# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 31/Number 3/The Prisoner in the Chateau

Extracted from Red Book magazine, July 1918, pp. 35–42, 131, 132. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted.
THE story of a lady of France who made of herself a prize of war, and of a gallant gentleman forced to a terrible choice. This is written by a genius who was unknown before the war.
Illustration: At the highest window of the Chateau, the Countess stood looking out into the night, her lover's letter pressed against her bosom. High above her flickered and spurted the endless rifle-flashes from his trenches.
The PRISONER in the CHATEAU
By F. BRITTEN AUSTIN
Illustrated by GRANT T. REYNARD
THE sun set while a regiment of Zouaves was marching across the plateau. The afterglow yet illumined the sky when the leading files turned obliquely off the right along a rough track that presently dropped abruptly into a deep ravine, cut by one of the streamlet tributaries of the Oise. Bare for a little way below the lip, save for some scattered juniper bushes stiffly perpendicular from the close-cropped slope, the sides of the ravine were dark with a dense growth of tree and thorn. The road plunged into it.
Down and down went the road in a gloomy tunnel of lurching boughs that scarce left an interstice for the twilight sky. It reached the floor of the little valley, followed it to the right in a more gentle descent. On its left a brook fell swiftly through a plantation of silver birch in a channel that brimmed to the long, rank, water-flattened grass and anon plashed over boulders in a miniature cascade. Save for the steady tramp of the marching troops and the occasional squawk of a frightened jay, there was no sound in the valley.
Mounted upon a magnificent black horse, the Colonel rode at the head of the column. Seen in profile, his face was remarkable—virile, powerful and intellectual. When it turned to full face, it fascinated. Not the steel gray eyes looked for under those level brows, but a pair of full-brown orbs, romantic as those of an Arab, met the gaze. He raised his hand as the column approached a pair of high ornamental-iron gates set in a frame of lofty arched stone and surmounted by a carved escutcheon, on the left side of the road. “Halt!”
Behind him there was a clatter of accouterments as the long column broke its ranks, settled itself in seated groups, with piled arms, by the roadside. In front the advance-guard, receiving the order from the connecting files, halted also. The Colonel walked his horse to the gates. The padlocked chain that had held them closed hung broken from one of the wrought-iron scrolls. The gates had evidently been forced. He pressed his horse's flank against one of them, slipped through the opening and set off at a trot down a long avenue of ancient poplars. His captain-adjutant, cantering up from the leading company, followed the wave of his hand.
Beyond the clearing of lawn and Cupid-crowned fountain into which the Colonel emerged lay a long, white stone mansion, picturesque but not remarkable in its seventeenth-century architecture. Every window was shuttered. Throwing the reins to his companion, he dismounted and with a gait stiff from long hours in the saddle, ascended the broad, curving steps to the main entrance.
Only at his second summons on the loud, harshly clanging bell was there any answering sign of life. One of the great doors opened slightly until checked by a chain, and a woman's voice asked: “Who is it?”
“French officers, madame. Is the patronne at home?”
“I cannot see you,” said the voice, evading the question.
The Colonel placed himself so as to be visible through the narrow aperture. “Attendez!” said the voice. The door closed again.
A minute or two of waiting in the chill, misty air, and once more the door opened, this time fully. “Entrez, monsieur!” said the voice.
He found himself in a large, lofty hall, dimly illumined by the candle held by a little, bent old woman. “Par ici, monsieur!” she said.
She led him through salon after salon. In the flickering light he could only just discern that they were richly furnished. At last she stopped and tapped at a closed door.
He was admitted into an apartment of costly and tasteful comfort, lighted with warm, soft radiance from a shaded pedestal-lamp. Pine-logs were burning on the hearth of a high stone fireplace. To one side stood a grand piano. A great dog stretched before the hearth growled surlily.
These were salient details he was scarcely conscious of noting. His eyes were held by the woman who rose from an armchair by the fire.
She was tall, gowned simply in soft, pale green, and the lamplight shimmered on the waved masses of her auburn hair as she moved. Not vulgarly beautiful,—the mouth was large, though well-cut,—an oval ivory-white face looked into his. No longer very young,—she was at least thirty,—her instantly, felt charm came accentuated by a hint of incomplete maturity. Those quiet eyes could still look at life with a questioning scrutiny, receptive of the new experience. They met his now, and a personality leaped into them, communed with him ere a word had been uttered. Only outwardly were they still strangers. He noticed, as he bowed courteously, fez in hand, that she wore no jewelry.
“Madame, I am the colonel of the Ninth Regiment of Zouaves. A necessity, that must be disagreeable to you, forces me to ask your hospitality for my officers and men.”
“For to-night only?” Her voice was singularly deep and rich.
“Perhaps for several, madame.”
“You are many?”
“Eleven hundred men and twenty officers.”
“A strong battalion!”
“Three battalions, madame,” he corrected gently.
The expression of the eyes, which had never left his, changed slightly. The wordless, languageless message they were exchanging with his own was interrupted. “Ah,” she said in a voice of sympathy, “you come from the battle? From the Marne?”
