Barbarians

"What's that for?" he demanded harshly. "Are you afraid to love me? Do you think I'm the kind of lover to stop for a thing like that–"

She said, in a low, distinct voice:

"Don't move! Put up both hands instantly!"

"What!" he snapped out, like the crack of a lash.

"I know who you are. You're a Boche and no Yankee! Turn your back and raise your arms!"

For a moment they looked at each other.

"I think," she said, steadily, "you had better explain your gas cylinders and balloons to the gendarmes at the Poste."

"No," he said, "I'll explain them to you, now!–"

"If you touch your pistol, I fire!–"

But already he had whipped out his pistol; and she fired instantly, smashing his right hand to pulp.

"You damned hell-cat!" he screamed, stretching out his shattered hand in an agony of impotent fury. Blood rained from it on the stone flags. Suddenly he started toward her.

"Don't stir!" she whispered. "Turn your back and raise both arms!"

His face became ghastly.

"Let me go, in God's name!" he burst out in a strangled voice. "Don't send me before a firing squad! Listen to me, little comrade—I surrender myself to your mercy–"

"Then keep away from me! Keep your distance!" she cried, retreating. He followed, fawning:

"Listen! We were such good comrades–"

"Don't come any nearer to me!" she called out sharply; but he still shuffled toward her, whimpering, drenched in blood, both hands uplifted.

"Kamerad!" he whined, "Kamerad—" and suddenly launched a kick at her.

She just avoided it, springing behind the bell Bayard; and he rushed at her and struck with both uplifted arms, showering her with blood, but not quite reaching her.

In the darkness among the beams and the deep shadows of the bells she could hear him hunting for her, breathing heavily and making ferocious, inarticulate noises, as she swung herself up onto the first beam above and continued to crawl upward.

"Where are you, little fool?" he cried at length. "I have business with you before I cut your throat—that smooth, white throat of yours that I kissed down there by the lavoir!" There was no sound from her.

He went back toward the stairs and began hunting about in the starlight for his pistol; but there was no parapet on the bell platform, and he probably concluded that it had fallen over the edge of the tower into the street.

Supporting his wounded hand, he stood glaring blankly about him, and his bloodshot eyes presently fell on the door to the stairs. But he must have realized that flight would be useless for him if he left this girl alive in her bell-tower, ready to alarm the town the moment he ran for the stairs.

With his left hand he fumbled under his tunic and disengaged a heavy trench knife from its sheath. The loss of blood was making his legs a trifle unsteady, but he pulled himself together and moved stealthily under the shadows of beam and bell until he came to the spot he selected. And there he lay down, the hilt of the knife in his left hand, the blade concealed by his opened tunic.

His heavy groans at last had their effect on the girl, who had climbed high up into the darkness, creeping from beam to beam and mounting from one tier of bells to another.

Standing on the lowest beam, she cautiously looked out through an oubliette and saw him lying on his back near the sheer edge of the roof.

Evidently he, also, could see her head silhouetted against the stars, for he called up to her in a plaintive voice that he was bleeding to death and unable to move.

After a few moments, opening his eyes again, he saw her standing on the roof beside him, looking down at him. And he whispered his appeal in the name of Christ. And in His name the little bell-mistress responded.

When she had used the blue kerchief at her neck for a tourniquet and had checked the hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a better opportunity to employ his knife. It would not do to bungle the affair. And he thought he knew how it could be properly done—if he could get her head in the crook of his muscular elbow.

"Lift me, dear ministering angel," he whispered weakly.

She stooped impulsively, hesitated, then, suddenly terrified at the blazing ferocity in his eyes, she shrank back at the same instant that his broad knife flashed in her very face.

He was on his feet at a bound, and, as she raised her voice in a startled cry for help, he plunged heavily at her, but slipped and fell in his own blood. Then the clattering jingle of spurred boots on the stone stairs below caught his ear. He was trapped, and he realized it. He slowly got to his feet.

As Smith and Glenn appeared, springing out of the low-arched door, the muleteer Braun turned and faced them.

There was a silence, then Glenn said, bitterly:

"It's you, is it, you dirty Dutchman!"

"Hands up!" said Smith quietly. "Come on, now; it's a case of 'Kamerad' for yours."

Braun did not move to comply with the demand. Gradually it dawned on them that the man was game.

"Maryette!" he called; "where are you?"

Smith said curiously:

"What do you want with her, Braun?"

"I want to speak to her."

"Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn sullenly.

The girl crept out of the shadows. Her face was ghastly.

Braun looked at her with pallid scorn:

"You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I'd have made you a better lover than you'll ever have now!"

He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt, turned without a glance at Smith and Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And as he fell there between sky and earth, hurtling downward under the stars, Glenn's pistol flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair while falling.

"Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely, turning on Smith. "Ain't that me all over!—soft-hearted enough to do that skunk a kindness thataway!"

But his youthful voice was shaking, and he stared at the edge of the abyss, listening to the far tumult now arising from the street below.

"Did you shoot?" he inquired, controlling his nervous voice with an effort.

"Naw," said Smith disgustedly. "… Now, Maryette, put one arm around my neck, and me and the Kid will take you down them stairs, because you look tired—kind o' peeked and fussed, what with all this funny business going on–"