Who Goes There!

Michaud, on the other side, reared himself on his hands and lay watching the west.

"It is too early for the sun," he said. "That is a fire."

Pinker, ruddier, redder grew the western sky. Silent, intent, forester, garde-de-chasse, charcoal burner, strained their keen eyes.

Then a heavy sigh like a groan escaped Michaud.

"The Lodge," he said, hoarsely, under his breath. "Oh God, my master's home."

All around among the rocks men were drawing deep breaths, muttering, restless; their eyes were fixed like the eyes of caged wild things.

"The Grey Wolves," growled an old garde – "Ah, the cowards – the dirty Prussian whelps! Ah! Look at that; my God! Marie adored, Virgin of Lesse; stand by us now!"

Against the sky specks like tinsel twinkled; smoke became visible.

"House, stables, granneries, quarters, garage, all are on fire," said Michaud in a mechanical voice. His face was grey and without expression, his words accentless.

The smoke appeared further north.

"The cattle-barns and the hay-stacks," he went on monotonously… Beyond are the green-houses, runs, dove-cotes, and our little shop… They are now afire… Everything is on fire. Lesse is burning, burning… The stubble beyond is burning… And beyond that the nursery acres – the seedlings and the – Marie adored, Virgin of Lesse, have pity on my little trees – my nurslings – my darlings – "

"Hark!" whispered Guild. Far away up the ride horses were coming at a heavy trot; and now the noise of wheels became audible. And now below them two German dragoons cantered into view, carbines poised; a waggon passed – a strange grey vehicle driven by a grey-clad soldier wearing a vizorless forage cap. It was piled with dead pigeons and chickens. Behind that another waggon followed, all splashed with blood, and in it swayed and jolted the carcasses of dead pigs freshly killed, lurching and slipping over the crimsoned straw. Behind galloped six Uhlans, their lances perpendicular in the buckets, the cords from their cloth-covered schapskas bellying behind.

"Not a shot!" said Michaud in a perfectly distinct voice, pushing up the rifle of the old garde-de-chasse. "There is nothing to do now, nom de Dieu! – for the necks of our fowls are already wrung and the dead hogs are tasting their own boudin. Our affair is with the living pigs."

After a few moments more dragoons came, trotting their superb horses along the ride, alertly scanning the woods to right and left as they passed, their carbines at a ready.

Waggons followed – hay waggons, carts loaded with potato sacks, straw, apples, bags of flour, even firewood and bundles of faggots – a dozen vehicles or more of every description.

"Ours," said Michaud in his emotionless tones. "What they could not take is burning yonder."

More grey dragoons closed the file of waggons, then a dozen Uhlans, who turned frequently in their saddles and kept looking back.

"Scoundrels!" muttered the garde-de-chasse, laying his rifle level; but Michaud turned on him and struck up the weapon.

"Thou!" he said coldly – "do thy duty when I tell thee, or I become angry."

Somebody said: "There are no more. We have not bled one single wolf!"

"Look yonder," whispered Guild.

Out into the carrefour stepped briskly eight or ten German officers, smart and elegant and trim in their sea-grey uniforms and their spiked helmets shrouded with grey so that there was not a glitter from point to spur.

A dozen non-commissioned officers followed, carrying two military rifles apiece.

The officers looked curiously at the shrine of Our Lady of Lesse, and the sad-faced Virgin looked back at them out of her carven and sightless eyes.

One by one the officers took posts at the four corners of the grassy clearing or on the steps of the shrine. They were laughing and conversing; some smoked; some inspected the rifles brought up by their non-com gun-bearers. The sun had not yet risen; the silvery smoke of the Silverwiltz marked its high waterfall below the gorge of the glen; fern fronds drooped wet to the wet dead leaves beneath, matted grasses glistened powdered with dew.

In the still grey air of morning the smoke from the German officers' pipes and cigars rose upward in straight thin bands; a jeweled bracelet on the wrist of an infantry major reflected light like a frost crystal.

The officers ceased their careless conversation; one by one they became quiet, almost motionless where they had taken their several positions. Behind them, stiff and erect, the non-coms stood with the spare guns, rifles or fowling-pieces.

An air of silent expectancy settled over the carrefour; officer and non-com were waiting for something.