“Yes, madame. We were on the Ourcq. Since then, on the Aisne.”
Her face lighted up.
“But certainly! Who would refuse anything to the brave men who have saved France! You will excuse the coolness of your reception, Monsieur le Colonel? We have had other guests—less welcome.” The Colonel thought of the broken chain on the gate.
“Marie!” This to the old woman who stood by the door, shading the candle in her hand, incongruous in this luxurious apartment. “Place the large dining-room at the disposition of messieurs les officiers. The kitchen also.”
She turned again to the Colonel. “I can offer only ten bedrooms to your officers, Monsieur le Colonel, but doubtless they can arrange themselves. The stables are large; there are three barns and a disused mill, and there is a loft at the top of the house. I hope you will find room for all your men. There is plenty of straw in the barns. They may use it freely. Please consider the house entirely at your disposition.”
All this time the eyes were talking wordlessly, And his, although he knew it not, were replying.
“You too, madame?”
“It is my happy privilege, monsieur le Colonel.”
His business was finished; yet he was curiously unwilling to go, though much awaited to do. His apology seemed addressed as much to his own hidden inner self as to her.
“Mille remerciements, madame! You will excuse us to withdraw? My men are very tired. Once more a thousand thanks, Madame—”
She answered his unuttered question, a smile lighting up eyes and face.
“La Comtesse de Beaupré et Lysboisée.”
He bowed.
“Le Colonel Victor de Montévrault.”
She held out a slender hand. Involuntarily, almost, touched it with his lips as he took it in his own. She did not stir. He did not see her face.
“Au revoir, madame, et tous mes remerciements.”
“Au revoir, monsieur,” she answered in her her rich, low voice.
He felt her eyes upon him as he turned to follow with candle in hand, once more through the series of apartments.
A little later, and the chateau and its precincts were thronged with the soldiers of the three war-worn battalion as they installed themselves for the night. From the [great] yard between the stables and the barns came the glow of cooking-fires.
But not for all was the hour of rest arrived. In a large room of the chateau, the Colonel, with his three chefs of bataillon, of whom only one was a major, was poring over a large-scale map and indicating the positions for the line of sentries and outposts. Up the side of the ravine opposite to that which they had ascended, well in advance on the high open ground, and down the valley road he put them. On the three battalion commanders the great vigilance was enjoined. Ahead of them there should be French cavalry, but those were the days of flux and [ebb] in the meeting tides of war, and all things were possible.
Later still, the Colonel sat at the head of the long lamp-lit table in the great dining-room. From the walls dim portraits in lusterless frames looked down upon the the loudly chattering Frenchmen in the exotic, Oriental uniforms. There was little or no talk of the bitter, terrible but finally victorious days through which they—it seemed to each of them, miraculously—had lived. Animated discussion of the future was the rule—as confidently regarded through the glow of the so recent victorious past. Bold strategic plans were elaborated, illustrated with cruet and table-knives. There was much talk of envelopment, of a rapid dash on Le Cateau, Valencia, and Mons that should hurl the boche, deprived of all communications, into the tangled thicket of the Ardennes, if indeed he escaped at all.
Illustration: Some quiet eyes could still look at life with a questioning scrutiny, receptive of the new experience. They met his now, and a personality leaped into them, communed with him ere a word had been uttered. Only outwardly were they still strangers.
The Colonel took no part in these arguments. He sat silently sipping the wine which a generous hostess had caused to be placed in ample quantity upon the table. His large brown eyes were soft; the muscles of his face relaxed. It is possible that he thought of something quite other than war.
One of the soldier orderlies flitting behind the chairs touched him on the shoulder.
“Pardon, mon colonel, but the domestic wishes to speak to you.”
He turned in his chair to see the ancient Marie at the door.
“Madame presents her compliments, M'sieur le Colonel, and would be honored if you would take your coffee with her.”
The Colonel rose in his chair.
“Bonsoir et bonne nuit, messieurs!”
“Bonsoir, mon colonel,” was reiterated from the score of upturned faces. “Bonne nuit.”
In her cozy, warm salon the châtelaine sat by the fire, a glow softly playing over her features. At her side, on a little table, a silver coffee-service steamed. As the Colonel entered, she looked up to greet him with a smile, indicating the corresponding armchair on the other side of the hearth. The large dog at her feet raised his head, wagged his tail in friendly welcome.
In a few moments they were conversing with the ease of those who have known each other for long years. War-time, and particularly the kaleidoscopic war-time of those early days, is a great ripener of acquaintance. None might venture to forecast the circumstances of the morrow, to predict continued life for self or other. The actual moment must be snatched. The Colonel with his quiet, assured poise, his alert intelligence, and the Countess, polished grande dame and yet something more, a being of exquisite intuitions, these two would have been attracted, whatever the circumstances of their meeting. Each of the pair offered interest to the other. He, soldierly, his massive intellectual head on the broad shoulders, the glowing soft eyes so strangely set in the cold face, the Oriental uniform emphasizing their hint of romance, claimed the eye not less than her slender figure, gowned with the refinement of a consummate civilization, her supple yet strong carriage of the auburn glory that crowned the pale oval face, the flowing, delicate curve from rounded chin to the gently mobile breast. Her eloquent eyes were long-lashed, downcast toward the fire. He was asking the reason of her stay here in the danger-zone. She turned them upon him.
