The Girl from Alsace Part 35

Again Stewart awoke with the sun in his eyes, and after a moment's confused blinking, he looked around to find himself alone.

The dull pain in his shoulder as he sat up reminded him of his wound.

Crawling a little distance back among the bushes, he slipped out of his coat. His shirt was soaked with blood half-way down the right side--a good sign, Stewart told himself. He knew how great a show a little blood can make, and he was glad that the wound had bled freely. He unb.u.t.toned his shirt and gingerly pulled it back from the shoulder, for the blood had dried in places and stuck fast; then he removed the folded handkerchief, and the wound lay revealed.

He could just see it by twisting his head around, and he regarded it with satisfaction, for, as he had thought, it was not much more than a scratch. A bullet had grazed the shoulder-bone, plowed through the muscle and sped on its way, leaving behind, as the only sign of its pa.s.sage, a tiny black mark.

"You are wounded!" cried a strangled voice, and in an instant his comrade was on her knees beside him, her face pale, her lips working.

"And you did not tell me! Oh, cruel, cruel!"

There was that in the voice, in the eyes, in the trembling lips which sent Stewart's heart leaping into his throat. But, by a mighty effort, he kept his arms from around her.

"Nonsense!" he said, as lightly as he could. "That's not a wound--it is just a scratch. This one across my cheek hurts a blamed sight worse! If I could only wash it----"

"There is a little stream back yonder," she said, and sprang to her feet. "Come! Or perhaps you cannot walk!" and she put her arms around him to help him up.

He rose with a laugh.

"Really," he protested, "I don't see how a scratch on the shoulder could affect my legs!"

But she refused to make a jest of it.

"The blood--it frightens me. Are you very weak?" she asked, anxiously, holding tight to him, as though he might collapse at any instant.

"If I am," said Stewart, "it is from want of food, not from loss of blood. I haven't lost a spoonful. Ah, here's the brook!"

He knelt beside it, while she washed the blood from his handkerchief and tenderly bathed the injured shoulder. Stewart watched her with fast-beating heart. Surely she cared; surely there was more than friendly concern in that white face, in those quivering lips. Well, very soon now, he could put it to the touch. He trembled at the thought: would he win or lose?

"Am I hurting you?" she asked, anxiously, for she had felt him quiver.

"Not a bit--the cool water feels delightful. You see it is only a scratch," he added, when the clotted blood had been cleared away. "It will be quite well in two or three days. I sha'n't even have a scar! I think it might have left a scar! What's the use of being wounded, if one hasn't a scar to show for it? And I shall probably never be under fire again!"

She smiled wanly, and a little color crept back into her face.

"How you frightened me!" she said. "I came through the bushes and saw you sitting there, all covered with blood! You might have told me--it was foolish to lie there all night without binding it up. Suppose you had bled to death!" and she wrung out the handkerchief, shook it out in the breeze until it was nearly dry, and bound it tightly over the wound.

"How does that feel?"

"It feels splendid! Really it does," he added, seeing that she regarded him doubtfully. "If I feel the least little twinge of pain, I will notify you instantly. I give you my word!"

They sat for a moment silent, gazing into each other's eyes. It was the girl who stirred first.

"I will go to the edge of the wood and reconnoiter," she said, rising a little unsteadily, "while you wash your hands and face. Or shall I stay and help?"

"No," said Stewart, "thank you. I think I am still able to wash my own face--that is, if you think it's any use to wash it!" and he ran his fingers along his stubbly jaws. "Do you think you will like me with a beard?"

"With a beard or without one, it is all the same!" she answered, softly, and slipped quickly away among the trees, leaving Stewart to make what he could of this cryptic utterance.

Despite his gnawing hunger, despite his stiff shoulder and sore muscles, he was very, very happy as he bent above the clear water and drank deep, and bathed hands and face. How good it was to be alive! How good it was to be just here this glorious morning! With no man on earth would he have changed places!

He did not linger over his toilet. Every moment away from his comrade was a moment lost. He found her sitting at the edge of the wood, gazing down across the valley, her hair stirring slightly in the breeze, her whole being radiant with youth. He looked at her for a moment, and then he looked down at himself.

"What a scarecrow I am," he said, and ruefully contemplated a long tear in his coat--merely the largest of half a dozen. "And I lost my collar in that dash last night--I left it on the bank, and didn't dare stop to look for it. Even if we met the Germans now, there would be no danger--they would take us for tramps!"

"I know I look like a scarecrow," she laughed; "but you might have spared telling me!"

"You!" cried Stewart. "A scarecrow! Oh, no; you would attract the birds.

They would find you adorable!"

His eyes added that not alone to the birds was she adorable.

She cast one glance at him--a luminous glance, shy yet glad; abashed yet rejoicing. Then she turned away.

"There is a village over yonder," she said. "We can get something to eat there, and find out where we are. Listen! What is that?"

Away to the south a dull rumbling shook the horizon--a mighty shock as of an earthquake.

"The Germans have got their siege-guns into position," he said. "They are attacking Liege again."

Yes, there could be no doubt of it; murder and desolation were stalking across the country to the south. But nothing could be more peaceful than the fields which stretched before them.

"There is no danger here," said Stewart, and led the way down across the rough pasture to the road.

As he mounted the wall, moved by some strange uneasiness, he stopped to look back toward the east; but the road stretched white and empty until it plunged into a strip of woodland a mile away.

Somehow he was not rea.s.sured. With that strange uneasiness still weighing on him, a sense of oppression as of an approaching storm, he sprang down beside the girl, and they set off westward side by side. At first they could not see the village, which was hid by a spur of rising ground; then, at a turn of the road, they found it close in front of them.

But the road was blocked with fallen trees, strung with barbed wire--and what was that queer embankment of fresh, yellow earth which stretched to right and left?

"The Belgians!" cried the girl. "Come! We are safe at last!" and she started to run forward.

But only for an instant. As though that cry of hers was an awaited signal, there came a crash of musketry from the wooded ridge to the right, and an answering crash from the crest of the embankment; and Stewart saw that light and speeding figure spin half round, crumple in upon itself, and drop limply to the road.

CHAPTER XV

DISASTER

He was beside her in an instant, his arm around her, raising her. He scarcely heard the guns; he scarcely heard the whistle of the bullets; he knew only, as he knelt there in the road, that his little comrade had been stricken down.

Where was she wounded?

Not in the head, thank G.o.d! Not in the throat, so white and delicate.

The breast, perhaps, and with trembling fingers he tore aside the coat.