The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-05-23
CHAPTER TX.
THE PROPHET.

When Hardwood reached the front
| door he stood amazed. The Rue
| dYprez. that broad, sunny street,
usually as quiet and deserted as a
| country street, was thronged with peo-
pie from the Porte Rouge to the Prince
! Murat barracks. In front of the house
| The people were silent and attentive, all
| watching a swarm of laborerS gather
| ing around the baStion. A company OF
| sailors from the fleet stood leaning on
their rifles in front of a strange, shape
less structure that lowered into the air
! above the heads of the crowd. one long
steel arm stretched out stark against
the sky. Beyond it, on the rusty rails
OF the narrow guage track, stood a--car
truck. painted blue, and on this truck
lay e gigantic cannon.
The gun carriage had already been
placed on the circular track. sunk into
the cement below the ramparts, the
terrassiers were shaving the terrace,
sod0ing it along the glaciS, and piltng
sacks filed with earth across the angles
of the epaulment. The rotten gabions
and packed barrels that supported the
gun terrace were being removed and
new ones substituted. Locksmiths and
carpenters worked in the bomb proofs,
and the tinkle of ehisel and thud of
mallet came up half smothered, from
below.
Down the street drums were rolling
generously from the court of the cas-
erne, and now, bugles sounding, rifles
glittering in the sun. a company of in
| fantry issued from the sallyport and
marched solidly on to the Porte Rouge,
| their red trousers a long, undulating
line against the green of the glacis.
Suddenly above the crowd the great
derrick began to move, three chains
dangling from its single rigid arm, the
little rusty engine staggering under the
spasmS of steam jets. Slowly the can
non swung up into the air, turning as
the steel arm turned, further, further,
lower and lower. Then in the stiffness
a boatswain's whistle sounded. once.
twice; the crowd swayed forward, and
thousands of voices rose in laundering
cheers:
"Vive la Franco"
All that night HARDWOOD lay rest
iessly on his bed thinking of the future,
which until he first met Hide had held
no terrors for him. Now it was differ
ent. The menace of a siege meant
something more than excitement and
newspaper dispatches, it meant danger,
perhaps famine, perhaps humiliation,
to a city that had suddenly become
important to hinl-because Hide lived
there He had never seen siege. His
ideas on the subject were founded on
histories. He could not believe that
any army would be able to absolutely
isolate such city as Parls-itself moth
ing but gigantic citadel, with its dou-
Die armor of fortresses and ramparts,
its suburbs. railways. forests and riv-
ers. He believed that even IL q Ger
man army sat down before the walls
il could never sustain such a position
against hunger, against the sorties of
the hundred thousands of troops,
to-
body said were forming in the south,
at Bordeaux. at Tours, at Rouen, from
the war ports to the Loire. In COM
mon with the great mass of the Paris
ians he never doubted that, as soon as
the Germans appeared, the lombard
ment would begin; but he doubted the
ability of a PrusSisn artilleryman TO
send shells into Paris from a gun out
side the range Of Mont Valerien. New
ertheless he was not satisfied with the
Rue d'Ypres as a haven of safety for
Hide at such a time. 1t was prac-
tically on the city ramparts, it was
close to one of the gates. the Porte
Rouge, and closer still to the barracks
and he knew that if the German can
non troubled the city at all the fire
would he concentrated on the fortifica-
tions, the gates, the magazines and the
barracks.
hear from the ramparts the marine SEN
tinels' challenge as they walked the
rounds; the stir and the movement of
horses, the dull creakiEg of wheels. He
thought of the four great forts that
covered the country beyond the Vau-
girard secteur. Montrouge, Vanves,
Ivry and Vicetre. If the Germans at
tempted to seize Meudon, there was
the fort of Issy; if they advanced to-
ward Creteil, the fort of Charenton
blocked the way.
Could they hold st. Cloud with Mont
Valerien looming like a thunder cloud
in the north? Could they seize Sevres,
under the cannon of Point-du- Jour?
No. He could not see how German
battery would be able to send its
shells into the bastions of Montrouge.
and this conclusion comforted him until
he fell asleep to dream of a cloudless
sky raining shells over a city where
Hide lay white and dead, and he woke.
trembling in every limb. He turned
over and tried to go to sleep again.
but he could not, dreading n sleep that
might bring back such dreams.
He thought of Bourke, slumbering
peacefully in the next room; he thought
of Red Riding Hood and of Yolette. al
so asleep. but for a long time he avoid
ed the path of thought which led to