“This is my own house, my family's house, the Chateau of Lysboisée. Since my husband's death three years ago, I have always inhabited it for a great part of the year. I have always loved it. I was a child in this dark ravine, among the birches of the water-meadows. My own life—that I have never shared with anyone—is here. I am of the country. All the peasant-people know me, love me. And when the war came, I felt that I must be among them, that I could not leave my house, my own dear house; alone, unprotected against anything that might happen. So I hurried here at a time when everybody was hurrying the other way. But the servants had gone. Only old Marie remained, and she and I have lived here all these black weeks with only Roland—she patted the dog's head smilingly—“to watch over us. We have had many visits from the German cavalry, but no violence. They saw, perhaps, that I was not afraid. Now the people are beginning to creep back to their homes.”
He nodded his head sympathetically, described how the peasants of the Aisne Valley crept back to their farms, continued their field-tasks close behind the trenches, apparently indifferent to the shrapnel and the marmites,
“Yes,” she murmured, gazing thoughtfully into the fire, “amidst so much death, the flame of life burns ever higher—will not, must not be extinguished.”
There was a little pause, during which the Colonel sipped his coffee. Lightly, with the smile of a prima ballerina pirouetting away from a serious posture into which she would have you believe she fell unwittingly, the Countess began to talk of the Paris of the days before the war. The Colonel listened, speaking little, seeing her—though he did not so much as hint at them—circled by admirers.
“And Madame,” she said innocently, “does she inhabit Paris?”
“Madame—” He was obviously at a loss.
“You are not married, then?”
“No, madame.”
“But,” she persisted gently, “you have doubtless friends in Paris? A man such as you—” She stopped, smiling. “I am indiscreet.”
“Madame,” he replied in a quiet voice, “I have been in Africa for twenty years. The Paris I knew exists no more.”
She turned her gaze full on him. The freshness of the man appeared suddenly to her. An involuntary little blush suffused her face. She covered it by a slight withdrawal from the fire.
“Tell me about Africa,” she commanded.
He spoke at first depreciatingly of the country, grave of so many of France's best, so remote from all that to a Frenchman makes life worth while. Then as he warmed to his description she saw that he loved that parched land of immense distances where the pitiless sun consumes the human soul or heats it to an intense unworldly fervor. He told of interminable marches over the glowing sands, of forgotten skirmishes where a wound was worse than death, of fierce razzias, of lonely outpost-nights in the desert underneath a miracle of stars. She found herself seeking to detect a deliberate elimination of the feminine in the reminiscences. With sure instinct she felt there was a woman somewhere.in the background. How far back?
“You have suffered much,” she said, her deep, rich voice all sympathy.
“Who has not suffered, who lives?” he replied.
There was again a pause, during which the breathing of the couched dog was the only sound.
“Will you not play something?” he asked suddenly, looking at the piano. “My opportunities have been few—”
She rose, went to the piano and seated herself. She played as though the keys on which her light fingers fell reëchoed an intimate music of the soul. Through the grave, breath-restrained emotion of a Chopin nocturne she led him, then, with an enigmatic inconsequence, into the fitting, dainty, Harlequin-and-Columbine passion of a Chaminade that left a question poised, smilingly. A moment's interval, and with a deep contralto voice she commenced to sing a chanson of old France that followed, simply, exquisite quiet notes, compact of love and the statement of the theme. He went across to the piano, stood over her. She felt his presence very close. A thrill passed into her voice, magical. She finished and stood up with a sudden movement. His glowing eyes were full with tears.
“Bonsoir, monsieur,” she said abruptly, stretching out her hand. The voice was not her own.
He took her hand in his, held it tightly. His breath came from a heaving chest.
“Madame,” he said in a low, intense voice, “you are divine!” but She strove to release her hand.
“Voyons!” she said plaintively, almost tearfully, averting her face. “We met only to-day.”
“And to-morrow? Who knows?”
"No! no! no!” she cried, and tore away her hand from his. “Bonsoir, monsieur!” She ran across the room like a startled fawn, bowed herself against the stone fireplace, her face hidden. He saw her shoulders heave.
He followed her, stood irresolute. She turned on him.
Illustration: “Voyons!” she said plaintively, almost tearfully. “We met only to-day.” “And to-momow? Who knows?” “No! no! no!” she cried.
“Oh, isn't there enough suffering in the world,” she cried, “without—”
“Without love?” He advanced with outstretched arms, laid his hands upon her shoulders. She stiffened, fending him off. “Without love? If to love is to suffer,” he said, in a voice deeply harmonious, “to love is also to live. And I've waited so long to live—have waited for you, my twin soul! We met only to-day? What if we have only to-day to live?”
