The Hosts of the Air Part 13

"My thought is vague yet."

"It's like an Arctic land outside. All footsteps, whether of men or horses, have been hidden by the snow. There is certainly no trail for us to follow."

"I know it, Weber, but it seems to me that Mademoiselle Lannes is calling to me. She tells me to bring her back."

The Alsatian glanced at John, but the young man's face was earnest. It was evident that he believed what he said.

"Mademoiselle Lannes may be calling to you," he said, "but how can you go, and where?"

"I don't know," repeated John obstinately, "but I mean to find her."

He walked irresolutely back and forth and his eye fell upon the register again. Certainly it had been moved once more. He had remembered just how it lay after he saw Weber's name there, and now it was turned much further to one side. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the candle and held it over the open pages. Then he saw written in a heavy hand just beneath Weber's name:

_Prince Karl of Auersperg, Zillenstein, Tyrol.

Luitpold Helmuth Schwenenger, " "

Captain Max Sanger, Dantzig, Prussia.

Suite of His Highness, twenty persons._

John understood thoroughly. He uttered a fierce cry of anger and grief, and Weber looked eagerly over his shoulder.

"We know now who has come," he said.

"Yes, we know," exclaimed John, "and I could wish that it had been anybody else! I hate this man! To me he represents all that is evil in the Old World, the concentrated wickedness of feudalism and I fear him, though not for myself! Weber, I can't bear to think of Julie Lannes in his hands! If it were von Arnheim or that young Kratzek or any normal German it would be different, but this man, Auersperg, is not of our time! He belongs to an older and worse age!"

"He is very hard and determined," said Weber. "In my secret work for France I have seen him more than once, and I know his character and family history thoroughly. An immense pride of birth and blood. Great courage and resolution and a belief that he, as a prince of the old stock, ent.i.tled to what he wishes."

"Out of place in our day."

"It may be. But war favors his beliefs, and now he holds the whip hand.

The beautiful Mademoiselle Julie was his prisoner for a short time before, and you will pardon me for telling you, what you must have surmised, Mr. Scott, that her youth, her marvelous beauty and her courage and spirit, so befitting one who bears the name of Lannes, have made a great appeal to His Highness. That is why, under the cover of storm and battle, he has carried her away."

"The monster!"

"Not so bad as that, Mr. Scott. There are some things that even a prince would not dare in this comparatively mild age of ours. The Prince of Auersperg is a widower with no children. He will offer her a morganatic marriage."

"A morganatic marriage! And what is that? Neither the one nor the other.

It's a disgrace for any woman! A mere halfway marriage!"

"It would be legal, and she'd have a t.i.tle."

"A t.i.tle! What would that amount to?"

"I've heard that you Americans are fond of t.i.tles, and that your rich women bring their daughters to Europe to marry them!"

"An infinitesimal minority, Weber. It's true that we have such foolish women, but the rest of us regard them with contempt."

"He could offer her vast wealth and even as a morganatic wife a great position."

"I think you're testing me. Weber, trying to see what I will say. Well, I will say this. I don't believe that Julie would accept Auersperg on any terms, not if he were to make her a real princess of the oldest princely house in the world, not if he were to lay the fortunes of the Rothschilds at her feet. She is of good French republican stock, and she is a thorough republican herself."

Weber smiled a little.

"Your faith in Mademoiselle Lannes is great," he said, "and I can see that it proceeds, in part at least, from a just and pure emotion."

John reddened. He saw that he had laid bare his soul, but he was not ashamed. Once more he strengthened his heart and now he resolved upon a plan.

"The snowfall is decreasing fast," he said. "Auersperg and his troop can't be far from here. The traveling is too hard for them to travel swiftly, even if they have automobiles. I shall go to the hospital camp, raise a force and search the country. The commandant will give me soldiers readily, because it would be worth while to capture such a man as Auersperg--behind our lines, too."

"I don't wish to discourage you," said Weber, "but I doubt whether you can find him."

"Maybe so and maybe not," said John, and then he remembered the automobile in which Julie and the Picards had come. Doubtless it was safe behind the cathedral where they had left it, and he could force it through the snow much faster than he could walk.

"Come!" he exclaimed to Weber. "I know of a way to save time."

