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Show WfV:M Author cf "Cardigan" The Conspirators" Maids -at -Anns' etc Stunned for an instant, the Countess stood there motionless, her face turned towards the window. I struggled to sit upright. "Where is the safest plaee for us to stay?" she asked. Her voice was perfectly steady. "In the cellar. I beg you to go at once." Bang! A shell blew up in a shower of slates and knocked a chimney into a heap of bricks. "Do you insist on staying by that loop-hole?" she asked, without a quiver in her voice. "Yes, I do," said L "Will you go to the cellar?" "No," she said, shortly. I saw her walk toward the rear of the room, hesitate, sink down by the edge of the bed and lay her face in the pillow. Shells rained fast on Morsbronn; nearer and nearer bellowed the guns; the plaster ceiling above my head cracked and fell in thin flakes, filling lllll'if f"! II s SYNOPSIS. Scarlett, an American soldier of fortune for-tune In the employ of the French Imperial Im-perial Police at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war. Is ordered to arrest John Huekhurst. a leader of the Com-munlKls Com-munlKls and suspected of having stolen the French crown Jewels. While searching search-ing for Huekhurst. Scarlett is ordered to arrest Countess de Vassart and her group of socialists and escort them to the Belgian Bel-gian border. Scarlett finds Sylvia Elven of the Odeon disguised as a peasant and curries her to La Trappe where the countess and her friends are assembled. All are arrested. The countess saves Scarlett from a fatal fall from the roof of the house. He denounces Buckhurst Hit the leader of the Reds and the counts coun-ts conducts 1dm to where Buckhurst is secreted. I CHAPTER IV. Continued. Buckhurst looked at me, long enough to see that the end of his rope had come. Then he slowly turned his deadly eyes on the girl before him. Scarlet to the roots of her hair, she stood there, utterly stunned. Then the sudden double beat of horses' hoofs broke out along the avenue below, be-low, and, through the red sunset I saw a dozen horsemen come scampering scamper-ing up the drive toward us. At the same moment I stepped out into the driveway to signal the riders, raising my hand. Instantly a pistol flashed then another an-other and another, and a dozen harsh voices shouted: "Houura! Hourra! Preussen!" "Mille tonnerre!" roared Delmont; "the Prussians are here!" "Look out! Stand back there! Get the women back!" I cried, as an Uhlan wheeled his horse straight ihrough a bed of geraniums and fired his horse-pistol at me. Delmont dragged the young Countess Count-ess to the shelter of an elm; Sylvia Blven and Tavernier followed; Buckhurst Buck-hurst ran to the carriage and leaped in. "No resistance!" bellowed Delmont, bs Bazard snatched up the pistol I had taken from Buckhurst. But the Invalid had already fired at a horseman, horse-man, and had gone down under the merciless hoofs with a lance through cis face. My first impulse was to shoot Buckhurst, Buck-hurst, and I started for him. I ran past Bazard's trampled body and fired at an Uhlan who had seized the horses which were attached to the carriage where Buckhurst sat. Again I ran around the wagon, through a clump of syringa bushes, and up the 6tone steps to the terrace, and after me galloped one of those incomparable in-comparable cossack riders an Uhlan, lance in rest, setting his wiry little horse to the stone steps with a loud "Hourra!" It was too steep a grade for the gallant horse. I flung my pistol in tho animal's face and the poor brute reared straight up and fell backward, rolling over and over with his unfortunate unfor-tunate rider, and falling with a tremendous tre-mendous splash into the pool below. "In God's name stop that!" roared Delmont. from below. "Give up, Scarlett! Scar-lett! They mean us no harm!" "Come down, hussar!" called an officer. of-ficer. "We respect your uniform." "Will you parity?" 1 asked, listening listen-ing intently for the gallop of my promised gendarmes. If I could only eain time and save Buckhurst. "Foulez-fous fous rendre? Out ou on?" shouted the officer, in his terrible ter-rible French. "Eh bien, . . . non!" I cried, and ran for the chateau. As I gained the doorway they shot at me, but I only the enraged Rittmeister, shaking his fist up at the brightening alarm signal. An Uhlan laid a heavy hand on the shoulder of the listening Countess; she tried to draw back, but he pushed her brutally into the carriage, and she stumbled and fell into the cushions beside me. Fever had already begun to turn my head; the jolting of the carriage brought me to my senses at times. If I could