The Children of Alsace Part 40

Farnow lifted her from the ground, pressed her against his breast and kissed her pa.s.sionately. By the despairing violence of his kiss, Lucienne realised it was indeed farewell.

He put her from him brusquely, ran to the gate, leapt to the saddle, and galloped away in the direction of Obernai.

CHAPTER XVI

IN THE FOREST OF THE MINIeRES

Night was falling, but Jean was still on German soil. He was sleeping, worn out with fatigue; he lay stretched upon a bed of moss and fir cones, while M. Ulrich watched, on the look out for fresh danger, still trembling from the danger he had just escaped. The two men had crept into a s.p.a.ce between two stacks of branches left by the wood-cutters, who had been thinning the fir-tree plantation. The branches, still green, stretched from one stack to the other, making their hiding-place more secure. A storm of wind blew across the mountain, but otherwise no sound could be heard upon the heights.

Two hours must have pa.s.sed since Jean and his uncle had taken refuge in their hiding-place.

When the train reached Russ-Hersbach, M. Ulrich had at once seen and said that the moment for Jean to change his uniform had pa.s.sed. Even such a little thing as that would have excited too much attention in that frontier province, peopled by visible and invisible watchers, where the stones listen and the fir-trees are spies. He threw the valise to the coachman of the landau engaged three days previously at Schirmeck.

"Here's some useless luggage," he cried, "fortunately it's not heavy. Drive quickly, coachman."

The carriage crossed the poverty-stricken village, reached the town of Schirmeck, and quitting there the princ.i.p.al valley turned to the right into the narrow winding valley leading to Grande Fontaine. No suspicious glances followed the travellers, but witnesses of their pa.s.sing increased. And this was serious. Although Jean was sitting with his back to the driver, partially hidden by the blinds and partially by the cloak which M. Ulrich had thrown over him, yet there was no doubt the uniform of the 9th Hussars had been seen by two gendarmes in the streets of Schirmeck, by workmen on the road, and by the douanier who was smoking and had continued to smoke his pipe so tranquilly, sitting under the trees on the left of the first bridge by which one entered Grande Fontaine.

Every moment M. Ulrich thought, "Now the alarm will be given!

Perhaps it has been already, and one of the state's innumerable agents will come up, question us, and insist upon our following them whatever we may say."

He did not tell Jean of his anxiety, and the young man, excited by the spirit of adventure, was quite different to the Jean of yesterday.

In spite of the steepness and stoniness of the path by the mountain stream, the horses made good headway, and soon the houses of Grande Fontaine came into sight. The beech-wood of Donon, all velvety and golden and crowned with firs, rose in front of them. At 2.15 the carriage stopped in the middle of the village, in a kind of sloping square, where a spring of water flows into a huge stone trough. The travellers got out, for here the carriage road ended.

"Wait for us at the inn of Remy Naeger," said M. Ulrich; "we will go for a walk, and return in an hour. Drink a bottle of Molsheim wine at my expense, and give the horse a double portion of oats."

M. Ulrich and Jean, leaving on the right the path which mounts to Donon, immediately took the path to the left, a narrow road with houses, gardens, and hedges on either side, which connects Grande Fontaine with the last village of the upper valley, that of the Minieres.

They had scarcely gone two hundred yards when they caught sight of the keeper of Mathiskop coming out of his house, in his green uniform and Tyrolese hat, descending towards them. Seeing that the man would be obliged to pa.s.s them on the road M. Ulrich was afraid.

"There is a uniform, Jean, which I don't care to meet at present.

Let us go by the forest."

The forest was on the left. They were the fir woods of Mathiskop, and farther on those of the Corbeille, thickly wooded slopes rising higher and higher, where a hiding-place would be easy to discover.

Jean and his uncle jumped the hedge, crossed some yards of meadow, and entered the shadow of the fir wood. It was none too soon; the military authorities had given the alarm; warning had been telephoned to all the different posts to keep a look out for the deserter Oberle. The keeper they had seen had not yet received the warning, and pa.s.sed out of sight, but M. Ulrich, by means of his old field-gla.s.s of Jena days, could see that there was excitement in the usually quiet valley, where a number of douaniers and gendarmes could be seen hurrying about. They also hurried to the Mathiskop forest, and the chase commenced.