He rushed through the snow to the rear of the cathedral and Weber, without question, followed him. The automobile was there, well supplied, and John sprang into the front seat. He was no skillful driver, but he had learned enough to manage a machine in some fashion, and powerful emotions were driving him on.

"Up, Weber!" he cried.

"Which way are you going?"

"To the hospital camp, of course, and we'll just touch the top of the high-arched bridge over the river! The snowfall is decreasing fast, and soon we'll be able to see a long distance."

"We can do so now, and the moon is coming out, too. Heavens, Mr. Scott, it's come too soon, because it shows us to the enemy!"

He pointed with a long and shaking finger. At the far end of the street a ma.s.sive German column was emerging into view. John was startled.

"These are no raiders!" he exclaimed. "They must have broken through a portion of our lines and are attempting to flank other positions! But Chastel's hospitality for us is ended."

He put on full speed and drove the machine rapidly through the snow toward the river.

"We've another reason now why we should reach the camp!" he exclaimed.

"Our people must be warned of the presence of the Germans in force in Chastel!"

There was a crash of rifle fire and bullets struck all about them. Two or three glanced off the side of the machine itself, which a moment or two later ran into a deep drift and stuck there, panting.

Weber sprang out and threw himself flat in the snow. John instinctively did the same, and the second volley fired with better aim riddled the machine. There was a heavy explosion, it turned on its side, its wheels revolving for a moment or two, and then it lay still, like a dying monster.

John sprang to his feet and rushed for the shelter of a building only a few yards away. He saw Weber's shadow flitting by his side, but when he reached cover he found that he had lost him. Doubtless in the excitement of the moment the Alsatian had found hiding elsewhere. He was sorry that they had become separated, but Weber had a great ability to take care of himself, and John was quite sure that he would escape. The task that lay upon him now was to make good his own flight.

The building, the shelter of which he had reached, was a low brick structure, already much damaged by sh.e.l.ls and shrapnel. But the walls were thick enough to protect him for the moment from bullets, and flinging himself down in the deep snow he crouched in the shadow until he could regain sufficient breath for further flight. He heard more shots fired, but evidently random triggers only had been pulled, as no bullet struck near him.

The fall of snow ceased almost entirely, and the moon grew brighter and brighter. Chastel was a vast white ruin, tinted with silver, and as such it had an uncanny beauty of its own. But John, thankful that the snow was so deep, lay buried in it, where it had drifted against the wall.

The Germans in a town so near the French lines were not likely to make a diligent search for a single man, and he felt that he was safe if he did not freeze to death.

Peeping above the snow he saw about fifty German infantrymen walk down the road toward the river, their heavy boots crunching in the snow. They were stalwart, ruddy fellows, boys of twenty-one or two--he knew now that boys did most of the world's fighting--and he liked their simple, honest faces. He felt anew that he did not hate the German people; instead he felt friendship for them, but he did hate more intensely than ever the medieval emperors and the little group of madmen about them who, almost without warning, could devote millions to slaughter. An intense democrat in the beginning and becoming more intense in the furnace of war, he believed that the young German peasants coming down the road would have much more chance before the Judgment Seat than the princes and generals who so lightly sent them there.

The soldiers went on a little distance beyond the edge of the town. The cessation of the snow and the brilliant moonlight enabled them to see far into the plain below, where the hospital camp lay. John, looking in the same direction, saw little wisps of smoke rising above the blur of the camp, but the distance was too great for him to detect anything else.

The low note of the trumpet called to the young troops, and they turned back into the town. John rose from his covert, brushed the snow from his clothing, beat his chest with his fists, and increased the circulation which would warm his body anew. Then he stood against the wall listening. He had no doubt that the Germans would go away presently--there was nothing to keep them in Chastel--and he made a sudden shift in his plans. He would go back to the Hotel de l'Europe, and stay there until day. Lannes would surely come in the morning. He had no doubt that at daybreak he would see the lithe and sinuous figure of the _Arrow_ shooting down from the blue depths, and then he and her brother would go away in search of Julie. Looking down from the air and traveling at almost unbelievable speed, their chances of finding Auersperg's party would be a hundred times better than if he merely prowled along on the ground.