She leaned back, away from him, yet held in his grasp.
“Oh, no, no, no! I mustn't listen!” Her bosom filled. Her eyes closed. She crumpled suddenly in his arms.
NEXT morning, mounted upon a fine-bred chestnut mare, a zealous Zouave at the bridle, she waited in the great courtyard behind the Chateau. She had offered her knowledge of the locality to the Colonel, and gladly he had accepted it. He came toward her now on his noble black horse, bending down in grave talk with the chef-de-bataillon walking by his stirrup. She acknowledged his salutation, and a moment later they were riding out of the great gate together.
The ravine of Lysboisée lifted its towering farther wall of dark undergrowth immediately behind the Chateau. A narrow path, frequently stepped, zigzagging in steep gradients, made the ascent of the sheer acclivity possible. Side by side they walked their horses up, bending often in the saddle to escape the low overhanging branches. They rode in silence, each in his own thoughts. She glanced sidewise at her companion. It was the face of a soldier, not of a lover. Obviously he pondered some problem. She sighed. This undisturbed solitude, the screen of thick woodland arching over them on the two pacing animals that nosed each other amicably, awoke primitive instincts in her. But she kept silence, made no movement.
At last, as though summoned by her thought, he turned his head toward her.
“You have received bad news, mon ami?” she asked.
“Orders that throw a heavy responsibility upon me,” he answered.
Again they relapsed into silence. The ascent continued. Only a few yards short of the summit did the undergrowth cease.
For a dozen paces the path ran over bare, close-cropped grass; then, sunk in a rough cutting, it surmounted the crest.
A little beyond, on the open down, the grand'garde—a weak company of Zouaves—was digging energetically at shelter-trenches. The Colonel spoke with the officer, rode on.
“Would you please take me to the highest point, chère amie?” he asked. The Countess bowed her head, without a word. A touch of the spur, and he followed her at an easy, touch-controlled canter, horse eager to get abreast of the mare. At last she reined up, met his eyes with a smile.
They stood on a knoll in the downs, wide-spaced horizon all round. Far to the south and east were the dark masses of the Forêt de Laigue. From beyond them came a heavy, distant roll of artillery. The Colonel listened, searching the panorama with narrowed eyes. At his request she pointed out localities and the direction of localities. He turned to look backward, saw the lips of the ravine widening out to the southeast until the slopes fell into another valley. His face hardened.
“Let us go back, chère amie,” he said, “—quickly.”
At a swift, swinging gallop—her skirts fluttering in the wind—they hastened back to the outpost. The officer came up. The Colonel took out his notebook.
“Have you any spades or farm-implements, madame?” he asked.
He nodded to her affirmation, writing the while in his notebook. He tore out the page, folded it, gave it to the officer. “To be delivered to the Commandant Légros at the Chateau. Without delay.”
Then he turned his horse, and followed by his companion, rode slowly along the lip of the ravine. She searched his features, anxiously.
He stopped in a depression of the down, out of sight of the outpost. He turned to her, and her heart fluttered at the tenderness of his face.
“Pauline,” he said gravely, laying his hand upon her arm, “you must not stay here. Listen! The regiment on our left extends to the head of the ravine. The orders I received this morning left me to choose on which side of the ravine I should place my trenches. We advance no farther. We are only a screen, but the screen must be maintained, must not be risked. I am obliged to choose the other side of the ravine. We shall almost certainly be attacked. I do not know when—nothing is known. But you would be in danger. You must leave this afternoon, go right back—to Amiens, Paris.”
She checked an impulse to quick speech, smiled at him.
“Mon ami, I was almost unjust to you—”
“You will go?”
She shook her head.
“No, cher ami, I remain with you.”
“But if we are attacked and have to retire to the other side of the ravine? You cannot remain in the trenches.”
“No. I should remain in my house until you advance again.” She turned an appealing, coquettish glance upon him. “Should I be something to fight for?” She checked his protestations. “No, cher ami, I know all your arguments. They are useless. What did you say last night? What if we have only to-day to live?” Her voice sank; her eyes dropped. “Cher ami, I want not a moment that your duty claims—but those others, those precious little instants, can you not accept me in them? So little time is ours, cher.”
The horses had drawn close together. He put his right arm round her waist. She leaned back, face upturned. Their eyes met in a long, deep look. Their lips approached, were one. The flame of life burned high in them, Their horses' ears quivered to a louder roar of the distant guns.
Slowly they rode home together, by an easier, more roundabout path she showed him.
ANOTHER story by Captain Austin next month—“The Magic of Mohammed Din.” In it he tells of one of the cleverest tricks the Germans have attempted.
