At the Sign of the Sword Part 14

"Yes. That is why I suggest to you, privately, that the ladies should be sent at once to the coast."

"Thanks for your hint, my dear Arnaud. I will certainly consider it,"

was the other's reply.

He handed Rigaux the big silver box of cigarettes, and when both had lit up, the footman brought, in response to his master's summons, two tiny Bohemian liqueur gla.s.ses and filled them with fine old cognac.

They tossed them off, in Belgian fashion, and soon afterwards Rigaux gripped his friend's hand, saying:

"_Au revoir_, till to-morrow. And all Belgians will thank you, Henri, for saving their capital from the Kaiser's brigands."

The Baron de Neuville smiled, and shrugged his thickset shoulders.

"It is but my duty as a loyal Belgian. I cannot fight side by side with our brave men, as I certainly would if I were younger. So I will help as far as my means permit."

And then Arnaud Rigaux, with those winds in his ears, waved his hand and descended the winding stairway to the great hall, outside which in the courtyard his fast, open car was in waiting.

Having put on his holland dust-coat, he flung himself into the bucket-seat next the driver, and then they moved away cautiously down the steep hill into the peaceful valley, where the summer twilight was fast darkening into night.

Many groups of homeless, despairing people, hauling along great packages and tramping towards an unknown bourne, were upon the road, and now and then suspicious cars pa.s.sed without salute or challenge.

Once they met a patrol of Uhlans riding merrily along, big-booted fellows with lances, who chatted gaily, and who seemed to take no notice of them, knowing that in that particular area there was no opposition.

Suddenly Rigaux, who had now become very alert, remarked to the driver:

"Be careful. We are getting near Loverai, outside Charleroi."

Before them had suddenly showed points of light from lanterns in the road, and then, a few hundred yards further on, they heard a gruff challenge in German, and a stern command to halt.

The driver drew up at once, and the car was instantly surrounded by half a dozen stalwart German outposts, their fixed bayonets shining in the headlights, demanding to know the destination of the travellers.

"To Brussels," replied Rigaux, in German. "Here is my official permit from headquarters, signed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Meuse."

The sentry, in his spiked helmet, examined it beneath the flickering light of a lantern held by one of his comrades, and while doing so a lieutenant strolled up and also carefully scrutinised it. Yet for the moment the motorists were under arrest.

"Herr Rigaux--eh?--and chauffeur?" the officer read. "A general secret service pa.s.s from headquarters. You are going to Brussels, I suppose?"

Arnaud Rigaux replied in the affirmative, whereupon the lieutenant gave an order and the half-dozen men drew up in the dark, clicking their heels together, and presented arms in salute.

"You are free to pa.s.s, Herr Rigaux," said the officer. "Take the left-hand road, and you will avoid the outposts of Charleroi and get to Nivelles. Our lines are two miles farther on, but with your pa.s.s you will have no difficulty. I see that you are one of us."

Rigaux remounted into his car, and with a merry good night they swept along the dark, wide road, which at that point ran between two rows of high poplars, which were swaying and rustling slightly in the cool night wind, so refreshing after the broiling day.

Half a dozen times the car had been challenged in as many miles, but on each occasion the permit to travel was scrutinised closely, and as they went forward they saw in the sky, on the far-off horizon, the dull, red glare of the fires of war. They had left Charleroi on their right--the town of hardware, which the Germans had now surrounded, and intended on the morrow to reduce--and had now set their faces straight for the capital.

The pa.s.s which that morning Rigaux had received, on application to the headquarters at the Hotel Cosmopolite, in Brussels, proved an open-sesame everywhere, for it was one of those cryptic pa.s.sports which the German Empire had issued to all its spies, from the lowly to the wealthy.

That small piece of grey paper, stamped, signed, and countersigned, rendered its bearer immune from arrest, and provided safe conduct everywhere. What would his friends the Belgians say, or do, if they had known he had possessed such a doc.u.ment?

Time after time, on that dark, straight road between Charleroi and Brussels, the car was held up by men in spiked helmets, who covered both master and chauffeur threateningly with their rifles. But sight of that paper was magical. Arnaud Rigaux was bowed to with politeness, and urged onward with cautionary words to the next post.

Brussels lay thirty miles from Charleroi. They were now within the enemy's lines, and were pa.s.sing many burnt-out cottages and villages, some of the debris of which, strewn in the roadway, still glowed red in the night. Before them, in the dark, heavy sky, showed the glare of the lights of Brussels, the gay little city which now lay crushed and invested by the Teuton invaders.

The reflection of the light was not red, as in the case of a burning town. The Germans were committing no atrocities there, for the simple reason that, in the capital, they were beneath the eyes of the representatives of neutral powers. In the country it mattered not, and could easily be denied, but in Brussels the Commander-in-Chief had decreed that all should preserve a correct att.i.tude and present the quintessence of German "culture."

It was nearly one o'clock in the morning when at last, Rigaux having pulled his cap over his eyes, they pa.s.sed the sentries outside the station of Uccle, and were allowed to proceed down the long, straight Avenue Brugmann and the Chausee to the end of the Avenue Louise.