only have fainted, but I could not, and the agony grew so intense that I bit my lip through to choke the scream that strained my throat. Once it was, I think, very near daybreak day-break I came out of a dream in which I was swimming through oceans of water, drinking as I swam. The carriage car-riage had stopped. "Are you suffering?" came a low voice, close to my ear. "Madame, could I have a little water?" wa-ter?" I muttered. Very gently she laid me back. I was entirely without power to move below my waist, or to support my body. She filled my cap with river water and held it while I drank. After I had my fill she bathed my face, passing pass-ing her wet hands through my hair and over my eyes. The carriage moved on and I fainted. CHAPTER V. The Immortals. When I became conscious again I was lying on a table. Two men were leaning over me; a third came up, holding a basin. There was an odor of carbolic in the air. The man with the basin made a horrid grimace when he caught my eye; his face was a curious golden yellow, his eyes jet black, and at first I took him for a fever phantom. Then my bewildered eyes fastened on his scarlet fez, pulled down over his left ear, the sky-blue Zouave jacket, with its bright-yellow arabesques, ara-besques, the canvas breeches, leggings laced close over the thin shins and ankles of an Arab. And I knew him for a soldier of African riflemen, one of those brave children of the desert whom we called "Turcos," and whose faith in the greatness of France had never faltered since the first blue battalion bat-talion of Africa was formed under the eagles of the First Empire. "Hallo, Mustapha!" I said, faintly; "what are they doing to me now?" The Turco's golden-bronze visage relaxed; re-laxed; he saluted me. "Macache 6abir," he said; "they picked a bullet from your spine, my inspector." An officer in the uniform of a staff surgeon came around the table where I was lying. "A millimeter farther and that bullet bul-let would have cracked your spine. Remember that and keep off your feet. Ouf! The cannon are tuning up!" as a terrible discharge shattered the glass in the window panes beside me. "Where am I, doctor?" I asked. "Parbleu. in Morsbronn! Can't you hear the orchestra, zim-bam-zim! The Prussians are playing their Wagner music for us. Here, swallow this. How do you feel now?" "Sleepy. Did you say a day or two, doctor?" "I said a week or two perhaps longer. I'll look In this evening if I'm not up to my chin in amputations. mons; the young officer stepped to the loop-hole and looked out, then hastily removed his helmet and thrust his blond head through the smoky aperture. aper-ture. "March those prisoners in be- ! low!" he shouted down. A moment later came a trample of feet on the landing outside, the door was flung open, and three prisoners were brutally pushed into the room. I tried to turn and look at them; they stood in the dusk near the bed, but I could only make out that one was a Turco, his jacket in rags, his canvas breeches covered with mud. Again the lieutenant came to the loop-hole and glanced out, then shook his head, motioning the soldiers back. "It is too high and the arc of fire too limited." he said, shortly. "Detail four men to hold the stairs, ten men and a sergeant in the room below, and you'd better take your prisoners down there. Bayonet that Turco tiger if he shows his teeth again. March!" As the prisoners filed out I turned once more and thought I recognized Salah Ben Ahmed in the disheveled Turco, but could not be certain, so disfigured and tattered the soldier appeared. ap-peared. Under the windows the flat, high-pitched high-pitched drums began to rattle; deep voices shouted; the whole street undulated un-dulated with masses of gray-and-black uniforms, moving forward through the smoke. A superb regimental band began be-gan to play; the troops broke out into heavy cheering. "Vorwarts! Vorwarts!" came the steady commands. "The invasion has begun," I said. Her face was expressionless, save for the brightness of her eyes. Suddenly a company of pioneers arrived ar-rived on the double-quick, halted, fell out, and began to break down the locked doors of the houses on either side of the street. At the same time Prussian infantry came hurrying past, dragging behind them dozens of vehicles, vehi-cles, long hay-wagons, gardeners' carts, heavy wheelbarrows, even a dingy private carriage, with tarnished lamps, rocking crazily on nv?ty springs. The soldiers wheeled tbase wagons into a double line, forming a complete chain across the street, where the Turcos Tur-cos had commenced to dig their ditch and breastworks a barricade high enough to check a charge, and