The Flying Legion Part 16

"Thank you for your consideration," she smiled. "It is on a par with my conception of your character."

"Pray spare me your comments," he replied, coldly. He returned to his desk, but did not sit down there. Against it he leaned, crossed his arms, and with somewhat lowered head studied her. "Your explanation, madam?"

"My papers are _en regle_," said she. "My decorations are genuine.

Numbers of women went through the great war as men. I am one of them, that is all. Many were never discovered. Those who were, owed it to wounds that brought them under observation. Had I not been wounded, you would never have known. I could have exercised my skill as a nurse, without the fact of my s.e.x becoming apparent.

"That was what I was hoping for and counting on. I wanted to serve this expedition both as a flyer and as a nurse. Fate willed otherwise.

A chance bullet intervened. You know the truth. But I feel confident, already, that my secret is safe with you."

The light on her forehead, still a little ridged and reddened by the pressure of the edge of the mask, showed it broad, high, intelligent.

Her eyes were deep and eager with a kind of burning determination. The hand she had rested on the table clenched with the intensity of her appeal:

"Let me stay! Let me serve you all! I ask no more of life than that!"

The Master, knotting together the loose threads of his emotion, came a step nearer.

"Your name, madam!" he demanded.

"I cannot tell you. I am Captain Alfred Alden to you, still. Just that. Nothing more."

"You continue insubordinate? Do you know, madam, that for this I could order you bound hand and foot, have you laid on the trap in the lower gallery, and command the trap to be sprung?"

His face grew hard, deep-lined, almost savage as he confronted her--the only being who now dared stand against his will. She smiled oddly, as she answered:

"I know all that, perfectly well. And I know the open Atlantic lies a mile or two below us, in the empty night. Nevertheless, you shall not learn my name. All I shall tell you is this--that I am really an aviator. 'Aviatrix' I despise. I served as 'Captain Alden' for eight months on the Italian front and twenty-one months on the Western. I am an ace. And--"

"Never mind about all that!" the Master interrupted, raising his hand. "You are a woman! You are here under false colors. You gained admission to this Legion by means of false statements--"

"Ah, no, pardon me! Did I ever claim to be a man?"

"The impression you gave was false, and was calculated to be so. This is mere quibbling. A lie can be acted more effectively than spoken.

All things considered, your life--"

"Is forfeited, of course. I understand that perfectly well. And that means two things, as direct corollaries. First, that you lose a trained flyer and a woman with Red Cross training; a woman you may sorely need before this expedition is done. Second, you deny a human being who is just as eager as you are for life and the spice of adventure, just as hungry for excitement as you or any man here--you deny me all this, everything, just because a stupid accident of birth made me a woman!"

Her clenched right fist pa.s.sionately struck the table at her side.

"A man's world! That's what this world is called; that's what it is!

And you--of all men--are living down to that idea! You--_the Master!_"

The man's face changed color. It grew a little pale, with deepening lines. He pa.s.sed a hand over his forehead, a hand that for the first time trembled with indecision. His strong teeth gnawed at his lower lip. Never before had he lacked words, but now he found none.

The woman exclaimed, her voice incisive, eager, her eyes burning:

"It is because you _are_ a master of men, and of yourself, that I have taken this chance! It is because I have heard of your absolute sense of justice and fair play, your appreciation of unswerving loyalty and of the heart that dares! Now you understand. I have only one more thing to say."

"And what is that?"

"If you respect my secret and let me go with you on this great enterprise, no man aboard the Eagle of the Sky will serve you any more loyally than I. No man will venture more, endure more, suffer more--if suffering has to be. I give you my word of honor on that, as a fighter and--a woman!"

"Your word of honor as--"

"A woman! Do you understand?"

Silence again. Their eyes met. The Master's were first to lower.

"Your life is spared," he answered. "That is a concession to your s.e.x, madam. Had you been a man, I would inevitably have put you to death.

As it is, you shall live. And you shall remain with us--"

"Thank G.o.d for that!"

"Till we reach land. There you must leave _Nissr_."

"I shall not leave it alive," the woman declared, her eyes showing dilated pupils of resentment, of anger. "I haven't come this far to be thrown aside like a bit of worthless gear!"

"You and your machine will be cast off, over the first land we touch,"

the Master repeated doggedly. "Whatever information you may give, cannot injure us, and--"

"Stop! Not another word like that, to me!"

Her eyes were blazing now; her right fist quivered in air.

"You accuse me of treason," she cried. "Oh, what injustice, what--"

"I accuse you of nothing, save of having deceived us all, and of being very much _deplacee_ here. The deception shall continue, as far as the others are concerned. You came to us, as a man. You shall go as one. Your secret shall be absolutely respected, by me. But, madam, understand one thing clearly."

"What is that?" she demanded, still trembling with indignation.

"The fact that you are a woman has no weight with me, so far as your persuading me to let you remain of the party may be concerned. Women have never counted in my life. Their wiles, arts, graces, tears, mean nothing to me. Their entreaties seem futile. Their arguments appear like trivial puerilities.

"Other men are sometimes influenced by such. I tell you now, madam, I shall not be. Your entreaties will have no weight. When the time comes for you to leave _Nissr_, I trust you will go quietly, with no distressing scene."

A certain grimness showed in the woman's face, making it sternly heroic as the face of Medea or Zen.o.bia. She answered:

"Do you think me the type that entreats, that sheds tears, that exercises wiles?"

"We won't discuss your personality, madam! This interview is drawing to an end. Until we reach land, nothing can be done. Nothing, but to look out for your injury. Common humanity demands that your wound be dressed. Is it a serious hurt?"

"Not compared with the hurt you are inflicting, in banishing me from the Flying Legion!"

"Come, madam, refrain from extravagant speeches! What is your wound?"

"A clean shot through the left arm, I think, a little below the shoulder."

"I realize, of course, that to have Dr. Lombardo dress it would reveal your s.e.x. Could you in any way manage the dressing, yourself?"

"If given antiseptics and bandages, yes."

"They shall be furnished, also a stateroom."