River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1913-10-30

peremptory visitor.
"Ah, forgive me, forgive me-" he ex-
claimed, almost distraught. II knew
nothing of this. Oh, monsieur"
He groveled upon the floor, incapa.
BILE of further utterance. Paul raised
him, not urgently.
Monsieur Gabriel, where are the
tuns that were in your CELLAR" he
asked.
''The tuns, monsieur? The tuns?"
babbled the Frenchman. "Ah, yes,
the tuns, of course, the tuns. Why,
monsieur, this is the night which falls
each quarter when the vans collect
them for shipping back to the south
of France. Tomorrow my new tuns
arrive. They were all empty, mon
sieur, even the last of them, for some
body had turned the spigot and spilled
the wine"
you ass" said Paul; when were
they collected?"
Half an hour since, monsieur. l
was distraught; l watched the men
like mailman; could say nothing.
My beautiful wine, all spilled, and"
Where have they gomez"
ITO the Southern station, monsieur
All tuns go thither to be shipped back
to the wine-growers each quarter.
Doubtless all Paris is yielding up
tuns this night. There is a special
train, monsieur, which starts in the
morning and"
Paul thrust Monsieur Gabriel from
him and rushed out into the street.
He hailed a passing fiacre and ordered
the man to drive to the terminal sta
ton of the Southern railway. Arrived
there, he tossed the man a louis and
rushed into the freight yard. There
were thousands of tuns, piled up,
rolled into heaps which every now
and then collapsed, like topheavy pyra-
mids, and tumbled over other tuns,
sending dozens of them skipping and
rolling in every direction. And at
each gate wagons and vans were dis
charging tuns and barrels of every
sort and size Paul stared in dismay
at this fearful panorama. Among
those thousands, which tun held Ger
many's ruler and which the woman
spy? He could never find either. He
pictured the kaiser, slowly perishing
in that dreadful receptacle, rolled into
vans, shifted and shunted, passing
from the main track to little branch
railways, at last to find a resting place
in some French peasants home, where
his body would be disclosed to a
startled, gasping multitude. A dead
man in a tun! A mystery for five
days! Then-nothing! He would be
inferred in some little graveyard and
the secret of Germans lost ruler would
never be revealed!
He staggered like a drunken man
around the yards. At the gates pOr-
tiers were joking and chatting with
drivers as the hideous tuns were I'M
loaded and sent crashing upon the
tops of others. From their battered
sides thin drops of wine stained the
ground like blood Which one? Dear
God, which one?
Distracting images crowded Paul's
brain He thought of Richard of the
Lion Heart and of his faithful trouba-
dour who sought him in his imprison-
ment from castle to castle through the
length and breadth of Europe, until at
last, singing the "Chanson de Roland
beneath the castle walls, he heard
Richards response within. But there
was neither castle nor song-only
these hideous tuns.
Stay! There was song. For had
not His Majesty composed a famous
song, the Song to Aegir,' which had
been satirized and ridiculed and adj
mired throughout all Germany and
Europe, too?
Paul Lane began to hum that song.
He trod the outskirts of the barrels
and began humming. hopelessly, but
doggedly humming. Then he sang
louder Presently he was chanting
loudly. A porter turned and jeered
at him as he closed his gate. The
man was drunk. He filched wine from
the nearly empty barrels and, impu-
IDENTIFY drunk, he slammed the gate in
Pauls face. "You can wait there till
morning, if you want to-" he yelled
at him. Paul went on singing.
Presently, as he threaded his way
among the maze of tuns. it occurred
to him that the barrels from GabrieIs
having been collected only recently,
would of necessity be on the OUT
skirts nearest the gates. This thought
gave him new hope. He picked his
way thither and began singing again
And at last, just as he had abandoned
hope, he heard the faintest answer.
He stopped, hardly daring to hope.
He sang loudly. Now he could dis
tinguish the tun from which the voice
proceeded. He listened; it was the
answer. 1t was the "Song to Aegir,"
and sung under circumstances such as
it's royal composer had never in his
widest dreams imagined.
Paul went toward that end of the
barrel where he knew the Kaisers
feet must be. He swung his arm back
and his fist forward. An instant later
he was helping Germany's ruler out
of his hiding place.
And both gasped:
"The womanl"
The second barrel must lie near the
first Paul half lifted and tested
them. Light-light- light-ha! this
one must hold all that was left Of her.
Again he swung his fist and the bar
rel head burst asunder. And out of
it scrambled, very flushed and in
dignant and hopelessly in disarray,
Miss Nancy Shand.
"You are alive gasped Paul. "But
how-how did you breathe? l thought