cunningly cun-ningly arranged, too, for the wooden abatis could not be seen from th! eastern end of the street, where a charge of French infantry or cavalry must enter Morsbronn if it entered at all. "Something is going to happen," I said, as a group of smartly uniformed officers appeared on the roof of the opposite house and hastily scrambled to the ridgepole. A colonel of infantry, splendidly mounted, drew bridle under our loophole loop-hole and looked up at the officers on the roof across the way. "Attention, you up there!" he shouted. shout-ed. "Is it infantry?" "No!" bawled an officer, hollowed hand to his cheek. "It's their brigade of heavy cavalry coming like an earthquake! earth-quake! " "The 'cuirassiers!" I cried, electrified. electri-fied. "It's Michel's cuirassiers, mad-I mad-I dame! And oh, the barricade!" I groaned, twisting my fingers in helpless help-less rage. "They'll be caught in a trap; they'll die like Hies in that street." She sprang to her feet, stood a moment, then stepped swiftly forward into the angle of the tower. "Look there!" she cried, in terror. "Push my chair quick!" I said. She dragged it for-.ard. (TO EE CONIIXUKR) bir in a low voice, bent and kissed my hands. "Were you once an officer of our African battalions?" he asked, in the Arab tongue. "Sous-officier of spahi cavalry," I said, smiling. "And you are a Kabyle mountaineer from Constantine, I see." "It is true as I recite the fatha," cried the great fellow, beaming on me. The music of his long-forgotten tongue refreshed me; old scenes and memories of the camp at Oran, the never-to-be-forgotten cavalry with the scarlet cloaks, rushed on me thick and fast; incidents, trivial matters of the bazaars, faces of comrades dead, came to me in flashes. My eyes grew moist, my throat swelled, I whimpered: Give me a drink, in God's name!" Again he held up the blue water-bottle. water-bottle. After a moment I said: "Is it a battle or a bousculade? But I need not ask; the cannon tell me enough. Are they storming the heights. Mustapha?" Mus-tapha?" "Macache comprendir," said the soldier, sol-dier, dropping into patois. "There is much noise, but we Turcos are here in Morsbronn, and we have seen nothing but sparrows." "Are you detailed to look after me?" He said he was, and I informed him that I needed nobody; that it was much more important for everybody that he should rejoin his battalion in the street below, where even now I could hear the Algerian bugles blowing blow-ing a silvery sonnerie "Garde a vous!" "I am Salah Ben-Ahmed, a marabout mara-bout of the Third Turcos," he said, proudly. "Have I my inspector's permission per-mission to go?" "Go, Salah Ben-Ahmed, the marabout," mara-bout," said I, laughing. The soldier stiffened to attention; his bronzed hand flew to his scarlet fez, and, "Salute! O my inspector!" he cried, sonorously, and was gone at a bound. I had been lying there motionless for an hour, my head on my hand, sniveling, when there came a knock at the door, and I hastily buttoned my blood-stained shirt to the throat, threw a tunic over my shoulders, and cried, "Come in!" A trick of memory and perhaps of physical weakness had driven from my mind all recollection of the Countess Count-ess de Vassart since I had come to my senses under the surgeon's probe. But at the touch of her fingers on the door outside, I knew that it could be nobody but my Countess. She entered noiselessly, bearing a bowl of broth and some bread; but when she saw me sitting there with eyes and nose all red and swollen from sniveling she set the bowl on a table and hurried to my side. "What is it? Is the pain so dreadful?" dread-ful?" she whispered. "No oh no. I'm only a fool, and quite hungry, madame." She brought the broth and bread and a glass of the most exquisite wine I ever tasted a wine that seemed to brighten the whole room with its liquid sunshine. "Do you know where you are?" she asked, gravely. "Oh yes in Morsbronn." "And in whose house, monsieur?" "I don't know " I glanced instinc tively at the tarnished coronet on the canopy above the bed. "Do you know, Madame la Comtesse?" "1 ought to," she said, faintly amused. "I was born in this room. It was to this house that I desired to come before my exile." After a silence I said, "I wish I could look out of the window." She went to the window and folded up the varnished blinds. "How dreadful the cannonade is growing," she said. "Wait! don't think of moving! I will push you close to the window, where you can see." Lying there, watching the slow shadows crawling out over the sidewalk, side-walk, I had been for some minutes thinking of my friend Mr. Huekhurst. when I heard the young