Michaud had already divined; Guild knew; so did Darrel. Every woodsman in The Pulpit knew. Some of them were trembling like leashed dogs.

Then in the forest a sound became audible like a far halloo. Distant answers came through the woodland silence, from north, from south – then from west and east.

Guild whispered to Darrel: "They are driving the forest! They have a regiment out to beat it!"

The German officers at their stands no longer moved as much as a finger. Against the grey trees they were all but invisible.

Suddenly out into the carrefour stepped a superb red stag, ears alert, beautiful head half turned at gaze. Instantly a rifle spoke; and the magnificent creature was down in the ride, scuffling, scrambling, only to fall and lie panting with its long neck lifted a little.

Crack! The antlered head fell.

Then out of the wood trotted three bewildered pigs – an old boar, a yearling on which the stripes were still visible, and a huge fierce sow. A ripple of rifle shots checked them; the old boar stood swinging his great furry head right and left; the yearling was down, twitching; the sow ran, screaming horribly. Two shots followed; the old boar kneeled down very quietly like a trick-horse in a circus, still facing his enemies. He did not look as though he were dead.

The yearling had ceased its twitching; the sow was down, too, a great lump of coarse black fur in the ditch.

Then the rifles began again; a company of little roe deer whirled into the ride and went down or stumbled with delicate limbs dangling broken, or leaped to a height incredible in the agony of a death wound.

Pell-mell after them galloped a whole herd of red deer; the German rifles rattled steadily. Now and then blasts from fowling-pieces dropped running or incoming pheasants, cock and hen alike; or crumpled up some twisting rabbit or knocked a great hare head over heels.

Faster and faster came the terrified wild things, stag, roe, boar, and hare; steadily the German rifles cracked and rattled out death; thicker and swifter pelted the meteor flight of pheasants; birds of all sorts came driving headlong in their flight; big drab-tinted wood-pigeons, a wild duck or two, widgeon and mallard; now and then a woodcock fluttered past like some soft brown bat beating the air; now and then a coq-de-la-bruyere, planing on huge bowed wings above collapsed and fell heavily to the loose roar of the fowling-pieces.

Crippled, mutilated creatures were heaped along the ride; over them leaped their panic-stricken comrades only to stumble in the rifle-fire and lie struggling or inert.

A veil of smoky haze made the carrefour greyer now, through which at intervals a dying stag lifted its long neck from the shambles about him or some strong feathered thing beat its broken wings impotently upon the grass.

Once a great boar charged, and was shot to pieces, spattering the steps of the shrine with blood. Once a wounded hare dragged its tortured body to the shrine, as though for sanctuary. A non-com swung it crashing against the granite cross.

And now a more sinister thing occurred. Out from the forest, amid the stampeding game, reeled a man! His blue smock hung in ribbons; one bleeding fist grasped a rifle; the cartridges en bandoulière glittered.

For a second he stood there, swaying, panting, bewildered in the smoke haze; then three non-coms fired at him at once.

At that he straightened up, stood so for a second as though listening, then he took one uncertain step and pitched into a patch of briers on his face.

Presently some German foot-soldiers appeared in the ride, moving cautiously, scanning every ditch, every hollow, every thicket, their rifles poised for a snap-shot. A roebuck floundered up and went off before them like the wind, unnoticed. Then one of the soldiers fired, and a boy jumped out from behind a hazel bush and started to run along the edge of the woods. He was followed by two sheep dogs.

"Jean Pascal!" said Michaud calmly. "May God pardon him now."

As the little shepherd ran, the soldiers stood and fired at him, aiming carefully. They broke his leg as he passed the carrefour. The lad raised himself from the ground to a sitting position and was sobbing bitterly, when they shot him again. That time he fell over on his side, his hands still covering his dead and tear-wet face. His dogs trotted around him, nuzzling him and licking his hands. An officer shot them both.

Schultz broke cover in a few moments, his rifle at his cheek; and, dropping to one knee in the ride, he coolly opened fire on the officers by the shrine. But he had time only for a single shot which jerked a spiked helmet from a cavalry major's clipped head. Then they knocked him flat.

As the herdsman lay gasping in the roadway with a bullet in his stomach, looking with dull and glazing eyes at the rifle flashes, three men from Yslemont – blackened, haggard, ragged creatures – burst out, fighting like wildcats with the beaters behind them.