way that led to the street. Smith undid the bolts. A young man stood outside in the starlight. "Well, Jack Burley, you old son of a gun!" drawled Glenn. "Gawd! You look fit for a dead one!" "We ain't told her!" whispered Smith. "She an' us done in a Fritz this evening, an' it sorter turned Maryette's stomach----" "Not that she ain't well," explained Glenn hastily; "only a girl feels different. Stick an' me, we just took a few drinks, but Maryette, soon as she got home, she just flopped down on her knees and asked that china virgin of hers to go easy on that there Fritz----" They had conducted Burley to the bar; both their arms were draped around his shoulders; both talked to him at the same time. "This here Fritz," began Glenn--but Burley freed himself from their embrace. "Where's Maryette?" he demanded. Smith jerked a silent thumb toward the ceiling. "In bed?" "Or prayin'." Burley flushed, hesitated. "G'wan up, anyway," said Glenn. "I reckon it'll do her a heap o' good to lamp you, you old son of a gun!" Burley turned, went up the short flight of stairs to her closed door. There was candle-light shining through the transom. He knocked with a trembling hand. There was no answer. He knocked again; heard her uncertain step; stepped back as her door opened. The girl, a drooping figure in her night robe, stood listlessly on the threshold. Which of the muleteers it was who had come to her door she did not notice. She said: "I am very tired. Death is a dreadful thing. I can't put it from my mind. I am trying to pray----" She lifted her weary eyes and found herself looking into the face of her own lover. She turned very white, lovely eyes dilated. "Is--is it thou, Djack?" "C'est moi, ma ploo belle!" She melted into his tightening arms with a faint cry. Very high overhead, under the lustrous stars, an aeroplane droned its uncharted way across a blood-soaked world. [THE END] _ |
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