Countess stirring stir-ring in the room behind me. "You are not going to be a cripple?" she said, as I turned my head. "Oh no, indeed!" said I. "Xor die?" she added, serjfusly. "How could a man die with an angel trnieht from heaven tn frnnrd him! "Look There!" She Cried in Terror. the room with an acrid, smarting du6t. Down the street a dull sound grew into a steady roar; the Turcos dropped pick and shovel and seized their rifles. "Garde! Garde a vous!" rang their startled bugles; the tumult increased to a swelling uproar, shouting, cheering, cheer-ing, the crash of shutters and of glass, and "The Prussians!" bellowed the captain. cap-tain. "Turcos charge!" His voice was lost; a yelling mass of soldiery burst into view; spiked helmets and bayonets glittering through the smoke, the Turcos were whirled about like brilliant butterflies in a tornado; the fusillade swelled to a stupefying din, exploding in one terrible crash; and, wrapped in lightning, light-ning, the Prussian onset passed. From the stairs below came the Found of a voiceless struggle, the trample and panting and clicking of steel, till of a sudden a voice burst out into a dreadful screaming. A shot followed silence another shot then the stairs outside shook under the rush of mounting men. As the door burst open I felt a touch on my arm; the Countess de Vassart stood erect and pale, one slender, slen-der, protecting hand resting lightly on my shoulder; a lieutenant of Prussian infantry confronted us. "I do not have you thrown into the street," he said to me, in excellent French, "because there has been no tiring from the windows in this village. vil-lage. Otherwise other measures. Be at ease, madame, I shall not harm your invalid." Under the window strident Prussian bugles were blowing a harsh sum- Ih x ""A 'l V1 (" ' S Hod the faster, springing up the stairway. stair-way. Here I stood, saber in hand, ready to stop the first man. Up the stairs rushed three Uhlans, cabers shining in the dim light from the window behind me; I laid my forefinger flat on the blade of my saber and shortened my arm for a thrust then there came a blinding flash, a roar, and I was down, trying to rise, until a clinched fist struck me in tho face and I fell flat on my back. They got me out to the terrace, and carried me to the lawn. One of the men brought a cup of water from the pool. "Hcrr Rittmeister." I said, faintly, "I had a prisoner here; he should be in the carriage. Is he?" Tho ollicer walked briskly over to the carriage. "Nobody here but two women and a scared peasant!" be called out. Two soldiers lifted me again and liore me away in the darkness. 1 was perfectly conscious. And all the while I was listening for the gallop of my gendarmes, not that 1 cared very much, now that Buckhurst Buck-hurst was gone. Suddenly the chapel bell of La Trappe rang out a startling peal; the Prussian captain shouted: "Stop that bell! Shoot every civilian in the house!" But the Uhlans, who rushed up the terrace, found the great doors bolted and the lower windows screened with steel shutters. On tho battlements of the south wing a red radiance grew brighter; pomebody had thrown wood into the iron basket of the ancient beacon, and set fire to it. "That teaches me a lesson!" bawled I She Filled My Cap With River Water. I l Take these every hour if in pain. Go ; to sleep, my son." j As I lay there on my long, cushioned ' chair, burning with that insatiable I thirst which, to thoroughly appreciate, one must be wounded, the door opened and a Turco soldier came into the room and advanced toward me on tiptoe. tip-toe. I beckoned him, and the tall, bronzed fellow came up, smiling, showing show-ing his snowy, pointed teeth under a crisp beard. "Water, Mustapha," I motioned with stiffened lips, and the good fellow un-slung un-slung his blue water-bottle and set It to my burning mouth. "Merci. mon brave!" I said. "May you dwell in Paradise with Ali, the fourth Caliph, the Lion of God!" I Tha Turco stared, muttered ik-3 Tel Pardon, I am only grateful, not impertinent." imper-tinent." I looked at her humbly, and she looked at me without the sligh; ,! expression. "Are you Knglish. Monster Scarlett?" Scar-lett?" she asked quietly. "American, madame." "And yet you take service under an emperor." "I have taken harder service than that." "Of necessity?" "Yes, madame." She was silent. "Would it amuse you to hear what I have been?" I said, smiling. "That is not the word." she said, quietly. "To hear of hardship helps one to understand the world." Suddenly a shell fell into the courtyard court-yard opposite, bursting immediately in a cloud of gravel which rained against our turret like hail. |