At the Sign of the Sword Part 18

And as he pa.s.sed across the courtyard, for the atmosphere had now become hot and stifling, he savagely kicked aside the body of one of the young female servants who, poor thing, had been sabred in her attempt to escape.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE FUGITIVES.

That flight proved indeed a hideous nightmare.

Throughout those hot, stifling hours of oppressive darkness, the Baroness de Neuville--as homeless as those hundreds of poor people on the roads, even though wife of a millionaire--wandered on, Aimee taking her arm tenderly. On, and still on they went, along the straight, open road which, leaving the Meuse, led over the hills to the straggling little whitewashed village of Winenne, which they at last reached.

There they joined a hustling crowd of terror-stricken fugitives of all cla.s.ses, sad-eyed men, frightened women, and wondering children, some stern, some crying bitterly, but all carrying bundles, or pushing wheelbarrows or perambulators containing all they had saved from their lowly homes. From Winenne, the Baroness and her daughter, after trudging on with the crowd for some distance, left the high road and took a by-way, which Aimee knew by motoring frequently over it, led due south across the hill, for ten miles or so, to Bourseigne, where lived the Baronne's brother, a large landed proprietor. In his house they had decided to seek protection. The red flush of dawn had given place to the light of day ere they came in sight of the little place, lying deep in its hollow, but as they looked eagerly upon "The Chateau"--as the long, white, old-fashioned house was termed--their spirits fell, for it was roofless, and its grim, blackened walls, alas! told their own tale.

A peasant on the road told them the story.

Three days ago the Germans had arrived and occupied the place, which was only three miles from the French frontier. Monsieur Hannaerts, the seigneur of the place, had been arrested as hostage for the good behaviour of the village, but, because a half-witted youth had discharged a toy-pistol at a German soldier, the unhappy gentleman had been bound to a telegraph pole at the roadside, and shot in the presence of the villagers.

An hour later the British, under General Sir John French, who had arrived at Charleroi and had extended their line towards Mezieres, began to sh.e.l.l the village, with the result that it had been partially destroyed, the Chateau, which had been the enemy's headquarters, suffering most severely.

The tide of war, however, had now pa.s.sed by, and when the two weary, footsore women entered the village, they found life proceeding almost as usual. Those who had not been killed had returned to their wrecked and shattered homes, and were full of stories of the fierce brutality of the invader, which the gallant "Anglais" in khaki had so swiftly driven out.

Naturally, much distressed at the news of her brother's murder, the Baronne entered the place with fixed, terror-stricken eyes, that same set expression of woe and hopelessness which was seen everywhere in Belgium, now that the gallant little kingdom had fallen beneath the fire and sword of a relentless barbarian.

On every hand great holes showed in the walls, torn open by the British sh.e.l.ls, many houses were completely demolished, and in some places only rubble heaps remained to show the site where houses had stood. In others, walls stood gaunt and blackened where the fire had gutted them, causing roofs and windows to fall in.

Wandering pigs were grunting in the long street, and big-eyed little children, now that the roar of war had ceased, were playing merrily among the ruins and finding all sorts of oddments half burned in the debris. One, evidently a humourist, had put on the spiked helmet of a dead German, and was striking comic att.i.tudes, to the delight of his playfellows. His head being completely buried in the canvas-covered helmet, he presented a most ludicrous appearance.

"Let us find M'sieur Labarre, mother," suggested Aimee, for she knew the place well, as they had often been her uncle's guests at the now ruined chateau.

"Yes," murmured the Baronne. "I feel so very faint, dear, that I really can go no farther?" And, indeed, the poor woman, refined and cultured, having tramped all through that terrible night in her thin shoes, and having been challenged so constantly by soldiers in the darkness--each challenge being a fright lest it be that of the enemy--she was entirely exhausted and unnerved.

Labarre was a farmer, who held some land belonging to Aimee's unde, and it was not long before they entered his modest house--a long, ugly, grey-slated place surrounded by haystacks and outhouses.

Labarre, a stout, ruddy-faced man, of middle age, in a blue linen blouse, typical of the Walloon farmer, welcomed the poor ladies warmly and in great surprise, and soon they were in the hands of his stout wife, Elise, and were drinking cups of hot _bouillon_, for, in the farms of the Ardennes, the stock-pot is usually simmering upon the fire.

The long, old-fashioned room, with its heavy beams, its stone-paving, its row of copper cooking-utensils shining in the sun, and its wide chimney and wooden chairs was, indeed, a haven of rest after the terrors of that night.

And while they drank the _bouillon_, the fat farmer lifted his hands as he told them the story of the German occupation.

"Ah! Baronne! It was terrible--very terrible," he cried in his Walloon dialect. "Those pigs of Germans came here, took all the corn I had, smashed my piano and thieved two of my horses. But the brave English drove them out. We fled when the English sh.e.l.ls began to fall, but, fortunately, not one did any damage to our house, though the big barn was set on fire with two haystacks, and destroyed."

Having remained under the farmer's hospitable roof for a day, Aimee, who had now completely recovered, resolved to leave her mother in Madame Labarre's charge, and endeavour to reach Dinant where, it was said, the telephone with Brussels had been repaired. By that means she could, she hoped, communicate with her father, and ascertain what they should do.

The British soldiers in khaki were now in possession of Bourseigne, and that communication was open from Dinant to Brussels, Aimee had learnt from a lieutenant of the Gloucesters, a good-looking young fellow named d.i.c.k Fortescue, whom she had met in the little Place having some trouble with the Walloon language in a purchase of fodder he was making, and had offered to interpret.