Half the street lamps of Brussels were out, and no one was in the streets save German sentries at the corners, acting as policemen, their fixed bayonets glinting in the brilliance of the car's headlights.

Brussels, with her Civil Guard disbanded, was in the grip of the invader, who modestly demanded eight millions as its ransom.

The car turned into the small Place Louise, past the cafe in the corner, and De Boek's Hotel so long a famous "English house," turned to the left, and then ran along the tree-lined boulevard to where Rigaux lived.

There was now no secrecy of presence of the fair-haired German naval wireless operator, for the enemy had occupied the capital. Indeed, as soon as Arnaud Rigaux arrived home he met him in the hall, and accompanied him to the room in the roof, in which was that powerful wireless plant run off the electric-light main.

The young fellow seated himself at once at his table, and, touching a Morse-key, a long blue spark was emitted and crackled across the big coil.

"Call up Nauen," Rigaux said, his holland dust-coat not yet removed.

"Give them this message: That the Baron de Neuville has consented, upon representations I have made, to negotiate the whole of the indemnity of eight millions levied upon the city of Brussels. Let me know of the acknowledgment of the receipt of the message by R.X."

"Certainly, m'sieur," was the operator's reply in good French, and he began to tap out the preliminary "Da-de-Da-de-Da," the call-signal, followed by the code-letters indicating that he wished to speak with Nauen.

Then he switched over, and adjusting his headphones to his ears, listened attentively.

Again he repeated the call, with dexterous rapidity, when, a few seconds later, he heard the answering ticks of the Telefunken near Potsdam, after which he reduced to code the significant message which Rigaux had given him for transmission, and tapped it out.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE HOTEL DE L'EPEE.

The quaint, old-world little town of Dinant, with its crooked cobbled streets--the resort of painters and dreamers--lay in a narrow ravine on both sides of the winding Meuse, connected by a long iron bridge. High limestone cliffs towered above the town, crowned by a good-sized but out-of-date citadel--a fort which dominated the whole country. Across the river lay the railway station, and some modern hotels, while the modern town was built upon the pleasant wooded slopes behind.

It was here that Edmond Valentin found himself with the Sixth Brigade.

Five days ago they had arrived, after a forced march under the hot sun, from Gembloux, beyond Namur, and, having joined the French force which had crossed the frontier between Sedan and Givet, they were occupying the heights above the town. Indeed, from where Edmond stood on that bright, sunny morning, he could look down upon the tiny little white village of Anseremme, just beyond Dinant, the place where he had, on that memorable day before the war, lunched with Aimee so happily on the long rose-embowered _terra.s.se_ beside the river, now sparkling in the sun.

Had the red tide of war yet reached high-up Severac, he wondered? It was not far off--perhaps fifteen miles or so beyond those blue hills.

Daily--nay, hourly--he thought of her, wondering how she fared in those hot, breathless days when Belgium was fighting so desperately for her very existence as a nation.

The Sixth Brigade, under General Thalmann--the fine, grey-moustached, well-set-up man, who had been so grossly calumnified by Rigaux for his own crafty purposes--had been in the very thick of the fighting ever since that day when they had so suddenly arrived in Liege and found themselves in the firing-line. They had helped to repulse the German cavalry at Haelen, and had then fought their way desperately up to Tirlemont, to Gembloux, and back to the Meuse again. With scarce any sleep they had been in touch with the enemy practically the whole time, and were, indeed, "The Flying Column" of the Belgian army. Their losses around Charleroi had been considerable, and though so weary, dusty, and worn, not a man among them was dismayed. The spirit of the men was admirable.

General Joffre had already held council with the Belgian Commander-in-Chief, a council at which General Thalmann had been present, and from information they had gathered it was well known that the Germans intended to make an a.s.sault upon the town of Dinant, and take the citadel as one of the important and strategic points on the Meuse.

The peaceful inhabitants of the place--which, besides being a tourist centre, possessed a thriving trade in beaten bra.s.s-ware, and the making of those grotesquely-shaped cakes of honey and flour called _conques_, two industries which had survived in the place ever since the Middle Ages--were, of course, in ignorance, and the authorities did not deem it expedient to express their fears, in order, if possible, to avoid panic.

Edmond knew that the French army, on its way up the Meuse Valley, must have pa.s.sed beneath the great old chateau of Severac. If so, Aimee must have watched those long, interminable lines of red-trousered infantry, trudging on with their piled-up haversacks, the squadrons of heavily-booted cavalry, and the snake-like processions of lumbering field-guns, motor transport wagons, and drab vans marked with the red cross.

Away across those blue hills, in the direction of France, Aimee was probably watching and waiting in patience. He longed to write to her, to send her words of hope and courage. But it was all utterly impossible. No letter could ever reach her now, unless he could find means to deliver it himself.

There was fighting in progress behind them--fierce fighting at Charleroi--for they had learnt, only an hour ago over the field-telephone, that the Germans were attacking the place, and that a big battle had already opened.

The first few hours of that hot, breathless day were hours of inactivity, welcome indeed to the hard-pressed Sixth Brigade.