All that day those of the regiment not required for outposts labored hard at the new intrenchments on the high western edge of the ravine—a long, long line of delving men. Ranges were marked out; reserves of ammunition, food and water carried up. The energizing source of all this activity, the Colonel labored also, without haste and without rest. His brain worked quickly, coolly, definite in its decisions. She, his companion, unobtrusively at hand when required for information or material of defense, vanished unnoticed when her presence might become importunate. She quenched her personality, transfused, she felt, her life-force into him as he worked, an emotionless intellect. With his chefs-de-bataillon he elaborated plans of defense; nothing was left to chance; nothing could be misunderstood. Personally he supervised, corrected, the placing of the trenches, the emplacements of the mitrailleuses. In the afternoon he rode over to the colonel of the adjoining regiment and perfected arrangements. From the brigade commander he obtained promise of a battery in support on the morrow.
But he was uneasy. Patrols sent out had failed to get into touch with the covering cavalry. The distant artillery roll was nearer. There had been one inexplicable burst of fire some miles away to the right. As night fell, he ordered the new trenches to be manned with the bulk of his force, leaving outposts on the plateau above the ravine and down the valley. One company only he retained near the Chateau.
That evening he sat again in the salon of his hostess. All was quiet. The dog snored in front of the hearth. At his request, the Countess seated herself at the piano, played dreamily with bowed head. The soft harmonies that awoke under her fingers seemed only to make the silence musical.
SUDDENLY a shot reëchoed along the valley; another and another followed. There was a burst of rapid, regular fire, indefinitely prolonged. The Colonel ran to a window, flung it open, listened. The outposts down the valley were being driven in.
His companion had risen, stood by the piano with tense features. There was a loud, hurried knock on the door. She ran to open it. A Zouave entered, breathing heavily from swift exertion. Saluting, he handed a message to the Colonel. It was from the commander of the outpost on the edge of the ravine above. He reported that his advanced posts were in contact with the enemy, were retiring. For one moment the Colonel stood by the window, listening to the rapid clatter of the rifles, deciding which was the heavier attack.
He wrote an order to the officer above, The messenger disappeared. The Countess was holding out his fez and his revolver. One wild embrace, and he sprang out of the room, dashed through the house, out into the night.
In the courtyard he found the reserve-company assembled, awaiting his orders. He gave them, quickly, succinctly. The company fell into fours, doubled out of the courtyard into the darkness to form a screen across the valley behind which the men above could seek safety. From the widening ravine the rifle-fire swelled in intensity, was a continuous loud, reëchoing clatter. Above, sharp, definite reports rang out, were rapidly multiplied. It was the grande garde, firing at will. He glanced to the other wall of the ravine and smiled in grim satisfaction. His orders were being obeyed. The long line of trenches he knew to be there lay in silence and darkness.
Above him there was one fierce paroxysm of fire, and then the reports diminished, sprang from lower levels. He saw quick flashes of light among the trees. Wounded men limped and hobbled past him in the darkness. The outpost was retiring into the valley. A bullet cracked close to him. He turned, suddenly conscious of companionship. The Countess was standing at his side, her dress luminous in the night. The dog growled angrily in front of her.
“Pauline!” His voice was almost a shriek of alarm for her. “Pauline! For the love of God, come with me—now—there is yet time! I cannot leave you!”
She grasped his hand, as a friend would.
"No, cher—I stay—as a pledge for your victorious return!”
The last men of the outposts were running past them. Overhead, the bullets cracked viciously against the walls.
“I implore you! There may be heavy fighting!”
“No, mon ami. I stay.” Her voice was quite decided. “I have cellars.” She pressed his hand, then with a quick movement flung herself into his arms, was one with him for a brief second. He unloosed her embrace.
“Go, then,” he said, his voice trembling. “Quickly. God be with you!”
“And with you, my beloved! Take the dog with you—he will tell me where you are.” She bent down to the animal, whispered to him, pointed to the Colonel. Heavy volleys crashed out of the trees above. She sprang back into the house.
The dog at his heels, the Colonel raced after the last of his men. They turned to spit livid spurts of flame at the dark wall of the ravine.
In a few moments they were clambering up a steep path through the wood on the other side.
Half an hour later the Germans felt the long line of trenches on the lip of the ravine, attacked and were heavily repulsed.
At dawn the Colonel reconnoitered the situation from his position on the height. In front of him the enemy, abandoning the valley in which lay so many of his dead, had intrenched himself along the opposite edge of the ravine. Vicious little bursts of rifle-fire at scattered parties or individuals who hazarded themselves for a moment out of cover betokened the vigilance of both sides, and on both sides the many spadefuls of earth tossed into the air showed that the work of strengthening the positions was proceeding feverishly. So far, no artillery had entered into al the fray, but at any moment the first shell from one party or the other might come whining across the gulf.
To the right of the Zouaves another battalion had established contact, was maintaining itself. To the left, at the head of the ravine, where they joined with the next regiment, a fierce fight was proceeding—attack and counter-attack which finally left the positions unchanged. Far to right and left the crackle of rifle-fire swelled and continued. Mingled with it came the rapid detonations of field-guns, their reports ever nearer. The battle was developing all along the line. The Colonel received positive orders to maintain himself at all costs, to risk nothing. Upon the maintenance of this thin screen depended the safety of two armies, forming and in motion, perhaps the fate of France.
