The Outrage Part 6

The young girls in their muslin frocks and satin shoes sped homeward like a flight of startled b.u.t.terflies. Did they dream it, or was there really, as they ran over the bridge, a booming, rumbling sound like distant thunder? They stopped and listened. Yes.... There it was again, the deep booming noise reverberating through the starlit night.

"_Jesus, Marie, St. Joseph, ayez pitie de nous_," whispered Jeannette, and the others repeated the invocation. Then they ran over the bridge and reached their homes.

Louise, Cherie, and Mireille were left alone in the deserted house.

Frieda's room, when they went upstairs to look for her, was empty. Her clothes were gone. There were only a few of her books--"Deutscher Dichterschatz," "Der Trompeter von Sakkingen," and Freiligrath's "Ausgewahlte Lieder"--lying on the table; and the plaster bust of Mozart was still in its place on the mantelpiece.

"She must have slipped out while we were talking with Florian," said Cherie, turning a pale face to Loulou, who gazed in stupefaction round the vacant room.

"She was a snake," said Mireille, slipping her hand through her mother's arm and keeping very close to her. "And so was Fritz."

At the mention of Fritz, Louise s.h.i.+vered. "I do not suppose Fritz has come back," she said, dropping her voice and glancing through the open window at the darkened outbuilding across the courtyard. "He is surely not in his room."

There was a moment's silence, and they all looked at those lightless windows over the garage. The thought of Fritz lurking there, waiting perhaps in the dark to do some fiendish work, was very disquieting.

"We must go and look," said Cherie. So holding each other very close and carrying a lantern high above their heads they went across the quiet courtyard up the creaky wooden stairs to Fritz's room.

Fritz was not there. But his trunk was in its place and all his belongings were scattered about.

"It looks as if he intended to come back," said Cherie; and they trembled at the thought. Then they went downstairs across the yard and into the house again. They were careful to slam the heavy front door which thus locked itself; but when they tried to push the bolt they found it had been taken away. It was at this moment that the distant booming sound fell also on their ears.

"What was that?" asked Mireille.

Cherie put her arm round the child. "Nothing," she said. "Let us go up and pack our things." And as Louise still stood like a statue staring at the door with the lantern in her hand she cried, "Loulou, go up to your room and collect what you will take with you in the morning."

And Loulou slowly, walking like a somnambulist, obeyed.

How difficult to choose, from all the things we live among, just what we can take away in our two hands! How these inanimate things grow round the heart and become through the years an integral part of one's life!

What? Must one take only money and a few jewels, and not this picture?

Not these letters? Not this precious gift from one who is dead? Not the ma.s.sive silver that has been ours for generations? Not the veil one was married in? Not the little torn prayer-book of one's first communion?

Not one's father's campaign-medals, or the packet of doc.u.ments that prove who we are and what is ours?

What! And the bird-cage with the fluffy canaries asleep in it? Are they to be left to die? And the dog----

"Of course we must take Amour," said Cherie.

"Of course," said Loulou, going through the rooms like a wandering spirit, picking things up and putting them down in a bewildered manner.

A clock struck eleven. Mireille, still in her pink frock, had clambered upon her mother's bed and was nearly asleep.

_Boom!_ Again that low, long sound, rumbling and grumbling and dying away.

"It is nearer," breathed Louise. And even while she said it the sound was repeated, and it was nearer indeed and deeper, and the windows shook. Mireille sat up with wide, s.h.i.+ning eyes.

"Is that a thunderstorm?... Or the Germans?"

"It is our guns firing to keep the Germans away," said Louise, bending over her and kissing her. "Try to sleep for an hour, my darling."

Mireille lay back with her silken hair tossed on the pillow.

"Are the Germans trying to come here?" she asked.

There was silence. Then Cherie said, "I don't think so," and Louise added, "Of course not."

"But--might they want to come?" insisted Mireille, blinking to keep her eyes open.

"Why should they come here?" said her mother. "What would they want in this little out-of-the-way village?"

"What indeed?" said Cherie.

Mireille shut her eyes and thought about the Germans. She knew a great deal about them. Frieda had taught her--with the aid of a weekly paper from Munich called _Fliegende Blatter_--all the characteristics of the nation. The Germans, Mireille had gathered, were divided into two categories--Professors and Lieutenants. The Professors were old men, bald and funny; the Lieutenants were young men, aristocratic and beautiful. The Professors were so absent-minded that they never knew where they were, and the Lieutenants were so fascinating that girls fainted away and went into consumption for love of them. Frieda admitted that there were a few other Germans--poets, who were mostly dead; and housewives, who made jam; and waiters, who were sent to England. But obviously the Germans that had got into Belgium this evening were the Lieutenants and the Professors. Mireille nestled into her pillow and went to sleep. She dreamed that they had arrived and were very amiable and much impressed by her pink dress.

She was awakened by a deafening roar, a noise of splintering wood and falling gla.s.s. With a cry of terror she started up; then a flash blinded her, another roar filled the air, and it seemed as if the world were cras.h.i.+ng to pieces.

"Mireille!" Her mother's arms were around her and Cherie had rushed in from her room with an ashen face.

"Loulou, let us go at once--let us go to the Bourgmestre or to the Cure!

We cannot stay here alone!"

"Yes ... let us go ..." stammered Louise. "But who will carry our things?"

"What things? We take no things. We are fugitives, Loulou! Fugitives!...

Quickly--quickly. Take your money and your jewels--nothing else."

"Quickly, quickly," echoed the whimpering Mireille.

"If we are fugitives," sobbed Louise, looking down at her floating chiffon gown, "we cannot go out into the world dressed like this."

"We cannot stop to change our clothes ... we must take our cloaks and dark dresses with us," cried Cherie. "Only make haste, make haste!"

But Louise seemed paralysed with fear. "They will come, they will come,"

she gasped, gazing at the shattered window; the throbbing darkness beyond seemed to mutter the words Florian had spoken: "Outrage, violence, and slaughter ... outrage, violence, and slaughter...."

Suddenly a sheaf of flame rose up into the sky, illuminating the room in which they stood with a fantastic yellow glare. Then a terrific explosion shook the foundations of the house.

Louise catching Mireille in her arms stumbled down the stairs followed by Cherie. They knew not where they were going. Another explosion roared and shattered the coloured staircase window above them to atoms, driving them gasping and panic-stricken into the entrance-room.

Did hours or moments pa.s.s? They never knew.

Now there were voices, loud hoa.r.s.e voices, in the street; short guttural commands and a clatter of hoofs, a clanking of sabres and spurred heels.

"Let me look--let me look out of the window," gasped Cherie, tearing herself free from Louise's convulsive grasp. She stumbled to the window, then turned a haggard face: "They are here."

Mireille shrieked, but her piping voice was drowned by the noise outside.

"They will murder us," sobbed Louise.

"Don't cry! don't cry," wailed Cherie. "The gate is open but the door is locked. They may not be able to get in." But even as she spoke she knew the fallacy of that hope.