What Fortescue had told her caused her to decide, therefore, two hours later, there being no trains nor any conveyance available, she set out alone, a slim, pathetic little figure in dusty black, wearing a black shawl borrowed from the farmer's wife, and turned her face westward along that white road so familiar to her, a highway which ran over green hills and along deep valleys, and which was the main road over which the lumbering, old-fashioned post _diligences_, with their jingling bells, still pa.s.sed, in peace time, between Sedan and Dinant.

With her face to the deep glow of the sunset she trudged forward, her thoughts reverting, as they always did, to Edmond--her Edmond!

"Where is he?" she murmured, as her white, hard-set lips moved. "What can have happened to him?"

Was he lying still and dead--buried perhaps in a nameless grave--or was he still fighting valiantly in defence of his country and his King?

If he were, he would, wherever he might be, still be thinking of her.

Of that she was confident, for they loved each other with a firm, all-absorbing and eternal love, a love that could never be shaken, and that could never die.

The light of the fading day darkened into the blood-red afterglow, and before her there rose the lowering clouds of night, as alone and unprotected she still bent forward, with sixteen miles to cover ere she reached the narrow, cobbled streets of Dinant. Ten miles away on her left stood Severac, now, alas! but a smouldering ruin, and over in that direction she could hear the distant booming of heavy guns, for that evening the British, acquitting themselves so bravely, were fighting Von Kluck all along the line from Mons, through Charleroi, to near Mezieres.

They were stemming the German invasion, and while the flower of the German Army was being hurled against them, they swept them off even though the Kaiser, in his insane arrogance, had issued as his "Imperial command" that General French's "contemptible little army" should be crushed out of existence.

In her torn and dusty black gown, and patent leather shoes, worn badly down by the long tramp from Severac, Aimee, though weary and footsore, did not lose heart. She was gratified that her mother was in a place of safety, and now, if she could only communicate with her father, they would, no doubt, be able to get to Ostend, and perhaps over to England.

So she went forward with the distant rumble of artillery ever in her ears, while as darkness fell, she turned aside to notice a fierce red glare in the sky far away across the Meuse, in the direction of Phillipeville. Over there another town had no doubt been given to the flames.

At the village of Malvoisin she met several thousands of refugees coming towards France, raising clouds of suffocating dust. They were peasants driven by the enemy out of the peaceful valley of the winding Ourthe, and were hoping to find shelter across the frontier in France. Now and then there pa.s.sed clattering squadrons of Belgian cavalry, the little yellow ta.s.sels hanging gaily from the front of their caps, while ever and anon there lumbered past, in the dim light, great grey-painted siege-guns, long trains of ammunition-wagons, Red Cross motor-ambulances, and endless lines of transports of all sorts.

Squads of infantry marched gaily to martial airs, or the men sang the latest popular songs of the _cafe-chantant_, while there also pa.s.sed several machine-guns drawn by their dog-teams.

Presently Aimee joined three tearful, homeless women, one of whom trundled an old rickety perambulator filled with her household goods.

They had come from Rossignol, forty miles distant, which had been sacked and burned by a Uhlan patrol, and they described to her the terrible scene. Therefore, in company, the trio pushed forward until at length they entered a long dark street of shattered houses, which Aimee recognised, to her amazement, as that of Anseremme. Yes! There was the little Hotel Beau Sejour where she and Edmond had spent so many sunny hours in secret together, but alas! its walls were now gaunt and roofless. It had been gutted by fire, while the pleasant little _terra.s.se_ beside the river was heaped with the debris of fallen walls.

She sighed as she pa.s.sed the place which held for her so many fond memories, and again pressed forward with blistered feet, on past that great high split rock, through which the road runs beside the river, known as the Roche Bayard, until at length she found herself in the long dark street of half-ruined houses that led straight into the little Place at Dinant.

Arrived there, she halted aghast. The long bridge had fallen, a wreck, into the river, and there were signs everywhere of the ruthless bombardment a week before, when happily the Germans had been driven out and had retired. But at that hour, about half-past ten o'clock, the place was as silent as the grave. Everywhere was ruin and desolation, while in the air was still the pungent odour of burnt wood, the woodwork of houses set on fire by the German sh.e.l.ls.

There being neither gas nor electricity, an oil lamp had been hung upon a nail on a wall, and it was near this that the girl was standing. She was well known in Dinant as daughter of the Baron who held the purse-strings of Belgium, and, with her mother, frequently came to the little town in their car.

She stood hesitating as to whom she should ask a favour and allow her to telephone to Brussels, when she was suddenly startled by a familiar voice behind her, and holding her breath, she faced the man who had addressed her.

It was a Belgian soldier.

It was Edmond Valentin!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

BEFORE THE STORM.

"Aimee?" he gasped. "_You_!"

"_Dieu_! Edmond. You!--fancy _you here_, just at the moment when--"

"When--what?" he echoed. "Tell me, why are you here--in this place?

Why are you not in Brussels? It is not safe for you here, my darling!"

And he placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder and, in the dim light of the lantern, looked straight into her dear face.

She gazed at him. He was in his heavy military overcoat, with a rifle slung upon his shoulder, for he had come down into the town from the fortress above, where his machine-gun was posted, in order to take a message from his captain to the captain of infantry holding the head of the wrecked bridge close by.

A few brief, hasty words sufficed to explain the terrible scene at Severac; how she and her mother had fled, and the reason of her long tramp to Dinant. There, in that dark, silent little square before the ruined church, with the high ruined old fortress on the cliff above, he drew her weary head down upon his breast, imprinting upon her white brow a long, pa.s.sionate kiss, and murmuring:

"Ah! my darling, I have prayed to G.o.d that I might be spared to see you once again--if only just once--for the last time!"