Through his glasses the Colonel gazed into the depths of the ravine, where the white stone house glinted through the dark, thickly surrounding trees. A wisp of smoke ascended from one of the chimneys, and he had to be content with that assurance that all was well. A patrol sent out in the first light had failed to reach it. All access to the Chateau was commanded by spurs from the other side of the ravine. But apparently it was unoccupied by the enemy. He thought suddenly of the dog, wondered what had happened to it. In the stress of the night attack he had lost sight of it, forgotten it. Even as he searched his memory, it came bounding along the trench toward him. There was something fastened to its collar, a letter.
Illustration: He found himself in a large, lofty hall, dimly illuminated by the candle, held by a little, bent old woman.
As he read it, all the passion of his ascetic, sun-parched years awakened by the exquisite charm of that slender, pale woman, lonely there below him, surged up in him, overmastering, obliterating all else. The eloquent eyes under the auburn hair were vivid to him, spoke to his deepest soul. Her letter was a prose lyric of passion; it revealed her inmost self as her speech never had. She, it seemed, had also waited—waited. Some phrases—“The burning sacrament of your kiss,” “linked in an instant for eternity”—branded themselves upon his brain. He tore out a page from his notebook, dashed off a letter not less ardent, not less than hers the ecstasy of a soul that lives at last in the consuming fire of love.
He attached it to the dog's collar, pointed away. The animal sprang over the low parapet, disappeared.
AN artillery officer came up, reported himself as the observer of the newly arrived battery. He evinced professional interest in the Chateau, seemed eager to make it a target for his guns. The Colonel explained the situation.
All through the multitudinous tasks and responsibilities of the day, his soul yearned out to the lonely woman below. To risk his life in an endeavor to see her would have been more than joy; it would have been the satisfaction of a need of his being—but his life was pledged to France. Yet he speculated upon the possibility of creeping down at nightfall.
But night saw the intense glare of three German searchlights shoot out of the darkness. A storm of shrapnel burst fiercely over the trenches of the Zouaves. A wild attack of shadowy forms surging up out of the undergrowth beat against the parapet, ebbed back in an inferno of noise from the long line of countless stabs of flame, was hurled into the ravine under the reiterated crashes, the sudden livid flares of shrapnel from the battery behind.
Down in the ravine, at the highest window of the Chateau, the Countess stood looking out into the night, her lover's letter pressed close against her bosom. High above her flickered and spurted the endless rifle-flashes from his trenches, paling the stars above the dark hill. The noise of the conflict, the shouts and cries, were a tribute to his power. She gloried in it, exulted when the attack subsided.
Descending, she wrote yet another letter to him—a proud pæan of love triumphant. Then suddenly she flung herself face downward, arms outstretched, across the table in a passion of irrepressible tears.
The morning was yet young when she dispatched the dog once more upon his mission to her lover. Save for an occasional shot, the trenches were quiet. Roland arrived, pleased with himself, as his energetic tail testified. Once more with swelling breast and radiant face she read her lover's letter, passionate as the first. In a postscript it begged her to give no information that might imperil her.
During the day the battle woke again between the trenches at the head of the ravine, continued in fierce spasms hour after hour. In the afternoon she wrote another letter, dispatched it and received an answer. She was strangely, exaltedly happy. He was holding firm. At night she again posted herself at the window.
The third day dawned. She wrote, assuring him of her safety—of much else. The reply duly arrived. A false peace brooded over the little valley.
The gray of afternoon already filled the valley when a loud imperative knocking upon the great door reëchoed through the house. So soon! The threat to her exalted, impassioned life of the past days paralyzed her. She could with difficulty cry to Marie to admit.
A German officer entered, a group of soldiers behind him. He saluted with stiff ceremony.
“Madame, I regret you must leave this house at once!” His French was painfully correct.
She faced him, tense. “And if I refuse?”
“Then, madame, you leave me no alternative but to arrest you as a suspect.”
She cried an inarticulate protest. The dog sprang forward with an angry growl.
The German regarded the menace coolly.
“Schönes Tier!” he murmured. Then, turning to his men, he ordered: “Secure it, one of you!”
Thunderously growling, the dog suffered a cord to be slipped through its collar. The blood surged into the Countess' face.
“Monsieur—” The sense of outrage choked her.
“Madame,” he interrupted calmly, “I need scarcely remind you that time presses. You will not, I am sure, constrain us to violence.”
She met his inexorable eyes. Her hands twitched,
“You will at least allow me a little time to collect a few clothes and valuables?”
“A little time, madame.”
SHE ran from the room, hearing as a last sound the dog choking as it struggled on the leash. In the hall was Marie, haggard, her old body shaking with excitement.
“Madame! What is happening?”
“I am arrested. They are letting me fetch some clothes.”
The servant suppressed a cry. “Madame!” The old hands trembled upon her. “The Colonel! A note to him. He will come—give it to me!”
