Barbarians

She looked up at the young man, met his eyes, and looked elsewhere, gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.

On the doorstep of the house they paused. "Is it possible," she asked, "that an enemy aëroplane could land in the Aulnes Étang?—L'Étang aux Vanneaux?"

"In the Étang?" he repeated, a little startled. "How large is it, this Étang aux Vanneaux?"

"It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds—like a man without a face—and only two great eyes—" She forced a pale smile. "Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen dress that way.... I wondered–"

He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache.

"One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions—a new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer.

"It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usual Albatross type, with a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and a very large crew.

"And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class automobile."

"Has such an one been seen in Brittany?"

"Such a machine has been reported—many, many times—as though not one but hundreds were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting to us—a report has arrived from a distant and totally independent source—from Sweden—that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in Germany by the hundreds."

After a moment's silence she stepped into the house; he followed.

The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age had more than softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings, it had rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and monotonous.

Her chair and workbasket stood by a latticed window; she seated herself and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel clock—a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself and containing the works, bell and dial.

When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug of annoyance.

"I can't do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?"

She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him through the house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.

When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering their striking mechanism—that every clock in the house persisted in striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.

As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors, through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts; of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.

And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had turned to mould—where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where only the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was slowly yielding—under the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries, moth and dust and rust.

CHAPTER X

THE GHOULS

They dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne served them—old Anne of Fäouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette, her velvet bodice and her chaussons broidered with the rose.

Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver—garrulous, deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that second infancy which comes before the night.

"Ouidame! It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin and end in the Woods of Aulnes—alas!—in the Woods and the House of Aulnes–"

"The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.

"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young, Monsieur—and the world was young, too, mon Capitaine—hélas!—but the Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is older, beau jeune homme—only the sea is older—the sea which always was and will be."

"Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "—to France!—I have the honour—" She touched her glass to his and they saluted France with the ancient wine of France—a sip, a faint smile, and silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment.

"This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking. But—but there will be sun enough another year."

"Yes."

"B'en oui! The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the Woods of Aulnes. Non pas. There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with Our Lady of Aulnes in shining vestments all–"

"She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear.

"In shining robes of grace—oui-da!—the martyrs and the acolytes of God. It is I who tell you, beau jeune homme—I, Anne of Fäouette. I saw them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed Lady–"

"She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the châtelaine of Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.

Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes—some graceful shade come back out of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles—the exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vendée drowned and washed it out in blood.

"I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident, in months."

Old Anne of Fäouette laid them fresh napkins and set two crystal bowls beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat.

"Ho fois!" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods of Aulnes; they never change—they never change.... The golden people of Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."

The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the trees."

"Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine! And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth, no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair—the Loup-Garou!—O Lady of Aulnes, adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"

The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content, so full of faith in months–"

A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling, swinging wide, drifting against the dying light of day, southward toward the sea.

"There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.

Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds.

"Is there a path to the Étang?" he asked quietly.

"Yes. I will go with you–"

"No."

"Why?"

"No. Show me the path."

His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the house, L'Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not speak of it to each other. At the forest's edge he halted: "Is this the path?"

"Yes.... May I not go?"