Red Fleece Part 12

"You know it was because of me that he came--" he repeated.

"But you mustn't suffer for that. Really, Samarc, a man couldn't have been a better friend than you. Spenski would tell you so if he could.

These are times for men to _live_. I wanted to kill myself this morning. You know I was behind you on the hill, too. That, and the tragedy all about, and then they were murdering spies and martyring real Fatherland men out in the court--as if there wasn't enough death afield. It was too much for me. Old Boylan helped me, but if I hadn't come in to work, I'd have shot my head off. Here--men dying hard and easy; men and women serving; so much to do,--I got better. Death isn't everything. I'm not a genius or a dreamer, man. I'm so slow at dreaming and brotherhood and all that, that a woman once ran from me.

But I saw to-day that death isn't all. I don't know what else there is, but this is a sort of long night, this war. A few of us are awake.

If we are put to sleep--that's all right--I mean knocked out, you know. But so long as we are not, we've got to watch and root for the dawn. G.o.d, man, there is much to do. We've got to make our lives count--"

He was bending forward talking very low. He thought from the pressure of Samarc's hands that he was gaining ground. It was queer and laughable to himself--this line of talk that came to him. He knew so well the pangs of that suicidal suffocation, that he could talk for the very life of the other. He added:

"A little black-whispered man looked up from his soap and towels this morning. His hat fell off, and I saw he had come a long ways. He looked at me again, and I spoke to him. Samarc, it was another of these little whirlwinds of human force--a master workman like the man you loved.

"It was Moritz Abel who wrote _We Are Free_....

"And there are others--like Spenski and Abel--some of them dead--some to die to-morrow. Do you think the good G.o.d would let them die so easily if it wasn't all right? But we mustn't die without making our lives count."

Peter's eyes were covered by slender hands. It was like pa.s.sing a garden of mignonette in the night, that fleeting perfume of the hands.

"Oh, Peter, how sweet to see you and hear your voice!"

It seemed that he became molten in her presence. A heavenly _adagio_ after a prolonged movement of sin and shame and every dissonance. It was as if she had come from a bath of peace to him; another inimitable moment in the life of his romance. He turned to her, holding fast to the hand that was stretched toward him. He cleared his voice.

"Excuse me, Samarc," he said.

III

THE HOUSE OF AMPUTATIONS

Chapter 1

They looked long into each other's faces. "You were wonderful as you spoke of your friend. Did you know that, Peter?"

He turned away deprecatingly.

"Forgive me. Of course you didn't know." "...And you meant to come all the time?" he asked at last.

"Yes."

"I should have known it.... That day--that day across the siding--why, Berthe, it was almost more than I could stand. I had just been thinking of you."

"We were like two spirits who hadn't earned the right to be together,"

she said.

"I'm afraid it's dangerous now," he answered. "One mustn't have a whim, other than to extinguish the enemy. The army is afraid of itself. All day--"

Though he checked himself, she knew his thought.

"Yes, all day, they murdered white-browed men in the court below."

"Berthe--"

"Yes."

"I want you to guard your life--as if it were mine--just that."

All surroundings were melting away from them. She had never seen him like this.... Even Samarc could not hear their whispers.

"You came like an angel, Berthe,--all I ever want of an angel. I tell you I am proud."

"Of what, Peter?"

"That I had sense enough to go a second time to the Square at Warsaw."

"I'm glad, too.... If we were only in the winter stillness--"

They were silent. Samarc's hand came up to Peter, and drew him close.

It was clear that he could not bear the woman to hear his struggle for speech. "Tell her about Spenski," came to Peter's ears in the lipless mouthing.

Berthe saw that Peter was ghostly white, as he lifted his head. She thought it had to do with what the wounded man said.

Peter began at random, gathering his thoughts on the wing. Nothing hurt him in quite the same way as that suggested havoc under the bandage. He steadied himself, and talked of the little lens-maker.

Strength came from the joy he was giving Samarc.... It seemed that they were quite alone. He told of the night of stars, of the little man's superb sensitiveness.... She bent to Samarc at last.

"You wanted him to tell me?"

He nodded. There was something intensely pathetic in it all. Her eyes were full of light.

"The story thrills me," she whispered. "Oh, this is very far from a hopeless world. What I have seen to-day--even the fort.i.tude of infamous men--manhood, black and white--the war within the war. Don't you see, all Russia is out here in the wilderness casting forth her demon? We must not mind blood nor death--for the result means the life or death of the world's soul!"

Once she would have seemed very far and remotely high to Peter Mowbray.... They had drawn a little apart from the cot.

"What made you so white?" she asked.

"It's my weakness. We rode together for days and quartered together.

He was so clean-cut. It's the way his words come. And he seems so utterly bereft without the little man."

She pressed his hand in understanding.

"Berthe, do you sleep? Do you take food? Are you well? Are they good to you? Can you live through?"

"Yes, and what of you?"

"All is quite well with me. I can endure anything with the hope of taking you home afterward."

"We must be ready to give up that, too. It is hard; it's our ordeal-- but if the end should appear, we must find strength to look it in the face. These are the times for heroics. Every real emotion that I have ever known is a lie--if those who love each other well enough to love the world--do not pa.s.s on. Why, Peter, you said the same to him-- speaking of his friend and Moritz Abel, 'Do you think the good G.o.d would let such men die so easily, if it weren't all right?'"

"Did I say that?"