M. Ulrich and Jean were not captured, but they had been sighted; they were tracked from wood to wood for more than an hour, and were prevented from reaching the frontier, to do which they would have been compelled to cross the open valley. M. Ulrich had the happy idea of climbing to the top of a stack of wood and letting himself down into the opening between two stacks, Jean followed his example. This had been their salvation, the gendarmes beat about the wood for some time, and then made off in the direction of Glacimont.

Night was falling, and Jean slept. Banks of clouds rose before the wind, and hastened the darkness. A flight of crows crossed their hiding-place, brushing the tree tops. The flapping of their wings woke M. Ulrich from the reverie into which he had fallen while contemplating his nephew dressed in the uniform of a German soldier, lying stretched on Alsatian soil. He rose and gingerly climbed to the top of the stack.

"Well, uncle," asked Jean, waking up, "what do you see?"

"Nothing, no gendarme's helmet, no douanier's cap," whispered M.

Ulrich. "I think they have lost the scent; but with such persons one cannot be sure."

"And the valley of the Minieres?"

"Appears to be deserted, my friend. No one on the roads, no one in the fields. The keeper himself must have gone home to supper--there is smoke coming from his chimney. How do you feel, boy--valiant?"

"If we are pursued, you'll soon see."

"I don't think we shall be. But the hour has come, my boy."

He added after a short interval, whilst he pretended to listen: "Come up whilst we lay some plan of campaign."

"You see below the village of the Minieres?" asked M. Ulrich, as Jean's head appeared above the branches and turned towards the west.

"Yes."

"In spite of the mist and the darkness, can you make out that on the other side the mountain is covered partly with fir- and partly with beech-trees?"

"I guess it."

"We are going to make a half circle to avoid the gardens and fields of the Minieres, and when we are just opposite that spot, you will only have to descend two hundred yards and you will be in France."

Jean made no answer.

"That's the spot I marked out for you. See that you recognise it.

Over there round Raon-sur-Plaine, the Germans have kept all the forests for themselves; the barren lands they have left to France.

On the opposite side, facing us, there is an extensive strip of meadow land which is French territory. I even saw a deserted farmhouse, abandoned before the war, I suppose. I'll go first."

"Excuse me, I'll go first."

"No; I a.s.sure you, my boy, that the danger is equally great behind.

I must be guide. I go first; we'll avoid the pathways, and I will lead you carefully to a point where you have only one thing to do: go straight ahead and cross a road, then a few yards of underwood, and beyond is French soil."

M. Ulrich embraced Jean silently and quickly; he did not wish to lose control of himself, when all depended on calmness.

"Come," he said.

They commenced the descent under cover of the tall fir-trees which commenced just there. The slope was strewn with obstacles, against which Jean or his uncle frequently stumbled, moss-covered stones, fallen and rotten trunks, broken branches, like claws stretched out in the darkness to bar the way. Every moment M. Ulrich stopped to listen and would frequently look round, to make sure that Jean's tall form was close behind him--it was too dark to see his face.

"They'll be checkmated, uncle," whispered Jean.

"Not too fast, my Jean; we are not yet safe."

Still under cover, the fugitives reached the meadows of the Minieres, and began to ascend the mountain opposite, but without quitting cover.

When M. Ulrich reached the summit he stopped and sniffed the wind, which blew more freely through the young trees.

"Do you smell the air of France?" he murmured, in spite of the danger of talking.

A plain stretched in front of them, but was invisible; they could distinguish the trees, which seemed like stationary smoke below, and above were the scurrying clouds. M. Ulrich cautiously began the descent, listening eagerly. An owl flew by. They had to make their way a short distance through a p.r.i.c.kly undergrowth which clung to their clothes.

Suddenly a voice in the forest called: