The Day of Wrath Part 24

The torch was switched off. Dalroy's eyes were momentarily blinded by the glare, but he heard an ugly chuckle.

"Where is the female prisoner?" said Von Halwig, with a formality that was as perplexing as his subdued manner.

"Here, _Herr Hauptmann_."

The two entered the barn. So far as Dalroy could judge, no word was spoken. The torch flared again, remained lighted a full half-minute, and was extinguished.

Von Halwig reappeared, seemed to ponder matters, and turned to the corporal.

"Put the woman in my car," he said. "Fall in your men, and be ready to escort me back to the village. You've done a good day's work, corporal."

"Two men have gone in pursuit of Jan Maertz, sir."

"Never mind. They'll have sense enough to come on to headquarters if they catch him. How is this Englishman secured?"

The jubilant Franz explained.

"Mount him on one of your horses. The trooper can squeeze in in front of the car. Has the female prisoner a dagger or a pistol?"

"I have not searched her, _Herr Hauptmann_."

"Make sure, but offer no violence or discourtesy. No, leave this fellow here at present. I want a few words with him in private. a.s.semble your men around the car, and take the woman there now."

Irene was led out. She paused in the doorway, and the corporal thought she did not know what she was wanted for.

"You are to be conveyed in the automobile, _Fraulein_," he said.

But she was looking for Dalroy in the gloom. Before anyone could interfere, she ran and threw her arms around him, kissing him on the lips.

"Good-bye, my dear one!" she wailed in a heart-broken way. "We may not meet again on this earth, but I am yours to all eternity."

"With these words in my ears I shall die happy," said Dalroy. Her embrace thrilled him with a strange ecstasy, yet the pain of that parting was worse than death. Were ever lovers' vows plighted in such conditions in the history of this gray old world?

Franz seized the girl's arm. She knew it would be undignified to resist.

Kissing Dalroy again, she whispered a last choking farewell, and suffered her guide to take her where he willed. She walked with stumbling feet. Her eyes were dimmed with tears; but, sustained by the pride of her race, she refused to sob, and bit her lower lip in dauntless resolve not to yield.

The rain was beating down now in heavy gusts. Von Halwig, if he had no concern for the comfort of the troopers, had a good deal for his own.

"d.a.m.n the weather!" he grunted. "Come into the bar. You can walk, I suppose?"

He turned on the torch, which was controlled by a sliding b.u.t.ton, and saw how the prisoner was secured. Then he flashed the light into the interior of the barn. It was a ramshackle place at the best, and looked peculiarly forlorn after the rummaging it had undergone since the fight, a recent picket having evidently torn down stalls and mangers to provide materials for a fire. Part of a long sloping ladder had been consumed for that purpose, so that an open trap-door in the boarded floor of an upper storey was inaccessible. The barn itself was unusually lofty, running to a height of twenty feet or more. There were no windows. Some rats, tempted out already by the oats spilled from the horses'

nose-bags, scuttled away from the light. Through the trap-door the noise of the rain pounding on a shingle roof came with a curious hollowness.

Von Halwig did not extinguish the lamp, but tucked it under his left arm. He lighted a cigarette. With each movement of his body the beam of light shifted. Now it played on the wall, against which Dalroy leaned, because the cramped state of his arms was already becoming irksome; now it shone through the doorway, forming a sort of luminous blur in the rain, now it dwelt on the Englishman, standing there in his worn blouse, baggy breeches, and sabots, an old flannel shirt open at the neck, and a month's growth of beard on cheeks and chin. The hat which Irene made fun of had been tilted at a rakish angle when the corporal removed the cloak. Certainly he was changed in essentials since he and the Guardsman last met face to face on the platform at Aix-la-Chapelle.

But the eyes were unalterable. They were still resolute, and strangely calm, because he had nerved himself not to flinch before this strutting popinjay.

"You wonder why I have brought you in here, eh?" began Von Halwig, in English.

"Perhaps to gloat over me," was the quiet reply.

"No. Is it necessary? At Aix I was excited. The Day had come. The Day of which we Germans have dreamed for many a year. I am young, but I have already won promotion. I belong to an irresistible army. War steadies a man. But when we reach Oombergen you will be paraded before a crusty old General, and even I, Von Halwig of the staff, and a friend of the Emperor, may not converse with a spy and a murderer. So we shall have a little chat now. What say you?"

"It all depends what you wish to talk about."

"About you and her ladyship, of course."

"May I ask whom you mean by 'her ladyship'?"

"Isn't that correct English?"

"It can be, if applied to a lady of t.i.tle. But when used with reference presumably to a young lady who is a governess, it sounds like clumsy sarcasm."

"Governess the devil! With whom, then, have you been roaming Belgium?"

"Miss Irene Beresford, of course."

"You're not a fool, Captain Dalroy. Do you honestly tell me you don't _know_?"

"Know what?"

"That the girl you brought from Berlin is Lady Irene Beresford, daughter of the Earl of Glas...o...b..ry."

There was a moment of intense silence. In some ways it was immaterial to Dalroy what social position had been filled by the woman he loved. But, in others, the discovery that Irene was actually the aristocrat she looked was a very vital and serious thing. It made clear the meaning of certain references to distinguished people, both in Germany and in England, which had puzzled him at times. Transcending all else in importance, it might even safeguard her from German malevolence, since the Teuton pays an absurd homage to mere rank.

"I did not know," he said, and his voice was not so thoroughly under control as he desired.

Von Halwig laughed loudly. "_Almachtig!_" he spluttered, "our smart corporal of hussars seems to have spoiled a romance. What a pity! You'll be shot before midnight, my gallant captain, but the lady will be sent to Berlin with the utmost care. Even I, who have an educated taste in the female line, daren't wink at her. Has she never told you why she bolted in such a hurry?"

"No."

"Never hinted that a royal prince was wild about her?"

"No."

"Well, you have my word for it. _Himmel!_ women are queer."

"She has suffered much to escape from your royal prince."

"She'll be returned to him now, slightly soiled, but nearly as good as new."

"I wish my hands were not tied."

"Oh, no heroics, please. We have no time for nonsense of that sort. Is the light irritating you? I'll put it here."

Von Halwig stooped, and placed the torch on the broken ladder. Its radiance illumined an oval of the rough, square stones with which the barn was paved. Thenceforth, the vivid glare remained stationary. The two men, facing each other at a distance of about six feet, were in shadow. They could see each other quite well, however, in the dim borrowed light, and the Guardsman flicked the ash from his cigarette.

"You're English, I'm German," he said. "We represent the positive and negative poles of thought. If it hurts your feelings that I should speak of Lady Irene, let's forget her. What I really want to ask you is this--why has England been so mad as to fight Germany?"