“But Marie—” They looked deep down into another's souls. With a sudden movement of decision the Countess ran into an adjoining room, scribbled “They are taking me!” on a piece of paper, thrust it into the old woman's hands! “You are sure, Marie?” she asked wildly seeking condonation for herself.
“Chère dame!” was the brief, eloquent reply. The old woman disappeared.
The Countess ran upstairs to her bedroom, the one word “Delay—delay—delay—delay!” beating in her brain.
Down in the salon the officer gave a few curt commands to his men, ordered the dog to be taken into the yard. Left alone, he strolled round the room examining everything. The minutes passed. The house was in deep silence. He began to get impatient, to wonder if some trick— But he was sure of the vigilance of his men. A quarter of an hour had elapsed when he heard a sharp little burst of fire from the German trenches above. It was not answered. The valley resumed its unwonted quiet. Exasperated at the delay, he began to pace up and down the room.
Suddenly his eye was caught by a little piece of folded paper on the floor under the piano. He picked it up, opened it. It was a letter that had evidently fallen from the Countess' dress when she ran from the room. He read it through, a gleam in his eyes. “So, meine Gräfin!” he murmured, and he smiled.
The Colonel's passionate outpouring awoke no thrill of romance in the German's breast. The tip of a pink tongue protruded under his fair mustache; his clever blue eyes alight, he turned it over, pondering the signature. From many indications he deduced that the writer was in the trenches on the other side of the ravine, was of commanding rank. As he pondered, a knock sounded at the door.
“Herein!” A German soldier entered and saluted. He brought a message from the trenches above. It explained the little burst of fire, warned him. The officer stood for a moment in thought; then his face lighted up with malicious pleasure. The clever blue eyes saw a sequence of events—the messenger from the Countess, whose sudden scramble over the opposing parapet had drawn the German fire, imploring rescue of the distressed; a French commander, intoxicated with love for a beautiful woman, catching fire at the news, issuing wild orders, seeing only is mistress in imminent danger; a reckless avalanche of French soldiery sweeping down the sides of the ravine, in a blind, quixotic chivalry. He saw—“Famos!” he ejaculated, and laughed softly to himself. He wrote out an answering message, a long one, and handed it to the orderly.
WHEN the Countess returned to the room, garbed for departure, she found him seated at the piano, playing gently with a sentimental touch. He rose at her entrance, performed a polite bow.
“Madame, you appear to have a very interesting house,” he said in his stiff French. “Would you do me the honor of escorting me over it?”
The Countess stared at him, dumfounded. Were her prayers miraculously answered? Delay—delay—delay!
“If you wish, monsieur,” she answered in a calm, controlled voice. Following the twin thought in her brain, her eyes searched the carpet.
He noticed the glance, drew the letter from his pocket.
“I think you dropped this, madame,” he said, handing it to her.
She took it from him. Had he read it? The blond face that met her questioning gaze was impassive under its smiling courtesy.
For an instant they confronted each other. With a cynical sense of superiority, pleasant to himself, he read her delight at his unexpected request, carefully though she tried to disguise it, read her quickly banished doubt that he had penetrated her scheme, was counter-plotting. He could almost phrase her thankful prayer to God—begging for a continuance of the miracle—that the barbarian had thus delivered himself into the strong hands of her lover. He would surely come! Both, as they stood thus silent, were calculating the necessary minutes—but his calculation was a double one. With the politest of bows, he opened the door for her.
TOGETHER they went through salon after salon, candle-lighted, since he refused to have the shutters opened. In contrast with his previous manner, he displayed not the least haste. Leisurely he lingered over each piece, discussed it, appraised it with real connoisseurship as if he were merely a cultured guest. She loitered willingly. And while he spoke, she was listening—listening for the sudden shout, the quick, close detonations, which should announce her deliverance.
At any moment now! She glanced for the barbarian's weapon, her heart praying for his safety. Out there beyond the shuttered windows he was coming in might at the head of his men. She seemed to see him—running toward her, past the Cupid-crowned fountain. She exulted in the crass absence of suspicion in the hatefully calm enemy at her side.
But out in the twilight the precincts of the Chateau were being lined with gray-clad soldiers, settling themselves in hidden firing-positions. The officer saw them, with experienced second-sight. He smiled blandly, His prisoner loitered, desperately prolonging his preoccupation.
When they returned to the salon, it was to find another German officer waiting. Unseen by her, they exchanged a significant look.
There was a sharp, hissing, ugly rush in the air, followed by a crash in the courtyard.
BY a fortunate chance, the Colonel was near when the panting Marie scrambled over the parapet to the accompaniment of a dozen rifle-bullets. On the point of collapse, the old woman sank into his arms, stammered confused, unintelligible words, gave him the scrap of paper. Consigning her to the care of an orderly, he read the message, then raised his head, his fingers crushing the paper. He stood motionless, in intense thought. Slowly his eyes turned, fell upon the old woman shaking more with fright from the narrowly escaped bullets than from her exertions. Then his gaze lifted, fixed itself with frowning concentration upon the clay wall of the trench. He saw only with an inner vision. Around him no one spoke. His jaw set hard.
He raised himself upon the fire-step, gazed over the parapet through his glasses. He called up an officer, handed him his glasses, indicated a point, ordered an unceasing watch upon it. Then he sent orderlies for his chefs-de-bataillon and the artillery observation officer in all haste.
They came. The battalion commanders received definite instructions and departed. The artillery officer remained with him. The ancient Marie sat upon the fire-step of the trench, trembling but recovering. She watched the savior of her mistress with fascinated eyes.
The trench began to fill with soldiers. They crouched in their firing-positions, busied themselves in making ready their machine-guns. The watching officer called, without moving his head:
“Infantry are slipping into the ravine, mon colonel!”
The Colonel, stern, impassive, ordered him to report promptly when the movement ceased.
The long trench filled with crouching riflemen lay in a hush of intense expectancy. The old woman's eyes began to wander, puzzled, seeking comprehension. The wild rush forward she had imagined, would it never come? The watching officer reported:
“Movement has ceased, mon colonel. About two hundred men.”
The Colonel drew his watch from his pocket, glanced at the dial. Beyond that he made no movement. The old woman's eyes were fixed upon him. Suddenly she noticed that he wore neither sword nor revolver. In a flash she understood. She sprang up like a madwoman, crying at the top of her voice:
“Soldiers! To the rescue! The boches are taking away my mistress! Now! Save her! Your colonel—her lover—abandons her! Abandons her! Cowards! Cowards! Do you want an old woman to show you the way?”
She leaped in a frenzy upon the fire-step, tearing aside the soldiers with catlike hands. There was a stir along the trench. The soldiers knew her, knew her mistress, their generous hostess. There was a murmur. The Colonel stood like a statue carved in stone. His face was that of an ascetic at the supreme moment. In his eyes was the glow of a mystic who beholds a vision.
He turned to the old woman.
“Be quiet!” he commanded. His eyes rather than his voice quelled her. She sank in a passion of hysterical weeping to the floor of the trench. He glanced at his watch again, replaced it, waited. Age-long minutes passed. He turned to the artillery officer.
“Now!” he said. “But be careful! As near to the Chateau as possible without touching it.”
THE officer shouted an order to the waiting telephonist. Overhead there was the rush of a shell—from far behind, the sharp crack of a gun. Leisurely—one, two, three, four—the battery fired. The observation-officer looked over the parapet. The Colonel mounted by his side, watched also.
One, two, three, four—the battery fired again, repeated itself once more. Down there among the trees was a faint drifting smoke.
The Colonel counted the minutes as the well-placed shells dropped around the Chateau of his dreams. He saw, where none other saw, the sudden alarm below, the prisoner hurriedly evacuated from her home, dragged scrambling up through the dark trees into safety on the other side. One—two—three—four. She should be out of harm's way.
He turned his face to the trench, shouted an order. As he turned his gaze again swiftly toward the enemy, he had a glimpse of something upon the bare lip of the ravine—something white, quickly moving. He had miscalculated! In a sudden agony he shrieked rather than shouted a countermanding order. Too late! His voice was drowned in one long smashing detonation of a thousand rifles in an irregular volley from the trench. From the battery behind came the rapid, multiplied hammer-slams of the guns firing at their maximum speed.
He had a ghostly vision of an anguished woman's face, denying love.
The ravine was lashed by a tornado of shell and bullets. Caught in its depths, unseen yet precisely imagined from above, men were clambering in an agony of desperation to escape from the death that crashed unceasingly overhead and hailed about them. The white shrapnel-puffs were countless against the dark background of the trees.
For a quarter of an hour the fierce fire continued, was answered in bitter anger from the opposing trenches. Then on both sides it died away. The dead in the valley lay in quiet.
The Colonel, his face rigid, turned to walk along the trench. Suddenly a dog trailing a cord leaped over the parapet, dashed at him in a frenzy of joy. Then, perceiving the old woman, it jumped at her, nosed around her with vigorously wagging tail.
The old woman shrieked. The Colonel looked. There was blood upon the dog's coat. The old woman drew herself up, held the Colonel's eyes. “Murderer!” she cried, and fainted. The Colonel strode on.
ON a bitter day in December, three months later, the Colonel returned from his tour of the trenches for which he was responsible. They were trenches in another landscape from those the memory of which lay like a scar across his soul. At the entrance to the sandbagged, wrecked farmhouse which served him as a home, the soldier courrier was in the act of extracting letters from his wallet. The Colonel took the bundle destined for him. At the sight of the topmost envelope he stopped as though he had seen a ghost. With trembling fingers he tore it open, read:
    My hero! I understood! I understood! Oh, didn't you know I understood? How grand you are—more than a man! All these weary months of imprisonment, trial, release and I have been hungering to tell you this. Home once more, France is more than ever France to me since you ennobled me in sacrifice. Beloved!....
The Colonel hurried into his quarter to finish the letter in solitude. None might see his face.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1941, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 82 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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